In addition, can you think of any challenges you might have in successfully convincing someone else that the technique you chose demonstrates what you now know that it demonstrates?
The main challenge in successfully convincing someone else that the technique I chose demonstrates what I now know that it demonstrates would be in trying to get them to break from indoctrinated thought processes or personal biases, an incredibly difficult challenge.
People have been indoctrinated to reify “government.” They actually believe and talk as if there is such a thing as a “government.” The premise that “All government employees are people,” and its ramifications on the argument will likely catch them by surprise because they think in terms of “government” doing things and are mostly unconscious to the fact that “government” is just a whole bunch of people. Reminiscent of The Matrix, many people aren’t aware of the reality in which they live and this kind of argument can cause a lot of internal, emotional turmoil that they would rather not deal with because it’s uncomfortable. It challenges the foundation of many of their beliefs and that is, understandably, a very scary thing.
The problem of personal bias is two-fold: it’s personal and, as such, there may be an emotional attachment to the position. This bias may come from personal experience (a family member feloniously killed by a person with a gun) or from media-hyped incidents, falling victim in both cases to the fallacy of misleading vividness. The emotion could be loyalty to a political party, demanding that the party position be defended at all costs (critical thinking be damned!). It could be any number of reasons. Being personal, it may not be immediately apparent what the person’s motivation may be in defending the invalid argument. The emotional attachment to the position may make it feel to that person that “attacking” their opinion is an attack on them. This may cause them to entrench mentally, which in turn may cause them to argue with even less regard to rationality, resort to ad hominem attacks, or storm off so that don’t have to face reality.
One thing that will likely be similar in both cases is using the appeal to special pleading, arguing that government employees are not “regular” people. It will be argued that government employees, although taken from a general cross-section of people, somehow possess a particular trait or superpower that exempts them from the rule that “People having guns creates an unsafe situation.” People who have had the government gene spliced into their DNA can be trusted to have guns but “regular” people can’t. Not only is this fallacious but since government employees hurt and kill far more innocent people with guns than non-government employees, a fortiori government employees should be banned from possessing guns under the gun control argument.
A couple of other fallacies are likely to make an appearance. There are good odds that an argument from effect will be presented (“If we don’t ban guns, there will be a mass murder every week.”) or a straw man (“So, you’re okay with someone walking into a school and shooting little kids?”). There are better odds that the fallacy of pious fraud will show up (the old work horse of weak political arguments, the “necessary evil”). If the debate continues, don’t be surprised to see ad hominem, a red herring or two, an appeal to force, or the fallacy of the kitchen sink (where every fallacy is thrown in, including the kitchen sink - I made that one up).
Overcoming these challenges with someone who is deeply staid in reification or personal bias is nearly impossible (trust me) but their irrationality doesn’t diminish the counter argument and shouldn’t discourage pointing out the invalidity of the gun control argument.
Explain why the technique you selected would be useful.
I think this substitution works on several levels. It points out that the argument is invalid because it’s self-defeating. It provides an opportunity to disassociate from indoctrinated thought patterns and existing, potentially emotionally charged, biases. The idea of banning all dogs from biting is likely to be quickly dismissed as absurd, meeting this requirement of reductio ad absurdum. It also uses analogy to point to something that never seems to get discussed.
Arguments against gun control laws tend to come in three flavors:
Challenging the premise that people who have guns are dangerous (grasping by the horn)
Substituting situations that are more dangerous into the logic (reductio ad absurdum)
Appeal to the Constitution (using the 2nd Amendment - a fallacious argument with a plethora of suspects – appeal to authority, appeal to popularity, begging the question, amphiboly, and probably many more)
The first two are done to demonstrate that the argument is weak and the third is a misguided attempt at asserting a person's rights. In the first, stories and stats are presented to show that far more guns are kept or used in ways that do not harm innocent people and that the media-hyped incidents (appeal to misleading vividness) account for a miniscule portion of the people who have guns. The second substitutes more dangerous situations that people don’t want banned into the argument. For instance, many more people are killed by mistakes and diseases they contract in hospitals than by felonious gun use, therefore people should be banned from going to hospitals, in order to protect them from an unsafe situation (you can substitute showers, smoking, Coke and McDonald’s, and a whole host of causes of death and injury far more dangerous than people with guns). While both do a good job of showing that the gun control argument is weak, the dog/pit bull substitution goes one step farther, showing that the argument is worse than weak, it’s not even valid. Strength and weakness don’t even need to be considered because it is essentially a self-defeating, non-argument.
