Rule of Law the Non-Ideal

People tend to assume that Western Political Values are unquestionably virtuous and stand as the highest achievements possible for their or anybody’s Civilization. In proportion as anything is different from Western Values, so it is considered by that same degree to be inferior, even Barbarian. But all of this is done under the spell of hundreds of years of propaganda, from minds clouded with nationalistic and ethnic pride, and from simply never having ever been exposed to anything else. Small educations make for small minds.

Rule by Law was not always and everywhere held up to be one of the highest Ideals. In Classical China there was quite an argument for and against it. Confucius lined up against Rule of Law, what was referred to then as Legalism, and not because he was some kind of an Anarchist, but because he recognized the limitations of Legalism and the tricks that could played with the Law.

You see, the Legalists claimed that everybody had a different sense of what was right and wrong and so in order to preclude the possibility of any misunderstandings, then everything should simply be spelled out in the Law. Just tell people what is permitted and what is not permitted. What could be simpler then that?

Well, Games have rules, but Life isn’t a Game. Unless one is a Player and wishes to be the Winner to everybody else’s Loser.

You see, once Legalism, or Rule of Law, is established then the Legalists, what we call Lawyers nowadays, can set to work creating all the loopholes, or ways to engage in ethically shady dealings without precisely crossing the exact letter of the Law. Indeed, this was all the agenda that the Legalists must have had in mind or cared about, because the other result of Legalism, or Rule of Law, serves nobody, and that is when somebody by force of circumstances happens to violate the law, but only because of overwhelmingly compelling reasons. But the problem here is that Rule of Law recognizes no mitigations, no exceptions. Unless a lawyer authorizes a well plotted Loophole, then breaking the Law is breaking the law. So it is that in a Legalistic Society a CEO of major Bank can bilk millions of people out of their fortunes and toss them out of their homes, while sending entire Economies and Nations into ruin, all while laughing in everybody’s face because no legislature had the foresight to craft exactly the right Law to forbid every conceivable financial trick and slight of hand. But if one of the victims were to accost such a Banker and punch him in the face for what he had done, although it could be counted as only the smallest token of what would really be deserved, then this poor Victim would be sent off to prison for assault – you know, there are Laws against such things.

What Confucius believed was that people, that is, most well-bred and brought up people know the difference between Right and Wrong, and should be held to that standard which all decent people know perfectly well without ever having to explain it or itemize it point by point against every conceivable situation. The advantage here is that there are no loopholes in such a Morality based system. And mitigating circumstances would be allowed, where actions are a salt and pepper mix of Good and Bad, as long as the prevailing intentions were mostly for the Good.

In the West, a certain concession used to be made for Morality within the Legal System. This was the Jury. The Law was the Law, but the Jury would add their own Moral Awareness to the legal equation. But now this function of the Jury System is being strangled away by the Legalistic Judiciary. Juries are being instructed to regard only the facts and to apply only the Law. Dissenting Jurors are thrown out, and some even imprisoned for contempt. Legalism is now entirely pure. Its untouched by any trace of Morality.

Really, it is the Legalistic Judges that need to go. The Law Books need to be tossed. We need to return to the appreciation and application of simple Right and Wrong.

Yes, it can seem almost comical sometimes, when humans guide their social and political actions by what they ‘feel’ is Right. I remember an instance from Greek History. A certain popular Politician gave a rousing speech for War, and nearly everybody voted in favor of the belligerent proposal. But when the war ended in disaster, the same group of politicians voted, again almost unanimously, to have the rascal executed. They didn’t blame themselves. The way they saw it, they had been successfully manipulated. They were made fools of, and so they had their revenge.

Growing up being indoctrinated in the niceties of Rule of Law, the instance from Greek History appears shocking. But if we only give ourselves a minute to think about it, wasn’t the outcome back then better then what we could expect now?

Is the Rule of Law really an Ideal, or is it just another scheme for protecting the scoundrels that run the show? Really, wouldn’t it provide so much more incentive for Responsibility if the rascals worried about being hanged by the people they trick and fool.

At a very basic and practical level the difference between Right and Wrong is that Right works out for most peoples’ advantage and Wrong screws things up and ends badly. When Success can pay off so well for People in High Position, then it would only be reasonable to expect them to assume some Risk for when things end badly. But in our Legalistic Society, there never is any real risk. Yes, it is a gamble, but they gamble with Other People’s Money.

Then there is the not so secret Secret that it is the Rich that mostly write the Laws and they largely exempt themselves from them. Only in the Moral Society, liberated from Legalisms, can the people demand Responsibility, and need no better reason then that they are outraged.

Not everything needs to be Rational. Sometimes Rewards or Punishments can simply be Poetic.

Garabandal vs Medjugorje vs Kibeho Rwanda

Physiological Proof of Religious Visionary Experiences

Garabandal vs Medjugorje vs Kibeho Rwanda


The Catholic Church goes through its own processes for affirming or denying Religious Visionaries, and some of these procedures are troubling and stupid. First among the stupid things is that they have this extreme emphasis on protecting Catholic Orthodoxy. They are pretending that in any disagreement between Heaven and the Vatican, that the Vatican must always be right. What this leads to is a situation where even if there were any slight imperfections in the Catholic Church, then they would be absolutely uncorrectable, as even the very Voice of God, if He were to speak in order to point out such error, would be immediately discredited because, of course, every single Bishop who knows the letter of the Catechism would know better than God Himself. Yes, suddenly Tradition and the Absolute Truth of how Catholicism has always understood things can be tossed aside easily enough if the Bishops decide to have a kind of Political Convention and vote one way or another on things that they treat merely as policy issues. Such political haggling and horse trade, they call that the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is okay as long as it works politically and in the basest materialistic channels, where the Bishops do all their work. But certainly it can never be said that the Bishops of the Catholic Church have ever been influenced by anything Religious or Spiritual. That is simply not the Holy Spirit as they have grown from time immemorial to understand it.

But why should there ever be a Visionary? If the Church had everything absolutely correct, then God would have no need for sending any Visionaries, isn’t that so? So Visionaries are inherently a Corrective. Yes, the Church has no trouble approving Visionaries when the Visionaries speak in regards to correcting the people, the Laity or the Religious Orders, but the Church bristles when their own Fat Cat Bishops receive Heaven’s Scrutinizing Gaze. The only thing the Bishops need help with is their legal strategies for protecting their sexual lifestyle choices with children and such.

Another problem with Church review of the Visionaries is that there does not seem to have been an effort to arrive at some expected physiological baseline for genuine Religious Experiences, and this some 40 years after the publication of Charles Tart’s “Altered States of Consciousness”.

What brings this to mind is that I have been reading “Our Lady of Kibeho” by Immaculée Ilibagiza of Rwanda in Africa. Her description of the trance states of the Kibeho Visionaries reminded me of what I had read concerning the Garabandal Visionaries in Spain. Unfortunately, the physiological descriptions from Spain and Africa have only the most marginal similarities with those of the more famous Visionaries from Medjugorje in Croatia.

In Garabandal Spain it was obvious to everybody that at least something supernatural was going on, and the only choice was between whether the God or the Devil were responsible. The Visionaries would become impervious to their surroundings, their dissociation was so complete that they wouldn’t flinch in the least even under the most extreme tortures – driving nails into their arms, needles up the fingernails and applying flames to hands and feet while the Visionaries were in trance. And the Visionaries seemed capable of the impossible (which is what they mean by ‘supernatural’, isn’t it?), for instance, dashing about on the mountain side amidst the roughest terrain almost as if by levitation. In Kibeho Rwanda the seers would collapse and then assume the characteristic of being un-moveable – six strong men could not pick up a small teenaged waif. Also, in the African case there had been some rather extreme trances in which the seers had appeared death-like for longer than a day at a time. Finally, trained medical personnel detected something like an hourly breath and heartbeat. Ordinarily we shouldn’t expect teenagers to be able to fake such things.

But in Medjugorje the famous Seers only had to stop paying attention to the crowd, they only needed to all look up in approximately the same direction, and then they only had to agree upon telling about the same story afterwards. They brought in Medical Examiners who treated the Medjugorje Visionaries as authentic only because they blinked only half so often during their trances as at other times. Now, if they had not blinked at all…

In both Rwanda and Spain there was a certain vicious sadism applied to testing the Subjects for complete dissociation during the Trance States. We could certainly deplore such cruelty, had the seers felt anything, but what was generally conceded was that the children felt nothing at the time and had no experience of discomfort later – no open bleeding sores or third degree burns to treat. Why were the Medjugorje Seers let off so easy? Well, probably because they flinched at the first slightest tickle. They were given the Test, only they didn’t pass it. After that they were only measured on their ability to play pretend. Then Wishful Thinkers gave them the go ahead. Also, there may have been something of a material agenda behind Medjugorje. What all the books seem to say is that the Franciscan Religious Order in Croatia put together the entire Visionary ploy in order to draw tourist dollars to the area, so they could buy up weapons cashes in preparation for all the Ethnic Cleansing they would soon be engaged in. And it all seems to be born out by the subsequent facts. When one checks the Ethnic Demographic Map before the Civil War and then after, one finds that the Medjugorje District was perhaps the most successful at almost entirely becoming Ethnically Homogenous, that is the nice People of Medjugorje were successfully able to either chase away or kill nearly every single Serb and Muslim in the district. Mostly from the profits they made from Rosary Bead sales.

Anyway, the Catholic Church needs stop insisting on Doctrinal Purity. After all, nobody applied any such Tests to Paul who made up most of these Doctrines that they now must so stubbornly protect against so many attacks from Spiritual and Theological Common Sense and the dictates of Ordinary Morals. The Bishops conveniently forget that at the Height of Catholic Civilization most of Paulist Doctrine was ignored, and that the recognition and implementation of Paulist Doctrine, far from helping anything, in fact went hand in hand with the Decline and Fall of Catholic Civilization. So why protect something that is at best dubious in the first place?

