Producers, Moochers, & Looters

Produce, mooch, or loot.

These are the basic ways humans survive. We either produce our own necessities of life, by working for them, or we leech off of someone else's labors, or we take them from others by force. When we are young, we are dependent on our parents to provide for us. We are moochers off of their labors. But they do this willingly, & usually make it clear we have some accountability to them.
'While you are living in my house, you will do as i say!'
This is a commonly heard sentiment in most family units. So while the progeny of humans are technically 'moochers', they tend to be a dependent of choice. You made the decision to reproduce & you take on the responsibility to raise the child.
But this is not about voluntary dependents. It is about society. A healthy society must have a large number of industrious, hard working producers to provide the network of necessities: sustenance & protection. When a society breaks down, & too many moochers or looters run rampant, the producers cannot work hard enough to provide for them, or they become tired of being exploited & rebel against the system (or lack thereof) that has arisen.

1. If you are a responsible producer, you will have a constant battle to fend off moochers & looters. Hopefully, you will live in a time & place where you can protect yourself & your labors with sound collective agencies, provided for that purpose by all the producers. But, if moochers & looters gain control of the protection agencies, they will use them against you, & you will be exploited until you & the other producers revolt & cast out the moochers & looters. This is a constant pattern throughout human history, & will no doubt continue in the future.
2. If you are a moocher, you run the risk of wearing out those you mooch from. It is not a dependable method of survival, as you rely on the generosity of the producers you mooch from, or the benevolence of the looters to share with you from their plunder.
3. If you are a looter, you rely on having superior power or deception to intimidate & fleece the working producers. But if they pool their resources & defeat you, you might be killed in the struggle. It is also an unreliable way to survive.

Producing, with the force of law to protect your labors, has traditionally been the best & most reliable method of human survival. When a culture has a strong base of producers, they tend to be stronger, wealthier, & better suited to survive. Moochers & looters tend to be short lived, as the working producers tire of the excess, useless baggage, & reorganize the system to better serve them.

The challenge is for the producers to craft a system of protection, but not let it be controlled by moochers & looters, as they will use the system to plunder the producers. Typically, the producers just stage a revolution from time to time, and the leaders of the revolutions promise to provide peace & justice for the working producers to live & raise their families.  They promise to make minimal demands on the property of the producers.  But they always degenerate back into a mooching, looting system where law becomes an instrument of plunder, not justice.

The only solution is for the producers to keep a tight rein on the system, provide checks & balances, & a rotating workforce of public servants, so none of them become entrenched & entitled in an elite power structure. This was the attempt of the american experiment, & it worked for a while, until those who became entrenched in power used said power to plunder the producers, as they have been doing increasingly for the last few decades.

So an ideal system for a productive, healthy society is this:
1. Minimal demands for an agency of justice.  Minimal taxes so the producers keep more of their labors.
2. Swift, efficient justice to deter looters, foreign or domestic.
3. Maximum freedom for the producers to enjoy the fruits of their labors, which provide the most opportunity, prosperity, & abundance for all.
4. Checks & balances in the justice system, so that moochers or looters do not gain control.
5. Rotating citizen representatives, managing the system so moochers or looters do not gain control.
6. Strict laws to punish corruption in the collective agencies.

These things will cost the producers the least, while maximizing what they have earned & worked for. This is a recipe for a healthy, prosperous culture. But whenever moochers & looters gain control of the collective institutions, they use govt power to plunder the producers, & build a system of dependency & injustice, until it collapses under its own corruption.

Mysteries of the Universe: Nobody owes you nothing

You were born. Maybe you're grown up, or at least on your way. Perhaps you're confused about why you are here, or what reason there is for your existence. Or maybe you think you know. Either way, here you are. By some accident of nature, the combination of dna, timing, & the twinkle in your parent's eyes, you were conceived, born, & are here for a brief time on earth. You didn't ask to be born, & no one told you what you are supposed to do with your life. You did not come with instructions, & there is no link to the manufacturer's website to reference a FAQ.

For most of your early life, your parents or some surrogate cared for you & saw to your growth, protection, & nurturing. But they are really no different than you. They also were born, grew up, & tried to figure out what to do with themselves. For most of the history of humanity, & for most humans that have ever lived, simple survival has occupied most of our waking time & effort. Our basic needs are few, but they demand our attention:

a. Sustenance. We need air, food, & water to live.
b. Protection. Some kind of covering for our personal bodies, a den or structure to live in, & a habitat to protect us from wild beasts, the elements, & other humans.
c. Sleep. One of the most important reasons for a home & a secure habitat is for a place to sleep safely.

That's it. That is all we NEED for survival. Now, there are other things that occupy much of our time & attention, but they are instinctual drives, & are not essential to our survival.
a. We also have a drive to reproduce, & to pair up with a mate to further our species.
b. We also have a need to play, or to busy ourselves with entertaining distractions. But neither of those are critical for survival.

Your parents took responsibility for your survival during your development years. They fed you, clothed you, housed you, & protected you from predators of all types. Perhaps they still help you with some of the basics, or continue to prepare you to live in this life, as their parents did before them. This has been the pattern for all of human history.

We are born wet, naked, and hungry. Then things get worse.

Survival isn't easy. Not only does it require a lot of our time & attention, there are also other elements working against us:
a. Mother nature. Weather, trees, rocks, rivers, & just about everything we see on earth can kill us. Storms bring lightning, floods, powerful winds, freezing cold, & other natural disasters that constantly threaten our lives. Sometimes things we eat or the water we drink is deadly.
b. Wild beasts. Not so much in our current culture, but we are still in danger from sharks, bears, big cats, wolves, & other animals who want to eat us. Not all of these dangers are big carnivores. We are constantly battling disease & bacteria simply to live.
c. Other humans. This has been the greatest danger that individual humans have faced. Other people wish to harm us, or take our sustenance or means of survival. Or, they may wish to enslave us to work for their personal survival.

So here we are, trying to simply live, & have to struggle against these other factors trying to kill or oppress us. Over the millennia, we have developed strategies to overcome these obstacles.
a. We build protective structures to house ourselves in. This gives us a secure place to find protection from weather, rain, snow, & attacks from wild beasts. We store our food & clothing, & provide comfortable, safe places to sleep.
b. We form collective agencies to protect us from aggressive humans. We pool our resources to provide a protective force to deter those who want to rob, enslave, or kill us. We call this 'government'.
c. We work & develop strategies to produce more & better food, protection, & methods of health care. We use the elements & natural laws to develop technology to aid us in our survival.

