The tyranny that rules over us could at least be consistent.
I’d object less to being told I must wear a helmet when I ride my motorcycle because it’s “risky” if it weren’t done by a cop who is 30 pounds heavy, hypertensive at 40 and a regular consumer of fried pastries (i.e., donuts). Shouldn’t he be out for a jog or some something? Why is his “risky” activity ok, but mine actionable?
It’s an example of what Southerners call the “yankee” mindset.
A kind of moralistic lecturing by unpleasant, intellectually solipsistic people who never think anything they do (or like or dislike) is something that ought to be censored.
I’ll concede that it’s “risky” to ride a motorcycle without a helmet. Or for that matter, to ride a motorcycle at all. So what? It is also “risky” – arguably, much more so – to be 30 pounds heavy, hypertensive and sedentary. And many other things besides. Why are some things arbitrarily decreed fair game for punishment while others are considered (by the law) harmless or at least, personal choices the law is indifferent to?
It is very odd.
If we agreed to abide by rational, objective cost-benefit analysis (for the sake of discussion; I am not going to debate the merits of the inherently collectivist premise of this argument) who “imposes greater costs on society”? Is it the helmet-less motorcycle rider?
Or the disgusting fatbody?
This is fairly easy to rough estimate.
About 4,500-5,000 motorcyclists are killed each year(see here). According to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of people hurt each while riding a bike is about 120,000 (see here). The CDC does not break down the injuries, so the 120k includes everything from minor (road rash) to major (i.e., permanently disabling) injuries. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) did a survey of costs per wreck (see here) that lists a high of about $30k-$50k in costs per wreck – for riders sans helmet.
It is a lot of money. But it is nowhere near the “cost to society” imposed by obesity – which is as much a “choice” as riding a motorcycle without a helmet.
How many fatties-by-choice are out there? It seems every other person at Wal-Mart qualifies. But let’s be more precise about it.
The current population of the United States is about 316 million. The same CDC that inveigled against “allowing” helmet-less motorcycle riders to “impose costs on society” also says that roughly 35 percent of the 316 million current population qualifies as obese (see here). That’s a lot of blubber. About 110 million fat bastards who are imposing billions in “costs to society” – and not being restricted or punished for their actions in any way. There are no Waistband (or arm fat) Checkpoints. No tickets issued for “excessive avoirdupois.” The obese are not even made to pay more per pound for their health insurance – even though (by the standard of “costs imposed”) they sure as hell ought to. A fat bastard is statistically (and actually) much more likely to develop chronic – and hugely costly – health debilities, including diabeetus (which can last for decades) while most bikers do not wreck and hence do not get injured at all and so never impose a cent in “costs” to “society.” But they are presumed cost-imposers and dealt with harshly – while the fatties are left to their Cheetos and sweet tea in peace.
Why?
Because there are so many fat bastards – and they vote. Or rather, they outvote motorcyclists.
It was not riders who clamored for – much less voted for – mandatory helmet laws. It was politicians and the general public, many of them disgusting fatbodies.
It all comes down to whose proverbial ox is being gored.
Or rather, who happens to have power – and what happens to be popular (or not) at any given moment.
This is why – to dredge up a second example – “drunk” driving has become a baby step shy of pederasty in terms of social (and legal) sanction … while driving while Parkinsonian (or Glaucomian) is considered almost ok. The former will be crucified if he should run a light and kill someone; the latter will be sympathized with as a “nice old man” who didn’t mean any harm. Yet he chose to drive while feeble (or blind) as much as the other guy chose to drive while drunk.
It gets tiresome.
I wrote a few months back about the loathsome worldview called utilitarian (see here). America is the inheritor – the expositor – of this vacuous philosophy of subjectivism. Of the “greatest good for the greatest number” – as defined by those who wield the greatest power.
As one of my readers likes to quip: Fuck ’em and feed ’em fish heads.
Indeed.
A donut-eating cop has as much right to hassle me for riding my bike without a helmet as I have to hassle him about not eating right and failing to exercise enough.
Which, of course, is no right at all – in both cases.
How about we all just leave each other alone for a change? Do your thing, I’ll do my mine. We don’t have to approve of what the other guy’s doing. Just respect that he’s got a right to do it, even if it may be harmful to himself. So long as whatever he’s doing isn’t hurting anyone else, leave him be.
Because it’s his life – not yours.
Right?
Americans used to grok that. I’m hopeful that – one day – they will again.
Throw it in the Woods?
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Your first two lines made me think of this classic 🙂 …..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi1nxu-Sy-w
I’m Tired of Complying With Directive 10-289
Ragnar Danneskjold’s Love
One of the best parts of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is the scene in which Ragnar Danneskjold meets Hank Rearden on a road at night and hands him a bar of gold, returning some of the money that the government has stolen from Rearden over the years.
Their conversation begins, “I should like to speak to you, Mr. Rearden.” “Go ahead,” replies Rearden, “provided you don’t intend to ask me for help or money.” Ragnar proceeds to explain that he’s not here to ask for money but to return it. The following excerpt from later in the exchange pairs nicely with Mr. Larsen’s painting to the right, Justice.
“I thought that I had seen everything one could see and that there was nothing I could not stand seeing. But when they took Rearden Metal away from you, it was too much, even for me. I know that you don’t need this gold at present. What you need is the justice which it represents, and the knowledge that there are men who care for justice.”
Struggling not to give in to an emotion which he felt rising through his bewilderment, past all his doubts, Rearden tried to study the man’s face, searching for some clue to help him understand. But the face had no expression; it had not changed once while speaking; it looked as if the man had lost the capacity to feel long ago, and what remained of him were only features that seemed implacable and dead. With a shudder of astonishment, Rearden found himself thinking that it was not the face of a man, but of an avenging angel.
“Why did you care?” asked Rearden. “What do I mean to you?”
“Much more than you have reason to suspect. And I have a friend to whom you mean much more than you will ever learn. He would have given anything to stand by you today. But he can’t come to you. So I came in his place.”
“What friend?”
“I prefer not to name him.”
“Did you say that you’ve spent a long time collecting this money for me?”
“I have collected much more than this.” He pointed at the gold. “I am holding it in your name and I will turn it over to you when the time comes. This is only a sample, as proof that it does exist. And if you reach the day when you find yourself robbed of the last of your fortune, I want you to remember that you have a large bank account waiting for you.”
“What account?”
“If you try to think of all the money that has been taken from you by force, you will know that your account represents a considerable sum.”
“How did you collect it? Where did this gold come from?”
“It was taken from those who robbed you.”
“Taken by whom?”
“By me.”
“Who are you?”
“Ragnar Danneskjold.”
Rearden looked at him for a long, still moment, then let the gold fall out of his hands.
Danneskjold’s eyes did not follow it to the ground, but remained fixed on Rearden with no change of expression. “Would you rather I were a law-abiding citizen, Mr. Rearden? If so, which law should I abide by? Directive 10-289?”
“Ragnar Danneskjold…” said Rearden, as if he were seeing the whole of the past decade, as if he were looking at the enormity of a crime spread through ten years and held within two words.
“Look more carefully, Mr. Rearden. There are only two modes of living left to us today: to be a looter who robs disarmed victims or to be a victim who works for the benefit of his own despoilers. I did not choose to be either.”
“You chose to live by means of force, like the rest of them.”
“Yes—openly. Honestly, if you will. I do not rob men who are tied and gagged, I do not demand that my victims help me, I do not tell them that I am acting for their own good. I stake my life in every encounter with men, and they have a chance to match their guns and their brains against mine in fair battle.