It would be better to define exactly what one should expect physiologically from a true Visionary, and then just learn to live with whatever these True Visionaries bring with them from Heaven. The Jews had called them Prophets, and look at how well it worked out for them.

Alternatives to Costly Wars of Occupation

Military Planners in the United States will probably not spend too many more years combing over History before they discover an alternative to the costly wars of occupation. Eventually they will take note of the Mongolian Experience. You see, beginning at about the turn of the First Millennium, about a thousand years ago, the Mongolians struck out from their bleak dry horse lands and established the largest Empire of Military Conquest that the World had ever seen, and they managed to do so without the debilitating expenses involving Occupations and Nation Building. They preferred implementing strategies of what we would call today “genocide”. Then they would utilize colonization and resettlement of friendly ethnic groups to once again return vacant areas to some economic usefulness.

It was puzzling for me to reconcile such historical facts of mass genocides in the regions of Mongolian Conquest with the modern demographic facts that not everybody in the Euro-Asian Continent between Vienna and Mongolian is pure blooded Mongolian. It is clear that a great many ethnic populations survived enough to be well represented later after the Mongolian Empire had receded. It was probably like with all of our Holocaust Survivors. So what exactly happened during these Genocidal Wars and Invasions?

Well, my guess is that all Populations that were directly encountered by the Mongolian Forces were annihilated, but that escaping hordes of refugees were allowed to flee almost non-molested – as long as you fled in front of the advancing Armies you would be okay, that is, until you starved or died of exposure or some such thing. In a way, it almost served to help their Strategy, as the refugees would flee into Countries not yet invaded, and would serve to destabilize those regions and weaken them ahead of the Mongolian onslaught.

One might ask about Resistance Fighters, what we nowadays call “terrorists”. Certainly the Mongols must have had problems with such insurgencies. But, no, not necessarilly. You see, Resistance Fighters are a product of attempting to coexist with an existing Population. Resistance Fighters can hide within the Host Population, or perhaps hide out in the Hills and Jungles, while being re-supplied and supported by the Host Population. It was this Support Population that the Mongols destroyed with their targeted Genocides. As it says in that famous Treatise on War, “if one kills the snakes body, the head automatically dies”. Once the Mongols burned the cities and then burned the farms, then the remaining elements of Population, living in the most abject poverty as vagabond refugees, would have more pressing matters to cling to than worrying about fighting back.

American Military Planners had already seen this model in action. Look at the American Civil War. Lincoln and the North had been at an impasse until General Sherman decided to burn Atlanta and every farm around it to a circumference of a hundred miles, thus completely ‘pacifying’ the region. It was this ‘Scorched Earth’ strategy that finally brought the South to the Peace Table.

This brings us to an expected Tipping Point of Genocide… well, at least the Mongols had not expected it. You see, once a certain number of Nations are completely leveled by genocidal slaughter, then at least some Nations next in line for invasion will utterly and entirely submit, using their own resources to assure that there is no ‘trouble’, and they will beg for survival on any terms.

It is interesting the first time that the Mongols had realized this dynamic. They had been slow to catch on – a few cities that had offered only the barest resistance were totally destroyed simply out of the inertia of consistent habit. But finally this one City made a strong impression which caused a Mongolians to do a Re-Think. You see, from the very first the Mongolians had the stated policy of Destroying any City that offered even the least resistance, but they never had to worry about NOT destroying a City because there had always been some resistance somewhere. But finally they came to this one City that welcomed them with flowers and banquets and wagons of loot, indeed, anything of any value that was not nailed down was already packed up and ready for shipment to Mongolia. And then one single idiot shot an arrow over the wall. Just when everything had been going almost unbelievably smooth. Did they really wish to mess it all up because of that hobgoblin ‘consistency’ ( “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds” ).

Well, the General sent one of his Officers back to Mongolia to confer with Genghis Khan and his High Council to determine just how strictly they were to interpret their own nominal rules, of killing everybody for the least resistance. What happened in the Council was that it reminded a great many of them that a good many such instances had been occurring, where resistance to their Invasion had become almost completely insignificant and that their Commanders in the Field were complaining that would be cheaper NOT to kill everybody. Once over the Tipping Point, then Occupying the Enemies would be the easier way to go.

That particular Tipping Point still comes into play. There are probably many variables involves – whether a People as a whole are rational, peace-loving, foregoing and tolerant, or whether they are possessed by some semi-suicidal rage that gets the better of their common sense and instinct for survival. Remember a few years ago when the Chechen Resistance was being so troublesome for the Russian Army and for Russia itself, with the Chechen’s setting off bombs in Russia blowing up entire Apartment Buildings full of people. Well, the Russians let it out through discretely leaked information that they were planning to completely annihilate the population of Chechnya and resettle the place with ethnic Russians. Screw International Opinion. The World would yell and scream, whine and cry, and Russia would not get to host the Olympics for a couple of decades. But Russia’s problem with Chechnya would finally be solved. But guess what happened. Chechnya IMMEDIATELY decided to police itself and so it is that they staved off their absolute punishment.

What if American Planners did come to see the utility of genocide and resettlement in place of the old policies of occupation. Well, there would be certain new kinds of cost involved. For the Mongols, maybe because they conquered so much so quickly, it required nearly all of their available Man Power. Every able bodied man in Mongolia was expected to be a Warrior. They would bring in “slaves” to do all the other necessary work. For instance, Marco Polo the Italian, who had simply been traveling around at the time, was recruited to be such a “slave” for the Mongols, handling bank accounts in China for the Mongolian Invaders. Well, does America have that kind of a Military Culture where every able-bodied man would feel honor-bound to be an Officer in some Genocidal Army? Not at the moment, it doesn’t.

But Technology can be made to jump into the breach. Winning People’s Hearts and Minds may be a tricky and elusive goal, when it comes to occupying invaded Nations, but killing everybody might turn out to be a snap. One can envision relatively low-cost technologies for killing off populations, even one person at a time, putting just enough filtering into the Systems so that American and Allied Forces would not be targeted. One immediately thinks of the ‘Terminator’ series of movies, but the mistake there is in over-estimating the ability of humans to survive against even rather simple Artificial Intelligence Weapons. We would not need expensive Terminator Robots, when a little model airplane with a silent electric motor can kill somebody with a single small 22 caliber bullet to the brain. And we can assure that such weapons will never miss – we can simply make it a point of buying them from Japan.

And then there are biological weapons. While Genocidal War would still come with so many recriminations from ‘Civilized’ Peoples everywhere, a War using Biological Agents to spread Plagues and Diseases among specifically targeted genetic Groups, would seem, well, just like any ordinary Epidemic. The Nation under Biological Attack would be quarantined off by the International Disease Control Authorities and nearly everybody would die, and nobody would ever realize it had all been a Military Operation. Just like Aids had been in Africa. People had once worried that Africa would be the hub of the World’s worries over Over-Population. Not since Aids. Do we really think that was all a happy coincidence? A Disease that targets an ingrained habit among nearly all Sub-Saharan African Peoples, which after 3 decades still doesn’t have a cure. And that nobody suspects any Government of designing such a clever Disease simply proves the point of how useful it would be for Governments to exploit the use such Bio-Weapons.

Anyway, I do not suppose the World has very long before Genocidal War makes its comeback. Right now America is reviewing the Utility of War in the light of its recent failures to successfully occupy Iraq and Afghanistan, where it had been so expensive and politically damaging – where the worst people seem to win all of the subsequent local elections, unlike in America, of course. Anyway, soon America will realize that there are other possible Strategies available, even with all the allure of being Historically rather successful. They even have a phrase for it. Kill them all and let God sort them out.

Economic Growth versus Planning

In every panegyric which lavishes praise upon Capitalism while castigating Socialism, we find that all measures are expressed in terms of ‘growth’. Capitalism and un-restricted trade are better because they grow better. Well, weeds grow. Cancers are famous for their ability to grow. So is it really correct to make Growth our only measure for Civilized Excellence?

One little narrow minded book I had been reading a while back spoke of a growing company in Brazil, so successful it was putting everybody else out of business. The author of the book never spent even a fraction of a second wondering whether one small companies success was worth the disruption of all the rest. Also, he never bothered to wonder what was being produced and how the money was being made. Child Pornography. Human Slave Trafficing. Burning down the Rain Forest. There is Profits to be made in all that. Not every Growth Industry is automatically All Goodness and Light just by virtue of feeding Greed, no matter how much praise we lavish on this Modern Virtue that the Ancients somehow managed to get all wrong.

Well, Growth might have its place. One can see the utility of the Growth Philosophy of Economics in severely under-performing developing Nations, but then we are confronted with the paradox where unrestricted Free Trade into Undeveloped Economies provides Goods and Services at already rock-bottom rates, preventing Developing Economies from ever, well, developing. So we have had countries like Japan and China, and even America, if we look far enough back, that protected their developing industrial capacities through trade restrictions and only opened their Markets when it was a game they felt sure they could win. Here we need to take a moment to admire the Americans for sticking by the same rules even after they began seriously to get their asses kicked.

In speaking of America we are speaking of a totally developed Economy, almost Post Industrial. If suddenly America were to be measured only in terms of Industrial Capacity, one could hardly be sure whether America could still be considered a ‘developed’ Nation at all. But their Gross National Product is high and so Americans think that it all amounts to the same thing. The problem there is in the way Gross National Product is measured. For instance, when Japan builds a TV Set and sells it for $400, that $400 is tallied up in Japan’s Gross National Product. That is easy enough to understand. But in America when a some Mutual Fund Company pays $400 for an Equity Purchase, THAT also is counted in its Gross National Product, even though nothing is produced – where there actually is no product. Ownership is transferred on paper. Indeed, simply transferring funds from one account to another is counted into America’s Gross National Product. What this tells us is that it is easy for a Banking Nation, such as America, to sustain a high GNP even while everything real is collapsing and falling into rubble. As long as the Super Rich keep shuffling their accounts around, America will still be able to pretend that the GNP demonstrates that they are as economically healthy as Europe or Asia – Economies which still actually make and sell real stuff.