For thousands of years, we have adapted to our environment, & have used everything to aid us in our survival. None of these things were given to us at birth, but many of the strategies were handed down through the generations. By constantly learning & advancing in our knowledge base, we have come to this most advanced stage of human society. We are interdependent on each other, & have built upon the lessons of the past. We have concocted a complex system of exchange, by which we provide goods or services for a currency, & use that to buy our survival needs. This system has provided abundance & prosperity for a lot of people in this era. Many do not seem to struggle for the basics of survival, like humans did in past times. Food is varied, cheap, & abundant. Houses are plentiful & filed with amazing luxuries like central heat, piped water, & waste disposal. The ease by which the essentials of survival are provided make some people think it is a natural right. They think that the basics of survival.. food & protection.. are naturally provided at birth, & are owed to everyone, simply because they were born. They think they don't have to (or shouldn't have to) concern themselves with their personal survival needs. They think they should be able to give themselves to other instinctual drives, like reproduction & play. But this is an illusion. Our collective knowledge might provide the STRATEGIES for making survival easier, but they are not something given at birth. SOMEONE has to work to provide the basic needs.

The illusion of our current time (and of times past) is that GOVERNMENT can provide these things. Everybody else can work for our individual needs. And as long as there are enough industrious, hard working people who are driven to work, a few can ride along as moochers, dependent on the producing workers to provide their needs. But if & when the moochers outnumber the working producers, the system collapses, unable to sustain itself. This is the great fiction.. the great deception.. that somehow we can live off the labors of others. A healthy, prosperous society has in industrious, hard working citizenry, & extols the virtues of production. A corrupt society in decline tries to leech off of the producers.

"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." ~Frederic Bastiat

But the reality.. the immutable law of the universe.. is that 'nobody owes you nothing'. You & you alone are responsible for your own survival. You might link up with others, to better accomplish that goal, but it is still YOUR responsibility to survive.. no one else has that burden. Your parents might give you a start, but they cannot be burdened with caring for you for all your life. So during this short time on earth, you alone are responsible for your life, & those you take on as dependents. Others may help you, as we pool our resources & labors to improve life for everyone, but nobody owes you anything.

 I have called this simple truth a 'mystery of the universe', because it seems to be very profound & mysterious. In fact, a great many people seem to believe the exact opposite.. that their basic survival needs are owed to them. They think that their existence entitles them to full support, even going so far as to support any children they might have & their their old age. They even feel that their leisure time & entertainment should be provided & subsidized by the producing people around them.

It is pathetic enough that a few insane people live in this fantasy world, where they believe all their survival needs should be guaranteed to them for life, but there are allegedly intelligent social leaders who further this deception.. promising free food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, & even entertainment. In some convoluted reasoning, the labors & increases of others are looked at as some kind of collective ownership. They produce NOTHING themselves, yet they feel entitled to what someone else has worked for. Then these entitled thieves have the audacity to lecture us.. the actual producers of everything they consume.. that we owe them.. WE are responsible to not only tend to their basic needs, but we should set them on the lap of luxury, & pay them to deceive us.

This is the basic foundation of progressive thought. It is why that anything they come up with is flawed. The core premise of leftist, progressive ideals are corrupt, depending on theft & dependency to build a society on.

Intelligent people with basic common sense SHOULD be able to see the flaws, & realize that this central tenet of socialist ideology can only lead to collapse, as dependents outnumber the producers. But the appeal for easy living, free stuff, & a guarantee for living is very strong, & is at the root of all scams: Something for nothing. So they indoctrinate our youth, spoon feeding this madness into each generation, until the whole culture is steeped in delusion. They act as though govt has infinite warehouses full of food, houses, clothes, & healthcare, & all we need is the keys to open them up & hand them out. They do not realize that everything that a dependent consumes.. every bite, every drink of water, every item of clothing, the heat for the house, the waste disposal when they flush.. EVERYTHING they use for their own survival, including protection from thugs or invading hordes, is TAKEN from someone else.

The progressive leeches who preach this folly are EXACTLY the same as those they pretend to help. They produce nothing themselves, but only TAKE what others have worked for. And of course, they do not help society at all, but lead us down the road to destruction. No society can survive without industrious, productive citizens working to provide basic survival needs. No society can survive with madness & folly as their basic philosophical ideology. The universe is hard, & life is difficult. Ignoring reality for some illusive dream world helps no one.

Natural selection: Reducing variability, not increasing it

The primary condition for speciation is reproductive isolation. That is the main 'definition' of a species, that they do not reproduce with other different species. The horse has a genetic link to other horse descendants. These all indicate a narrowing of the genetic material.. a 'devolution' if you will. A donkey came from the same parent species as the horse & zebra, but they are not able to reproduce viable offspring.. they CAN reproduce, but the progeny is sterile.. like the mule. But instead of this indicating an EXPANSION of trait availability, the facts are the exact opposite. It was a narrowing of the gene pool that isolated the horse, donkey, & zebra. All of those animals descended from the same parent species.. we can trace that. But instead of opening up new traits of variability, they lost them. The zebra traits don't come up in donkeys anymore. And new 'species' are not being produced. What we see with the horse genetic line is a branching into a dead end. The variability is lost, as the progeny do not have the variety to pick from in their parent's dna.

You can explain the tree branches somewhat with evolution. But you still don't have the mechanism that enables the leaps between the family/genus/species. As science, the 'amoeba to man' theory is full of holes, yet it is taught as though it is proven fact. The observable, repeatable FACTS are that breeding & natural selection NARROW the genetic availability, until the species reaches equilibrium & loses variability. That is why a brown rabbit is seldom (never?) born in the snowshoe rabbit species anymore. It is why chihuahuas do not produce an occasional wolf. That variability is lost, & the breed is limited to the narrow band of variability. The very science of breeding is contrary to the premise of evolution: that new genetic material is constantly being produced & increasing the complexity & variability within a species. We observe the exact opposite. We repeat the exact opposite.

Even if some 'new' trait is discovered while breeding, now we know it was there.. hiding in the massive dna strands. It might take thousands or millions of generations for it to pop up, but when it does, this did not mean a new trait made itself, just that the hidden gene took a while to hit the jackpot. It is like pulling on a slot machine in vegas.. if you pull it enough times, eventually the sequence will come up that hits the combination you want. That is all breeding & natural selection is, except they get to narrow the variability & reduce the 'losing' combinations. Slot machines don't let you do that.

Why do species go extinct? Because they lose the variability needed to adapt to the changing environment. They don't create genes to survive if conditions change. If there is some variability already in them that increases their survival rate, then that trait will become more prominent. But if they don't have that trait, they die off. That is observable reality, not that species create new genetic information to adapt.

Modern genetics is one of the biggest enemies of the old 'theory' of evolution. Eventually, the facts will overwhelm the beliefs, & the scientific establishment will come up with a new pop theory of origins. But they still are working this one for now. It is everywhere.. tv, national parks, museums, schools.. anywhere science is mentioned, evolution is tacked on, to prop it up as a belief. But real science does not support the theory. All of reality screams, 'NO!'. But since when have humans cared about reality?   :)

Unalienable rights

The american founders ASSUMED the existence of a natural law.. They phrased it like this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
In just the previous paragraph, they made an appeal to 'the laws of nature & nature's god'.. There is a presumption of deity, but that is not central to the argument. Most writings in those days made frequent references to god. But let's break this statement down:

1. Self evident truths. These cannot be proven empirically, or observed or tested. They make the assumption, & the rest of the statements build upon it.
2. All men are equal. This was not the common view.. royalty & the ruling elite were considered divinely appointed, & were above the common man. But that had been steadily changing since the reformation, & even before in the magna carta. The quest for human freedom was in full swing. It hinges on the equality of man.
3. Every man has natural, unalienable rights. Life, liberty, & the freedom to pursue your own choices. This was not just for the ruling elite, or the chosen few in power, but for everyone.