Fair? It’s I against the organized strength, the guns, the planes, the battleships of five continents. If it’s a moral judgment that you wish to pronounce, Mr. Rearden, then who is the man of higher morality: I or Wesley Mouch?”
“I have no answer to give you,” said Rearden, his voice low.
“Why should you be shocked, Mr. Rearden? I am merely complying with the system which my fellow men have established. If they believe that force is the proper means to deal with one another, I am giving them what they ask for. If they believe that the purpose of my life is to serve them, let them try to enforce their creed. If they believe that my mind is their property—let them come and get it.”
“But what sort of life have you chosen? To what purpose are you giving your mind?”
“To the cause of my love.”
“Which is what?”
“Justice.”
Katniss is no rebel, only a typical law and order statist and prisonophiliac. Completely empty inside, and projecting her authoritarian soulless vacuum onto others.
http://www.aol.com/article/2014/10/07/jennifer-lawrence-calls-nude-photo-hacking-a-sex-crime/20973921/
“every criminal should cower in fear from the power of the state. the law needs to expand. people’s freedoms need to be reduced. they’re disgusting.”
“I can’t imagine being detached from humanity in a way that obtains private pictures and makes money from them. I can only imagine being detached from humanity in the exact way I am, because I am a clover.”
One idea, for advocates of freedom, might be to take some land by force, as Israel did in 1948.
Why not find land controlled by the worst, most oppressively statist government in the world – say Saudi Arabia – and found a new stateless society there?
Many Jews were against the formation of Israel. Many libertarians will be against this new stateless society. But really, the best thing for freedom, if it can be accomplished, is probably a new stateless society somewhere on this planet.
Saudi Arabia has executed at least 19 people since August 4, 2014. Local news reports indicate that eight of those executed were convicted of nonviolent offenses, seven for drug smuggling and one for sorcery.
Armed Forces of Saudi Arabia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_of_Saudi_Arabia
Hi Tor,
The problem is this: Even if people like us got together, pooled our resources and bought a few thousand acres in, say, remote Alaska (or anywhere) and announced our peaceful secession from other countries, our desire to live on our land, in peace – they’d never let us get away with it.
The only solution, alas, is the North Korean one. Which is a sort-of real-life Galt’s Gulch – in the sense that they have the power to checkmate would-be interlopers.
Now, if some real-life Libertarian genius were to develop a technology that shielded the land we bought such that interlopers could not attack us, could not do anything to us without risking their own lives – then we’d have something.
Anyone else looked at Galt’s Gulch Chile? Looks like it’s a done deal – DOA.
The land isn’t getting re-zoned, the money isn’t getting paid, the trust seems corrupt….
Just come to New Hampshire. It’s not free yet, but it’s free-er than where you are.
And now we have furnaces!
Reddit falsely accuses Sunil Tripathi of being the Boston Bomber, guy turns up dead
http://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-falsely-accuses-sunil-tripathi-of-boston-bombing-2013-7
Here’s Some Self-Confessed Rapists and Murderers on Reddit
http://www.vocativ.com/tech/internet/fbi-just-fyi-theres-confessed-rapists-murderers-reddit/
I think Reddit is a far bigger douche than google. Rather than make any money, reddit has developed and then squandered the most amazing technology on the web.
Reddit admins selectively shadowbanning users who criticise the most powerful moderators that control large chunks of the site, such as qgyh2 and davidreiss666.
http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/248oc8/warning_reddit_admins_are_selectively_enforcing/
Aaron Swartz, one of the site founders, committed suicide. Reddit just memory holed him as if he never existed.
Reddit pays the most pathetic authoritarian dicksuckers you’ll find anywhere to make use of their code for whatever useless mischief they want.
Here’s what they did to Scott Adams – Creator of Dilbert
http://www.salon.com/2011/04/19/scott_adams_sock_puppetry_scandal/
These hideous trolls are sneakier than most.
Here’s how they treated a fired employee
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2iea97/i_am_a_former_reddit_employee_ama/cl1ygat
This is beyond Orwellian. Here you have a situation that could be of great benefit and profit for all involved. But instead, they waste their resources playing bizarre surveillance games like nothing I’ve ever seen.
Reddit is designed to be a stateless anarchy, but instead it is infested with the biggest lapdog statists you will ever find.
Of the “greatest good for the greatest number” – as defined by those who wield the greatest power.
DEADLY DISTRACTIONS: The rising toll of inattentive emergency vehicle drivers
Brenda Gazzar – Los Angeles Daily News, EMS1
Distracted drivers of emergency vehicles were to blame in collisions that killed three Southland residents and injured about 140 others in California over the last two years, according to a state database and local reporting. These drivers of police cars, fire trucks and ambulances caused at least 180 traffic collisions in the state last year — or about one every other day — up from 165 collisions in 2012, according to data from the Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System that is run by the California Highway Patrol. In fact, the number of collisions involving distracted emergency vehicle drivers on public roads who were at-fault increased by 122 percent over the last decade coinciding with a meteoric rise in technology. “Black-and-whites now are equipped with more equipment that affords faster and more accurate information to officers but at the same time provides a certain degree of distraction while driving,” said Robert Stresak, executive director of California’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.
http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20141004/deadly-distractions-the-rising-toll-of-inattentive-emergency-vehicle-drivers
http://www.ems1.com/education-and-training/articles/1999752-Calif-sees-increase-in-distracted-emergency-vehicle-drivers/
I see hedonists are also in permanent disagreement with Eudaimonism. That is good news, I think.
The second earliest example of Hedonism and most extreme was the philosophy of the Cyrenaics, an early Socratic school founded by Aristippus of Cyrene, in the 4th Century B.C.
The earliest hedonists were a school philosophy formed around the teachings of Democritus.
The Cyrenaics emphasized one side only of Socrates’ teaching – that happiness is one of the ends of moral action (Eudaimonism), while denying that virtue has any intrinsic value.
They maintained that pleasure was the supreme good, especially physical pleasure, which Aristippus considered more intense and preferable to mental or intellectual pleasures, and especially immediate gratification, which he argued should not be denied for the sake of long-term gain.
Basic hedonist philosophy schools
http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_hedonism.html
– I think there is nothing wrong with long-term planning and seeking permanent wealth and comfort.
But somehow, taking a moment to do something fun with your family. Or to go on an exhilarating bike ride somewhere out in the wilds beyond the petty controllers, is often even more important.
The gateway to cloverism, is in self-denial I think. In not seeking pleasure in the here and now. Clovers never have the courage to do what they really want. They just do what they think others want them to, and then lie to themselves about it.
Clovers live in a state of permanent self-delusion. I obey, therefore I am. The oppressions of men of superior force and ability are a source of pleasure, the clover tells itself. I live to serve. To be told what to do for my own good.
I am happier than these Hedonists like Eric and Isonomers like Tor and many Eastern Asians, bleats the clover, because I follow the law. I serve the social good. I am part of something greater than myself.
Sure they are doing the things they truly love, but it is very risky for them. I am safe because I submit. Because I take no risks. Because I lie and say the life I lead is the life I want, even though deep down inside, I know my empty boasts are nothing more than the feeble lies of a long dead soul.
Most religions deserve to be thrown in the woods. For those of you fortunate to have never been crippled by a poor religion, I wonder if you might consider you are nonetheless crippled by some other poor philosophy. I think the majority of those here are badly served by a primitive version of eudaimonia.
Eudaimonia is the philosophy of happiness, welfare, and human fluorishing. The belief in a good spirit. Virtue. Excellence. Even if you escape the Sky Stalin, you might still be ensnared in something equally illogical. Faith in the efficacy of Eudaimonia.
