Are You Really "Red Pilled?"

A lot of people, especially conservatives, are using the red pill/blue pill plot device of the 1999 movie The Matrix as a metaphor for political awakening in today's world. In this movie, Keanu Reeves' character, Neo, is confronted by a mysterious man named Morpheus, played by Lawrence Fishburne. 

Morpheus offers to show Neo the "truth" that we are all living our lives in a computer-based simulation called The Matrix.  He says that , "It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."  He further explains that the truth is, "That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind."

Morpheus then offers Neo two pills...a red pill and a blue pill.  "You take the blue pill, the story ends; you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe."  But if, "You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

Of course, Neo takes the red pill, or we wouldn't have had much of a movie.  His eyes are opened to the truth.  He can finally see what the world really is.

The metaphor is typically used to talk about how people on the Left have had their eyes opened to the fact that they have been lied to all these years about the Democratic Party's true motivations.  That the Democrats have been using race relations not to make lives better for minorities, but have actually fomented racial tension to accrue power for themselves.  That they really don't care about "the working man."  That, in general, everything that comes out of their mouth, and much of what comes out of the propaganda mainstream media, are lies.  And these people have believed it all these years.  It's like they took the red pill one day and woke up from a dream to see the truth.

As it goes, it is a pretty good metaphor.  We certainly are being lied to all the time.  In recent years, it has become blatant, though the masses still can't see it.  But even in the past it was true.  As Winston Churchill tells us, "History is written by the victors."   He went on to say that, "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."  Then he did.  It is much like the concept from Orwell's novel 1984...history is what the state, or accepted dogma of whatever flavor, tells you it is.  And, for most of us, we are fed that approved truth in state-controlled schools that preach...er, ah...teach the party line.  It is no wonder most people cannot see the "real truth."  But you can't blame the schools, they are just purpose-built programs that perform the function for which they were created.

The problem with the metaphor, as currently used, is that it does not go far enough.  Those who consider themselves "red pilled," many times are only seeing part of the truth.  They #WalkAway from the Democrats, but walk toward the Republicans.  What they fail to see is that the Republicans are also just a part of the Matrix.  You see, even the supposed good program in the story, the program called the Oracle, was part of the Matrix.  While the Oracle was better than the program Smith, "she" never meant to help Neo destroy the Matrix, but just to reboot it...so that it would continue.

Don't get me wrong, I believe the Republican party is better than the Democratic party...but only marginally.  Both still exist to perpetuate the Matrix...their power structure.  I believe that in reality, while there are some "true believers" within the parties, for the most part, they only exist to provide a contrast.  This contrast is "the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."  It makes you think you have choice...that you have power.  The parties also keep us divided.  They give us things to hate about the others.  As long as we hate "them" and believe "our guys" are on our side, we pose no threat to the order of things.

So let's look at this a little closer.  The Republicans purport to be for small government.  But in fact, every year, for more than the past 100 years, the Matrix has grown, spending has gone up, more control has been exerted...regardless of which party has "control."  Oh yes, there have been insignificant tax cuts that seemed positive...for a time.  But in fact, they were just mortgaging your future by increasing spending with borrowed money, or by devaluing your money by printing more currency.  

When the Republicans have had power...when they could have taken steps toward real change...what did they do?  Nothing.  They continued to perpetuate the Matrix. Oh, they made noise about how they were going to do something...yep, we're getting ready to, they assured us.  But then just excuses about how they, in the end, couldn't really do what they promised...you know, because of those other guys...or because of the children...or because of our allies...or etc..

Let me show you some more truth about the parties.  What have we been taught about our system of government?  Well one thing is that the so-called "Two-Party System" is sacrosanct...handed down by the founders from Mount Rushmore, or something.  Why, it is the very bedrock of our democracy!  But why?  A reading of the history of the founding of our country shows no such system was codified in either our founding documents or the ratifying debates.  In fact, when parties began to form, many saw it as a dangerous thing for the republic...and I agree.  But since then, they have ingrained this system in our culture...in our psyches.  We are warned not to vote for any of those crazy third-party weirdos.  Why you'll just be wasting your vote!  Those other guys, the ones you REALLY dislike will win if you don't vote for "our guys."  They have rigged the system so that only the Republicans and Democrats can really succeed by the way the voting system is set up.  There are guaranteed slots for the two "respectable" parties, after-all.  But why?  Why does it have to be two?  Why do we have to give these parties so much power over us?  Matrix.