So maybe America is not the best example we can speak of when hoping to discuss Developed Economies – we can call America ‘Post-Developed’. So let’s talk instead of Japan. Does Japan really need to ‘grow’? At some point isn’t ‘enough’ enough?

Yes, in Capitalism all Stock Pricing is predicated upon Growth. Profit and Growth are mostly about the same thing. We can speak of it in terms of Economic Theory, but maybe it was all because of Economic Habit.

A lot of this Capitalist Business began in England. They realized the connection between Growth and Profits early and began ‘growing’ first by privatizing the Roman Catholic Church Properties through confiscation, and then by privatizing the Common Lands – Growth through Theft and Pillaging, but it worked for the fledgling Capitalists. It was easy for the American Economy, the real Show Piece of Modern Capitalism, to grow because America had so much open free land, that is, once it was taken from the Indians, the French or the Spanish. So given all the Wide Open Space, Growth was easy. So no other thinking, no other tactics were ever really considered. Capitalism simply fell into the rut of equating profits with expanding growth.

It is such a habit that now already severely strained economies are endeavoring to import new populations into already crowded conditions. For instance, America that already bars 40% of its Population from its Doctors and Hospitals complains that it needs more people, in order to sustain its ‘growth’. New people would mean new houses to be built and furnished, and new cars and appliances to be sold. More People equals More Growth. And this is on a Planet that is facing a Global Warming Crisis mostly aggravated by the stresses of Over Population. Also, the international pricing on Food Commodities is going way beyond what the poorest 30% of the World Population is able to pay, but the Capitalists don’t see how that could possibly relate to their endless pushing of the Growth Paradigm.

If the Global Warming and Commodities Pricing Crises are to be addressed, then we really will have to eventually resort to Planning. The only solution that Capitalism would offer is for a Bidding War for scarce resources, and it would be a Bidding War in which most of the World’s Population would come up the Losers.

Paradoxically, it may be an area where America will turns out to be the Pioneer and Advocate. As I hinted earlier, Capitalism is beginning already to sour in America. When the Dollar finally collapses and Capitalism comes to a grinding halt in America, then America will either suffer the deaths of hundreds of millions of its Citizens… and millions more of its Illegals… or it will quickly jump into the breach by Nationalizing the Corporations and Banks, and replacing the Price Demand Economy with a Planned Allocation Economy.

And while the Rest of the World had been so happy to follow America in its Capitalism and its Democracy, it will probably be even happier to again follow America, this time in things that make sense for the most people – Planned Economies and Non-Divisive Government based on Bureaucratic Meritocracy.

Religions Are Of Two Kinds

One of the silliest cliques going is that “all religions are basically the same”. They are really not, and I am not just speaking of the thousands of hair-splitting doctrinal, theological and philosophical differences. I am talking about differences of essential purpose. Certainly religions are not the same when they don’t even want the same thing.

Anyway, when it comes to wanting two different things, then we can identify two different kinds of Religion.

The first kind of Religion is what we would understand today to be like a Self Help Program – sad or unsuccessful people are looking for some kind of a key for improving themselves or for feeling better about themselves or at least to help them manage their depression.

The second kind of Religion is the expression of a Social Propaganda – a unifying Ethos for a Community.

Often a Social Ethos Religion can co-opt the Self Help model of Religion by insisting that Happiness can only be attained by being Community Minded – that Love for Others is the Supreme Happiness. “It is better to give than receive”. However, such Religions can point to relatively few Saints who had actually demonstrated much overt happiness at helping others, and so instead a great deal of attention is focused upon tolerating hardships and enduring suffering for the Good of the Many. People might be told that the Happiness they should expect will come only in an Afterlife.

The purely Self Help Religions can afford to be less contradictory, as their goal really is less ambitious and so much easier to envision if not to achieve. To be more successful and to feel better about one’s self, simply become consciously and deliberately ego-centric. Live for one’s self. To worry about other people only robs one of the energies that could be devoted toward furthering one’s own ends. Wolves are happier than sheep, especially at dinner time.

But, in the end, the Social Ethos Religions actually stand the better chance of making people Happy. Just think about it, that if a Social Ethos Religion finally brings peace to a once Barbaric Community, then a general happiness is likely to follow as destructive energies take more positive directions simply through default.

The selfishness engendered by the Self Help Egotistical Religions suffers from being tied too tightly to the Win-Lose construct, where there is naturally going to be more losers than winners. Every man at war with every other – making life solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short, that is, between the small celebrations of single Conquerors over multitudes of the conquered. The truth is that groups of selfish people make each other miserable.

So it is that the one most reliable indicator of a Self Help Egotistical Religion is the advise or injunction to go off and be solitary. Happiness in selfishness is so much easier when one is alone. Happiness is the best hiding place. Nowadays I believe they call it Meditation.

The Decline and Threat of America

Everything hinges on the value of the Dollar.

Now, a currency is only worth what one can get for it. Well, America no longer produces anything, and with Global Warming messing with the weather, America might soon not even be able to sell wheat, soy, corn and rice. Such commodity sales are the last remaining healthy factors in the grand formula of American Trade, and so we should view any decline there with great trepidation.

The only thing left remaining that America would have to sell, in order to support the Value of its Dollar, is the ownership of its companies and its real estate. But would America have the will to bring itself to sell off its ownerships in just about all of its companies?

It had once almost happened before, with Japan, in the late Seventies. Remember, before China became Manufacturer to the World, it was Japan, and Japan had amassed a huge supply of Dollars. It stuffed many dollars into its Currency Reserves, just as the Chinese are now doing, and even after buying all of its energy and petroleum needs with Dollars, still had many Dollars left over, and so began putting them into American Companies and Real Estate. The most startling instance of this was when Japan bought controlling interest in, yes, Bank of America. Almost at the point of American Political Reaction, when grumbling in the streets was beginning to foment some political focus, Japan collapsed into a recession from which it still has not fully recovered. It was bad for Japan, but it saved the Dollar and put an end to the political grumbling, at least for the moment.

It had been a close call. You see, if America would have enacted some kind of protectionist legislation, prohibiting foreign nationals from purchasing American Companies and Real Estate, then the dollar would have collapsed back then. After all, if Foreign Countries are not allowed to spend dollars in America, then of what value are they?

The situation is much the same with China now, only bigger. The Chinese are playing a complicated and somewhat circular game – they are lending a great many Dollars back to America, thus keeping America’s economy from collapsing, which also allows Americans to purchase more Chinese goods, sending more dollars to China. Stuffing their dollars into Currency Reserves serves one very important purpose – it keeps the dollars out of circulation which keeps the value of the Dollar and of their own Dollar Reserves higher than it otherwise would be. But the Chinese must be clever enough to see the paradox here – that the Dollar is only worth something as long as they don’t try spending it.

I suppose the Chinese are biding their time, but I can’t really guess why. The Dollars present value, as high as it is after considering all of the factors that should be depressing it, is a kind of an Economic Bubble. And in all Economic Bubbles, the people who come out least damaged in the end are the ones who Sell first, cashing out before the panic sets in. If the Chinese wait for some other factor to take them by surprise, collapsing the dollar first, then they could end us sitting on Trillion Dollar Reserves that aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. Heck, all it would take is Saudi Arabia changing the Oil Currency to Euros, and the Dollar would collapse the very same day. And we can’t suppose that there are not hundreds of Saudi Princes all working toward that very same end … understandably or not resenting America’s War against Islam and the stalwart, absolute and unquestioned political and economic support that America provides for Zionist Expansion. With such forces afoot, every day that China waits could be the Dollar’s last.

But it is all very worrisome. The choices are not simple or easy. Spending Dollars could cause more problems then it is all worth. It puts me in mind of Pre-War Germany. Germany’s economy was put into rather shaky circumstances by the one-sided settlement agreement for the First World War, and the Banking Elites in both Germany and Internationally saw an opportunity – they restricted hard currency transfers to Germany, forcing the Germans to print unsupported money that was appraised at lower and lower value as it went along. When the Deutsch Mark finally collapsed entirely, the Banking Communities swooped in with relatively little amounts of gold and silver and bought up everything in sight. Although there had to have been many Christian Bankers in the mix, the most visible standouts were the Jewish Banking Families which had already caused something of a scandal by openly working with the American Government against Germany during the War… even while some of their own family members till lived and worked in Germany. It had every appearance of Treason. While the Economic Collapse and the subsequent “Rescue”, which resulted in a massive transfer of Ownership to Foreign Agents, may have all been an unplanned and unforeseeable accident, which is how History plays it, still, if it had all been a well laid trap, it could not have gone off better. But what was probably not planned for was that the German People became extremely angry, and for years could not get over it, finally resorting to extreme and radical Nationalist Politics which almost everybody admits turned out very badly for nearly everybody.

So, who in their right mind would wish to do it all over again, this time casting America in the roll of Crazy and Bitter Nationalist War Mongers?

With Germany, it took them about 10 to 15 years to assemble a military apparatus large enough to be worrisome. Really, only the French had foreseen such an eventuality, and nobody listened to the French. So the great extent of German Military Nationalism came as something of a surprise. But America offers a very different prospect. America now has more Military Equipment than all of the rest of the world put together, and is showing no signs of ever decreasing its procurements. And, yes, while America currently has a President that enjoys the trust of the rest of the World… that he won’t go crazy and order the bombing of every Capital on the Planet for not sending the Olympic Games to Chicago, still we need to wonder how long this American Political Moderation will last, especially since Political Moderation has now gone a full year while accomplishing virtually nothing. Those who rallied for Political Moderation are now discredited and demoralized. The Right Wing Fanatics will certainly capitalize on the failures of Moderation, and the next ‘Decider’ in the White House could be just as crazy as anybody Germany could ever have imagined, and this time with an Army, Navy and Air Force with a thousand times the destructive capabilities of anything Germany had at the absolute heights of its power and dominance.