Believers of Eudaimonia believe in phronesis. Practical or ethical wisdom. That there is a right way to play the game of life, and that those who play correctly will be rewarded and those who play the game incorrectly will be punished. Then right in front of their face, they see this is not the case. In a similar infantilization of a Sky Daddy’s Girl, the eudaimoniac will say “well I’m still winning because I didn’t cheat or take advantage.
I’m noble and have still won a moral victory, despite my current loss. This is everybit as dumbfoundingly whim worshipping as any Holy Roller, but good luck getting one to see the circular reasoning they’ve just engaged in.
2600 years ago, there was Isonomy in the west. A version of Yin and Yang, where all forces are symmetrical and transferrable. When all demos(commoners) should meet in the agora to make all decisions. In all things and of every kind there should be balance and health.
Under Eudaimonia, it is only some select group of commoners that should make decisions. Only the wise. The property owners. The well born. The temperate. The peaceloving and grinning ear to ear nice guys. This has proven to be an insipid mockery, where one group is always trying to kill some other group. Such that only the most ruthless and brutal get on top.
Yet even here, all I hear about is getting back to the Eudaimonia of 50,100, or 200 years ago. Never do I hear of a return to the belief in equilibrium. In the rights of all life to compete in the agora. A flicker of Buddhism flared up, but then was shouted down. Aristotle had lived during Isonomy, but he was servant of Alexander the Great and state warlords. He helped usher in the age of Eudaimonia we still struggle under today.
I don’t think any here really understand clover as well as they think they do. If they did, they could argue Dissoi Logoi, that is to say they could see the world and argue the world as clover see it.
Mostly what I see is Eudaimoniacs who want merely to dismiss clover. To prove they are superior, and better suited to be the one at the podiums and on the pedestals, making the norms and enforcing the hadiths. Just so many microstate religionists, who claim that, because their state is small and powerless, it is somehow superior a priori, because it promises so much more.
Because it will play the game the right way. It knows the true rules of a just Eudaimonia run by wiser and more benevolent betters, who have so far been being cheated out of their rightful place at the helm of the ship of state.
Hi Tor,
I’m with you on this.
For me, being a Libertarian means other people’s liberty to pursue their happiness (however defined) is as valuable to them as mine is to me. And provided we each accept the other’s equal right to pursue happiness however we define it, everything is cool.
I therefore do not presume to lecture polygamists or gays or practitioners of water sports that their practices are “wrong.” Different from the so-called “norm,” sure. Vices, possibly.
But wrong – as a philosophical/moral/ethical notion – seems to me to apply only when there is harm done to an unwilling victim.
On this point, absolutism seems to me to be a logical position. That is, one can objectively (and so, rightly) make the statement: Smith has beaten up Jones (or taken Jone’s money, etc.) and this is wrong because Jones has been harmed.
But excepting this, let the agora prevail.
To each, his own – according to his lights.
So long as no one’s coerced – or harmed.
Science can show what’s right
How will we come to know what the absolute morals are. For morals to be truly absolute, wouldn’t they need a universally unquestioned source, interpretation and authority?
What about the sheer diversity of moral opinions which exists among societies in the world today, which suggests that there cannot be a single true morality.
– I am not much persuaded to give any weight to the long trail of words that is said to add up to moral absolutes. I’m even less inclined to listen to ideas about moral relativism. Both seem to be irrelevant and broken at will by the PTB and others whenever and however they wish.
Natural laws are real, for example gravity, it’s everywhere reproducible and needs no priestly divination to observe. Gravity simply is a law. Perhaps we will better understand things in a few years, but for now, gravity is a generally accepted natural law.
As to moral absolutes. Like murder. Given all the people that are killed, for all the various reasons. It seems obvious killing people is NOT against the law. People are killed all the time, there seems to be little to no rhyme or reason to it whatsoever.
The same goes for theft. People are robbed all the time, and again there seems to be no underlying sense to it. This theft is called fees, taxes, tariffs, and all other kinds of words. But it is all the same thing.
Whatever words are written about moral absolutism seem to have no relevance or relation to reality in the slightest.
Gravity is a natural phenomenon. Using the word “law” to characterize it seems awkward to me.
Laws are legal constructs, articulated by men. These constructs may be accepted – or not. They may “illegalize” a given action, but cannot prevent the action from happening.
Is it wrong to kill? As opposed to merely unlawful to kill?
Yes, I think one can make the case that it is – and without appealing to “the law.”
It is wrong to kill others because we ourselves would rather not be killed by others. Und so weiter.
Simple, perhaps – but the simple logic of it is irrefutable.
There is a simple logic to the internet that is sending digital packets back and forth. If you and I discuss this logic, it is likely to be moot.
Packets will continue to be sent as they are, because neither you nor I know enough about the systems in place, the technicalities of the specs and all that.
Or perhaps, we might agree there is some other better way to send packets that only Japan uses, and the whole world should also use it. It remains irrelevant, unless we figure out how to put our words and logic into concrete action or concrete proposals someone else might read and then bring to fruition.
As far as not murdering anyone. Japan is the world leader. We might want to discuss why that is the case. It is just as wrong to kill in Central American murder capitals or Japan, the question is, why is the rate of murder so much different?
In short, a hundred or a million words on the matter isn’t necessarily the answer. I think murfrt is a field where language is of limited and perhaps no significance.
Words alone don’t build SUVs. And on their own they don’t prevent murders.
Maybe we go back to the highway, where you brought up the waste of powerful vehicles.
The best authority in my eyes, is the manufacturers themselves. They are the ones that cause vehicles to exist. Why shouldn’t they also have input into what is right or wrong to do with their creations?
Here is my proposed moral recipe:
Who should decide what is wrong or right as far as Virginia highways?
1 manufacturers of vehicles. in ancient times, creators retained both benefits and responsibilities for their creations.
thus a the group of men who invented vehicles. and then later, who build vehicles, would continue to be entitled to the benefits and responsibilities of their creations.
2 founders and sustainers of villages where people live in luxury and comfort. builders of roads, homes, and infrastructure. humans are born into a great deal of comfort and wealth. Whoever is responsible for the wealth and comfort in a given area would be entitled to decide what is right and wrong in the jurisdictions where they are the creators and sustainers of wealth.
Thus in the case of yourself or someone who owned your land. You would only have the right to be a hunter, gatherer, farmer. You would have no rights in the case of electricity, sewage, advanced goods delivered by truck, things available on the internet, or broadcast in the air. Anything that is not of nature, but rather is the result of some other human minds, would continue to belong to those originators and creators. And they would decide what is wrong or right in regard to what they have originated.
– if you make a secular religious pronouncement of abstract principles, like what is morally right or wrong and then leave such inventions unattended. Who is to say what is to become of them. What’s to stop those who want to control everyone from usurping any mechanism for enforcing right and wrong and using it in whatever way they see fit. What does it matter, that you say they are wrong. Or they are evil. So what. Why would they care what any powerless entity has to say about them. Why aren’t your words and labels completely irrelevant and meaningless.
I am interested in what morals can be conceived of, and then enforced and promulgated consistently and seamlessly. This seems to be completely problematic and completely dysfunctional throughout western society.
I do think there might be moral scientists who can tackle such problems. I think you might have the right qualification and temperment to make a difference. But I’m not getting anything out of saying: “You know its morally wrong to kill your neighbor.” There’s logistics to this that are being assumed or ignored I think.
We don’t give money to the storekeeper because its a good idea to use money. We do so, because there are countless transactional scientists who throughout the years devised and perfected the means of making payments. Some guy sitting at home and saying its a good idea to use currency is completely irrelevant, unless he understands who is behind the current payment systems, and how changes can be made to them. Unless he is speaking to someone who can DO something. Or if he himself can actually DO SOMETHING.