I haven't even touched on the Military-Industrial Complex that President Eisenhower warned us about...or the massive surveillance state...or the constant move toward global hegemony...the increasing social experimentation.  And so much more.

What if I told you that you can never really be red-pilled unless you see the whole the truth.  Unless you see that the system, the entire Matrix, is set up to perpetuate itself.  And, an "R" after someone's name does not change this fact.  But you have to be willing to see it...to take the real red pill.  Only then can actual change be considered

"Remember, all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more." ~ Morpheus

Immorality and our Politicians

In responding to a thread about, what ended up being a discussion of whether we can say we care about immorality if we support Trump, with his past and continuing indiscretions, I provided the following feedback that I wanted to share here:

I think the problem is much larger than who is president, or which immorality we are willing to tolerate. The problem is more fundamental. If the office of president was fulfilling its constitutional role...and only what is proscribed in the constitution, much of this would be of no consequence. From the very beginning of the country, and all the way through until today, the office has been filled with flawed men...and many profoundly flawed. Petty, immoral and corrupt men. But, we have elevated this office, in practice and in culture, to a much higher level than it should ever have been. We were never to have a replacement for a king. The fact that we build monuments and carve the sides of mountains as tribute to these men is the problem.

It seems to be a condition of mankind...we want to be ruled over rather than free. Even Israel demanded of Samuel that he appoint a king. This was NOT God's desire for them, but he allowed them to have it.

1 Samuel 8: 6-20:   But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord.  And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.  As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you.  Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.” 

Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king.  He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots.  Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.  He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.  He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants.  He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use.  He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.  When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.” 

 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us.  Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.” 

 Government is NOT the answer. It ruins everything it touches. The only hope is to reduce it as much as possible...keep it at bay for as long as we can. And, unfortunately, that always seems to to leave us to a choice between the lesser of two evils.

An Open Letter to Gun Grabbers

Dear Democrats, Progressives, Socialists, and Gun Grabbers of all flavors:

I'd like to know, what about “the RIGHT of THE PEOPLE...SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED “ in the 2nd Amendment you are missing.

Look, nobody wants the kind of shooting we just had in Parkland, FL...NOBODY...not even the hated NRA. If you think, however, that more gun laws will help avoid future Parkland-like incidents, think about Chicago. They have the most restrictive gun laws in the country and on any given weekend there can be as many shot and murdered as there were in Parkland...month after month.  This is a cultural problem that will not be solved by gun bans.  Your proscriptions will only infringe the rights of law abiding citizens and provide no real solutions.

The 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution does not confer the right to keep and bear arms...it acknowledges this preexisting right and denies the central government the ability to infringe upon it.  The amendment is not meant for hunters or sportsmen...this would have been an absolute ludicrous concept for the signers.  Just about everyone at the time of it's adoption either hunted or relied on hunting for some of their food source.  It is not even about individual right to defend oneself, though this is also a foregone assumption and a preexisting right.  Rather, the 2nd Amendment, the very next statement in the Bill of Rights after the freedom speech and religion, was meant to allow The People (corporate) to defend themselves..."a well regulated militia."  And, by the way, for a militia, an AR-15 is exactly the kind of weapon you would want. Who do you think was on the minds of the ratifiers of this amendment?  Well, the tyrannical central government they had just spent their blood and sacred  honor to free themselves of.

The 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution does not confer the right to keep and bear arms...it acknowledges this preexisting right and denies the central government the ability to infringe upon it.

I know most of you don't want to be bothered with facts and statistics. I know for many of you, how you feel about it is all the proof you need. I also know that for some of you...those behind the scenes...those who have transformed our culture over the last 50+ years so that we have no respect for life, so many of our teens are on anti-depressants, so there is nothing (except guns, being a Christian or a white male) that is taboo...I know that for you, this is about disarming the sheeple. You are the enemy that we need militias to guard against. You are the “enemies, foreign and domestic” that our officials...and our military men and women...swear to protect us from.

