Libertarianism

These are the basics of my beliefs. (Video not made by me.)

 

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That is a very well-made video, but the whole system seems to rely on the ability of people to think logically, and to follow those basic principles.

Unfortunately, not everybody wants a free and wonderfully near-utopian society.

What people want is to satisfy thier own greed. But that’s another rantful post topic.

What I really came here to write about is libertarianism. I like to think that simplicity and honesty, coupled with the attitude that people should control thier own lives are the answer. In my version of libertarianism, there are no victimless crimes. People can decide what’s good and bad for themselves. Drugs are not demonized. Prostitutes are not dehumanized. There are no taxes. The government can not take from you what is rightfully yours. You can decide for yourself what to place your money in.

Naturally, problems arise; such as with abortion. When is something considered “alive”? Because if it’s not alive, it doesn’t have rights. Also, what do you do with children? They aren’t property, obviously, but they cannot decide for themselves yet. And when are they considered adults? When they can make informed decisions for themselves? (I.E. After finished with basic education.) What is the standard for being “informed”?

Also, look at my post about addiction. (First one, I think.)

And what if people break the fundamental rules? What to do with a murderer? No government, no police, remember? So, obviously you need to people to keep the peace, but that brings up the whole ordeal of deciding how much power to afford them over the general populace. And then, what to do about corruption?

Maybe police aren’t needed. If it’s one murderer, people would find the perpetrator, and inflict justice, but would they do it effectively? What about if the general public suddenly has a hatred for a minority. Who would stop the majority from hurting the few?

And this society would also depend on the consumers buying products only from companies whose business practices are to their liking, not just whoever is the cheapest. I don’t think people would care about upholding values when they could either buy cups from an upstanding company or, for half the cost from a company who uses child labor.

Well, in the end, it ll depends on the people, and I don’t think people are ready for this yet. Responsability for their situation would be on them, and they wouldn’t like that. We need the government.

But, fuck, it doesn’t need to have such an ego. It’s just a huge company with a lot of influence.

-The government started out as the guy with the biggest stick, and it hasn’t changed much since then.

Stream of Consciousness

My girlfriend told me about a “stream of consciousness” technique in writing where you pour your mind onto thw whatever. I’ll try it:

How is your mother, does she like music? I like music; it makes life. People like music. It’s fun to dance to. Dancing is fun. Fun is fun. Your mother is fun. She dances. Therefore she equates to fun. I like fun. Sometimes. Fun is inappropriate. Life is inappropriate. Inappropriateness makes life. Life is fun. Be inappropriate.

Rambling

One will always be forced to make choices, and that’s a good thing. It allows you to forge your own way through life. Now, what choices will you make?

From the consensus of my friends, enjoying life is far more important than materialistic things, and I agree with that. That’s why it’s one of my dreams to live out of a backpack. Most people say that they would rather live poor but with people they love than rich and with people they’re indifferent towards, but you know that people don’t think that money will make thier life worse when they make it.

And money doesn’t make things worse.

Here’s a common misquotation: “Money is the root of all evil.” -idk; Really, the quote should be “Desire of money is the root of all evil.”

You see, having money/objects/wealth isn’t necessarily bad, but feeling like you need them is. When you desire materialistic things, you loose sight of what you truly want.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t make as much money as you can, I’m saying that you shouldn’t make it at the expense of your family, your freinds, and yourself.

-Beware

Hurt Again

I ripped the skin off my hand in four places at Gymnastics today. I didn’t notice until the stretching sensation when I jumped on the bar. (I wasn’t using grips.)

It doesn’t hurt, but it might be uncomfortable for a few days while the skin heals back up.

-Thank you come again.

Questions

I’m libertarian, so I think people should be given the choice of whether they want to use any given substance if they so choose. But what happens when people get “addicted”? What is addiction? Does the fact that they’re addicted take away their ability to choose? What about things that aren’t physical addictions, like gambling?

Is someone addicted when an object or act interferes with normal everyday functioning? What if they skipped work one time because they needed to unwind? Is that enough to put them in rehab for six months? Or a few young lovers who skip school to be with one another? Should they be ripped apart over that?

So, what conditions would be put on “addiction”? And also, what measures would be put on someone who is addicted?

People should be able to choose thier own path in life, but if they get in too deep, should they be helped? If someone gets into debt, the government obviously can’t pay for them to get out. It must be the same on all levels, and welfare would fall under the same category.

But what if they can’t help themselves?

If a person is bedridden for a month, and cannot work throughout that time, should the government intervene? To what extent?

I don’t have the answers, but I’m looking for them. Logic and the aspiration of freedom will lead me.