Actually, you’ve found the root of part of our problem.
The words keep getting twisted, which is why we see national speed limit at 55 given the same weight as apples fall from trees towards the ground.
The same force as “Thou Shalt Not Murder.” is only a small step (twist) away…
And there is the “myth of authority.”
And in the same way, it’s working in reverse – so we have the contempt for the NMSL translated to a contempt for all natural laws, and for God (whether you believe in god or not is incidental, his existence, and the authority and fear that authority imposes, kept a LOT of “honest” people honest for centuries, before we moved towards a nanny state – which is trying to become God anyway…)
“Law” has come to mean legal construct. But the original meaning, as I understand it, was an unbreakable truth – like the Law of Gravity or the 3 Laws of Thermodynamics. Or, whether you believe in Him or not, the Laws of God. The ‘principles’ like “You shall not murder, you shall not steal.” etc.
Of course, in the case of God’s Law (the principles of which are often referred to as ‘Natural Law”) it does not mean something cannot be done, it means that it is not to be done IF He is your God.
The laws of the physical universe, like gravity, CANNOT be violated, but sometimes there are ‘ways around them,’ like flight.
What you are talking about is “Positive Law,” i.e., it is only a law because some gunvermin agency says it is.
Tina Guo performing the Rains of Castamere on erhu & cello. Winter is coming.
Utilitarianism stems from atheism.
If there is no God, there is no absolute authority to determine what is right or wrong. Subjective (utilitarian) perspectives win the day.
Atheist deontology is somewhat strange. Christian utilitarianism is stranger still, its surprising that there are so many of them.
Anthropologists in Australia have demonstrated that religious beliefs only seemed continuous and fixed, but in reality change and continuously and adapt to new conditions, new knowledge and so on.
This was proven by comparing religious beliefs held by native Australians studied by anthropologists in the 1930s and, much later, in the 1970s. In a natural situation, religious beliefs adapt to the change in man’s culture and knowledge. The problem with Islam and Christianity is that many centuries ago somebody had the idea of writing down beliefs. So now many modern religious people are still stuck with the culture and knowledge from many centuries ago. They are like fish trapped in a pond of old water.
It is inexact to say scientists do not believe in God. This is too broad and simplistic of a statement. A scientist says: “I do not understand what “to believe in God” means. The people that “believe in God” seem to act in a curious alien manner. It is difficult to make sense of them.
If a scientist is asked directly by a person of faith whether he belieives there is a person who has created Heavens and Earth, and responds to our prayers, then a scientist would answer; definitely my answer is no, and with much certainty.
But if you aske a scientest whether he believes that “God” is a powerful something in the people, which causes a lot of disasters but also a lot of good, then of course the scientist believes in that. A scientist should be extremely curious about religion. Science should study closely and determin what religion is specifically. Scientists should ignore the taboo in this, and not show any sort of respect towards obstructionists who loudly demand you “believe in God”, or else, and who try to make it difficult to understand things better.
Viewing the “belief in God” as merely a bunch of silly superstitions is wrong. This “belief in God” is one form of human religious attitude, and human religious attitude is something very general and universal about human functioning. Belief is something which is important for man, and something we have not yet properly understood.
There is no reason science and religion cannot be compatible. A man can be great in solving Maxwell’s equations during the day and pray to God in the evening. Where there is a clash between science and certain religions, especially some forms of Christianity and Islam, scientists must work to defeat this.
Science must overcome any who pretend to be repositories of “absolute Truths.” The problem is not that scientists think they know everything. It is the opposite: scientists know that there are things we simply do not know, and naturally question those who pretend to know.
Many religious people are disturbed by this, and have difficulty in coping with it. The religious person says, “I know that God has created light saying, ‘Fiat Lux.’” The scientist does not believe the story. The religious people feel threatened. And men who seek political power, encourage the clash that here develops. Not all religions are like that.
Many forms of Buddhism, for instance, have no difficulty with the continual critical attitude of science. Monotheistic religions, and in particular Islam and Christianity, are sometimes less intelligent. And more inclined to use force and violence.
The main protagonist of “Signs” is a freeloading hippie, expressing his frustration over a series of signs he encounters that were posted by various property owners.
In the final verse, the hippie shares his experiences of going to a church. After pointing out a sign reading “Everybody welcome. Come in, kneel down and pray,” he is asked to contribute to the offering; however, being an absolute deadbeat, he realizes he has no money, and takes out a grimy slip of paper, and write on it “Thank you, Lord for thinking about me, I’m alive and doing fine.”
A fat lot of good that hippie is to the Lord, or to anyone else really.
“Signs” is a song by the Canadian rock group Five Man Electrical Band. Written by Les Emmerson and popularized by the relatively unknown band, who recorded it for their second album, Good-byes and Butterflies in 1970. “Signs” was originally released that year as the B-side to the relatively unsuccessful single “Hello Melinda Goodbye” (#55 Canada).
Signs was re-released in 1971 as the A-side, “Signs” and reached No. 4 in Canada and No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Five Man Electrical Band – Signs (Exclusive Video)
Don’t Let The Man Get You Down by Fatboy Slim song built over sample of a portion of the song “Signs”
The real rich aren’t even in the Forbes billionaire list.
e.g. Saudi Aramco Oil Trust Assets are over $10 trillion. No individuals own these assets officially, only the trust.
e.g. – Largest Landowner
“Queen Elizabeth II the largest landowner on Earth.” (2007)
Queen Elizabeth II, head of state of the United Kingdom and of 31 other states and territories, is the legal owner of about 6,600 million acres of land, one sixth of the earth’s non ocean surface.
She is the only person on earth who owns whole countries, and who owns countries that are not her own domestic territory. This land ownership is separate from her role as head of state and is different from other monarchies where no such claim is made – Norway, Belgium, Denmark etc.
The value of her land holding. £17,600,000,000,000 (approx).
This makes her the richest individual on earth. However, there is no way easily to value her real estate. There is no current market in the land of entire countries. At a rough estimate of $5,000 an acre, and based on the sale of Alaska to the USA by the Tsar, and of Louisiana to the USA by France, the Queen’s land holding is worth a notional $33,000,000,000,000 (Thirty three trillion dollars or about £17,600,000,000,000).
Her holding is based on the laws of the countries she owns and her land title is valid in all the countries she owns. Her main holdings are Canada, the 2nd largest country on earth, with 2,467 million acres, Australia, the 7th largest country on earth with 1,900 million acres, the Papua New Guinea with 114 million acres, New Zealand with 66 million acres and the UK with 60 million acres.
She is the world’s largest landowner by a significant margin. The next largest landowner is the Russian state, with an overall ownership of 4,219 million acres, and a direct ownership comparable with the Queen’s land holding of 2,447 million acres.
The 3rd largest landowner is the Chinese state, which claims all of Chinese land, about 2,365 million acres. The 4th largest landowner on earth is the Federal Government of the United States, which owns about one third of the land of the USA, 760 million acres. The fifth largest landowner on earth is the King of Saudi Arabia with 553 million acres
Largest five personal landowners on Earh
Queen Elizabeth II 6,600 million acres
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia 553 million acres
King Bhumibol of Thailand 126 million acres
King Mohammed IV of Morocco 113 million acres
Sultan Quaboos of Oman 76 million acres
Speaking of property ownership and being allowed to be the sole beneficiary of your endeavors.
How was it again that IBM invented the PC.