Framing the argument around dogs helps put some distance between the argument and indoctrinated thought patterns and closely-held biases. People have some very illogical ideas when discussing gun control (which will be discussed in the answer to the next question) and making dogs the center of attention may help them to think more rationally about the argument.
Arguing that dogs should be banned from biting is laughably dismissed. Most dogs bite naturally out of fear for their own safety or in protection of their owners/property. No one faults a dog that bites out of self-defense or that bites an intruder that enters a house. When dogs do bite, the blame usually goes to the owner of the dog who either failed to maintain control of the dog, or worse, trained the dog to be vicious. When someone hurts someone with a gun, no one looks intently at the parents, teachers, social workers, social system, clergy, or others who played a role in training the person to be vicious. The gun becomes a scapegoat, either to avoid being tasked with solving the real and much more difficult problem, or to disarm the subjects of a country to make them easier to control, or some other motive not actually related to the "danger" of people having guns.
The analogy (which would probably be missed by most people) specifically using pit bulls as a substitution uses another indoctrination theme played out by the corporate media. When you say “dogs,” the image of your own dog comes to mind or the thought of them as “man’s best friend.” When you say, “pit bull,” thanks to media-hyped incidents (appeal to misleading vividness – are you sensing a theme?), people think of vicious, snarling beasts that rip children to shreds. However, in this case, the pit bulls’ masters are scrutinized and many times, it is found that they trained the pit bulls to attack. This creates the impression that pit bulls are inherently dangerous and that their masters are idiots and/or cruel, inhumane bastards who knowingly created a potential menace to society. If you were to compare the number of innocent people killed and injured with a gun by people who are not government employees with those who are killed and injured by government employees, not surprisingly, you would find that government employees are by far the greater threat. The nature of their training, environment, mindset, and weaponry makes them inherently more dangerous (I was a cop for 12 years and killed someone in the line of duty) and there is no doubt that their masters are idiots and/or cruel, inhumane bastards who knowingly create a potential menace to society.
I am on another school break so that means that I have a chance to update my blog again.
And we care because . . .
I don't think he cares if you care.
I had a Logic class this go 'round and received quite a few kudos from the instructor for my ability to analyze concepts and put that analyzation into words. In fact, she is going to be using one of my papers as a resource for future classes (hat tip to CV Rick for his comments on taxation providing beautiful support for my position).
You're not going to tell him the paper was on irrationality and self-deception, are you?
I wouldn't.
Anywhoooo, a different assignment required that we take an argument from our environment and do the following with the argument:
Create a counter-argument using one of the techniques studied in the course
Transcribe the argument/counter-argument
Explain why the counter-argument was chosen
Explain likely obstacles to the acceptance of the counter-argument
Doing this assignment gave me a bit more insight into the argument and counter-argument so I'm adding it to my blog (Guns and Control v2.0, if you will). This post will cover the first two bullet points with subsequent posts covering the second two bullet points. This first two are short and kind of boring . . .
He's making the assumption that his other blog posts aren't boring
Indeed he is.
. . . but I am including them because they set up the the remaining two points and they also show where I made some assumptions in the first three Guns and Control posts. In working through the assignment, I realized that I had made some jumps over information relevant to the argument. The end result is the same and much of the information presented is the same as the information contained in the first three Guns and Control posts although written more formally and without comments from the voices in my head.
No wonder it's boring.
I concur.
Creating the counter-argument using reductio ad absurdum and answering the follow up questions that were posed does add a different perspective than previously presented. The combination of a more thorough examination of the underlying logic of the gun control argument and the new angle of approach prompted me to add these posts to the original Guns and Control trilogy.
This is why we are supposed to care?
I still don't think he cares if you care.
Think of a specific instance – real or hypothetical – in your own profession or daily environment in which using either (a) the method of counter-example or reductio ad absurdum to demonstrate an argument’s invalidity, or else (b) one of the techniques for escaping from a logical dilemma would be useful. Detail the instance.
If dogs (D) that bite (B) are an unsafe situation (~S) and unsafe situations should be avoided, then dogs or the act of biting or both dogs and the act of biting should be eliminated. Dogs should not be eliminated so biting should be banned. To ensure compliance with the ban, pit bulls (P) will be trained to bite. All pit bulls are dogs. Therefore, to prevent the unsafe situation of dogs that bite, dogs will be trained to bite to prevent dogs from biting.