I hear you saying, “Oh, that's just a lot of paranoid fantasy brought on from watching too many movies.” But I say, the whole history of the world proves you wrong. Large, centralized states move toward control and tyranny more often than not. But, in your magnanimity, you say, “Okay, even if that were true,”patting me on the head, “what do you think a bunch of rednecks with guns can do against the might of a modern military power? You would have no chance anyway, so give up your guns...for the children.” To which I would have to point you to the cave-dwelling Afghani civilians who thwarted the two most powerful empires of modern times, the USSR and the USA.

The United States of America was founded on the Rule of Law, and the bedrock of Federal Law is the Constitution.  This document is a list of limited and specific powers given to the central government, and to make sure this was understood, we have the 10th Amendment:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

 You see, it doesn't matter how you feel about guns.  The RIGHT to keep and bear arms is a preexisting right that has been acknowledged and codified in the bedrock Law of the Land.  You don't get to change it through social media, through protests, through crying on TV.  We all want to avoid another Parkland.  But let's look for real solutions.  I know, I know...that's too hard.  Blaming the guns is just easy, and convenient.  But if you really care, like you say you do, let's ask the important questions, like:  Why are all the mass shooters on psychiatric drugs?  Why are so many gun deaths involved with the prohibition of recreational drugs?  Why has our culture become so narcissistic that we would rather discard life than be inconvenienced?    The answer to these questions, and many more about our culture, will go much farther toward protecting our children than taking guns from law abiding citizens.

And, one more thing...If the government can deny my long-held right to arms, it can deny your right to free speech, or assembly, or the right to be protected from unlawful searches.  If they are allowed to do it to me...they can do it to you.  The Left used to understand this.

 “They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

“But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” ~  John Adams, 

THE Energy Solution - Thorium

Thorium as an energy source seems to be the correct answer to everyone's energy requirements.  It provides clean, abundant energy without any CO2 production.  It is a steady source of power unlike solar and wind.  It is a byproduct of other, desirable activity.  Thorium energy production should appeal to the most ardent environmentalist as well as the staunchest capitalist.  It is a boon for consumers, the poor and the rich alike.  This seems to be a win-win-win-win solution...unless you are invested in other power technologies or the military-industrial complex.

I'm not a physicist, and I don't play one on TV, but I have known about the benefits of Thoruim-based power plants for a few years now through research I've done on-line.  This obviously does not make me an expert, but I have attempted to pull together some resources for your own research.

Here are some highlights of the issues:

Thorium is a chemical element with symbol Th and atomic number 90. A radioactiveactinide metal, thorium is one of only two significantly radioactive elements that still occur naturally in large quantities as a primordial element (the other being uranium).

• Thorium is very abundant, "In every cubic meter of soil, you have one gram of thorium." Salim Zwein.  
• Thorium is four times more abundant than uranium.
• Thorium is hundreds of times more energy dense than uranium.
• Thorium is six million times more energy dense than coal.

Thorium is extremely safe.  "You can walk around with it in your pocket."

"There are so many things in our economy, that we deal with every day, that are measurably a hundred, a thousand, even a million times more dangerous." ~ John Kutch.

Thorium reactors are known as "walk-away" safe.  This means that if, in the event of a failure of the reactor system, a natural disaster such as what happened in Fukushima Japan with the tsunami,or for any other reason, the reactor can just shut down and everyone can walk away safely, without fear of fallout.

"It can't blow up.  It's not under pressure.  It burns 99% of it's fuel.  It can reduce existing nuclear waste. Normal operation range is between seven and eight hundred C.  This is where you can create miracles." ~ Jim Kennedy

"Wait," I can hear you saying,  "This can't be true.  If this thorium thing was this good," you say,  "we would certainly be using it.  Right?"  Well, as with many other potentially good things in this world, our government bureaucrats, crony-capitalists, and ne'er-do-wells of all sorts have, conspired, bungled, and botched their way into setting aside this technology and burying it for fifty years.