These 3 central points provide the basis for the conclusion:

Government is instituted by society for their own benefit, protection, & to secure their natural rights.

IF you assume the earlier premises, the conclusion is logical. But if you deny the natural rights of man, the conclusions do not follow. IF there are no 'unalienable rights', then the world is open & undefined, & anyone can do as they have power & ability. Natural rights are not self enforcing.. like gravity. You can trample someone's rights & not be struck down by an immediate consequence. But if the collective society of man agree upon a canon of LAW, then they have a basis by which to live by. They have a higher LAW to appeal to, when their natural rights are being stepped on. 

The individual can make this appeal, but it requires the collective will & presumption of the existence of natural rights. You could stand up to king george & declare yourself a sovereign individual, but if he has the power to bind you & cast you into the dungeon, your appeals fall on deaf ears, & have no significance. But, if you & a few hundred thousand of your countrymen defy him & stand armed, declaring your sovereignty, your rights are secured.

Appeals have often been made to tyrants & oppressors throughout history, but only those with the power to deter the oppressors gain an audience. The magna carta was signed under duress by the king.. not cheerfully & willingly. American independence was gained by defiance & bloodshed, not by philosophical blathering. We preserve & protect our rights, not by appealing to some mystical force to secure them for us, but to OURSELVES as the architects & authors of self rule.

Natural law has no power in & of itself. It can only provide the philosophical basis for which we fight. Individually, we have little hope in restraining evil, or aggressors, or oppression from the rich & powerful. But collectively, we have the ability to deter by deadly force those who would enslave us. THAT is the american ideal. Together, we can be free, deter evildoers, provide justice, & secure our own basic rights to life & property. No entity will do that for us. No angels will come down from heaven to secure our freedoms. Govt certainly will not do this, as they are at enmity with human liberty. Only as we control them, by force, can govt be a useful tool for our common good. That is what america was built upon, & is the mission statement that drives the ideal. Citizen representatives, ruled by law, controlling & restraining the excesses of human aggression. They will not restrain themselves, & no one will come to restrain them for us. We the people must secure our own freedom, & restrain the growth & excesses of mans manipulations. We have the system in place, but it is eroding. A govt of, by, & for the people is slowly perishing from the earth. The extremes of statism & anarchy are touted as superior to the old fashioned values of self rule, but they deceive themselves. They only offer a return to bondage & oppression, & rule by tyrants.

Our solidarity is not from race, or creed, or religion, or ethnicity, or social status, or country of origin. It is the common longing for freedom.. the quest for human liberty that unites & drives us to fight for our collective liberty. Many people will not 'get' the ideal. They are self absorbed & short sighted, & assume that freedom is free & comes naturally, like the air we breathe. But it is a rare thing in the history of man, & WE, the caretakers of this precious liberty, should not take it lightly, or shirk our duty to preserve it for future generations. The choice is before us. Will we passively allow scoundrels & thieves to steal our liberty, our nation, & our heritage, or will we fight them to extend freedom for another generation?

The Rise of Anti-Science

Western culture has had a lot of ups & downs over the centuries, but one of the anchors for it was the concept of a world of order:
1. consistency in natural law
2. Use of the scientific method
3. the logical pursuit of truth
4. peer review, critical thinking, & skepticism were a balance to 'science by decree'.

These concepts reached their heyday in post ww2 america. Engineers & scientific researchers leapfrogged advancement after advancement dazzling everyone with their ability to harness natural law as a tool.

But to some, these things were not seen as a harnessing of laws of physics, but a creative & almost godlike power. A mystique built up around the fields of engineering & science, & it was a magnet to young people when they pursued a career. The fields of technology were major draws in the middle of the last century in america. Breakthroughs in medicine, manufacturing, computers, & just about every part of human life has been positively affected by these technological advances, & families encouraged their children to be part of that growth & advancement of humanity.

The technological advances brought unprecedented prosperity & luxurious conditions for even the poorest in the nation. And as often has happened throughout history, with prosperity comes complacency & growing lethargy. Hard work loses its appeal, & easy living seems to be an easier route. Why work hard if you don't have to?

But as the culture has declined, so has the magnet for technology. Fewer & fewer american youth desire a career in science or engineering. Non productive elements of society have taken center stage. Sports, entertainment, celebrity worship, money shuffling.. these things are valued & esteemed over the mundane & difficult scientific disciplines.

Now, we are in a time of anti science. Social issues & cultural manipulation is taking place, of course claiming truth or science as a basis. But instead of open scrutiny, mandates. Instead of the scientific method, decree. Instead of logic & critical thinking, truth is declared & propaganda has become the new goal. Truth becomes what the establishment says, rather than something based on reason or facts. Critical thinking is not encouraged, just memorized dogma. History is not taught as dispassionate facts, but to mold a belief. Conclusions are presupposed, & memorized, instead of arrived at by research & thinking. THIS is the greatest failure of american education, which once was a beacon of classic liberal thought.. Now, it is just another state propaganda tool.

As the adoration of elitism grew, so did education transform as a classic liberal tool of enlightenment to a propaganda tool of indoctrination. At one time, critical thinking was emphasized, & 'liberal' meant an expansive, enlightened, open minded view of things.. a broader view of the nuances in thought, ideology, & critical thinking processes. Now, it is an indoctrination.. dogma is pounded into young people, so they do NOT think or consider alternatives, but have everything neatly defined for them, complete with demonizing any alternate views.

The result has been LESS thought, more dogma, & a subservient electorate. The concept of human liberty is redefined, & revisionist history is shoved down people's throats. Open, scientific method enquiry is squashed, while memorizing indoctrination is employed. The results are clear: Less educated citizenry.. no sense of history or continuity. Dogmatic view of life & simplistic solutions. Bumper sticker slogans, rather than nuanced discussions of issues. Stupidity running rampant, & hysteria valued over reason.

And like in the dark ages, the powers that be try to mandate truth by decree, instead of arriving at it through the scientific method. As a culture, we are moving away from a scientific view of the world, & into a faith based reality. 'Really smart people' make decrees about 'truth', & we are told to believe it.. don't question the experts or their handlers. Critical issues for us are not open to critique or examination, but we are indoctrinated from birth into state centered ideology. It is a giant step backward for humanity, as we surrender our minds to the puppet masters.