(((D ^ B) --> (~S)) ^ (~ (~S)) --> ~ (D ^ B) ~~D ^ ~B ~ (D ^ B) --> (P ^ B) P --> D (~ (~S)) --> ((D ^ B) ^ ~ (D ^ B))
((D ^ B) ^ ~ (D ^ B)) violates the law of non-contradiction (P ^ ~P) and is always false. In a conditional statement, a true antecedent that leads to a false consequent is a false statement. The combination makes this a self-defeating and false argument.
The argument above is a substitution for the argument for gun control laws:
If people (P) who have guns (G) are an unsafe situation (~S) and unsafe situations should be avoided, then people or guns or both people and guns should be eliminated. People should not be eliminated so guns should be banned. To ensure compliance with the ban, government employees (E) will be given guns. All government employees are people*. Therefore, to prevent the unsafe situation of people having guns, people will be given guns to prevent people from having guns.
* You might argue that IRS agents are not human but in the logical sense, they are people.
One thing that I have learned while standing outside the cage labeled “False Dilemma” watching the unfortunate zoo animals trapped within is that it doesn't take a whole lot of mental acrobatics to dismantle most of their arguments, such as the one for stricter gun control laws. In fact, it takes no effort at all because they will do all of the work for you.
Awfully kind of them.
Isn't it?
The proposed "solution" to the "problem" (maybe the cage should be labeled “Hegelian Dialectic”) of gun ownership follows the same absurd thought process as so many of their arguments:
1. People with guns are dangerous.
2. Dangerous situations should be avoided or prevented.
Therefore, we will issue guns to people to prevent people from having guns.
As is the norm with these Pavlovian creatures and their close cousins, the sociopaths that see the contradiction but propose the “solution” anyway, the proposed “solution” immediately violates the stated goal of the proposed “solution”. As soon as they issue the first gun to a person, they have done the opposite of preventing people from having guns. If they had a solution that didn't involve issuing guns (or other, even more dangerous weapons) to people in an effort to reduce the number of guns owned by people, that would be different.
How about this? After we issue guns to people to disarm people, we issue guns to the disarmed people to take the guns away from the first group that we issued guns to.
I think you are now qualified to vote in the next presidential election.
As you can imagine, going around stealing guns from people carries with it a certain amount of risk. Even if violence and threats of violence weren't the habitual choice for gun control proponents as an ironic "solution," it's fair to say that arming robbers who have orders to steal guns would be necessary in order to carry out the plan.
The plan of arming people to disarm people?
I can't quite put my finger on it but something doesn't sound right with that plan.
Truthfully, many of the people arguing in favor of this "solution" are ignorant of the absurdity that they are spouting. They have been raised to view USA, Inc. as an all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful, ethereal entity with superhuman powers, which is free of the ethical bounds of mere mortals. In short, to these people, USA, Inc. is a god.
According to Mittler Romney, corporations aren't gods, just regular people.
Maybe he meant to say, "Corporations are personages, my friend . . . of course, they are."
I could probably write several posts on the ramifications of this belief and the benefits gained by the rulers and their subjects by participating in this religion but for this post, it's enough to note the existence of the belief. Deifying the rulers' corporation causes a mental disconnect which blinds people from the reality of what they are truly saying. It's what leads to the most clichéd question asked when discussing freedom with a statist.
"Who will build the roads?"
"Well, who's building them now?"
"God."
They have grown so accustomed to referring to this abstract concept of government as an actual physical being with supernatural powers that they have forgotten that it's just a corporation that employs people to accomplish things.
In the name of god.
Amen.
Any "solution" they propose to deal with a "problem" they have with people is going to have those same people utilized as part of the "solution." This obvious contradiction undermines any argument they may make and makes the rebuttals in Part 1, while still valid, completely unnecessary. The simple answer to calls for stricter gun control is, "So, let me get this straight, you're going to issue people handguns, assault rifles, sonic weapons, energy-directed weapons (heat rays), armored personnel carriers, tanks, and who-knows-what-else weapons in order to take weapons away from people?"
Not people, the government.
Who are reptilian aliens?