Is this science fiction, fantasy, unproven theory?  None of the above.

"We want people to know this is real, and that our government has done this...They ran it for 22,000 hours.  That's five years." ~ Jim Kennedy.

  In fact, a liquid fluoride thorium reactor was built in 1964 and became operational between '65 to '69 at the Oakridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. The director of the laboratory, Alvin Weinberg, was fired for his advocacy of this safer alternative to the type of light-water reactors that he had designed and patented.  Why would they do this?  You see, thorium reactors do not produce plutonium as a byproduct, and as Jim Kennedy explains, "The government wanted reactors that would create both energy and materials for weapon production."  Kennedy further explains that:

"The Department of Energy...60% of their budget is dedicated to creating, maintaining, and doing research on nuclear weapons.  They're not trying to figure out how to get oil from sands.  That's not their primary business."

 So, the Military-Industrial Complex that President Eisenhower warned us about in his 1961 farewell speech, rears it's ugly head once more.  Why would we ever allow these people to be in charge of our domestic energy policies...and in-turn have such a huge influence on our economy?

Another benefit of using thorium would be to reestablish a domestic rare earth mining industry.  In the infinite wisdom of government bureaucracy (oxymoron intended), rare earth production in the United States has been regulated nearly out of existence.  Rare earth materials are a vital ingredients in nearly all high-technology products made today.  But, since thorium is a low-grade radioactive element, and is a byproduct of mining the rare earth deposits, we have allowed China to corner a market that the United States once dominated, and, there by, made ourselves reliant on China for the elements and much of the manufacturing of products like cell phones and other high-tech components.

China has also made the development of thorium power a goal so that they can own the intellectual property (IP) rights  (patents).  This would mean that if we did begin building thorium reactors, we would have to pay licensing fees to China for technology that we developed 50 years ago.

For these reasons, and others, we should demand that our government removes the barriers to the development of this technology.  I have provided links to interesting videos on the subject below.  At least take a look at the first one.  it gives a basic overview.  I have also provided additional links to other resources.









Links:
Thorium Energy Alliance
Energy from Thorium

Thorium fuel cycle — Potential benefits and challenges ( IAEA-TECDOC-1450; pdf)

Battle of World Views

In a February 2015 article in The Times of Israel, blogger Hussein Aboubakr, a Muslim, writes about the truth of the "Moderate Muslim."  He states that, "In my childhood I was told that every day that passes on the Islamic nation without a caliphate is a sin. That the failures and miseries of the Muslim world started the moment we gave up conquests and wars against the infidels. That our prosperity depends on conquering new lands, converting new believers, looting new resources and enslaving more women. I was taught that a Jew is essentially a demon in flesh and that it is our destiny as good Muslims to kill them all. I was regularly fueled by battle stories and stories of lethal feuds of seventh century Arabia. It was not just me, a small child in Cairo, who was raised with these great apocalyptic prophecies, it was also so many people from all around the globe."

The article covers the issue of the so-called "Moderate Muslim" in much more detail.  but his key point is:

"My argument is, we are using the label “moderate” for everyone who is not trying to kill us regardless of that person’s actual views. We are in a very bad situation to the extent that we have confused moderation with self-interest. The majority of the Muslim world may not be moderate, but rather acting in its daily life from a purely self-interested point of view. This is a very good thing. We should encourage all Muslims to act and preserve their self-interests. But we should not lie to them about the nature of their religious ideas."

Facts are facts.  This is a contest between world views. The question is, how do you combat a world view?

The West has continued to meddle, since the 1950s (see The History of Folly), in the affairs of Muslim countries by propping up monster dictators and most recently bombing many innocent civilians, we take what were for many, many years, self-interested, if bigoted, Muslims and radicalize them to fight against us by sacrificing their own lives. Most people in the Middle East personally know people who have been killed by western weapons.