Historically, truth eventually overcomes those who suppress it because it inconveniences their agenda. But man has not changed, & his basic tendencies to use power & decrees to control people are still there. There are always various flavors of superstition intermingling in a culture. If one gains prominence, it can dictate the rules & the facts. Reason is suppressed, critical thinking condemned, & questioning authority is punished.

Eternity, from start to finish..

Eternity & infinity are abstract concepts that give us humans a difficult time. We see most things as beginning & ending.. almost everything in our lives has a start & a finish, including our own lives. But the concept of eternity has no beginning.. time drifts on from the past, with NO apparent start, & no explanation. Gurus, holy men, & philosophers have speculated & pontificated about eternity for as long as man has the capacity of thought. But we are no more closer to understanding it or grasping its meaning than when we first defined the term.

1. We have no awareness of eternity past. Eons passed before our brief existence.. Universe after universe could have come & gone, while we were yet unborn. Go back as far as you can imagine.. before any 'big bang', or creative action from a deity. Some theorize that the universe is expanding. How can this be? If matter has been simplifying & spreading out, how can it come together for any reason? Was there a 'beginning'.. a 'start' of matter? Matter is incredible. Life is irrational. All matter should have drifted to infinity in complete equilibrium.. stars burnt out eons ago, & the miracle of life not even a dream. The vastness of our universe is a tiny speck in the face of infinite space. How can there be matter? It is only a collection of infinitesimal, tiny space particles.

2. The existence of an 'Eternal soul' is just as disturbing as if there is not a soul. How is it even possible that life should exist, or that our minds could even grasp things like eternity? Eternity past went on without us.. it can easily go on for eternity future, & our existence a meaningless blip in the face of time. We are a collection of matter & molecules, with a mysterious mechanism giving us life. Mixed in with that is the ability to grasp abstract thoughts, like eternity, & our existence is amazing. Whether we cease to exist at death, or go on in some mysterious supernatural state, the mere ability to see those possibilities is troubling. We went from eternal nothingness, to a brief awareness. And now we try to make sense of our existence. It is no wonder there are so many religions, philosophies, theories, & abstract reasonings to explain ourselves. Our existence is amazing & unbelievable.. impossible, really, yet here we are.

3. Existence is terrifying, non existence is worse. As humans age, we become tired of life.. at least many of us do. How can we face the idea of eternal existence? As terrifying as non-existence is, eternal existence is equally disturbing. Soul or not, our future is grim & mysterious. Will we drift through eternal time & space with some kind of awareness, linked to other souls, or deities? Or will we simply cease to exist, like we did for eternity past?

4. Some people seem to be mad at god &/or the universe, throwing tantrums because they exist. Man is not comfortable with his existence, but needs an explanation. There is a 'why' that gnaws at us, that no other life forms or matter seem to have. This angst is an awareness of eternity, & it's awful implications. If there is a god involved in our existence, we do not know why, or have a definitive reason. He has shrouded the explanation & himself in mystery. Holy men, witch doctors, philosophers, & spiritual gurus speculate, but we do not really know. The universe is awful, terrifying, & too vast for our finite minds to grasp. So we either cling to someone else's explanation, or avoid the subject, living in denial about our eternal fate. If there is no god, our tantrums for understanding fall on eternal darkness, devoid of any reason or meaning. God or not, the universe is terrifying.

5. If there is not a god or some kind of supernatural power, life is short & pointless. If there is a god, it is short & uncertain, & we still do not know why we exist. It may still be pointless, & our existence just as fleeting. We live. We die. The universe goes on until all the stars burn out in eternal darkness & silence. Or, if there is some kind of divine order, we don't know what it is.. even a vague definition of heaven or hell is only a blurry glimpse into something we do not have the capacity to understand.

When I gave my heart to know wisdom and to see the task which has been done on the earth (even though one should never sleep day or night), and I saw every work of God, I concluded that man cannot discover the work which has been done under the sun. Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover; and though the wise man should say, “I know,” he cannot discover. Solomon c. 1000BC

Life is a Journey

It is said that life is a journey, not a destination. Few of our views remain fixed for all our lives, but we change as we grow in knowledge, experience, & awareness. I grew up in a secular home.. no church, very little politics.. & as i went to school, i learned all i needed to know about life (so i thought).   I was a liberal hippie.. crazed with sex, drugs, & rock & roll. The back to land movement was very appealing to me, & i was an early advocate to 'save the earth'. I became an atheist, & explained everything with naturalism. Evolution, & animal instincts were the only real motivations in life, & naive theists or altruistic ideals were for the superstitious & deluded. I voted for mcgovern in my first election, & did not believe in absolutes in morality.  But, i was a philosopher even then, & was fascinated by discussions of abstract thinking. So by college, my indoctrination from the 'world' was complete. Here were the tenets of my faith.
1. no god
2. man is an accident of nature.
3. no morality
4. love & altruism was for fools
5. man is the lord of his environment
6. grab all the gusto you can, you only go around once
7. the educated elite are supreme.. only deluded superstitious people cling to illusions
8. democrats were the educated elite, & would control the stupid masses

There are probably a few more tidbits of leftist indoctrination in there, but you get the idea.  :D

My problem was i was still looking for truth. I was intrigued by life, & wanted to know. That quest led me to an encounter with the Living God. My whole world crashed around me, & EVERYTHING changed. ALL the sacred tenets of my faith (i didn't call it that, then) became suspect, as i looked for a basis for my views, & valued reason & thought over blind faith. It was not immediate.. i voted for carter in '76, & was still liberal in many of my views.. and still am, in the more classic liberal sense. But now my views are more along these lines:
1. God is
2. man is a creation
3. man has accountability for his thoughts & actions
4. Love & altruism were genuine traits, originating in the divine
5. Man is not in control, & is an arrogant fool in the face of the universe
6. Live your life circumspectly, as you will answer for your thoughts & actions
7. Liberation of humanity, spiritually & physically, is the goal
8. Freedom from control, & liberty for the individual, is the ideal, not dictatorial rule

These are all completely antithetical to my original views.. but since the root was changed, it is to be expected that the branches & fruit would change, too. I now see the progressive left as enemies of humanity, & especially the american ideal. Their view of god is not important, since they miss the basic point of freedom. There may still be some tweaking in my world view, but this is where i am in my journey.

Blurred Lines (parody)

Ok, i've been sick. I've had a severe head & chest cold symptoms for over a week. I finally took some codeine last night, to help sleep better. I didn't really help much, but i woke up with some alternate lyrics to robin thicke's 'blurred lines' song.. Imagine nancy pelosi twerking in the role of miley cyrus, but instead of a big forefinger, it is a middle one. It's not a word for word, perfect tone copy, but it's not bad as a parody.
Anyway (cough, cough) here it is..

Blurred Lines
(parody)

Everybody trust us
Everybody trust us
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey

Redefining language, the simple way to do it,
It might seem too easy, but there's really nothing to it.
Maybe you're going deaf,
Hey, hey, hey
Maybe you're going blind,
Hey, hey, hey
As long as you doubt your mind,
Hey, hey, hey
Everybody trust us!