The argument is ludicrous but these people have apparently made a vow not to ever be outdone as holders of the Guinness Book of Records for Absurdity. Guess which people they want to give the guns to? The same type of people who have killed over 10,000,000 people in the last 75 years, employees of the US government. Now, I don't know about you but if I suddenly became demented and decided to impose my will on over 300 million people, I would still hope that my ideas sounded like they might possibly be in the vicinity of Rationalville. Employees of USA, Inc. and despots receiving billions of dollars in US tax money each year probably kill more people in one month than nonemployees do in an entire year. The plan proposed by gun control advocates is actually:
People with guns are dangerous.
Dangerous situations should be avoided or prevented.
Therefore, we are going to say, "Screw that!" and issue guns to those people with a predilection toward violence or who have been so fully indoctrinated into the religion that they will blindly follow orders to commit violence against innocent people . . .
I don't know the rest. What motivates these people is beyond me. I'm still guessing that it's because their high priests tell them what to do and what to think. It's clear that it has nothing to do with rationality, reasoning, logic, or facts. Perhaps it's the combination of obedience to their religion along with the emotional delivery of the message. Employees of USA, Inc. killed more children at Waco than were killed in Sandy Hook and they do this all the time all over the planet. Shouldn't gun control activists be advocating for control of those people?
It's against their religion.
If they did that, their souls may be condemned to Guantanamo Bay for all eternity.
Or until they starved themselves to death to escape the brutality of people employed by the US government.
In part 1, I discussed two rebuttals by gun owners in response to calls for more gun control laws. In part 3, I'll point out the inherent absurdity of the proposed gun control "solution" but today, I'm going to discuss the rebuttal from gun owners that I find lacking and the reasons why I find it wanting. One of my reasons is fairly common sense and the other shows how gun owners are helping to perpetuate a system hell-bent on seizing their guns.
The 1% have more control than ever and their actions, such as having their butt-puppet, The Great and Powerful Oz, sign NDAA into law demonstrates that they are afraid the people aren't going to take much more. Much of the hype by corporate media surrounding recent sensationalized incidents of violence in the United States has been fabricated or exaggerated while ongoing, massive violence by employees of the United States government is ignored by the same "concerned" media sources. The purpose behind the hype is to persuade those who are too stoopid to know better into supporting the 1% in disarming their enemy, the 99%.
They are just concerned about our safety.
Yes, that's obvious. Disarm the citizens and dissolve entire police departments. I'm feeling safer already.
Not to worry. When the police prove to be inadequate, expect to see the military called in to "protect" American citizens.
Who is going to protect the American citizens from the military?
You. Without. A. Gun.
Do you think they would be content with a 2 out of 3 bout of rock, paper, scissors?
Not likely.
However, there is a push by quite a few people to reach out to military and law enforcement officers in an effort to convince them that attacking Americans violates their oath (in addition to being just plain evil). Speaking of oath, if the two of you are quite finished hogging my blog, it's an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. The Constitution, or rather the 2nd Amendment, is the third common argument that I see put forth by gun owners as a rebuttal for stricter gun control and it is by far the weakest of the arguments. I understand the desire to throw into the mix. The two, more powerful rebuttals, are rejected so there is this feeling that adding another argument may help. However, in addition to lacking the strength of the other two arguments and continuing a defeating mindset, it acts as a distraction from the better arguments. While the two sides bicker about the meaning of the oddly worded amendment and attempt to read the minds of people long since dead, better arguments sit idle.
The common sense problem with using words written on a piece of paper by the rulers of the country is that the rulers can write new words on a piece of paper (or simply just ignore the "god damned piece of paper"). When the rulers do write new words on a piece of paper and your argument was based on the previous words on a piece of paper, your argument is gone. The possibility that the rulers will write new words on a piece of paper brings up a new argument from gun owners.
Whether or not the new piece of paper is made out of recycled materials.
Or from the skin of someone who stood in the way of ExxonMobil.
Our rulers would never do that, would they?
I'm pretty sure I heard Obama say, "It puts the lotion on its skin," before his last drone attack.
"This drone attack was brought to you by ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil, bringing you a brighter tomorrow."
Unless you were the family hit by the drone.