So, probably the least worrisome thing China could do with all of their Dollar Reserves would be to simply funnel it all back to America in the form of Loans and Bond Purchases. I admit that it would seem like such an odd and unprofitable plan – to go through all the trouble of being Manufacturer for America and then never being able to spend any of the profits. But they are attaining a certain level of benefit throughout. They are buying up Manufacturing Capital, Technology and Machinery and even putting in place their own Research and Development Facilities. They are doing alright for themselves.

But there is one important thing China needs to keep in mind, and that is that never in a million years will America ever pay off that Huge Debt. Indeed, the way Banking works is that nobody even expects that the Principal, the initial amount of a Loan, should ever be paid back, just as long as the Interest on the loan continues to be paid (over years and years the continual payments of interest more than cover for the original principal of the loan). But at the rate at which America’s borrowing is going, there will soon arrive a time when America will no longer be able to pay even the interest on its loans. Already America has resorted to borrowing to pay the interest on some of its Loans… they call that ‘re-structuring’ but it is really just the prelude to downright bankruptcy, like what happens when an individual has to use one credit card to pay another. The end is near.

Anyway, China needs to look ahead and come up with some calm and cool contingency plans for dealing with the moment, not ‘if’ but, when America announces that it is reneging on its loans and renouncing its bonds.

But, really, what are the chances that cool heads will prevail. In a way it is kind of ironic. America had opposed Communism in both China and Russia, instead preferring the victory of Nationalist Political Factions. International Communism might have seen the utility of coming in and helping America with some International Scheme of some sorts. But the partisan Nationalists from all around the Globe that America had supported will simply wonder whether it isn’t just their lucky day that America has finally collapsed. You see, that is one of the problems with advancing Greed as a Virtue – once it is given to Another, it is likely to turn around and bite.

So, it is extremely worrisome for me, that even with the apparent backdrop of a successful Globalization, the most powerful developing Economies are becoming more and more Nationalistic – India with its Right Wing Hinduism, China with its Ethnic Han Supremacy, and Russia who really must feel screwed over by everything and nobody needs an essay explaining why they should feel pissed off.

Anyway, to sum it all up, when things finally collapse, I don’t expect that events will be met with calm heads and even reasoning. Just as the Twentieth Century had defined itself with all the rushing off into Wars and Holocausts, well, now I see about the same prospects for the Twenty-first Century. No Messiah came forward to stop it then, and so it would probably be unrealistic to hope for any Second Coming to save us now. Yes, after a Black Man became President of the United States, we are probably all out of Miracles.

Religious Based Rehab In Secular Society

A lot changed when the Democratic Revolutions overturned the Monarchies, all except the Prisons. The philosophies of Crime and Punishment stayed largely the same. The system was justified on the grounds that individuals had Moral Responsibility, knew Right from Wrong, and would both deserve and understand their Punishment, that is, their terms of incarceration. The length of each man’s incarceration would be in proportion to the severity of his Crime. They would call it his “debt to society”. In popular parlance it would be “do the crime, pay the time”.

I suppose a few starry-eyed political optimists actually thought that prisoners would spend their years behind bars reflecting on the errors of their ways, and contemplating plans for a better more productive life. But, really, for the most part the traditional Criminal Justice System seemed designed to take dangerous and threatening elements of society off the streets and to put them into storage some place. The lengths of incarceration seemed planned out to make the maximum use of the existing facilities – when the Prisons are empty, then Bank Robbers get 20 years to Life in Prison, but when Prisons are overcrowded the same criminals get a Max of 5 years with the chance of early release in 2 for good behavior. It is all rather cynical.

The first reason for being cynical is that, well, the whole Right and Wrong and Punishment paradigm sort of presupposes that people have both Moral Responsibility and Choice of Action. Yes, yes, yes… the Social Scientists standing above it all on Mount Olympus, so to say, can point out a thousand possible directions for each person’s life. However, that is not exactly how it appears at ground level. When the choices and actions of most people are considered, a rather large proportion are simply carried along by their peer groups and take up whatever opportunities present immediately before them. It is almost as though being Conscious Reflective Beings is all wasted upon them, and they could have done the same things, and made the same choices while sleepwalking, or as zombie robots or whatever. There certainly isn’t much of a hint of Moral Responsibility there.

And it is not just stupid people. I was made aware of a case several years ago in which a Large Government Agency was assigned the task of giving qualification tests that personnel from other Government Departments needed to take and pass. Well, to protect this one group’s identity, we will say they were from “The United Queendom’s Marine Corps”. They had aroused suspicion because all of them together were consistently ‘acing’ their tests, each man getting 100%. They insisted it was because of their collective high standards for intelligence and their well disciplined study habits. “The Few, the Proud”, the very Smart… and all of that. Anyway, on the morning just before the next Test was to be given to a contingent of these Marines, the Agency Manager himself walked down and delivered a new test, that covered the same information almost exactly, but mixed up the order of the Multiple Choice Answers – A, B,C, and D were shuffled about. Well, guess what happened. They all failed. Every single one. And with exactly the same answers. They had exactly memorized the wrong answers.

Well, these young men aren’t stupid. And it can’t even be said that they entirely lack Moral Responsibility, as they were all able to defend their actions on the grounds of Group Cohesion, blah, blah, blah, that is, they were aware that they would need to come up with a quasi-moral excuse if they were ever found out. They knew they couldn’t just claim that cheating was easier and therefore preferable to studying.

So, yes, people even while doing Wrong, are aware of their guilt, that is, they retain at least some of the underpinnings of Moral Responsibility. Only it is not quite enough to factor much into the choices they make. Apparently a great deal counts for more than do the subtle pangs of Conscience. What seems to matter most is the Ethos of their Peer Groups.

Often a Peer Group will collectively act to diminish the force of Traditional Moral Awareness, by calling it effeminate or childish. In most cases a new Quasi-Ethos is put in its place – Morality is replaced by Machismo. Anyway, the primary effect is that Moral Responsibility, if not entirely forgotten, is at least thoroughly abandoned… left for girls and children.

Yes, certain Political Reformers have long observed the horrible inadequacies of the Criminal Justice System – of incarcerating mildly dangerous criminals and then turning them loose when they have become really dangerous. So attempts have been made for Rehabilitation. Even I myself had written a few essays on the subject. However, there has always been one huge factor that has tied their hands – Secular Governments are forbidden from appealing to Religion. So their most useful tools for Re-Moralizing people is forbidden them.

The most interesting examples here are concerning the Communist Re-Education Camps. The Communists for the longest time were aware that the Traditional Prisons were entirely counter-productive and so they tried to jump in with their own alternatives. I only wish we had more data available to us in the West on just how successful Secular Based Re-Education can be. I would be glad if it could be found that they had been able to make anything work – any Moral Success, with or without the aid of Religion, needs no excuse for me, as the way I see it, it is either From God or For Him.

You know, the Communists really should have listened to their own Propaganda, you know, about Religion being used to Control the Masses. Well, duh! When exactly was the last time that any Communist Government didn’t seem completely involved in trying to Control its Masses. They should really use any tool that presents itself. But they insisted upon the Highest Purity of Political Doctrine – a Total Materialistic Scientific Approach. They could only tell the “Truth”, as they figured it.

Truth, truth, truth…

Well, such talk was at the forefront of all the Modern Revolutions – Democracy, Communism. “The Truth will set us Free”. Free was supposed to be Good. But what is Freedom? Freedom would bring us lives “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. Freedom would be War of each man against all others. Yeah, they say that with Freedom comes Responsibility. What they really means is that to be Responsible we need to curtail all Freedom.

Well, the Communist Regimes have always addressed this issue of Responsibility by obliging everybody to the State, through huge networks of legalisms and administrative rewards or punishments. Those who went after the Rewards, if they could merit them, were well enough off, but those who were less worthy or optimistic learned only to become secretive and scheming. So the Communist Regimes all came to have problems with Sub-Societies and Black Markets. People were simply picking and choosing as to how they could maximize their Material Rewards, and a sizeable minority always seemed willing to bet against the State.

God and Religion in the Socialist Equation would have provided another important variable.

In the West the 12-Step programs are said to be very successful in Re-habilitating all kinds of Low-Lifes. They started with Alcoholics Anonymous but have branched out to every kind of crap and corruption imaginable. And a large part of their success is through appeals to Religion and Spirituality. I can’t help but to think they could have been even MORE successful if only they had changed their format somewhat. As it is they all operate in the same way – people stand up and boost endlessly about what horrible low-lifes they USED to be, and then about how happy they are that they changed all that. But the Bragging about Evil is such a large component in it all. They honestly try to one-up each other on just how low they can go, or went. I can’t fail but to suspect that some only moderately low-life people feel as though they are not yet worthy to be in the group until they go out and take a bit more of a tail-spin into the ground. The Groups all say it more or less openly, that “People only change after they hit rock bottom”. So the Big Tacit Message with these 12-Step groups is ‘go away and come back only after you have done some Real harm to your Self, your Family and to Society’.

So, yes, I think the 12 Step Programs would work even better if they took less pride in being so Evil… formerly. What I really think is going on is that their Bragging is a Survival of their Low Life Machismo Ethos alongside the resurrection of their Old Moral Ethos. While these people re-accept the Old Moral Values as part of the 12 Step processs, they are unwilling to relinquish the Bad Ass Credentials that had justified their Lives while they were in the active Process of doing so much Evil. So they stand up at each meeting and brag about what Bad Asses they are… or were. The problem is that I think it is a Mixed Message that probably does a great deal of harm. It has to be a factor in their Recidivism Rate… when these Relapsed Low-Lifers can reassure themselves that while doing all kinds of Evil, they are at least making great improvements on the Story they will be able to tell next time they stand before their Group of Proud Anonymous Low-Lifers.