But then dozens of other entities were allowed to make all the money on this invention by reverse engineering IBM’s work. (or maybe just being handed things)
How come PC compatible manufacturers were allowed to undercut IBM’s attempts to profit from their own hardwork. And what about Xerox who both Apple and IBM copied from? Where is there profit in any of this.
It’s pretty easy to pay your workers far less. And to just copy things made somewhere else. Your costs are lower because you weren’t foolish enough to spend time being an entrepreneur and creating something new.
Entrepreneurs are passe. Now its all about thugs and copying the work of others and giving them no credit. And not even a penny of your profits that wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the entrepreneurs.
Linux is great and all. But what about its true creators. The UNIX guys. Wikipedia is great and all. But what about all the underlying source documents that it is made up of. Many things that were once profitable, like writing operating systems, and encyclopedic writing, are extinct.
Markets are desolated and no longer exist.
Because something like Linux or wikipedia just steals whatever you create, rewrites it, and posts it for free. Why should anyone pay you, the original creator?
Just like the internet, linux, wikipedia, this new type of theft just happens because, no one can stop them. Maybe that’s because the statists like it that way.
If you take the handcuffs and kids gloves off of producers. You can be damn sure they’ll either get some payment. Or make those who unjustly profit from their work pay a high price.
The world in general benefits in the short term from the destruction of creator’s rights. Lots more people own PCs than would otherwise if IBM were still able to charge their rightful price for their product. Everyone gets knowledge and operating systems for free now.
There some real problems with this kind of insipid “Freeganism” that underly all this New Economics. Where it’s not enough to invent something and bring it to production. There is no rule of law from govt. Or even the old criminals code and honor among thieves.
Everyone is indeed wealthier. But property creators no longer have a way to ascend to the same level of power and wealth of government and their crony capitalist collaborators.
You also need an army to go forth and fight everyone in the world tooth and nail so that you manage to make some measure of profit off all your hard work.
This goes right here I think:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth.
This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” – C.S. Lewis
I love ya like a brother Helot. But I think you’re lacking discernment about important realities of libertarian websites.
As are we all in some matters. I don’t think you understand the difference between Thomas Paine, LewRockwell.com, and EPautos.com.
Unlike writing by authors long since dead. Eric is still alive and needs a constant influx of scarce resources to thrive in this world.
Unlike Eric, Lewrockwell is an institution with a healthy revenue stream coming in every year:
[Ludwig von Mises Institute Annual Revenue: $5,704,596]
It seems you expect Eric to be just like dead guys and institutions. Dead guys who never complain. Institutions happy to give things away for free. Profligate Free Shit Spewers with Annual budget/revenue streams like these institutions.
Cato Institute: $29,000,000
National Endowment for the Arts: $155,000,000
National Endowment for the Humanities: $167,500,000
National Science Foundation: $6,870,000,000
Environmental Protection Agency: $10,020,000,000
National Institutes of Health: $31,200,000,000
It boggles my mind, that after all you’ve read and grokked, this is the entirety of what you believe:
“an ‘opt In’ check box somewhere along the line, seems kind of simple and more importantly, considerate, kind of like moving aside when blocking traffic or at the grocery store checkout line?”
So Eric doing even more unpaid work is what is being simple and considerate. Eric should work for everyone for free and make sure he isn’t blocking or inconveniencing any of his 80,000 – 100,000 site visitors. Site visitors who nearly all pay absolutely nothing, and have no obligations or requirements at all. I’ve noticed earlier you seem to become frustrated with anyone who’s comments are “a downer.”
And I admit, my earlier comments here were more positive and “fun” than lots of my stuff now. I’d like for that to improve, but I don’t know how to make it so.
To be fair, of course if there really is an easy way to do what you say, then there is no conflict. This is just a tempest in a teabag.
But what if there isn’t, then what? At a minimum, I’d say visitors would be expected to opt out. The burden has to be on the many. Not the single solitary few who is already tasked with nearly everything on this site.
My take on this is, your responses are whim worship. You accept the statist quo premise that website owners provide things for free and websurfers’ only requirement is to conform to prefabricated behavior patterns.
You appear to throw out the window, all you’ve learned about Eric and others like him while visiting this site. And put on the highest pedestal, some abstract concepts you imagine can undergo apotheoisis, without any individuals like Eric making them do so whatsoever.
Don’t your cherished principles at least require some real humans to hold them and live them. How can they be real if they’re just words. Or if they’re only policies of giant non-profit institutions. Where’s the freedom for any of us in that?
As long as lurkers and commenters do what lurkers and commenters are generally expected to do. There is nothing further to discuss. The agora and the market are fixed known quantities. Eric is to be a wage slave and middle class actor only. Should he dare act in any upper class matter that seeks to benefit from his hard fought valuable online property, he risks his reputation. He invites castigation and aspersions.
tl;dr. If any changes or deviations are to be attempted at EPautos, all the non-paying non-customer web traffic must be catered to first. The moochers and their customary entitlements are the highest priority. Ayn Rand was wrong.
The Dead Milkmen: Bitchin’ Camaro
Suicidal Tendencies – Institutionalized
The Dead Kennedys – Holiday in Cambodia
See here, Tor:
http://ericpetersautos.com/2014/10/01/gelded-internet/
dar’s arrogant sounding comment caused me to think about a few of my friends who died in motorcycle crashes while voluntarily wearing a helmet as they rode in a state which has no helmet law. Lots of good a helmet did them. A helmet is not the be-all-to-end-all some people make it out to be. The same can be said of exercise. A person can be in perfect health and still die unexpectedly from something exercise is supposed to prevent.
Also (even-though I know it’s besides the point of the article)I wonder, is there a way to compare injuries and deaths in states which require a helmet vs. states which do not require them? I wonder what some half-way honest statistics would look like.
Anyway, it seems to me that helmet laws for motorcycle riders spawned the laws requiring bicyclist to wear helmets while riding a bicycle. Such ugliness that law is, especially when you have brain surgeons and such in the background saying it’s pointless to wear a helmet while riding a bicycle to avoid head injury. My dead friends might say the same about wearing a helmet while riding a motorcycle,… if they could.
Safety laws such as seatbelt laws, and helmet laws create a ‘Phsy Op” to help perpetuate a myth that government and those ruling from a high perch actually care about the individual, when they really do not, in order to keep the bullshit train rolling.
Example on a grand scale of pretending to care about the saftey of people in order to keep the bullshit train running to their advantage.
Hi Helot,
Indeed.
Brent made a very relevant point about the way such things cascade. The non-riders get a law passed mandating riders wear helmets. This pisses off the riders who (as an example) start to ask – loudly – why fat people should be “allowed” to “impose risks on society” using the same fundamental argument… and so it goes.
Those in government are largely those who know how to manipulate the emotions of others and are willing to do it to their own advantage. The electoral process itself screens for such people. Hence how they gain power and wealth through ‘safety’.
As to bicycle helmets, While I believe that safety laws chain together, bicycle helmets doesn’t appear related to motorcycle helmets. Probably more related to child car seats. Bicycle helmet zealots may cite motorcycle helmets, but they are a religion. The average bicycle helmet zealot, member of the church of the foam hat, is just like a religious missionary, trying to save the souls of those of us who don’t wear them. They attribute magical properties to the foam hat. Most of what I’ve commented on the subject is to dispel the notion of these magical properties.
Simply put, the level of protection it gives when bicycling against the the possible threats, the actual risks and protection it offers, means I could justify wearing the foam hat 24hrs a day. One could slip climbing stairs, one could fall in the shower, one could fall out of bed… but we are supposed to imagine this thing protecting us when we are hit by a truck. It offers some basic protection for falling. That’s it. If one feels they are more prone to falling from a bicycle than in the bathroom, ok. But I’ve fallen slipping on ice in the winter more than I have from a bicycle. Should I not go out from November to March not wearing one of these things? The church of the foam hat thinks the damn thing will prevent head injury if I get hit by a Crown Vic, but it’s just rated for falling.