The main thrust of the new argument is on the sacred nature of the Constitution and how changing it would be very, very, very, very wrong. However, if you bring up changes that abolished slavery or allowed women to vote, the response is, "Well, yeah, those changes were right." This drops the entire discussion into the realm of the subjective with both sides arguing about the nature of allowable or "right" changes. Neither side can win this debate because it's a matter of personal opinion. Easily changed or ignored words on a piece of paper that invokes debates based on a person's point of view completely deballs the Constitutional argument against gun control.
Yeah, but what if I used the Constitution to make a paper airplane drone?
Then you'd have an argument that was lost in the next gust of wind.
Not only does the 2nd Amendment rebuttal to gun control score a zero, it has the potential to reaffirm an
insidious belief system in those making the argument. This paradigm is anchored more deeply each time a statement is uttered such as, "The 2nd Amendment gives me the right to . . ." This creates or continues the illusion that people have 2nd Amendment rights. They don't and it's a very dangerous belief.
WhuchyoutalkinboutWillis?
I hate to say this but I'm with the goofball on this one.
People are constantly discussing their Constitutional rights (in fact, I have done so often in the past) as if they exist. The danger of this mindset, of believing that the Constitution gives people rights, goes back to the heart of what the Constitution is: words on a piece of paper written by the rulers. If it were the case that people were given the right by the words on the paper to own a gun, all the rulers would have to do to take away that right is change the words on the paper (or write new words in the form of a "law" that "nullifies" the right).
The truth is that you have human rights based on the fact that you are human. You might call these inalienable rights. You have them by the mere fact of being you. They aren't granted to you by words on a paper. You have these rights, period, not because they were bestowed upon you by some corporation (even one with an impressive name like The United States of America, Inc.).
Can I buy stock in that corporation?
Youare the stock in that corporation.
What people habitually call a "Constitutional Right" is actually a "Constitutional Restriction" on the allowable actions by the rulers. You don't have a right to own a gun because of the 2nd Amendment. You have the right to own a gun because humans have the right to own property. People do not have the right to take your property without your consent. Since the rulers exempted themselves from this basic moral principle, they had to put some assurances down in writing (2nd and 4th Amendments) for the people that they, the rulers, wouldn't just take stuff from people without a good reason.
But don't the rulers get to decide what amounts to a "good reason?"
Very good, Grasshopper.
By incessantly arguing about the 2nd Amendment granting the right of the people to bear arms, the false notion that the government gives people rights is ingrained even deeper. The truth of the matter is that governments can't grant rights which are inalienable, they can only violate those rights. In fact, their whole existence depends on violating the rights of people. If the rulers can somehow get the people to believe and act like their rights are derived from the government, the people can be more easily controlled. If the people trap themselves in this mindset, the rulers don't have to openly expose the true basis of their control, their willingness to initiate violence against the people.
Scrolling down my Facebook wall, I see that the gun control debate(?) continues. The 1% apparently still have the support of The Great and Powerful Oz's cult members. Quite frankly, I am surprised that Obama still has followers, nevermind loyal followers, especially on this issue. They voted for a guy who has officially started twice as many wars as King George (W Bush for those of you who are new visitors), plus who knows how many unofficial wars, and has used six times as many drones as the Illiterate One. As violent as his supporters are, you would think they would be clamoring for government handouts of drones so they could all fly one and kill someone.
Can you use an iPhone to control the drone?
I'm sure Obama has the app. Maybe he'll share.
The minions and people who believe in freedom have tried to point out the complete lack of logic in the
argument for gun control. While they have, for the most part succeeded, I feel like they have missed the heart of the issue. Not that it would change anything. Democrats are, for the next few years, the obedient servants of the 1% and reasoning, rationality, and logic have no place in their lives at the moment.
At the moment?
Well, there was that one time that . . . oh wait, no, I was thinking of Jeffrey Dahmer.
And Republicans are better?
Shah, as if.
No, when the Republican representative of the 1% gets voted in as president, it will likely be worse because the response to any objection to the president's insane policies will be, "Screw you! We had 8 years of your guy so suck it!"
That seems perfectly logical.
To you and 10% of the people in the state hospital.
Can we get back on task, please? From what I can gather, the logic of the argument from the people trying to disarm the people so the 1% can more easily control every aspect of the lives of their inferiors goes something like this:
1. People with guns are dangerous.
2. Dangerous situations should be avoided or prevented.
Therefore . . .
Can I point something out about statement number 1?
No, you'll ruin everything.