Anyway, the Communist Regimes and the Secular Democratic Regimes could do themselves a huge favor by admitting that God has a Psychological Reality. It is not to the point at all whether or not God has a Material Existence. That God appears so often in Psychological Delusions and Hallucinations should prove something, that God exists in the Mind. God is an important Psychological Factor.

If only Science would appreciate this Spirituality Factor, and begin to do studies in the direction of designing Programs to take the greatest advantage of it, then we could possibly think of ourselves on the verge of arriving at a Perfectly Designed Religion.

And once we have a really good Religion, then there is no longer anything to stand in the way of the True Dawn of a Real Civilization.

Oh, I do have one practical idea for Rehabilitative Success, and that is to always isolate any New Comer into a stable well established Moral Group. In the case of Children, younger children should be placed with groups of older children, where no bullying of children their own age and size will help them protect and maintain their old Anti-Ethos. With adults, each new individual should have to feel entirely overwhelmed by his New Society. Remember the all-importance factor of Peer Group Acceptance. Control the Peer Groups and one controls the individuals.

Political Compromise and Political Necessity

I have made the point often that the clearest distinction between Civilization and Barbarism is that Civilization offers Institutions that provide for a significantly greater Population Density, and that Barbarian Cultures are only appealing when their Population Levels are slight. You see, Barbarism, with its seething aggressions and cultures of competition and conflict, if the Population Density were NOT sparse, then it soon would be. The low population densities of Barbarian Societies is self correcting.

Anyway, Barbarian Cultures, when the population levels are low, have a great deal of slack built into them. Distances will exist between individuals that minimize conflict. Resources would be relatively plentiful. But when these certain favorable levels are exceeded, then the Bloodletting begins – Wars, Rebellions, Disease and Famine reduce the Population once again to optimum Barbarian Levels.

Civilizations have institutions in place to deal with Wars, Rebellions, Disease and Famine, and for many of the Societal Dysfunctions that are prelude to such troubles. But there is much less ‘slack’ within a highly populated Civilization. The margins are thinner. There is less room for error, and less allowances can be made for inefficiencies. With populations always approaching the very edge of Subsistence, and surplus reserves being finite, then Civilizations of necessity must make exactly correct choices, and must come to these precisely exact choices in a timely manner. Lives depend upon it and Civilizations take Human Life seriously. Barbarism has other Priorities, such as Freedom and Private Property Rights.

Well, here is a surprising tidbit – Barbarian Cultures, for all of their Aggressions, firmly promote the policies and practices of Compromise. It seems paradoxical, but we have many such paradoxes in Nature, for instance, the most dangerous predators such as Lions and Wolves will greatly restrain themselves during struggles for dominance, with winners and loser being decided with a minimal amount of damage being done. They roar and pose and then the lesser of the two roaring posers backs down. But deer and birds and other such ‘peaceful’ animals will often kill each other over dominance struggles. So it is that Predators and Barbarians are better at structuring and delineating violence and making finer distinctions in their Aggressions. So it is that they are willing to Compromise and have it so well built into their Institutions.

Remember that Compromise may have other purposes besides alleviating conflict. Compromise may be engaged in simply as a matter for ‘buying time’, so to speak. Compromise is more often then not only a prelude to a Violent Resolution of a Conflict. Appeasements come before Total War.

Civilizations, though, have embedded institutions designed to prevent internal conflicts – they are Police States that allow for no private militias, and there are few private arms allowed. In effect a Strong Government guarantees Peace by keeping a firm lid on aggressions, crimes and conflicts. So where such problems of Conflict between private parties is minimized by Civilized Institutions, there is less need for Compromise. Government is free to simply do things entirely in the most correct manner possible.

Now, yes, there is such a thing as an Engineering Compromise, that is, where more than one Factor is involved, and where one quantity can be increased or decreased for a positive result only in adverse proportion to another positive, then the Best Decision would be to arrive at the Best Balance. A good example of this is Automobile Design – small cars get very good gas mileage, but large cars are inherently safer, so it has to be decided what is the Best of Both Worlds, so to speak. But such Engineering Compromises are different from Political Compromises where the factors involved often only involve some small but powerful group’s greed or self-interest. It would be like deciding upon optimum Car Size on the basis of how much money the CEO of U.S. Steel can make on the deal.

All this comes to mind now because of concerns regarding Global Warming and the depletion of International Oil Reserves. Now, if we were Civilized and worried about maintaining the Highest Levels of Population Density, then we would acknowledge that Carbon Based Energies would soon become prohibitively expensive due to their increasing scarcity, pushing up Survival Costs past where billions of people would be able to pay, and that burning such Energy Sources would be extremely damaging to us all anyway. The Civilized thing to do would be to immediately implement policies that would put in place a new Energy Regime – reliable or renewable sources of Energy that would allow the Green House Gases quotient to stabilize and finally to drop, all while providing enough Energy to assure the affordable delivery of Life Sustenance to a highly populated World.

But the Barbarian Policy would be to delay any significant action with Compromise until it could be decided whether an Attack would be necessary to limit the International Demand for Petro-Energy, or whether the Catastrophes predicted to follow along with Global Warming would be sufficient to keep the Population Levels manageably low… well within the parameters that Barbarian Capitalistic Democracies can work with.

The unspoken Policy of America may be that the real Problem for America is a too high World Population, causing too much international competition for resources that would otherwise go to America, and that Global Warming is coming along just in time to solve these Problems. And if not, well, that is why America is still so focused upon keeping to itself a Military greater in size than everybody else’s Militaries all put together. The American Mindset, therefore, is entirely out of the Barbarian corner.

But when the dust settles, the World Population will again be so slight, that those few who remain will be able to enjoy their Freedom. Especially so since they will almost certainly be Americans.

The Right to Peaceful Protest

The Right to Peaceful Protest

The problem with Sovereign Governments tolerating “peaceful” demonstrations in their Capitals is that peaceful protests are only peaceful until the Demonstrators realize that they outnumber the Police and the Army, then they move violently to take power for themselves. Every Revolution…even Rebellion… starts peacefully enough. Peace only seems to be a stage in the process of mustering forces and organizing a Command Structure. Once all the pieces are in place, then the Reign of Terror ensues.

What about the Leaders claiming to believe in Peace and Non-Violence. Well, even Gandhi admitted to his buddies in Detention that his Philosophy of Non-Violence was only a legal charade – the British defined Sedition as being the willful promotion of Violence. So Gandhi, who was first and foremost a Lawyer, branded himself as the total Pacifist. When Violence became necessary, he knew he could always just count on the natural tendency of the Mob to do what the Mob always does.

Do the Demonstrators themselves, the small pieces and pawns, do they ever realize the grand design? Well, some do but I would guess that most don’t. But, you see, it hardly matters, for what individuals think hardly counts when it is really a matter of Group Psychology. However separate individuals feel and think and behave when they are alone, that all changes when Group Dynamics take over. Yes, “Peaceful” Protestors will be peaceful enough when they are disorganized and outnumbered, simply out of fear, but add Organization, Command Structure, and overwhelming strength of numbers to the intoxicating mix, and then 98 out of 100 ‘peaceful’ protestors will be more than willing to take over the Capital Building, capture the Army Barracks, or man the barricades. The Leaders only have to point and yell “Charge”. Or, as Gandhi pretended, “Oh, no, don’t!” One never has to instigate such violence. When the numbers are there, it happens of itself.

So, should there be a right to Peaceful Protest. Well, no. Most of all because it never has ever made any sense. The Americans only believe in Protest because their Precious Revolution was born of Protest, and Americans are yet ready to blame themselves for killing so many innocent British Colonial Peace Keepers. Maybe after America has put down Rebellion after Rebellion after Rebellion, it will finally realize that Rebellions are not Glorious Affairs…not even their own. But back to my point here, and that is that any Protest is by definition disruptive, and disruptions are not peaceful. They are contradictory terms. A functioning and Peaceful Society should not have to deal with gratuitous disruptions. If one wishes to exercise some important freedom, then the freedom of Speech and Publishing should be plenty enough. As soon as more than two persons block the first curb or stand too long in front of a single door of home or business, then the arrests should be instant. Bring out the Horse Troops and ride down the Rioters! And hang the Gandhis of the World no matter how much they scream to be the Advocates for Peace and Non-Violence, for when they make every effort to gather every malcontent they can find, to march them up against the Army and the Police, deliberately threatening the Established and Legitimate Order, then they should be philosophically clever enough to realize that the Violence that inevitably ensues has been of their own making and they should be held responsible for it.

And it would be a good lesson for everybody else… to never play host to a bunch of idiots unless one is certain they can be kept under some control. To make empty talk of Peace is one thing, but to keep a crowd under an iron fist of an Absolute Discipline is quite another (and historically almost impossible to do. Gandhi could not or would not do it, and neither could or would Martin Luther King. They both presided over some of the deadliest and most destructive riots in their Nation’s History. If that is what they called Peace, then it is a good thing they never flexed their mean streaks. If they had really believed in Peace, they would have told their people to stay home). So whether or not the Trouble that occurs is the product of a deliberate call to violence, or only negligence in being able to keep one’s followers in line, as the Damages and Deaths are the same, and so should be the Punishments.

Permissive Morality, Amorality and Evil

Several weeks ago somebody in some cheesy disreputable Forum, I forget exactly where, accused me of having no morals. Odd, I thought, as most of my essays make quite a point of defending some moral point or another, or at least are involved with defending the causes of Religion and Civilization, which is almost as good as being moral. But I decided it was time to write an essay about Moral Distinctions, as it seems some people could probably use the education.

Well, first we must admit that Morality does have its philosophical problems. For instance, there is the argument I make with Atheists, that if one rejects God because Science can’t demonstrate any God, then it is more or less inevitable that Morality will suffer the same Fate. If one must wait upon Science and Philosophy before one decides to be Moral, then Self Interest and Self Indulgence are likely to take a very long head-start.