And, the dirty secret is, groups like ISIS, know this. They know that if they pull off a Paris type attack, it is likely that the west will retaliate by massive bombing attacks and other military actions that will kill more innocents and, therefore create more and more recruits for ISIS. It's the exact opposite from what we would think.

The definition of insanity is to continuing doing what you have always done and expect different results. I don't know the whole answer, but what we have been doing isn't working...has never worked in the Middle East. If you're old enough, and have a memory longer than the average American, you can remember the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. There was a lot of discussion then that the USSR was crazy if they thought they could really win in a country of zealots who fight a guerrilla war. That these people had been attacked for centuries and never truly conquered.

Why, then, do we believe we can transform these zealots to western democracy by bombing them back to the stone age? It doesn't work. We need to consider new ideas...we need to consider that the same morons who brought us Obamacare are the same people who run our international policy. Why do we trust them at all?

We need to get a longer view of history...be honest about that history...and as free people, need always to question the motivations and actions of our elected (and non-elected) representatives.

Cult of the State

I was just accused of being a cultist on a social media thread because I stated that I did not believe Jesus advocated the taking of people's money, by threat of force, and giving it to others as a proxy for the individuals taking care of the poor themselves.  Yes.  This is what we have come to.  People truly believing that the nameless, faceless, feckless mass of government bureaucrats are God's instruments on earth and without them, we would certainly all die.   And I am a cultist?

No, the true cultists are those who look to the State for their sustenance, comfort, and security.  Those who believe that without the all-mighty State, all forms of modern life are impossible.  Who excuse the State's misdeeds and criminal activity as necessary for our safety.  These cultists are so blind that they believe that the ever-broadening violations of our God-given and Constitutionally-codified rights actually somehow secure our liberty.  And the funny thing is, these same Statists would certainly look down their noses in disdain or pity at the citizens of countries like North Korea for believing that their leader is a god.

Look, don't many religious cults start with a twisting of the basic tenets of their religion?  Then, they build up individuals and groups of people as divine representatives.  Their leaders or dogma must not be questioned.  There is no thought or debate over these things, only calls of "heretic" for those who dare oppose the divine order.

How are these rabid Statists any different?  They have allowed the basic tenets of our republic, the Constitution and founding documents, to be twisted and tortured in ways that defy logic to accrue more and more power to the deified State.  While they may grumble about certain government representatives or individual agencies, they may never question the over-all necessity for government to sustain our "way of life."  I have yet to see one of these people answer objections with thoughtful, objective apologetics for their view.  You are only met with name calling...kook, racist, idiot, cultist...or changing of the subject. Many times I have prompted them to speak to just one specific point in my argument and tell me how I am wrong...They never do.

Then, to make the deification of the State complete, the true believers co-opt religion to justify their worship and eradicate any last resistance of the sheeple.  They twist sacred scriptures to make you believe that it is unrighteous to question the truth of their dogma.

In particular, Statists use the Bible to attempt to justify the theft by government of more-and-more of your wealth.  They say Jesus advocated taking care of the poor, the sick and the orphans...and indeed he did.  Since they have been so indoctrinated in the Cult of State, though, they can't imagine how this can mean anything other than forced redistribution of wealth.  In his book Biblical Economics, theologian R. C. Sproul, probably a cultist himself, I guess, begs to differ with the Statists:

"I am convinced that political and economic policies involving the forced redistribution of wealth via government intervention are neither right nor safe. Such policies are both unethical and ineffective…. On the surface it would seem that socialists are on God's side. Unfortunately, their programs and their means foster greater poverty even though their hearts remain loyal to eliminating poverty. The tragic fallacy that invades socialist thinking is that there is a necessary, causal connection between the wealth of the wealthy and the poverty of the poor. Socialists assume that one man's wealth is based on another man's poverty; therefore, to stop poverty and help the poor man, we must have socialism."