Ok, now we're close, try the great fiction again,
where everybody lives, baby, off of everybody else.
it's never worked before.
Hey, hey, hey
It always ends in war,
Hey, hey, hey
But it can work this time,
Hey, hey, hey
turn off your mind, and i will take a good girl,
like Lady Liberty,
like Truth & Justice,
that's how i want it.
You are good girls!
you won't get past me,
I'll redefine you,
fundamentally change you.
That's how i want it.

Don't read no Bastiat,
Hey, hey, hey
ignore the 10 cannots,
Hey, hey, hey
new lies i'll rearrange,
how 'bout some hope & change? 
I love those Blurred lines!

The challenge for the ages,
is for some to tell the many,
you make bread, we'll eat it!
It's the oldest scam in this place!
But i've got luck, too,
Hey, hey, hey
I'll take your stuff, too
Hey, hey, hey
what rhymes with 'luck, too'?
hey, hey, hey

Ok now we are close, nearly subjugate you,
We have not yet run out of other people's money, hey, hey!
I'll liberate it,
hey, hey, hey
i'll fornicate it,
hey, hey, hey
see, i'm your maker
And that is why i am going to take your money!
that's how we want it. 
You know i want it.
I know you want it.
I love those blurred lines!
We keep it muddy,
'cause we're your buddy.

I'll take your property,
Hey, hey, hey
revise your history,
Hey, hey, hey
A few more years of me,
Hey, hey, hey
goodbye to liberty!
I love those blurred lines!

One thing i'm a tellin' you,
I'll be the one that rules over you.
I'm smarter than anyone, with swag to boot,
You gotta have a king, it is me for you,
Just do everything i tell you to,
I'm big enough to tear this world in two,
No brag, just fact, i'm not being simplistic,
But walkin' past a mirror makes me narcissistic,
I am the best ruler a nation could find,
elite & humble, & out of my mind,
Not like your last guy, too square, not cool,
but I'll pull your hair & make you salute,
You make me rich & i'll make you my bitch,
I'll smack you down so don't dare refuse this pimpin',
'cause nothing i take from you is enough for me.

Imagine yes we can, it's so orwellian,
next stop utopia! Thank me for the gift of propaganda!
I like it to hurt, like it hurt
what, do you like work?

Baby take your soma, 'cause we're your momma.
I'm your nanny honey, you don't need any money, uh huh,
How 'bout some new QEs?
Hey, hey, hey
Some fiscal fantasy?
Hey, hey, hey
no point in working more
Hey, hey, hey
pretend to help the poor, 
Hey, hey, hey
we'll tell you anything as we take more & more! We love those blurred lines!
I know you want it
You know i want it
i know you want it

Everybody trust us
Everybody trust us
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey

It's kind of funny.. until yesterday, i hadn't really listened to the lyrics of the song. I've heard it a few times, here & there, & it has a catchy tune & some nice walking bass riffs, but once i read the lyrics, i was shocked! This is a hateful, anti woman, demeaning song if there ever was one! Just the kind that fits into the grammy, progressive, marxist philosophy. And they have the gall to call republicans anti woman! The 'blurred lines' that thicke sings about is being rough with women, & saying, 'i know you want it'. So a woman screaming, 'No! Stop!' isn't really what she wants.. she really means, 'yes! yes!'

Where are the PC feminists? They should be all over the grammys. But it fits right in with the hip hop attitude toward women being 'ho's' & 'bitches'. They objectify women more than anyone, yet have the smug hypocrisy to label conservatives as 'anti women'.

More 'redefinition' & orwellian newspeak. More 'blurred lines'. Check out the parody lyrics. They actually have a better, clearer, & more appropriate message than the original. For the left, 'blurred lines' is very important. Clear definitions are anathema to them. They don't want a clear definition of when life begins, but keep it blurred. Fiscal policy & economics HAVE to be blurred & fuzzy.. common sense & regular arithmetic exposes them as corrupt & financial failures. The only thing they want clear is their right to full power rule. THAT is the one thing they do not have the right to, yet they claim it as divinely bestowed. But according to thicke, liberal women want to be raped, smacked around, their hair pulled, & bullied. 'I know you want it!'

And this is what the left thinks americans want, as well.  We WANT to be bullied, nannied, & oppressed.

War as due process

The american constitution has strict limits on what the executive branch can do. This is a 'check & balance' that the founders worked for. It keeps executive power in check, & forbids them from making war at will. They have to go through the congress, which is like a jury in a due process judicial matter.

Say there is a threat to the nation. The president or intelligence community brings the evidence to congress. They look at it & determine if there is a need for military response.. international justice. If the evidence is vague or insufficient, congress should turn that request down. If they determine there is a direct threat to the nation, it is fitting for them to declare war & make appropriations. The president then commands the armed forces to eliminate the threat, as mandated by congress. This is the way of the american constitution. We the people, pay for the war, kill, & die in it.

But what do we have, now? A president has become judge, jury, & executioner. They say, 'trust us, we have the inside information', then proceed to bomb or invade other sovereign nations, without a declaration of war or any due process. The executive branch has taken a role that is not granted by the constitution, & now makes war indiscriminately.. killing anyone they want. This is completely contrary to a free people, ruled by Law.. we are a republic, with clear procedures for justice. It is not up to the whim of a bureaucrat to decide who lives or dies.

1. Constitutional war in america is a matter of due process. Congress must declare it, & the executive branch carries out the order. Violations of this basic protocol strikes at the very heart of what america is about. Due process, checks & balances, & separation of duties are core american values. This is the most basic covenant of american justice. Without it, we are another state centered ruling monster, with no individual rights.
2. Killing ANYONE is a violation of their individual sovereignty, & is contrary to the concept of due process. American citizens ESPECIALLY should have the full protection of the constitution, & not have their rights waived whimsically by a bureaucrat for vague notions of 'national security'. Let charges be filed, & let the accuser face the accused. Review the evidence, & let a jury of peers decide their guilt. THAT is the heritage of justice we have arrived at, & the current violations are a step backward for mankind.
3. If core values are set aside for convenience, then there are no individual rights. America is a farce.. justice, liberty, & individual freedom are an illusion & have no meaning. There MUST be consistency in our policy. It MUST reflect the core values of america, which are due process, individual sovereignty, & the securing of basic rights.
4. If liberty, due process, & the separation of powers as outlined in the constitution are ignored, we have lost the heart & soul of america. We have become just another oppressive state, where the individual's rights mean nothing, & the rulers can whimsically give or withhold our rights. The constitutional guarantees are mere suggestions to them, & their ignoring & trampling of these basic motivational ideals are a treasonous act. They are anti american, anti human, & should be deposed swiftly & ruthlessly.