F it. Why not build an email list of everyone here and sell it to buysellads or whomever? I would expect there aren’t too many here who are squeamish about a little bit of the ol’ capitalism.
It seems like the least everyone could do, is unanimously agree that Eric can create and sell an email list of everyone who posts here.
Buy Sell Ads discussion
CPM; CPC; and CPA web ads discussion
If I’m wrong and there are some who wouldn’t want Eric to make a living selling their email address? Please chime in. Tell us who you are and why you object if you don’t mind.
Are you afraid of being caught using a radar detector, which you bought after being wooed by silver tongued email salesmen?
Are you ashamed of having to explain why your penis is so damned big, because you ordered the supplements recommended by buysellads’ male enhancement sales force?
Tor, I would object for two reasons.
1. He said he wouldn’t do that.
2. It may very well be in vain, but I do my best to stay out of as many product and people tracking services and databases as I can. I constantly turn down offers in stores to save a few bucks or in order to get something for ‘free’ if i just sign up and give them all kinds of personal info. And no, I don’t use a ‘Super Saver’ card either. ‘Just take the cash, beoitch.”
I despise all forms of unauthorized tracking, they seem to me to be not too different from the NSA and the TSA groping bastards. I refuse to encourage them.
IF he wanted to do so, it should be an, ‘Opt In’ kind of deal, imho.
Interesting. Thanks Helot. Obviously, this is only me saying it, not Eric.
So for you, there is no way for Eric to go forward and make a few dollars. In your eyes, he has to do this onerous step that I imagine would make using the info necessarily collected by this site completely worthless.
In my mind, this isn’t some general principle under consideration. This is a matter of keeping freedom alive. There really is no capitalistic spirit left in this country, I think. I’m sure it seems weird to even consider selling anything or busking for dollars, since no American thinks in those terms anymore.
Small fish are being crowded out. I know Larken Rose had car trouble driving to AZ to give a talk. He had to scramble to afford repairs. He had helped JosietheOutlaw.com set up her site, but probably no longer can. Her site’s been down for a long time. It comes up as “account suspended” when accessed with Tor Browser. (Normal browsers just memory hole the site like it was never there). Neither of them have made videos for a while now.
You’re not using your real name. So I’ll assume the problem for you is you’ve given some kind of paid email address, not some throwaway free email.
Or you actually put your principled stance against spam higher than the principle of paying for a site.
I think you’re one that pays to be here, and then I can see that as being sufficient to not have your email sold. And I understand you might not want to disclose that you’re a contributor, or assumed I already knew.
I’m guessing it will be Just as Carlin foretold:
America has a:
Ruling Class
Middle Class
Poor People
Eric is in the middle class. Does all the work. Pays all the taxes.
Almost everyone on the internet is poor people. Their role is to scare and goad the middle class to keep working.
Ruling class owns and controls the you IP, the internet itself, google, social media, email providers, and the like. They make a few bucks. Gain some more control over everyone else. Obtain all kinds of incriminating info on everyone else.
full Carlin quote
“Now, to balance the scale, I’d like to talk about some things that bring us together, things that point out our similarities instead of our differences. ‘Cause that’s all you ever hear about in this country. It’s our differences. That’s all the media and the politicians are ever talking about–the things that separate us, things that make us different from one another. That’s the way the ruling class operates in any society. They try to divide the rest of the people. They keep the lower and the middle classes fighting with each other so that they, the rich, can run off with all the fucking money! Fairly simple thing. Happens to work. You know? Anything different–that’s what they’re gonna talk about–race, religion, ethnic and national background, jobs, income, education, social status, sexuality, anything they can do to keep us fighting with each other, so that they can keep going to the bank!
You know how I define the economic and social classes in this country? The upper class keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class pays all of the taxes, does all of the work. The poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle class. Keep ’em showing up at those jobs.”
I’m gonna post something about this….
Please do include good definitions of “the rich” and “middle class”.
Also, worth it to look at the tax code and see how the truly wealthy (I.E. Blue Bloods) screw us using the very laws that tax “the rich”….
E.G., Capital Gains taxes vs W-2 vs 1099 filings.
Earning >$72,000 in wages means you’re “Wealthy” (Double check the number – meant to be top tax bracket for W-2, single, filing alone as HoH.)
Poverty level is, IIRC, $36,000 or so a year, now.
Average income was $50K or so, nationwide.
Amazing how fast you get to that top tax bracket, right?
But if you have capital gains? That’s not taxed at 40+%*, but at 25%.
*:Federal – State and local get their bite of the apple, too, and that’s before the sales tax, or prepared food taxes, or whatever other fees – like FCC fees – they can screw you for.
I don’t understand what would be so onerous about creating an ‘opt In’ check box somewhere along the line, seems kind of simple and more importantly, considerate, kind of like moving aside when blocking traffic or at the grocery store checkout line? I also do not understand how that would make the info worthless? It seems like it would be even More valuable, especially because if they were willingly given they would likely all be real email addresses.
As to real names, for what it’s worth, I’ll paste this:
Sons of Liberty:
“Secret societies formed to protest new taxes passed by Parliament. Led the Boston Tea Party and threatened tax collectors.”
“Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania is a series of essays written by the Pennsylvania lawyer and legislator John Dickinson (1732–1808) and published under the name “A Farmer” from 1767 to 1768. The twelve letters were widely read and reprinted throughout the thirteen colonies and were important in uniting the colonists against the Townshend Acts.”
Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania
helot, time is money and sometimes it’s worth it to give somebody something to save your own time. I’m reminded of living away from home and the job superintendent and I have put in one hellacious day. We go to the grocery store for beer and grub. An elderly man is trying to buy a Coke with a particular name on the bottle(shameless selling point but WTF ever they want to do eh?) and a munchie or two. He was having card trouble. We were hot, thirsty, tired and plain desperate for that cold beer on the counter. I don’t know what our bill was but my 6 pack was $10 just by itself and I think he had a case of beer and we had groceries. My coworker just pushed everything up to this guy’s Coke and told the cashier to ring it all together. She did, the guy left happy with his Coke and we were gone in a flash. We’d have bought him a six pack if that’s what he’d had there. We were all relieved for the price of a coke and some munchies.
I’m not sure how this relates although it seemed relevant when I started. I guess it’s like that auto-delete on spam. I don’t ever had to see it but then again, every now and then spam filters begin tossing stuff I want in that folder. I have no problem with spam.
Primarily because there’s only so long an advertiser will keep advertising when he gets low returns…
Face it, how many auto & bike parts, survival courses, weapons & ammo, can one buy? 😉
OTOH, selling our names to Victoria’s Secret and Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogues… or MODELS, even better! That I could get onborard with… 😀
Got to dream… 😉
Yes libertarians will always dream. Perhaps we will build elaborate rube goldberg traps for our police state oppressors. Or execute grand battle plans and cull the statists when the SHTF.
But advocating realtime small gestures of valuing freedom one can actually perform right now. Such as consenting to receiving a few soliciting emails to help pay the way. Or mailing $12 cash once a year thru the US Mail?
This is the heresy of some extremist madman. How dare they.
the black hole
los boxtrolls
Well said Eric. And well written.
There is some small part of me that does smirk behind my balaclava at cops and fat bureaucrats when I ride.