Yes, yes, Atheists endlessly point to people, who had become Atheists only yesterday, and insist that they are behaving morally – that it is their “Natural Condition”. However, it is more likely the case that people who behave morally are doing so in respect to customs and traditions of Morality. The best example here is Western Culture, which used to be Catholic Civilization. Civilization had been moralized from top to bottom, not only laying out models of moral behavior but also addressing much of the necessary underlying moral assumptions and moral premises – placing others before Self, Social Importance before Self Importance, and the whole sense of Spiritual Ideals being transcendent over gross materiality, etc. Just deciding one day that one does not believe in God, well, all the Moral Conditioning of the Religion and Civilization still remain…. For awhile anyway.

Really, if the Atheist really wants to prove his point regarding a Natural Morality, he would need to refer to the Primitives and the Barbarians, and demonstrate all their Natural Goodness. Yes, they can show us a Mother’s Love, which is fairly universal, but after that, it all goes downhill fast in the search for Natural Goodness. Remember how I am constantly dwelling on the point that Dense Populations seek out Civilized Institutions, while sparse Populations remain the most chaotic and violent. Well, this is what we see with Primitive Peoples and Barbarians. As Societies develop a better sense of Cooperation and Sociability, then their numbers are able to float upward. But Chaotic and Violent Societies will automatically keep their own numbers low. I once read an article about Primitive Culture, one particularly violent Tribe. They had no sense at all for any of our kind of Morality. Mostly they praised Bravery in Battle. While they could speak of Loyalty as a virtue, it was offset by a larger respect for any cunning, strength or cleverness that could forgo Loyalty and attain to a more Alpha-Dominant Position in the Tribe. Mercy toward enemies was entirely ruled out as showing weakness. Oh, and one had to never appear weak before the Women… or they would stop doing what they were told to do. These were not nice people.

Oh, what fools many Anthropologists into believing in some kind of a Universal Goodness is that Primitive Peoples can be so hospitable to strangers. However, this is a well adapted cultural survival mechanism. This is how it works. When one group of Barbarians overruns another group of Barbarians, there is not necessarily a Fight. Often it is enough to show Superior Strength of Numbers. Well, who has Superior Strength of Numbers? It becomes necessary for the Tribes to carefully look each other over. This is done through Hospitality – there are feasts and celebrations and everybody counts heads and looks to see how big and strong the big and strong ones are over on the other side. If it is too close to call, then Manhood, Courage and Bravery gets involved and there is a Battle. But more often than not, if the Hospitable Tribe also happens to be the obviously Smaller and Weaker Tribe, then it will suddenly be reminded of plans it had all along to head West or South to some newer and prettier Valley. They will pull up stakes and leave, allowing their Guests to move into their old haunts. And if they are lucky then they themselves will prove to be the Bigger Stronger Tribe down the trail and force some other Poor Barbarian People to go on the move in their turn. But if they are always the Smaller and Weaker Tribe, then they will always be the ones to keep going.

One can see the important role that Numbers play here. Bigger Tribes are better able to keep their place, or take preferred places if they should go on the move. This is how Barbarism grows toward Civilization. Larger Tribes can only become larger by adapting to behaviors of Cooperation. For instance, perhaps the most significant improvement was the substitution of Games for Mortal Combats in deciding Group Dominance. In the most Primitive Societies, the Alpha Males would outright kill their rivals, or chase them off into Exile. The Tribe, while having a strong leader, would be weaker in not having so many Second Best Males around to add to the Security Picture. But in the more advanced Societies, the Young Males were allowed to play Games, sort of mock-combats – almost lethal but not quite… like modern Football. By adulthood everybody more or less knew who the Accepted Alpha would be – The Team Caption, and everybody would fall in line behind him. The Older Alphas would bestow honors on the Younger Alphas and marry daughters off to them… all to assure a few more years of their own survival, where in a more Primitive Society, the Younger and Stronger would only have needed to kill off the Older and Weaker. Society would benefit from the additional experience that the Older Alphas had acquired and could apply, while the Younger Alphas were brought up to Authority in a more orderly, convoluted and time-consuming manner. But the More Advanced Society is basically better simply because it is Bigger… and its acquired Traditions of Cooperation, especially in Games probably play out better when it comes to a Fight as well. Even Today, they only insist upon Team Sports in the Schools, as expensive as they are, because it makes the boys more easy to Drill later on when they become Soldiers and are sent off to die for King and Country. Remember what Wellington said, “Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton”. (Wellington was the English General who took the credit for defeating the French Emperor Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. And Eton was some snobby private school).

So, my point here has been that there is no Natural Morality… that the further we go toward Pure Nature, the more immoral it all becomes. All Morality seems to be Adaptive, and rises up to serve the cause of Civilization, Cooperation and Bigger Numbers.

Oh, but what happens when a Civilization establishes itself and then grows comfortable? Even if all of the Customs and Traditions are supported by Culture and Education, still, a certain decay may set in. If Individuals can break the Rules of Cooperation and enrich themselves by it, and be allowed to get away with it Publicly, then the Days of Civilization are numbered. People who follow Rules are called “Losers”. One encounters common expressions such as “Nice guys finish last”.

It is not so much that one needs to cry sentimentally for the cause of Lost Civilization. The real problem is that Fragmented Individualistic Barbarian Societies cannot support the same Population Numbers as Cooperating Civilizations. When a Civilization goes into Decay, soon to follow is always a huge Population Collapse. Always. History shows us that there had been 21 Civilizations. They have all collapsed. We know what that looks like. And it ain’t pretty.

Anyway, how can this decay creep in? What happens to the Morality of a Totally Civilized People? You know, if you read Literatures from any Golden Age of Civilization, you are instantly struck by so many Social Constructs… not just Moral Constructs, but almost everything is intertwined with Principles, Honors, Customs and Traditions. It is completely spelled out as to what a Good Person does and thinks in every permissible Social Situation. Such a Monolithic Social Morality does not crack apart in a minute.

So elements of decadence have to creep in somehow. In our own Catholic Civilization, what happened was the Printing Press brought out the Teachings of Paul – Salvation and Forgiveness of Sins became popular. You know, people think that Christianity had always been Christianity, in the way we think of it today, but Catholic Civilization had actually done a fairly good job at burying the Paulist Doctrines while inculcating Moral Responsibilities. The focus of the High Middle Ages had been on the Blessed Virgin Mother of God… and everybody was supposed to be Her well-behaved Child. Jesus was shown mostly as an infant. Yes, the Bishops knew about Paulist Doctrines, and that is why they were such a decadent bunch of Fat Cats, then as now, but at least in regards to the most part of the People – Rich as well as Poor – all of the Moral Obligations remained clear. Salvation and the Reformation would turn that all around.

So, what Paulist Doctrine and Forgiveness of Sins introduced was a first allowance for a Permissive Morality. People still knew Right from Wrong, Good from Bad, but they were given the idea that God loved them more than He cared about Scoring by the Rules. One could commit Sin and God would look the other way. Boys will be boys, as they say. Sin was Natural and so it would be Tolerated. What actually happened for the most part was that Protestant Greed was unleashed, and the race for Concentrated Wealth would take off. It would take Centuries but at last we could arrive at that epitome of Human Progress where 1% of the Population could control 90% of the Wealth… and pay 1% of the Taxes. I call it an Epitome to be both sarcastic, of course, but also quite truthfully, as that has been the highest and final stage of every Civilization, immediately before its Collapse. It there is a Higher and Better Stage… we have yet to see it transpire.

The next decline in the Descent of Morality, from Moral Permissiveness, is to Amorality. Amorality is of two varieties – there is the Brutish Amorality of the uncultured and the unschooled – people from the Hills or from the Streets who get nothing that they do not steal or fight for. Then there is the Cultured Amorality of the intellectually sophisticated. As I have said, it is no secret to the Thoughtful, that there is no scientific basis for Morality. Yes, Societies benefit by being Moral… but Individuals are well aware that their concern needs be only for Themselves. Yes, it is Historically Inevitable that Amoral Societies eventually undergo huge Populations Collapses – that nearly everybody dies, most especially people who had provoked grudges… the Poor typically slaughter the Rich. Still, that can take generations to happen, and in the meanwhile, all these Smart People can see clear as day that he who dodges the most Rules makes the most money and acquires the most power.

I read about some Game that was put forward by some Scientific Study. Each Player could put forward a sum of his playing chips, and they would be matched by the “House” and re-divided amongst everybody. Everybody could win. But some of the more cunning players soon thought it out, and discovered that they could hold back their own contributions, and still partake of the re-distributions. The Game would eventually fall apart, but for a while the most selfish players would seem to “Win”… having more chips then everybody else when the fighting and name calling would begin.

One needs to wonder why everybody isn’t Amoral – there being so many Worldly Advantages, but so strong are the old Customs, Traditions and Thought Patterns surviving from some Golden Age Civilization. We refer to it as Conscience.

The lowest level to which immorality can sink is Evil. Where Amorality is attuned to self-aggrandizement, Evil actually seeks to do harm for the sake of doing harm. Well, actually, thinking about it for a moment, Evil can be rather Utilitarian. When any one person wishes to be the acknowledged Dominant Individual of a Society – the undisputed Dominant Individual – well, the surest means is to be entirely Evil, and then destroy anybody that wants to complain about it. So Evil is essentially about asserting Dominance. So it is that those who are most successful at being Amoral will eventually, if they are so lucky, be lead to being Evil, to flush out and destroy their competition.

This is why it is so worrisome that America is making such a big deal about being the Undisputed Sole Super Power of the World. If America holds to pattern, then their proof of Power will be through some huge Evil, to force their Enemies to step forward that they may be disposed of.

New Anti-Insurgency Weapon

New Anti-Insurgency Weapon

Artificial Intelligence is getting better and better. Now they have little vacuum cleaners that can go about the house, cleaning up, even removing empty beer cans and such. The same principle can be applied to ‘cleaning up’ hostile territories – send little machines out to shoot anybody that carries a gun, wears some form of hostile uniform, whatever it takes. If they do not accidentally kill off entire Wedding Parties then they would be better than what we have going now.