Survival of the fittest.. 4 ways to do it

1. work
2. theft
3. dependence
4. luck

If you are to survive in this world, you need one of these methods to do it. I can think of no other way within the bounds of possibility. Only these things can provide the necessities of life, which are sustenance & protection. Under sustenance, i put air, food, water, sleep, etc.. the things we need to live, biologically. Under protection, i put clothing, shelter, medical care, police, military.. those things that protect us from the elements or other aggressors, human or animal. Nothing else is essential for our survival.

You can work & produce these things yourself, or you can take them from someone else, hire a thug to do it for you, depend on someone else who works or steals, or get lucky & win the lottery or find some diamonds. That's it. There are no other means to get the necessities of life. BTW, working to steal from others, or con them out of their labors is NOT work.. it is still theft.

Most babies start out dependent, but as they grow up, they are able to work & pay their own way. If they set some of the fruits of their labors aside, they can provide for themselves in their old age, when they are no longer productive workers. But someone who has worked for their savings or investments is still living off of past labors. Some people become dependent on their children, or parents, or the rest of society, but a culture with a strong work ethic promotes individual responsibility, so the rest of society is not overburdened with dependents.

The conclusions on this reality should also be obvious, but for some reason, there is a mindset of entitlement that thinks it is a person's 'right' to be provided the necessities of life. Their existence is reason enough for them to expect full care for all their physical & emotional needs. If this mindset becomes too prominent, it destroys the culture, as there is not enough productive workers to support the growing dependent class.

It will be up to the producers to correct this faulty thinking, by applying 'tough love' & not enabling this delusional thinking. This applies not only to deadbeats who don't want to work, but also the proliferation of govt leeches.. bureaucrats, contractors, elected officials... any who do no productive work themselves, but leech on the producers.

I'm a home builder.. well, i was in my working years.. now i'm a glorified handyman. But to build a structure, you start with the foundation. This is about the foundation of life.. survival. How we do it reveals our character & view of ourselves & mankind.

No one uses just one of these means their whole life. Most of us use different ones or all of them throughout our lives. A baby is born helpless.. they are completely dependent on someone else for their survival. A person grows, & gets a govt grant, or scholarship, or food stamps in their youth. This is survival by theft. I'm sticking with my labels for simplicity, and i know they are charged words, which are useful to make a point. But any govt program is funded by theft. Taxpayers do not voluntarily give their taxes, they are taken by force. Most of the time, we understand that this is part of the way society works, & we will tolerate a little 'theft' from our govt. But it is good to see it for what it really is: Theft. This is how radical libertarians & anarchists define it, so we'll use this definition.

Ok, so you've used both dependency & theft to survive for some of your life. Now, you begin to work. You get a job making widgets in a factory, or use that degree in french poetry to sell timeshares. We would have to follow the money for a while to determine if the job income comes from real production, or if it is just part of theft shuffled around to launder it. If you land a job working for the post office, you are providing a useful communication & marketing service that society has deemed to be important & has levied taxes to fund. The source of your money is theft, but you are working for it, now, & giving a return to the taxpayers, who pay your salary. So while this is a bit fuzzy, i'm putting you in the 'work' heading for this part.

Then one day, you drop into the casino & put a a dollar in the slot. Jackpot! You won a million dollars! So you quit your stupid post office job, since you were very near going postal, & buy a house & car & live it up for a while. This was just dumb luck. It can be argued that the gambling industry relies on theft, but it is not forced. It is voluntary. So i would call it stupidity, rather than theft. The odds are bad for winning, & the hordes of people working, the buildings & entertainment are funded by the gamblers. There is nothing useful being produced.. it is a ponzi style operation, that requires the constant infusion of funds from stupid losers to operate. But that is an aside.

Soon you realize that a million dollars doesn't go that far. You've still got your house & car, but the parties have depleted your winnings. So you decide to start a business. You remember how to make those widgets when you worked at the factory in the summers while in college, so you rent some floor space, hire a few people, & begin to make your own widgets. They sell like hotcakes! Your widgets are better quality, & have some innovations that you thought of while working at the factory. You expand. You hire a sales force, & buy your own building. You hire more employees, & pay them well for their work. You learn from the mistakes of previous employers, & try to make a positive working environment. Your widgets are wildly successful, & you get a cover story in forbes magazine. Your spouse & children adore you, & you die peacefully in your sleep at a ripe old age.

So you covered all of the list, but you are mostly defined by work.. dependency, theft, & luck were short lived, & you relied on hard work to sustain you most of your life. Now lets look at some stereotypes.

1. rich kid. Your parents were rich, & left you a fat trust fun. You went to college, but just played at it. You never took any govt assistance, but didn't work summers, either. You went to europe every couple of years, & partied with rock stars & other rich kids. Again, we'd have to follow the money to see if its source was from work, luck, or theft, but in this case, your money was luck. You were born rich, & just lucky, if we consider riches to be something to aspire to. Some rich kids squander their inheritance in lavish living, others invest & work it & become richer. If you contribute to some politicians elections, & get some increase from those connections, at least some of your riches are from theft, or 'lawful plunder' as bastiat puts it. Or if it is from a solyndra type venture, it is all theft. If you're just playing the market, that is a lot of luck.. some educated guesses, but you still need a little luck. Overall, luck was the driving force behind your survival.

2. welfare queen. You got pregnant as a teen, moved into the projects, got food stamps & adc. Your boyfriends would bring over some weed, & you'd party at the house when the kid was asleep. Soon, you had more kids, & made more money. You always had plenty of food around, & could even trade some for a bit of crack if you wanted. Men were always around giving attention, & occasionally you'd have one stick around for a few years. He'd have to duck out the back when the social worker came around, but you got good at playing the game. The boys began to hang out with gang bangers, but since they were your social network, that's what boys do. Your older daughter got pregnant, & moved to her own place. But she got into crack & lost the kids. You took them, which helped your income a bit until you could get on disability from being obese. Since most of your life was from dependency on govt, which relies on theft, theft is the driving force behind your survival.

3. Rugged individualist. You were raised by wolves, & began to come into human society when you started school. You caught all your own food, & even made the pencils you needed at school. By high school, you already owned a couple of businesses that made widgets for the aerospace industry. You majored in engineering in college, paid your own way, & developed some new patents while working on your thesis. You made your own car from scratch, & built a treehouse in the woods to live in. No one gave you anything, & you never took anything from anyone. You overcame every obstacle by hard work & determination. Work was your main means of survival.

There are a lot more, but this is getting long & silly, so i'll stop. But there are corporate cogs, ponzi scheme promoters, minimum wage dead ends, lottery winners, & myriads of other stereotypes we could include. No one is a stereotype, though, & most of us are composites of many of these. The serious question to ask is this:

What means of survival defines your life?

The next serious question is this: What is a widget?

Dilution of wealth

I've been trying to get a simple, clear explanation of fractional reserve banking & monetary policy for years. I could see the evils of inflation, & how it robs people of their life's savings, & i could see the dangers of fiat money, & the seemingly automatic degeneration of a culture or empire once that becomes the basis for the currency. But i haven't been able to get it boiled down to the essence.. the simple basics of what is actually happening, & tying it all together.