The evidence is overwhelming that the government is a failure at caring for the poor.  Trillions of dollars spent on the so-called "War on Poverty" and we have millions and millions of people who are  generationally dependent government hand-outs.  I am convinced that it is counter-productive and irresponsible to trust government with caring for the poor.  In his book Rollback, Dr. Thomas E.  Woods points this out about our so-called Welfare system:

"Another way to approach it is to recall that at least two-thirds of the money assigned to government welfare budgets is eaten up by bureaucracy. Taken by itself, this would mean it would take three dollars in taxes for one dollar to reach the poor. But we must add to this the well-founded estimate of James Payne that the combined public and private costs of taxation amount to 65 cents of every dollar taxed. When we include this factor, we find the cost of government delivery of one dollar to the poor to be five dollars."

Is this good stewardship of the wealth with which we have been blessed?  How would the master of the Parable of the Talents view this?  Even the foolish servant only buried the talents.  He did not waste them on some crooked scheme that had a long and continuous history of waste and failure.  Especially in view of the fact that the government has no money.  It continues to amass huge, crushing debts that will be pushed off to future generations not yet born to pay for its wonderful largess to the poor.

In his article Rendering Unto Caesar: Was Jesus a Socialist,  Lawrence W. Reed provides this summary after an exhaustive study of the Bible:

In Jesus's teachings and in many other parts of the New Testament, Christians — indeed, all people — are advised to be of "generous spirit," to care for one's family, to help the poor, to assist widows and orphans, to exhibit kindness and to maintain the highest character. How all that gets translated into the dirty business of coercive, vote-buying, politically driven redistribution schemes is a problem for prevaricators with agendas. It's not a problem for scholars of what the Bible actually says and doesn't say. 

Search your conscience. Consider the evidence. Be mindful of facts. Ask yourself: When it comes to helping the poor, would Jesus prefer that you give your money freely to the Salvation Army or at gunpoint to the welfare department? 

Jesus was no dummy. He was not interested in the public professions of charitableness in which the legalistic and hypocritical Pharisees were fond of engaging. He dismissed their self-serving, cheap talk. He knew it was often insincere, rarely indicative of how they conducted their personal affairs, and always a dead end with plenty of snares and delusions along the way. It would hardly make sense for him to champion the poor by supporting policies that undermine the process of wealth creation necessary to help them. In the final analysis, he would never endorse a scheme that doesn't work and is rooted in envy or theft. In spite of the attempts of many modern-day progressives to make him into a welfare-state redistributionist, Jesus was nothing of the sort.

I am all for helping the truly needy.  I am all for defending the defenseless.  I just don't think Jesus will credit it as righteousness to steal your neighbor's wealth, through government force, to give it to the poor.  And, if we are going to look to the Bible, let's look at the whole of scripture:

" For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat." - 2 Thessalonians 3:10

"Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." 1 Timothy 5:8

They never want to talk about these passages.

Related Links:
The Ten Commandments of the Federal Government
Godless Socialists
The Sin of Redistribution

Consider the Humble Pencil

In 1958, Leonard E. Read published an article titled,
I, Pencil: My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read.  This short story very succinctly describes what Read calls the "miracle of ...millions of tiny know-hows" that go into producing something as simple as a pencil. It has become a classic amongst proponents of free markets.  The actual article can be read here.

What is this miraculous process?  There is the harvesting of the cedar wood used to make the body of the pencil and all of the tools, transportation, housing and food for workers, etc. that are required for this seemingly simple task.  The graphite that is mined in Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka), mixed with clay from Mississippi, acid, tallow and other ingredients to make the "lead" of the pencil, with all of the background tools processes, and requirements. Not to mention the rubber for the eraser, the metal for the ferrule, and the lacquer to paint the wood.

All-in-all, millions of people, all with their own skills and knowledge, their know-hows, are involved in the production of something as mundane as a pencil.  

"I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that's too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple."

How can a pencil represent such an important concept as to be important to our very liberty?  It is in understanding the concept that the process of making something so simple takes so many millions of voluntary interactions between people spread across the world.  That all of these processes could never be planned, let alone controlled by one person, group or even government...and this one of the simplest of items.  How then can the central planners of government think they can control whole industries?  Economies?  The climate?  They cannot.