Anyway, I was thinking that Flying Robots would be better than ground deployed robot units, mostly because it could be anticipated that the robot machines would eventually break down, and would fall into enemy hands… the Insurgents would be able to scrap the Machines out for the little guns and cameras and stuff. We wouldn’t want that.

So little Airplane Models with small caliber guns, especially at night. Larger Mother Planes circling above could acquire targets and then release the smaller weaponized models to glide down quietly, very close to their targets, and make head shots, rev up and fly away, back up to the Mother Ship. We could call them ‘Killer Bees’ or some such charming thing.

But the engineering complexities kept bothering me… especially the little guns. It would still be possible that maintenance failures could put all such stuff into Enemy Hands. Then there is recoil. Guns have recoil… and engineers hate recoil, especially aerodynamics engineers… a plane in a slow glide can be stopped dead in its tracks by recoil. All sorts of algorithms would have to be set in place to allow for all that stupid recoil. And, besides, gun shots are so noisy. The first gun shot alerts everybody, and Attacks would therefore have to be limited to small attrition raids… killing a few Insurgents before all the rest run to take cover. Yes, repeated endlessly every night, eventually even attrition raids take their toll. But More is always Better, no?

Suddenly it occurred to me that the High Altitude Mother Plane only needs to drop small non-explosive Smart Bomblettes. The Smart Bomblettes could be built to be narrow and with slender teardrop aerodynamics with just small steering wings and rudders, with a little GPS Module and Camera Eye that could keep a Target acquired and centered… the circuit would be no more complicated than the Jitter Eliminator in every Japanese Video Cam now on the market. Dropped from an altitude of a few thousand feet, the Smart Bomblette would steer itself downward, building up speed, to clunk the Terrorist over his head, killing him instantly, and relatively noiselessly, that is, compared to a gun shot.

Just how fast could one of these things go, without any rocket propulsion? Hmmmm… the formula for Gravitational Acceleration eventually runs into the wall of Wind Resistance Drag, but I’m guessing that a slim teardrop projectile with just the barest control stubs would be able to hit 240 miles per hour or about 350 feet per second. That would make for fairly significant clunk on the head… even if one is wearing a big wooly Turban.

They would be cheap enough to build – mass produced IR Camera Arrays wouldn’t be too expensive (regular cameras could be used for Day Light Fair Weather versions of the Weapon… to save money where money could be saved), and then several small circuit boards, and some servo motors and controls with a lithium battery. And once they hit target, or hit the ground, well, there would be nothing salvageable after that kind of impact, or even if captured intact, of what use could it be to somebody on the ground?

Also, the advantage that the Smart Bomblettes would have over the small glider killer bees is that the Bomblettes could be used Day or Night. During the day, the Mother Plane would have to fly a bit higher to avoid observation or vulnerability to small arms fire, but nobody would be able to see the actual bomblettes being dropped… really, they should not be any larger than maybe six inches long… as long as a dollar bill. The only way the Insurgents could avoid such a Weapons System would be to never leave their Caves… supplies would eventually run thin, and the Insurgents would be starved out. Oh, I guess the Bomblettes could also be programmed for clunking Donkeys and Camels over the head… to interrupt the Insurgents ability to keep their Supply Lines going over rough terrain.

Nowadays they use “Predator” style Unmanned Drone Planes… but these continue to require some Operator Input. I can’t imagine that they are not largely computerized, and that the so-called Operator is there only for Appearance Sake (Machines don’t kill people… People kill people… especially those Wedding Parties), but it really needs to be emphasized that the State of the Art for Artificial Intelligence is now at a level sophisticated enough to allow for Seek and Destroy Weapon’s Systems. The Mother Plane Models I spoke of can be programmed to patrol a certain sector and then to come back when it has run out of fuel or Bomblettes. Solar Power panels could be used to keep them up almost indefinitely, that is, they would only have to return to base to pick up more Bomblettes. But, adding another level of Sophistication, there is no reason why such Model Planes could not be re-supplied by docking up, in the air, with even larger Models that could easily enough simply dump more Bomblettes into the smaller Model’s storage bin, and add more fuel as may be necessary, just as the Big Planes are now refueled in the air so they are not always having to return to base but can stay over the Tactical Area until the pilots are too exhausted to continue. But with Artificial Intelligence, there would not really ever be a reason to have the Model Planes return to base…Machines don’t tire nearly as easily or regularly as People do. Artificial Intelligence Weapons could keep operational 24/7, as they say.

Western Civilization Survival Projections

I was thinking about the dynamics of Collapse of the previous 21 Civilizations, and just how much our Modern Progress seemed to copy the pattern. But there seems to be an important exception.

Now, in most cases what had happened was that there occurred a severe concentration of wealth into private hands, effectively cutting off public funds and resources. Importantly, money for police and military security was cut off. The Private Wealthy did not see this as an important problem for themselves because they had the means to hire vast resources of Private Security – the equivalent of the Modern Gated Communities. They just did not anticipate how bad things could get, and that vast hordes of invading barbarians, mixed with multitudes of Urban Rioters would easily be able to overwhelm the Private Security Companies that was supposed to keep wealth Safe. Not to mention the possibility of the Private Security Firms taking their pay and then going rouge, betraying their masters and then taking over the Mobs, to set up Power for themselves. Why take Orders when one has all of the Coercive Power necessary for giving Orders? As has happened so many times before, the Palace Guard takes over the Palace.

Now, today, yes, we are moving toward such dangerous levels of concentration of wealth. But what is different is that the Wealthy have worked out an unprecedented scam – bogus Military Emergencies are declared so that there can be Emergency Issues of Bonds and extensions of National Debt, all in order to fund more and more Military Weapons Systems. Bonds are converted into Cash which pours into the pockets of the Defense Industry… the primary holders of all the Concentrated Wealth. So, while in all previous Collapses, money had been diverted away from Security to go directly into the pockets of the Rich, in this case, Security was used as an opportunity for a Vast Money Laundering Scheme, and so, despite the Concentration of Wealth implications, there will at least be plenty of Security Resources available, and for a very long time to come.

Now, what are the problems. Previously, in other essays I had spelled out the working definitions for Civilization and Barbarism, in short, that Civilizations can support very dense and high levels of Population, where Barbaric institutions can support only thin levels of Population. Democracy and Western style Rugged Individualism is all rather Barbaric. All of America’s institutions derive from cheap and plentiful Land and, yes, thin levels of Population. The political polarization we now see in America is more than likely caused by stress on America’s mostly Barbarian Institutions, as more is being demanded of them then they can inherently deliver. The Rural Red States don’t like crowds and those Blue State City Slickers, demanding so much Cooperation, which might raise taxes a point or two, well, it makes the Red States so mad that they want to take out their millions of guns and go on a giant shooting rampage… which will indeed happen sooner or later.

Next, considering that America is setting up a virtual monopoly on World Military Power… having more Military Power then the next 5 Military Powers put together… 7 if you don’t count Britain and Israel which are actually sort of like the 51st and 52nd States… unless you choose to see America as again the Little Baby Colony of Great Britain… in which role it acted for almost the entire 20th Century. Oh, Israel… by a clever redeployment of Military Loans, kicking back millions of dollars each year into the American Political System, funding both main Political Parties, Israel exercises more influence on American National Politics than any group of states, corporations, or competing political lobby groups. Israel got everything that it paid for… using guaranteed American Loans to do it, but money is money. American Politics has been bought and paid for, making America the virtual Colony of Israel. Thank God that the People in charge of Israel are sensible and level headed.

Anyway, America’s abhorrence for crowds, and the Civilized Institutions necessary for maintaining People’s in Crowded Urban Settings, will contribute to greater and greater political friction around the World. America will see Other Countries institutionalizing Civilized Programs to manage their High Population Densities as Anti-American, Anti-Democratic, Anti-Capitalist. As America loses all other influence in the World, as the dollar must certainly collapse as it cannot indefinitely withstand the doubling and tripling of Bond Debt and Trade Deficits, then eventually America’s last resort will be firing off ALL THOSE MILITARY WEAPONS.

Now, there is good news and there is bad news. First the bad news – If America resorts to a Global Holocaust in order to keep its primacy, then the World’s Ruling Culture and Institutions will remain stunted in its Pre-Civilized Quasi-Barbaric Condition. Rugged Individualism will survive in order to rear its ugly head again and again and again well into the future. The Good News is that lower population levels, even if only temporary, will relax the heavy demands that have been put, lately, on poor Mother Earth.

What would be desirable would be to enable a modern set of Civilized Institutions which would allow for a High Population Density Equilibrium to be established… bringing as many Cultures and Language Groups on board as possible. But I don’t see how that could possibly happen… not in some simple ‘A to B’ trajectory, anyway. What we can see very clearly is that America could initiate a Global Holocaust any time it wants to. Remember, America’s military weakness is in Occupying defeated Nations. If all it wants to do was Kill Everybody, well, that would be easy.

Practical Reasons for Religious Tolerance

Whether rationally justifiable or not, people become very emotionally invested in their Religions. What do you suppose occurs when these people feel that their Religion is under imminent threat? Psychology tells us that people in such a crunch will be impelled to Fight or Flight. Well, we cannot expect that everybody will run away. So much of the Violence we see in Religious History has been when Religion had taken to an active defense to an impending threat.

Usually the Atheist Community points out how reactively violent the Religious Communities are between each other. “Oh how terrible that the Religions are so antagonistic with each other… its all so simply Barbaric.”

But now the Paradigm is shifting.

I heard a News Story on the Radio about the Neo-Atheists. Probably because of the great success the Far Right has enjoyed with Confrontational Hate Politics, the youngest generation of Atheists have decided that they too would benefit from just such a similar strategy… an “Ends justifies the Means” kind of thing”.