As usual, it is not the system that is necessarily flawed, but the way govt has worked it. Fractional reserve banking has been with us for centuries, & if managed in a responsible way, is a workable system for a nation to regulate it's currency & money supply. Here is the progression that i see, & how we have gotten to where we are. And of course, none of these things happened in a vacuum, either, but were part of the timeline of events in history, from the american revolution to the civil war, to the new century.

1. Creation of the federal reserve, 1913.

These periodic banking panics were symptomatic of a less dramatic but more regular problem:
the seasonal variation in the need for currency for transactions. The system of gold and legal
tender notes was not elastic, and it was subject to money “shortages” especially at harvest time.
In 1913, this problem was addressed by the creation of the Federal Reserve System (Fed).33 The
Fed was to remedy the situation in a two ways. First, it would provide a means by which banks
could borrow in times of stringency to satisfy their customers’ demand for cash. Second, it could
create a new form of money, Federal Reserve notes, which could be expanded or contracted in
quantity to respond to the need for more cash.
The creation of the Federal Reserve had little if any effect on the gold standard. The dollar was
still defined in terms of gold. Federal Reserve notes were redeemable in lawful money. The Fed
not only operated under the gold standard, but was charged with maintaining it, and kept a
percentage of gold cover for its notes. Gold still dictated the value of the dollar.
source

Basically, the fed was created to allow banks to extend themselves more in fractional reserve banking.. IOW, they were not required to have ALL the assets on hand to make loans, but would get guarantees from the fed to cover any runs on the banks. This took some risk away from the banks, & also seemed to insure the deposits & savings of the people. But, it created unintended consequences, which had to be addressed by more govt measures.

BTW, the creation of the fed was a private entity not run by elected govt officials, & not really accountable to the american people, congress, or other banks. This institution was given tremendous power, to control the nation's money supply. While it was still under the gold standard, it ability to manipulate the currency was limited.

2. FDR ends the gold standard, 1933. 
This was one of the greatest administrative overreaches in american history. He got congress to rubber stamp it.. which, btw, was controlled by the democrats. The senate was 59/36 & the house 313/117 in dem/pub ratio. Basically, the problem was runs on the banks, & a lack of confidence in the banking system. People were converting their liquid assets to gold, & the federal reserve bank was finding itself overextended, as the fractional reserve created bubble in the roaring 20s had burst. But instead of letting a correction happen, the govt intervened. Private gold ownership was outlawed. People had to conduct all transactions with federal reserve notes. It was all done under the guise of 'save the economy, save the children!' It provided a temporary solution to the failing banks. Socialism was growing in the world, as was a sense of entitlement to basic needs.

The problems of fractional reserve banking became obvious in the roaring 20s. The stock market was booming, & margin buys were common. That is essentially buying stock on credit.. you have money to buy 10 shares, but can buy 100 on margin. This is fine as long as stock keep rising. But if they fall, the bill comes due for the rest of the stock purchase, which has not decreased in value so selling it does not provide the money to pay the original cost. Eventually, all liquidity is lost, & bankruptcy ensues, or jumping out of the wall street windows.

But this was the start of the dilution process. Margin buying was not 'creating' anything, or actual production, but was 'fake' wealth.. an illusion of increase, based only on monetary policy & inflation. This boom in the money supply, created by the fed, was not justified by actual, physical production in the nation. The economy was booming in the postwar 20s.. farmers were growing & expanding, with production increasing exponentially with the appearance of the internal combustion engine.. tractors could do the work of many mules & horses, with one man driving it. Building was booming.. houses, factories, economic growth was exploding. But much of it was on margin.. credit. When the bubble burst, it took many people down with it.

The statist cheerleaders could not face the prospect of taking blame for their own govt meddling, so they blamed gold. It was a roadblock to continued economic expansion. So the solution? Outlaw gold, & force usage of the declared (fiat) money.

This is also when people began to get rich from money shuffling.. sure, there have always been money lenders, who get rich off of usury, but this was different. It was cutting the real wealth with a bulky filler.. printing more money with the same basis, & allowing middle men to skim off for their own enrichment. This was different than the typical money lender, charging interest for the loan. This was not REAL value, but something 'created' by the fed, then skimmed off by multiple middle men.. money shufflers who don't produce anything. They are leeches in the system, & the new structure was causing an explosion of growth. But the actual production was not growing at the rate of the money supply, so the producers were not able to support all of these middle men, each diluting the original value of the product. It is drug dealer dynamics.. a ponzi scheme system of monetary supply.

This is getting too long, so i'll quit for now.. maybe later i'll finish up with the rest of the progression, from ww2 to nixon, skyrocketing inflation, opec, & the growing explosion of the money supply, along with the dwindling production. Some people already know this, as it is nothing new. But most people do not grasp the significance of the financial meddlings by the govt. 

What it all boils down to is confiscation of wealth.. REDISTRIBUTION from the producers to leeches, via dilution of the value of the currency. The leeches early on were the money shufflers.. bankers, wall street tycoons, etc, & the progressives want to 'share the wealth' with a bunch more leeches in the welfare state. But it is all done on the backs of the producers, & is unsustainable.

I am myself persuaded, on the basis of extensive study of the historical evidence, that... the severity of each of the contractions - 1920-21, 1929-33, and 1937-38 - is directly attributable to acts of commission and omission by the Reserve authorities and would not have occurred under earlier monetary and banking arrangements. ~Milton Friedman

The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy. ... Roosevelt's policies were very destructive. Roosevelt's policies made the depression longer and worse than it otherwise would have been. ~Milton Friedman

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. ... This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold.Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard. ~Alan Greenspan

With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people. ~Friedrich August von Hayek

Wealth creation by dilution

Probably the most basic concept about currency, wealth & money is also the most misunderstood. There is this notion that wealth is a pie, managed by the govt. Poor people get a small slice of the pie, while greedy rich people take big slices. The origination of that pie is not considered.

Wealth begins when a crop is harvested, a building is built, or a product manufactured. There is something of value, which people want. Without the demand, the item has no value, so the beginning of wealth starts with demand. All of the wealth of a nation depends on actual creation of something from raw materials, or the production of those raw materials. 

Production is the basis for all wealth & value.

But what about Quantitative Easing? Can't the govt just print more money & provide the currency that fuels the economy? No. All that does is DILUTE the real product of a nation. It is drug dealer dynamics. A drug dealer gets some drugs & cuts it with powdered sugar or some other cheap diluting product, to make it go further, but he does not 'create' more drugs. It is like a distiller producing a barrel of whiskey, then diluting it with water to make 5 barrels. This is what QEs do. They dump more money into the system. It is shuffled around, skimmed off by bankers, politicians & their cronies, & finally trickling down to the people as borrowed money. But it is not based on production. It has NO basis for its creation. It is fundamentally destructive to the economy, not productive.

So what does this dilution accomplish?