Again, from what I can gather (because I can think for myself and do not belong to either team so I'm guessing at their reasoning(?)), the rebuttals from anti-gun control people generally fall into three categories. Two of them are tied directly to presumed logic for gun control and the third is based on the Constitution. I will save the discussion about the Constitution for part 2 of this blog post because it's groundless and doesn't actually deal with the argument presented to support gun control.
Did he say "groundless?"
Yes, and I'm sure he'll hear about it.
Rebuttal #1 directly challenges statement #1 by showing that (1) places where gun control restrictions are the strictest have higher rates of violent crime, meaning that people who live in areas where guns are routinely carried by citizens are safer than their counterparts. (2) I also routinely see stories on Facebook walls where a citizen was able to protect themself or a third party from harm because they had a gun. Not only are guns not dangerous but they protect people from harm. Many of the Facebook posters go on to state that it's the people that you have to worry about, not the guns.
Rebuttal #2 takes a different approach by agreeing with the general logic of the argument presented and pointing out that, if this logic is true, it only makes sense to start with the most dangerous situations first and move down the list. To make the world a safer place in the least amount of time, it makes sense to take on the most critical issues first. Being in a Software Engineering class at the moment, this concept makes perfect sense to me. You deal with the biggest risk first and work your way down the list. Whatever is killing the most people should be banned first.
Do people really care "what makes sense" when they are trying to exert control over other people by using violence and the threat of violence?
Not that I can see.
Obesity, cigarettes, cars, doctors and hospitals, and a whole schload of things come in above guns when it comes to people dying. It doesn't make sense to jump down to something that kills 30,000 people a year when, "According to the National Institutes of Health, obesity and overweight together are the second leading cause of preventable death in the United States, close behind tobacco use (3). An estimated 300,000 deaths per year are due to the obesity epidemic (57)," (WV Department of Health and Human Resources). This becomes even more true if you discount suicide by guns because more people in the United States kill themselves with a gun than kill someone else.
Does that mean that suicide should be illegal?
Yes, no one is allowed to kill people except the government.
If you make gun ownership illegal and someone can't get one on the alternate market or steal one from their mom, they could just pop all the pills in their medicine cabinet or park their running car in the garage.
Make all those things illegal. That's what I say!
And prosecute the dead person? What's next? Give them the death penalty?
It's obvious that the call for gun control by the masses isn't grounded in any logical reasoning. My guess is that it's caused by an emotional response to sensationalized stories by the 1 percent's media but that's only a guess. There is obviously something going on here beyond a concern for human life.
Under the orders of their messiah, government employees kill people on a daily basis, fund terrorist groups, perform false flag missions against their own people, assassinate people who refuse to cooperate, incite riots and revolutions, and all manner of other actions that end with the death of
innocent people. No, they clearly don't give a rat's ass about human life so I'm left with the inclination that they are anti-gun because they have been told to be anti-gun and the message has been delivered to them in an emotional wrapper to not only make it easier to swallow but to make them *want* to swallow it. While they voted for a president who started twice as many illegal wars as the last guy (not including all the covert wars, illegal wars called by some other name, and people killed by despotic rulers paid by the US government), it makes them feel self-righteous to champion the anti-gun cause.
This attitude, this absurd claim to moral high-ground while voting for a mass murderer, I find to be the second most surprising thing about the team on the left side of the 1%.
Here I am with a blog post. Amazing, I know. College took more than even I expected this last term and the next one, which starts tomorrow, doesn't look like it will be any lighter. I haven't been able to stay up to date with current events in the depth that I prefer and have been reduced to scanning headlines most of the time. A recurring theme I have heard is that when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
I saw a video (posted below) about the Quebec student protests that brought this to mind this morning. Students in Quebec (and around the world) are upset about the escalating cost of higher education and are letting the government know about it. Someone with half a brain would think that an appropriate response would be to work on some way to lower the cost of education. Unfortunately, we are talking about politicians.
The truth is that the hammer *is* the primary tool in the government workbelt but the reason that it is finally getting so much press is that it's been used more transparently, more often, and predominately against the 99%. The Internet has been effective enough at reducing the other major tools (propaganda and indoctrination) that the hammer is being used liberally while the 1% tries to find a way to gain control over the world wide web.