"Once government has had a monopoly of a creative activity such, for instance, as the delivery of the mails, most individuals will believe that the mails could not be efficiently delivered by men acting freely. And here is the reason: Each one acknowledges that he himself doesn't know how to do all the things incident to mail delivery. He also recognizes that no other individual could do it. These assumptions are correct. No individual possesses enough know-how to perform a nation's mail delivery any more than any individual possesses enough know-how to make a pencil. Now, in the absence of faith in free people—in the unawareness that millions of tiny know-hows would naturally and miraculously form and cooperate to satisfy this necessity—the individual cannot help but reach the erroneous conclusion that mail can be delivered only by governmental 'master-minding.'"

But, since 1958, it has been more than proven that the government is grossly inept at delivering the mail.  Companies like FedEx, UPS and others have proven that private firms can bring innovation and efficiencies to the process and allows them to turn a tidy profit.  The US Postal Service would have been defunct years ago if it weren't subsidized by taxpayers.  And this is just one of thousands of areas where government is completely inept.  Yet we continue to believe that they know best.  We continue to allow them to control us.  And this, more than anything else, threatens our liberty.

The video below is a great six minute coverage of all of the concepts from the article...with great graphics in living color.  Enjoy.

The Nature of Meddling

Just a personal observation:

Too many "conservatives" are quick to decry government meddling in domestic economy and affairs, while backing meddling in foreign affairs.

Too many "liberals" are quick to decry government meddling in foreign affairs, while backing meddling in domestic economics and affairs.

We must realize that it is two sides of the same coin.  The issue is too much power in the hands of too few, corruptible people...people who think they know better than all of the masses of the world.  People driven by the power motive.  You cannot have a powerful government in one form of meddling and not in the other.  The answer is less government!

Can you handle the truth?

"History is written by victors." 

~ Winston Churchill

Too many of us believe that the history we have been taught in school or through other outlets of our culture is a collection of facts.  We think of it as more science than art.  Sure, there may be facts we haven't uncovered yet, just as there may be unknown sub-atomic elements that science has not discovered, but when we do, it will just be another addition to the table of known facts we already have.

This may be stated a little too strongly, but I don't think it is too far from true.  This belief, however, is very naive and does not take simple human prejudices into account.  It only takes a very simple thought exercise to realize how this works in practicality.   Think for example of how the people of Japan may think of the dropping of the atomic bomb compared to how Americans view it.  Or how the people of the southern states may have viewed the war between the states as compared to those from the north.  Even now as you think of these examples, you can't help but think that you know the truth about these events.  But do you?  Could it possibly be that you may be a victim of your own prejudices?

And what of Churchill's assertion that victors are the ones who write the history?  Do you find it hard to believe that in the former Soviet Union, or perhaps Mao's China, the official history of those countries and the greatness of their leaders might have been a bit...skewed?  I remember in the cold war years of my childhood the jokes on television where a stereotypical Russian character would say of some wonderful, obviously American invention, "We had it first.  Russia invented that." This was a comedic acknowledgement that in the USSR, people were propagandized that Mother Russia was the most wonderful, advanced nation on earth.  I recently heard the story of how, in an attempt to further show their supremacy over the West, Soviet leaders allowed the movie The Grapes of Wrath to be shown in theaters.  They sought to show their people how bad things were in American in this depiction of Depression-era migrant workers.  The plan backfired, however, when Russian audiences were amazed that even poor Americans had automobiles.

But what about in America?  Are we immune to such biases and purposeful manipulations?  Well, almost from the beginning of our country, people have, let's say sought to direct the narrative to their own benefit.  Our second president, John Adams complained bitterly after his retirement that the Republican supporters of Thomas Jefferson were guilty of spreading a revisionist account of the founding and elevating Jefferson's role above that of himself.  Joseph J. Ellis, in his book Founding Brothers relates that,

"Despite his brave posturings of nonchalance and indifference, Adams was, in fact, obsessed with Jefferson's growing reputation as one of the major figures of the age.  As Adams remembered it, Jefferson had played a decidedly minor role in the Continental Congress.  While he, John Adams, was delivering fiery speeches that eventually moved their reluctant colleagues to make the decisive break with England, Jefferson lingered in the background like a shy schoolboy... Now, however, because of the annual celebration on July 4, the symbolic significance of the Declaration of Independence was looming larger in the public memory, blotting out the messier, but more historically correct version of the story, transforming Jefferson from a secondary character to a star player in the drama."   