I mean, they mandated the helmet … and the balaclava just kind of goes along with it, right? I’m actually mandated by law to move around in public wearing the perfect disguise, invisible to facial recognition, anonymous and armored, wearing clothing that is bulky enough to conceal, well, just about anything I want.
It’s kind of fun to use ATM’s and pump gas with full facial covering and helmet on. At times I’ve done it right next to people I know … and I’m invisible to them.
Now, imagine combining the state’s mandatory anonymity with a plate flipper … You’re GONE! http://www.flipaplate.eu/
I enjoy that, too!
The plate flipper thing is the boss, by the way!
For bikers, I used to get this “stuff”, Army surplus no less, and it was the nads. it was a dry lubricant and sprayed on something would render it just gray looking. My license plate always needed some lube. If anyone can still find this, please post and let me know. Not only is it great lube for endgates and whatnot but it’s a great thing for illegible anything.
I sometimes wonder if the obsession with helmets by our rulers and their enforcers is due to the fact the most of them were forced by their parents as kids to wear them at all times to prevent them from potentially fatally injuring themselves. “Our” current VP strikes me as one who probably didn’t wear his as often as he should have and was lucky to have avoided a FATAL head injury, althought not permanent brain damage.
It’s too recent, Lib.
As recently as the mid-1980s, it was common to see adults riding motorcycles without helmets – and kids riding bicycles without helmets. Watch some movies from that era (e.g., Top Gun, ET). Its startling.
What is TRULY horrifying about some of those 80s films are the things we MISSED.
Like the surveillance van in E.T.
There were subtexts in “The Dark Crystal,” “Top Gun,” “Ghostbusters,” “Blues Brothers,” “Labyrinth,” …. damn near everything was tainted.
But that surveillance van in E.T. shocked me when I saw it, about two weeks back, by accident. Broadband, omni-directional, eavesdropping in everyone’s home, just by driving by.
You see an equivalent in Black in “V for Vendetta”… Something VERY different happened in thjose “good times” that we didn’t recognize – probably too young.
Go back and view your favorites with your adult (jaded) eyes.
Makes me wonder about “predictive programming.” You don’t need to fool all the people, all the time. You can fool most of the people some of the time, and those are the ones you want to focus on…. (GWB.)
wait a minute…. “The Blues Brothers” mocked the state at every turn. Sure, it showed ‘SCMODS’, it showed the CPD command center, it showed SWAT teams, but in each instance they were mocked. They were something to laugh at, to ridicule. There was nothing predictive about these things being in the film either, they all were in existence already. If we as a people got the message from the Blues Brothers we would have ridiculed those in government who wanted this crap.
Also in E.T. they were the bad guys. Bad guys did those things. The message from E.T. was again against the state.
Now you want conditioning and predictive programming…. The 1980s GI Joe cartoon is what you want… elite US military fighting an international terrorist organization…. now the best example is probably G.I. JOE Episode 31, “Money to Burn”. GI Joe fights COBRA’s gold currency to replace the fiat dollar. Why the hell does a mainstream children’s cartoon deal with terrorists, monetary policy, and gold?
forgot the youtube clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeGTV6fvgaM
“Blues Brothers” did some mockery; I’ll need to go watch it again.
To be honest, I was just on a roll and tossed otu what titles I could recall.
Spot-on about GIJoe, though…. Transformers probably had some of that, too. (Decepticons were cool, but power-hungry, venal a-holes; Autobots were deep, complex characters, aka pussies, in general, pondering the problems of their actions until almost NOTHING got done except by accident…. Except for the idiot dinobots, and Hot Rod – who then turned into Rodimus Prime, and was even weaker emotionally/psychologically than Optimus… )
I do have to go looking up the GIJoe episode you mention; I don’t think I ever saw it. Might it have been Cobra making “fake” gold through alchemy or something? (Nevermind, Google will have that answer! 😉 )
Which would be the clip you tagged, right?
Terrorists, because it sets the “conflict” angle of the adventure. (Note no one ever dies…)
The rest is basically “filler” to create a story.
As to why terrorism? Terrorists were big back then… (Which begs the question, why ain’t they ALL dead in nuclear haze?)
Also a good way to make “safe” citizens.
Kids didn’t notice monetary policy, of course; but it goes to “safe” citizens again (proles).
Gold is shiny, ’nuff said…. 😉
Also one of the early-adopters of the “girls kick @$$” meme, you notice. Lady J, Baroness, Scarlet, Zarana, Moira (Cobra experiment, Shipwreck’s love interest), three or four of the original Joes I don’t recall any more – and the anonymous greenshirts, too, drivers of various vehicles… But never any girls in Cobra, other than Baroness (Zarana was a dreadnock, a merc.) Moria was the only one they ever showed, until Cobra-La in the movie.
Yes, I wasted WAY too much time in my youth, but there’s a LONG story there, and this is neither time nor place.
In E.T., they were THE GOVERNMENT, who weren’t REALLY bad guys, they just wanted to UNDERSTAND E.T….
/vomit
It wasn’t anti-State, they were just antagonists in the story.
If it was anti-State, then the residents wouldn’t have tolerated a government intrusion into their suburbs the way they did… the entire neighborhood WATCHED as a bubble went up…
😛
Alice had it right:
You can steal my car
And drive it into the lake
You can stick me in the oven
And put it on bake
You could throw a big brick
Through my window pane
But if I ever hear you ask me
How I got my name..
“It’s the little things” – Alice Cooper.
All the little things snuck in under our noses to lay the groundwork of conflicted, estranged, damaged young males and females… Not “men” and “women”, really, so much as adult-bodied, addled-brains, with countless conflicting ideas in the same brain, limited ability to relate, inability to think or relate above the emotional FUUHTBALL / etc. (including the women!)
They are unable to pay their bills, unable to debate substance of a political position, unable to use Logic (And I’m too close on that one, myself)…. What does the [body part] want? Belly –> cupcakes, say…. T&A want tight skirt or “cute” dress (to advertise) she has NO IDEA why it’s “cute,” only that she wants it. Who cares that rent is due tomorrow and she’s maxed out her cards, it’s PERFECT…. [mirror for men with car, gun, motorcycle, TV, video game, other toy.] Tomorrow will bring its own money… (WTF are they talking about? No planning for a rainy day? So few have anything put away for tomorrow! All depending on Daddy Gunvermint to take care of them in their “old” age… )
“Flight of the Navigator” would be closer to “government as bad” meme…. But for an anti-establishment piece, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? Bueller used his brain to outwit everyone else… But (as evidenced with the car, “run it in reverse and take the mileage off the odomoeter”), he wasn’t that smart…. Military worship in Red Dawn…?
Maybe I’m just too jaded.
Um… the government were the bad guys in ET. It was they who were doing the spying… I thought the context was clear. Did you watch the same movie as I did? I saw ET as a child, the government people were the bad guys.
The gov’t was the “Bad guys” for conflict, but they weren’t “BAD” Guys…. 🙂
But do recall that Gerry Ford was an All-American Fuuutbaaal player back in the days of leather helmets for that sport.
Gerry’s legacy is not JUST the pardon of Nixon. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were both on his staff.
And don’t forget that Gerry was a member of the Whitewash…I mean Warren…Commission. I doubt that it was his sheer good fortune that he was VP at the time Nixon resigned.
Not to mention that he ‘chose’ Nelson Rockefeller as his VP.
If not for organizations like ABATE (That used to be called a Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments, before they went soft and squishy) there would not be a place in AmeriKa where you could ride a motorcycle without a full face space helmet, body armor, festooned in hi-vis reflective tape, rotating lights mounted on said helmet and a back up alarm stuffed up one’s ass.
Point is, you can push back against some of this if you can get a least a few people together to do so.