Instead of looking at reducing tuition costs for students or even *saying* they will look at reducing tuition costs for students, the rocket surgeons wielding the hammer passed a law making it illegal to protest without permission from the police. That's like a patient going in to take care of an itchy rash on his right arm and the doctor tying down the patient's left arm to keep him from scratching it. Actually it's worse than that because, in this case, it brought extra people into the fight on the students' side.
People who were not protesting tuition hikes came out to protest the new anti-protest law. Shortly after the law was passed, 700 people were arrested for illegally protesting. This just brought more people out to protest the arrests and the heavy-handed tactics used by the police. The response to the hammer seems to be such a no-brainer that it leaves me wondering what game the lawmakers are playing. Have they painted themselves into such a corner that they are powerless to do anything else? Wouldn't it have been better to do nothing than fan the flames?
What do you think? Why are lawmakers around the world making symptoms illegal instead of dealing with the disease?
I've been giving this topic lots of thought, off and on, for quite some time and have not been able to put my thoughts into any easy order. That means that I will once again be using this blog as a rough draft to make some sense of the topic and I will, once again, probably be meandering all over the place.
Standard Operating Procedures.
Yup.
In reading Lynette's blog, I came across something that she said that really resonated with me and I told her so. She said she had been reading a book that brought me to mind and recommended that I read it. I downloaded Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior by David R. Hawkins to my Kindle and have been reading it. I'm only about 20% through the book but I'm intrigued and it has rekindled something in me that goes right along with my thoughts on Belief.
One thing that I know I need to do is be nicer to the cult members and minions. I don't go out trolling but I have certainly been less than kind on my blog. While I can rationalize the reasons for this because I can say what I want on my blog and they are doing far worse to me, it actually doesn't fit with what I would like to see happen for a number of reasons. It may actually cause them to dig in deeper to defend their religion and it's really not fair. It's not entirely their fault that they don't understand things. I saw a video this week that explained it nicely. Serendipity at work.
Picking on cult members is like having a spelling bee with contestants that don't speak English.
Spell the word, "Violence."
Could you use the word in a sentence?
I'm not sure how I have escaped the Matrix and to be clear, I'm still trying to teach myself. I still go out looking for truth and I'm trying to teach myself to think better. It's an important skill and one that I want to be able to pass on to my kids. My wife and I discuss it often but we are at a point where we feel we need a better understanding of the concepts before we will be able to adequately pass them on.
There are a few things to note about my intention for a kinder and gentler blog in regards to cult members and minions.
I am naturally sarcastic and snarky and one of the voices in my head is even worse. So, this may be a work in progress.
The good intentions are aimed at the cult members and the minions. Their prophets are still fair game. Failing to point out the evil would be a disservice to humankind.
Unfortunately, time is going to require that I split this up over at least one more post, if not more.
Let me leave you with something completely unrelated that I found funny. I was looking around for information yesterday and Googled, "Obama pays travel expenses."
Success Warrior blog was the number 1 hit.
I don't care who you are, that's funny right there.
Git-r-done.
Larry the Cable Guy will be out here tomorrow.
***
Follow me on Twitter to get updates on when new posts show up on this blog (plus get random thoughts on the life of Success Warrior) and feel free to "friend" me on Facebook.
Success Warrior is an Independent BeachBody Coach for BeachBody.com, a company that offers fitness programs, supplements, and equipment that have absolutely changed my life.
Have you heard of P90X? That's BeachBody. They also have Insanity, Turbo Jam, TurboFire, RevAbs, Brazil Butt Lift, and many more. They have some of the best exercise programs on the market. These aren't just DVDs but are complete programs to transform your body. They also have the hugely popular, and what they call "the most important meal of the day", Shakeology. Go HERE to learn the most inexpensive way to get Shakeology.
They have equipment and supplements in addition to Shakeology and popular exercise programs. Visit BeachBody.com and click on the "Shop" link to see everything they offer.
There is also a business side to all this fitness that you can take advantage of. Whether you're looking to just make a couple hundred extra dollars in fun money or are looking to take complete financial control of your life, BeachBody can help you get there. If you have a desire to be more fit and would love to help other people do the same while making some money at it, visit BeachBody.com and click on the "Coach" link. Team up with me and I'll help you reach your goals, in fitness and finance.
I've been encouraged to visit the cult website a few times because this will somehow cultivate an acceptance in using violence to jam my opinion down someone's throat and kill or imprison anyone who doesn't see things my way. I believe that I did visit the site a year ago or so but I have to admit that if I did visit it, it was so unmemorable that today, when I finally decided to see if I was missing something, I did not recognize the site at all.