We know, for example, that Abraham Lincoln used iron-fisted tactics to suppress any dissenting opinions in the press of the time.  We know that our government used Hollywood and the press as full blown propaganda ministries to support the correct public perception of the World Wars and Korea.  And the examples go on and on.

Why does it matter?  Well, history should indeed be a collection of facts.  But when, through either bias or cynical, deliberate manipulation, the truth of the facts are distorted, they can be used to garner support for everything from ill-conceived domestic policies to immoral and illegal wars.  The truth matters and we cannot leave the telling of the truth to politicians and bureaucrats.

The truth matters and we cannot leave the telling of the truth to politicians and bureaucrats.

In 1850, Frederic Bastiat wrote,  "This is the way an opinion gains acceptance in France. Fifty ignoramuses repeat in chorus some absurd libel that has been thought up by an even bigger ignoramus; and, if only it happens to coincide to some slight degree with prevailing attitudes and passions, it becomes a self-evident truth."  This is as true today in America, with our 24/7 news cycles and social media, as it was in Bastiat's time...maybe more so.

We must be willing to challenge our long-held and inherited beliefs about history.  We need to face the possibility that what we have always known might not be the whole truth, but only what the victors want us to know.  In this modern age, though, the truth is out there to be discovered and acted upon.  You just have to care enough to find it.  But, as Jeff Riggenbach of the Mises Institute says, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The horse has to want a drink. The American electorate has to want the truth about American history. Too many Americans don't want the truth...any truth. What they want is mythology that will confirm their prejudices."

What about you?  Can you handle the truth?

Myths You Probably Believe

"It ain't what people know that causes trouble...it's what they know that ain't so."

It is an interesting phenomenon to me how people can hold so tightly, fiercely even, to beliefs for which they have no basis for belief to which they can point, other than they have just always believed them, or it's what they have been told, or in many cases, they just want to believe them.  Wanting something to be true, however, does not make it true.  Being told they are true also does not make them true...and when it comes to truth, unfortunately, there is no safety in numbers.  Just because "everybody knows" something to be true, also does not automatically make it so.  It has been proven over and over that "the masses" can easily be fooled.

Belief in some myths are harmless and even a little bit fun.  Believing in Bigfoot or a nocturnal, molar-collecting sprite is harmless.  But particularly disturbing to me are the myths people cling to about government...many of which I have believed myself in the past.  These myths are troubling because they are created and perpetuated by the very government system that are the topics of the myths.  The very people who wish to wield power and control over our lives have, through government controlled schools, a sycophantic press, and bold face lies spread falsehoods about their own effectiveness, good intentions and indispensability, all in an effort to create a compliant citizenry who will never question their power or actions.

My path to recovering the truth, I am a recovering Neo-Con, began with simply being open to question my own beliefs and through reading history.  I began to see that much of what I thought I knew was, in fact, distortions at best and in many cases, complete fabrications.  I saw that it is not a matter of party, Republican or Democrat, since they were just two sides of the same coin.  Both parties, on the whole, are populated by statist, central-planning power mongers.  It was not even a matter of Right and Left, for many things I once believed as a rightist neo-con, I now reject.  It is, rather, a matter of truth and fact vs. myth and lies.  It is a struggle between liberty and tyranny.

In the video below from a 1977 lecture, Milton Friedman lays out five widely believed, and never-the-less false myths about government.  Are you open to truth?  Can you get past your own closely held myths and truly consider the logic and history of his arguments?  Friedman says early in the video that "Somebody once wrote...a myth is like an air mattress.  There's nothing in it, but it's wonderfully comfortable, and deflation causes an uncomfortable jolt."  Get ready for a needed jolt concerning these five Myths That Conceal Reality:

1. The Robber Baron Myth
2. The Great Depression Myth
3. The Demand for Government Service Myth 
4. The Free Lunch Myth
5. The Robin Hood Myth.