So the tone has gotten harsher, more insulting… exactly like the Fox Network is toward Liberals except it is Atheists attacking Religion. Nothing is off limits. If Religion really is Evil, then the War against it should be total.

Oh, and if the Religions react violently to these assaults, well, again, it is something that can be blamed on Religion. When the First Punch can be rationalized away and justified, then the Punch Back can be blamed. All the focus can be placed upon the Religious Evil of fighting back. Besides, with Religion, any fighting, even fighting back, is clearly hypocritical. Yes, it just so happens that in regards to the Atheists, they can never be blamed for Hypocrisy. After all, Morality needs to come before Hypocrisy.

Anyway, lets look at this new Historical Dynamic, where Atheism is stepping into the Role of Opposing Religion for the purposes of instigating a New Religious War. Yes, yes… Atheism is NOT a Religion. My point is only that Atheism is now ACTING like a Religion, and in the worst way.

Oh, wait! I was ready to say that the most cogent argument AGAINST Religion had been that Religions caused polarization and conflict between Civilizations and Societies. We are supposed to believe that if it were not for Religious Differences, then all would go smoothly between different ethnic and racial groups – tribal affiliations, differences in language, culture, moral expectations, property dispositions, etc… all these things would be only a laugh and smile away from resolution if it were not for the hateful divisiveness that only Religion can be capable of. Only Religions cause War. And this is Religion’s biggest problem, or is it?

But now that Atheism seems poised on it own version of Religious War, do they really now find War to be such a problem? Now, I guess Atheism is growing more Higher Minded, and is probably claiming that the Biggest Problem with Religion is a Matter of the Highest Principle – that it Simply Isn’t True! Atheists have a Moral Duty to stop the Religions in their Lies! What is a little violence when it comes to defending the Highest Principles of Truth? Yes, it seems that Atheism is gearing up for War, and they no longer have a problem with that kind of thing… now that they are a part of it.

Anyway, I have one final argument here against Atheism, that it cannot possibly have any Moral Basis for exactly the same reason they insist that there is no God – that there is no Scientific Evidence for it. Yes, yes, I have heard it a million times that Atheism is not hostile to Morality. But just look around. The WORST Criminal Organization – the most ruthless and terrifying criminals – have all sourced out of the Territories of the Former Soviet Union… where Materialism and Atheism had been indoctrinated culturally for just 3 Generations. No, people were not positively taught to be Evil. I’m sure every opportunity was taken to stress the importance of Social Responsibility, Cooperation, Kindness, Altruism. But with the backdrop of Materialism and Reason, with its rejection of Religion and Spirituality… well, Morality just seemed silly. Selfishness… even Ruthlessness simply seemed for useful.

I wish Atheism would admit that they have a serious problem. Civilizations cannot survive, let alone coalesce, without Moral Beliefs… the general acceptance of inherently irrational moral assumptions. But since Atheism has turned Science into a Virtual Religion… Anti-Religion, that is, well, Morality necessarily has to be rejected. Natural Selection is not for Nice Guys.

When Push comes to Shove, the Atheist Community will count on Survival of the Fittest… what we usually refer to as “might makes right”.

And with their superior Technology, they will probably win any fight. But imagine the World these victorious Atheists will inherit, where they cannot make a single compelling argument not to be thieves and liars.

It reminds me of Voltaire, virtually the Father of Modern Atheism… he had been a Big Deal during what they called the Age of Enlightenment. Anyway, Voltaire had been put in charge of conducting the first French Lottery, and he rigged the game so he could win it himself (as any good Atheist would have) and thus became very rich. He bought an Estate and at first ran it like a true down to the bone Atheist. But then suddenly he built a Chapel and hired a Catholic Chaplin to oversee it and to conduct daily Mass. His Atheist friends were appalled. But Voltaire explained… “it is cheaper than letting the servants walk away with all the silverware”. His Estate could not run without a Moral Basis. Voltaire leaves us with the quote “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to create Him”.

Morality exists in the same Spiritual Atmosphere as God. We cannot do without the One because we need the Other.

Freedom and Privacy

Freedom and Privacy

In the West we hear so much in praise of Freedom, but which kind of freedom? There are two kinds of freedom. There is the Freedom in the Light where every free act is done in the open, up and above board. Then there is the Freedom of Darkness, where all depends upon Privacy – concealed motives, hidden incomes, secret pass-times.

Whenever I hear Patriots on the Far Right glorifying the deaths of young soldiers who kill and are killed for Freedom, I wonder whether the gratitude is only about Protecting the Freedoms of Darkness and the Secrecy.

Yes, there are instances where there is some disagreement about what is and what isn’t shameful, that is, on what it is that requires so much Privacy. A great many Homosexuals would be happy to enjoy their Lifestyle in the open, but fear a crazy, bigoted and hostile general Public. Indeed, almost anybody even a shade outside the Sexual Mainstream is anxious about their Privacy. But we need to remember that Society has nearly always considered such things as the proper realm for Privacy. Sex, the Bathroom, and the Laundry – these things have always been private, and should really stay that way. Man as a Spiritual Being doesn’t need to be reminded so often of the Physical Things, and thus the Spiritual Importance of the Privacy of Home and Body.

Yes, while there have been historically recognized religious injunctions against some details of sexuality, in actual practice, most of the time, only discretion had really been required, and Religion would have been happy enough if only private matters had been kept private. While the Rules said “No Kinky Sex”, what was actually meant was “No Kinky Sex on Main Street in front of City Hall in the middle of the day”. Yes. Gay Sex Parades probably would never have been a good idea. But the same could be said for Straight Sex Parades. Such things should remain private.

Yes, yes… we now have large factions of the Public who are seriously hostile to and ready to attack certain groups because of their Private Behaviors. Legislation is invading the Home… even the bedroom. But honestly I think the motivations here are more seated in Democracy than Religion. When it is the Political Parties spending hundreds of millions of dollars to disseminate hostile propaganda and to establish Tax-Exempt Hate Action Groups, then we need to assign blame where the blame is due.

Yes, it is ironic that the same Political Groups that so loudly proclaim the importance of Freedom, are the ones who so readily jump to persecute others. The Conservative Freedom to Cheat on Taxes and Exploit the Lower Classes is somehow Sacred, but the Household Freedoms of the occasional sex act, which never impact anybody, are to be hounded out and destroyed.

And it is probably not even about Sex. Or Abortion. Or whatever. Remember, nowadays it is all about Democracy. And Democracy is about dividing and polarizing the Body Politic into Winning Majorities and Losing Minorities. Dividing. Not Uniting. The only things that matter are the things that can win or lose Elections.

We no longer have Good and Evil. We no longer have Right and Wrong. With Democracy has come a new operative Duality – Win and Lose.

It makes one willing to reconsider exactly whether or not Democracy should really be considered as a kind of “Ideal”, or should be grouped along with all of the other crazy excesses of History… another insane revolution, intoxicating the delusional Masses for an archeological moment, and finally ending in ruin and the collapse of Civilization.

But let’s return to the topic of Public Freedoms and Privacy. What kind of Man is Free – acts Free and lives deliberately – and has no need of Public Privacy? Well, of course, it is an Honest Man… usually a Working Man. Lives on Honest Pay, pays his taxes, largely stays at home, and doesn’t bother anybody. Then there is the Man who can be Free only behind the screen of Public Privacy. These are all of our Cheats and Criminals. I would guess most Politicians and Lawyers. Probably most of our Wealthy Classes are of this group. After all, it has been their Propaganda that has so closely tied Privacy with Freedom… and since Propaganda is not bought cheaply, they must want so much Privacy for some personally compelling Reasons. Also, in a highly competitive Marketplace, it is difficult to imagine how entirely honest men could get to the Top of the Heap when being dishonest and unethical would offer so many competitive advantages. I would suppose that the greatest part of any group of billionaires probably has something to hide. Large Fortunes, that is, Destructive Levels of Concentration of Wealth, and Mushrooms grow in the Dark. Yes, I know there is a difference. Only some Mushrooms are poisonous.

We’d all be much better off if all Public Privacy were entirely removed. Electronic Money to assure that every monetary transaction could be recorded and monitored, and cameras everywhere so there could be complete and total surveillance. We almost have all the Technology we need for it. Only improvements in Cataloging and Compressing an almost infinite amount of Data could make it all a bit more convenient.

Yes, yes, yes, we have been conditioned by Decades of Anarchist Propaganda into thinking that Surveillance is the worst of all possible Evils. Big Brother is supposed to be a Bad Thing. But we need to remember that at the turn of the 20th Century all the experts were worried about two conflicting Revolutionary Trends – it was the Communists versus the Anarchists. Now, a hundred years later, Communism has been defeated. But has anybody heard of the Evil of Anarchism lately. Not a word. Why? Well, because they were the Winners. They used Propaganda successfully to ‘normalize’ their crazy Doctrines. Anarchism became the New Mainstream. But if somebody were to visit from another Planet… the Planet of Objectivity and Reason, then the Anarchism would stand out for exactly what it is. Chaos.

All the Crime, Corruption, and Castles on Hills against the vast slums of Poverty… it’s the Chaos born of Anarchy. The Anarchists won.

We need to go back to the Middle.

And Total Surveillance would be a Good Thing. If the Police know everything, then Honest Men will no longer be condemned for not being able to produce their own alibis. “Where were you when…?” Criminals always have an answer for that question. Only Honest Men are caught short. A Total Surveillance Society would reverse that. Total Surveillance proves the Honesty of an Honest Man.

It would be a bit like Heaven. For after all, in Heaven does not God Know All, See All? And Pure Souls have nothing to hide from God. In the World, at least in the Public Realm… every man’s home still being his ‘castle’…no Honest Man should have anything to hide. It would be a Great Light from which all the Cockroaches of Crime would have to run and hide. We would trade a useless Privacy for a Substantial level of Security and Safety.