For those of you that haven't been and have no desire in tazing anyone who disagrees with you, I'll give a quick description (admittedly based on the small part that I saw). It's a collection of pages with one-liners of "inspirational" things that Obama has done. There is one little, teeny, tiny, string attached to how inspirational the statements are. The level of inspiration received from the statements is inversely proportional to the reader's level of morality, knowledge, and willingness to seek the truth. Cult members eat this shit up.
What are you inferring?
I thought it was clear.
The first statement that popped up for me was that Obama has cut Medicare drug costs by 50%. First off, the law is unConstitutional but at this point, that's Standard Operating Procedure for The Great and Powerful Oz. From the cult member perspective, I think the Constitution is irrelevant when it's something that they want. Not that they wanted this bill. None of them have probably read it but they do want to support their prophet and gawd's laws are above man-made laws like the Constitution. Tossing that aside, let's look at this claim.
Now, the thing about Obama's lies is that there is usually some bit of twisted truth in there somewhere. It seems obvious that he's lying but I like to dig to find out what he's using for the basis of his lie. What can he point to and say, "See?"
Certainly not his leadership abilities.
Or his very own set of balls.
After someone on Medicare spent over $2,700 in the year 2010, Obama send them a check for $250. No one has yet claimed that Obama knows anything about math.
Or economics.
Or ethics.
Under the old law, grandma had to pay 100% of drug costs from then on until she had spent $4,550. This crippling financial gap where grandma is more likely to die than cross the finish line is lovingly referred to as the "Donut Hole." If she can survive on cat food and saltines until then, she only had to pay 5% of the drug costs until the new year started.
Under this great new law (which imposes a 10% tax on fake baking, oddly enough - and I'm not going to mention the other stuff in this bill), grandma only has to pay 50% for prescriptions after she passes that $2,700 mark. Don't get me wrong, that's better than 100%, especially since Obama and his predecessors have created a system where drug companies can charge $150 for a pill that costs $.02 to make. If you could escape their protectionary "laws", you'd cut grandma's prescription costs by more than 50% on all her prescriptions, even saving her from that initial $2,700 gouging.
It's close enough to the truth for cult members to get goosebumps.
It's really important for cult members to pretend like they care about people.
There's some truth to it and if you ignore the rest of the bill, you could say this was a "win". I was thinking that I may be persuaded to the use of violence to solve any desire that I had after all. I clicked to the next one. It was about how Obama pays travel expenses for families to fly out to see the body of their dead son/daughter/husband/wife who died trying to make sure that Exxon and BP keep making record profits.
I threw up a little in my mouth and went out to play basketball with my son.
One thing, skipping back to the first wtf page that I read, that I have often wondered about is the possibility of some agreement, implicit or expressed, between cult members and minions. Democrats and Republicans are constantly battling each other using talking points handed to them by talking heads, who most likely also have not read any of the bills.
At this point, I probably don't have an cult members or minions as readers, which is unfortunate because I'd like to hear the rules of engagement for their arguments. From what I've seen, there must be some sort of pact where they are only allowed to use propaganda from their team in these arguments. My guess is that anyone who uses truth or morality is red-carded.
Anyway, if you want a chuckle, go visit the website. You won't learn anything useful there but if you ever find yourself in an argument with a Republican minion, you can zing these statements at him like they are deadly ninja stars.
I am not sure why Congress has suddenly woken up to the fact that they have been letting American Presidents acts as dictators in control of the military or the fact that that the United Nations has more control of the military than the United States Congress but they have. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta tried to sugar coat it at the start of this discussion but he makes it quite clear at the end of this video that the United States Congress does not control the United States Military.
This has been going on for some time now but this "in your face" attitude has prompted Congress to pass a resolution reminding The Great and Powerful Oz that if he uses the military to attack someone, he can be impeached. It's very weird to see Congress take a stand on this so it makes me wonder what else is going on. There are several other aspects of this video that are worth delving into deeper but the point of Video Saturdays is to keep it short and sweet so maybe at a later date.
by David R. Hawkins to my Kindle and have been reading it. I'm only about 20% through the book but I'm intrigued and it has rekindled something in me that goes right along with my thoughts on Belief.
Recent Comments