1. It enriches the money shufflers. An unintended consequence of QEs or any fiat money scheme is those who originate it profit the most. Instead of the PRODUCERS getting the bulk of the increase from their product, the money shufflers take the lion's share through dilution. They are like the drug dealers, cutting the original drug with bulky filler.

2. It causes inflation. The currency is not based on something of value, but simply declared.

3. It causes income inequality. The money shufflers: bankers, politicians, govt, financial sector manipulators. They get the bulk of the value from the nation's production, so they become rich off of other people's labor.

What is most ironic is that those who oppose income inequality the most, support those who provide the setting for it to happen! Leftists & occupy wall street types are indignant over obscene profits from the banks, yet it is their political cronies that are making this happen. The politicians, via the federal reserve, are responsible for all the QEs, the complex derivatives & secret financial wranglings that dilute the currency & stifle the economy. They trumpet redistribution, but they are already redistributing from the producers to the NON productive money shufflers! Then, they want to INCREASE the dilution by giving away more money to other non producers in the society via the welfare state. They are merely cutting more bulky filler into an already diluted drug. That is why the value or 'potency' of our currency continues to decline. All it does is burn & not provide the high. But like good marketing drug dealers, they tell us what 'good stuff' this is.

This is why the current financial system is doomed to fail. It is based on drug dealer dynamics.. ponzi scheme increases. It is NOT based on real production, nor does it reward it. Real production is discouraged, while money shuffling is rewarded. That is why people pursue MBAs instead of farming... politics instead of construction.. welfare instead of working. Hard, productive work is not rewarded, but shuffling & cons are.

A currency, to be valid, should be based on something of value. That is the difference between 'hard' & 'fiat' currencies. Fiat currencies ALWAYS fail. They operate by dilution. They are currency by theft. They offer illusion in exchange for the created product. But eventually, the actual producers see through the scam & no longer accept the illusion. Then, you get weimar republic inflation & devaluing. The american dollar is allegedly based on our gdp.. gross domestic product. Now this sounds good, IF the currency is actually based on our production. But that is not the case. The GDP is a propaganda construct. It does NOT measure actual production, but money shuffling! So they use the borrowing, shuffling, & skimming of money in the financial sectors to measure the nation's production. It is all paper based numbers with no reflection of reality or actual production.

This seems like an obvious, common sense observation of reality. Yet when we actually propose & debate monetary policy, we think it grows on trees. We want to pass it out like candy. But there is no value without production. Unless a crop is produced, land improved, a product manufactured , or the raw materials mined or acquired for any of these things, all other increases come from dilution.

The solution is to stop the flood of fiat money. That will end the dilution, limit the enrichment from the money shufflers, & give more of the value to those who actually work & produce the product. We need accountability from the fed, & a constant audit of their actions. It is the responsibility of our elected officials to provide a stable currency, which they have not done for over a century. The current system is theft from the producers by dilution. It weakens the currency, discourages production, & breeds corruption & non-productivity. The currency should be tied to actual production of food & raw materials, like lumber, oil, steel, etc. If that could happen, the currency would stabilize, & those actually producing the products would gain the most, & there would be less money printed for the shufflers to skim from. But if we continue along the current path, history shows the outcome: Economic collapse.

The Question for the Ages..

"There has never been but one question in all civilization-how to keep a few men from saying to many men: You work and earn bread and we will eat it." ~Abraham Lincoln

All of societal interaction.. governance, or anything regarding the human collective, seems to boil down to this Question for the Ages. Human beings seem to be divided between 2 basic philosophies or ideals:

1. Self sufficiency & independence.
2. Entitlement & dependence.

Those who are independent want freedom to reap the harvest of their own labors. Those who want dependency are willing to put up with less freedom, if they are taken care of. The basic philosophy is there, even if it is not clearly defined or stated. Left wing ideology is one of dependence. They look to someone else to provide their basic needs. 

The root of the ideology can be seen by the choices made in our lives. Those who look for easy money in the financial or govt sectors are different than those who pursue productive labor. A farmer creates a crop, useful to people everywhere, & is arguably the most important single industry of mankind. Bankers or govt workers look for others to support them, & purport to offer a useful service for those who are producing.

Our basic needs are few:
1. Sustenance (Food, water)
2. Protection (clothing, shelter, personal defense)

Anything beyond these things are luxuries for an affluent society. The independent work to provide these things for themselves & their families. The dependent look to the producers to provide it for them. 

Throughout the ages, almost every system of human governance was based on the collective working & providing for the governing elite. It did not matter if the system was based on the divine right of kings, or the might of a military dictator. The state used it's power to take from the producing workers & use it for themselves. Some of them used foreign conquest to placate the masses, & bring plunder home for them to share. But until 1776, every system of human governance centered around the many working to support the few.

The american system was a brief interlude in that pattern. Here, the governing few.. regular citizens, not an empowered elite.. were supposed to use their granted powers to protect the individual's rights.. to provide a society where the individual could work & earn a large share from their labors, instead of it being taken by the ruling elite. For nearly 200 yrs, that was the system in place, until the govt grew to the all consuming monster we see today. The granted powers are seen as entitled powers, & the rulers have conned us into working to support them.

For a society to prosper, those producing MUST outnumber the dependents. The expenses of society: govt, infrastructure, fire & police protection, any social services provided by the collective; if these are a small percentage of the income of the society, it can prosper. But, if these dependents grow & the percentage they take increases, eventually the producers cannot produce enough for everyone. A farmer cannot grow enough food for a growing population, if more people do not go into farming. A society cannot support a huge standing army or police force, if they do not produce enough to pay for them.

Probably the most misunderstood concept in the nation is that of production & dependency. Liberal ideology thinks money can be printed, or that there is an unlimited source of food, clothing, shelter, & other commodities to draw from. They think it is everyone's RIGHT to have these commodities. But how is it anyone's right to take what another has worked for? All they are doing is promoting the same scam that has been going on for time immemorial: "You work and earn bread and we will eat it."

That is why the growing dependency in america cannot continue. It is already beyond our ability to provide. The governing elite have just borrowed from future generations to keep the scam running, like a typical pyramid scheme. They are building a bubble with currency, conjuring it from thin air, rather than real production. This is unsustainable, & will eventually crash.

What is the solution? How can we avoid the repetition of history?
1. Demand fiscal responsibility from the elected officials. A balanced budget is essential.
2. Encourage people to pursue productive careers. Farming, manufacturing, building.. these are the foundation that ALL other sectors depend on. They MUST be the preferred, elevated career choices, rather than easy dependency money.
3. Value & esteem production, instead of entertainment & elitism. Rebel against the system, & stop giving the fruits of our labors to unproductive dependents. Clowns, minstrels, & court jesters should not be the richest people in a society.
4. Revolt. Overthrow those who are perverting the constitution.

It will take a change in the values of society, if we are to change the direction we are heading. If we continue the current path, there will be financial collapse first, then the rest of the institutions will follow, until the military force is the only one left.