Eric,
Fair points made in article.
I do have one math correction —
Even though 15million is a large number of people, 35% of 316 million is 110.6 million. (An even larger number f people.)
September 9th 2014 CDC Citation of JAMA Obese Stats
More than one-third (34.9% or 78.6 million) of U.S. adults are obese.
abstract Journal of American Medicine (JAMA)
CDC and JAMA are government false science.
Real science leads to production and technological improvements. It seeks to attain mastery of the world to increase human understanding and technological capability.
Government science’s only goal is to increase control and to politically justify the Amerikaner Police State War Machine
No doubt there are a lot of obese people out there but I am quite sure the statistics are skewed because of the BMI ‘one size fits all’ method of determining a “healthy weight”.
When I was in my 20’s and 30’s I was 196 pounds (am closer to 215 now) at 73″ tall and 11% bodyfat, which is overweight according to the Body Mass Index. Everyone I knew accused me of being too skinny. One problem with the BMI approach is that muscle weighs more than fat.
False science indeed.
IMO the biggest problem with obesity is the government mandated food pyramid guidelines. If you want to get fat (and diabetic with heart disease), eat like that…
Copy that DBB. Are Aahnold and Sly Stallone obese? Maybe in the head, but not the bod.
Agreed, DB –
Though, of course, the point I was trying to make is that if the principle (that anything you choose to do which entails greater risk justifies forcible restraint/control/punishment in the name of reducing said risk) is to be applied fairly, then overweight people should not be “allowed” to waddle around, bag of chips in hand, without restriction or punishment for so doing.
It’s all sick.
A busybody mindset that was once foreign to this soil but which has become its defining characteristic.
OatsKeeper Keyboard Kop
I dropped a note to that Josie the Outlaw chick; hand’t heard of her before. She’s a pistol!
I agree on your main point, the way things are headed we’re all going to be required to cover up in 18″ of bubble wrap, wear steel toed shoes, safety glasses, helmet, and high visibility vest just to walk to the mailbox.
Any expectation that rules from on high will be applied fairly is just wishful thinking. Welcome to hell.
I think this is what Sartre meant by, “hell is other people.”
Off topic, but I am somehow reminded of an old favorite Far Side cartoon – top panel “Welcome to heaven, here’s your harp” – bottom “Welcome to hell, here’s your accordian.”
Thanks, Mith!
Eric, I think you missed every women’s magazine monthly diet articles at the store check out, huge pharmaceutical, electric wheel chairs at all major stores, GMO corn sugar food makers and many more corporate profits to be made on fat people. Very little corporate profits in allowing helmet-less motorcyclists.
well…it took me four tries to hit the correct letter on the k/board for three out of ten words [that’s a good day for me]…If the helmet requirement hadn’t come into force in the ’70’s in Ontario, i’d just be drooling on it …That is one law i owe my life to…4 decades after a dozen or so motorbike mishaps: on the track…being t-boned by a cab running a red light & a year later by a drunk driver [or vv], etc…all of which would have been a ticket to a long term care facility,loony bin or six feet under…Prof Eric, you have a very big&beautiful brain, but your skull is a mere eggshell…why not visit &talk to docs or nurses about motorcycle sustained head injuries…You really know not whereof you speak…
Eric has never claimed that wearing a helmet is not a good idea, or vice versa. He’s just saying that it’s none of the Nanny State’s business.
Your utility and personal prefs do not make forcing other to wear it right.
I wear a seatbelt, but I disagree with mandatory belt laws.
Hi Dar,
The issue isn’t whether helmets offer a protective advantage. They do. Just as doing lots and lots of sit-ups will strengthen your core, which will reduce back problems.
But should you be forced to do sit-ups? Eat Broccoli?
No?
Then why should I be forced to wear a helmet?
If your driving is a privilege, that is you are hauling something commercially for a fee, then the statists can require you to wear a seat belt, helmet, nomex suit, crotchless panties, orclown shoes. I have a right to drive with none of the above. Always remember that driving is a right unless its commercial. The bad guys disagree and fight dirty but we are in the right and we only lose when we quit fighting.
You don’t have to make special exceptions for commercial drivers.
Simply hold shipping companies responsible for failing to properly cert and equip drivers when bad things happen. A few lawsuits will fix these fails.
Even the claim that ‘driving is a privilege’ is true ONLY because we have allowed the gunvermin to have monopoly ownership of the roads. Doesn’t have to/shouldn’t be that way.
First they make some people wear helmets then those forced to wear the helmets say what about the fatties, then they regulate the fatties. Then the fatties find another group, say those that listen to loud music… then the volume on stereos is controlled and the loud music listeners go after the power tool users….
That’s the game. At each step who wins? Those running, working for, and close to government. We accept it here then there then everywhere.
It’s a way of pitting us against each other. Everyone in the business of everyone else. How should John down the street live? He should live like me. But Sally on the other block wants me to live like she does…. everything and anything gets sucked into the political realm and that’s the way the power hungry and utopia builders want it.
Google (or your search of choice) Niemoller quote.
When I was 20 I owned a motorcycle. I took a turn a bit fast, there was sand on the roadway I should have noticed. I skidded and the bike fell over. My head hit the pavement. I was wearing a helmet so I was not injured.
Oddly if the libertarian utopia of privately owned roadways ever came to fruition I would think the private corporations would mandate even more safety measures. Why not, their paying customers are probably going to be commercial vehicles. Freed of having to not offend voters they could rank customers according to profit and then decide the optimal number to have. You want to cruise my highway on your bike? so what. I’ve got articulated busses and tractor trailer trains I have to move at 100mph. Would you ask a railroad if you could operate your bike on their tracks? In addition to those that cannot afford to pay the $1 per mile per vehicle minimum toll, groups of customers not welcome on the private roadways would be those with a high risk of breaking down and those with a high risk of getting into a traffic jam causing accident. Why can’t they just ship their vehicle on one of the convenient car carrier truck trains I provide a very reasonable rates and take the bus?
I invented this little story just to point out that if libertarians change the rules of the game, there is no way to predict how things will end up.
“there is no way to predict how things will end up.”
No, but it’s GOT to be better than the way things are now. And if they don’t work out, they will change again. THAT is market economics.
I think MOST of us would be happy if ONLY trucks were on Road X, and Road Y was for cars and bikes – or even, only for bikes. Road Z can be for Cars only, and Road ESAD for Clovers.
Truckers no longer have to worry about dickless Clovers cutting them off by swinging into the high-speed lane and dicking along at 35 MPH…. Nor about ANY car or bike driver, really – you get to see EVERYONE, they’re all in large vehicles…. All the same, except some might not have trailers just yet.
On the “cars” road? Clover still gets in, but we can run Clover off the road. Happy day!
On the motorcycle road? No clovers! Lots of idiot bikers, though – but the bikers are safer because THERE ARE NO CARS to ignore them and kill them…
Now, these could all run side-by-side, no problem!
And Clover’s special road would be right there, too, until it went underground into a giant grinder….
That’s PURE PROFIT right there. Not just the dollars and cents, either, but the humanitarian action of ridding the world of Clovers. Think of all the resources saved! It’s Obamacare writ large! No death panels, you’ve SELF-SELECTED!!!! YAY!!!
I’m sorry, was that over the top? I can never tell anymore. With the lunatics running the asylum… I fear I’ve become sane! 😉
We all did just fine before government seatbelt and helmit laws.
Your scare attempt is fail.
Hey, just breathing is ‘risky.’ Always has been, but much more so now than when I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s.
All these ‘protect us from ourselves’ type laws are symptoms of the Messianic character of humanistic gunvermint.