 

-Dream on

Religion

Just some thoughts on it.

If god created the universe, than theoretically it would “exist” outside of the universe, and so could not be measured or detected by human standards. But, if it did exist, than why would it be a part of our world in biblical times, and not present times?

Why fight over who’s imaginary friend is the best when it might be the same? Perhaps a deity does exist and revealed itself to all of the different peoples, and they interpreted it differently? Of course, people have a natural tendency to try to explain things, and supernatural explanations are easiest, so perhaps everyone just made up explanations on thier own.

Why do holy books have special rights just because they were written a long time ago? The authors are unknown. If I wrote a book and buried it, and people found it a couple thousand years later, would they have a reason to believe everything in the book?

-Go to sleep.

Affection

I’ve recently found a girl. She’s smart. She’s beautiful. And she makes me feel good. I’ve never experienced “love” as other people would describe it, but I’m starting to feel something. I feel respect for her. I feel a connection to her. And I feel like I can relate to her.

I don’t know if it’s “love” , but it’s definately something.

I just hope I don’t mess it up.

-With love

The Decline of Intelligence

I was speaking with a very, very good freind of mine, and she said something that made me cringe.

“I’m such a loser…I dream of winning nobel peace prizes for finding cures of diseases and all that….such a loser I am.”

Now, this is just another example of the idea that most people have about education where I live. They think it’s unimportant. What’s worse, they think it’s some evil thing to be reviled. I learned from other kids that I should hate school, and so I assumed that was right. Then I realized that I love being at school. The structure that it gives. The wealth of knowledge and resources available to me there. The contacts and intellectuals that I can find there. The intellectual discourses that were possible to be sparked while learning something interesting.

Unfortunately, the children that actually give a damn about school are outnumbered by overwhelming majority. Most of my fellow pupils are dumb jackasses who think they’ll actually make it to the NBA and make full scholarship when they’re failing out of high school.

It’s un-fucking-believable.

Luckily, the kids in honors are sane. It’s like an aristocrasy almost. Where the honors kids are involved in all of the clubs, and are responsible for the other children. Like in George Orwell’s “Animal farm” the pigs took control because it was so easy to deceive the other animals. I now know why these sons of bitches that are politicians became politicians. They were smart enough to realize how easy it is to be the one controling the money flow.

I can’t even talk with an “average” kid. It’s just too frustrating sometimes that now I just don’t deal with them. They don’t give a shit about their school. They graffiti on the walls everyday, throw chicken bones on the ground after lunch, toss garbage everywhere. These fucktards are all wannabe gangsters. Their goal in life is to be a part of a gang, and seem like the most badass person. They spit on all that I hold dear: decency, education, logic, human life. A woman was shot and killed just the other day by some young punk who wanted to be badass by killing someone. She had been selling fruit there for as long as I can remember, and she was an asset to the community, and a nice woman whom people liked to talk to. Then some prick came by and ended it all trying to act tough.

It’s a shame that people don’t even value human life. Those kids didn’t have to kill her. They could have waved the gun around and still got what they came for, but they wanted to kill her just to make a point to thier buddies.

I can’t even fucking talk about it anymore.

 

-Out

*Coming back ten minutes later*

Ok, well, now that I’ve cooled off a bit, I’d just like to add that in the old days people used to have respect for another’s property. A respect for your community. Respect for other people’s hard work. Unfortunately now, we don’t have that, and it’s just saddening. It’s just the attitude that makes all of the difference. We’re an “F” graded school, but I know plenty of students who’s whole life is school and grades, and they do well at it. They take AP classes, they stay after school for hours working with their teachers, working hard, but that’s less than 5% of the student body.

The point is, the ones who work will be the leaders of the world, and the rest will be flipping burgers. (Or off killing people.)

 

-All the best.

P.S. Another good post on this: www.Ponderbox.wordpress.com Entitled “The Wordless Wars: Down With Intelligence”

Foot

Well, I hurt my foot last night. I was working on my back-handspring form on a tumble track, and I guess that I got it right, because I went flying way past the safety mat that I was supposed to land on, and hit a spring board.

Now, I didn’t want to look like a pussy, so I got up and started practicing again. Because, even with a slightly injured left ankle and a scraped right shin, you can still practice.

That was a mistake.

By the time I got out of there I could barely walk on it. I got home and wrapped it up, and stuck an ice pack on it. (After a shower of course; I was quite sweaty.) It was fine for a bit. Started to hurt a little as I watched comedy central.

And then I went to bed.

So, I layed down to go to sleep around 23 hours (eleven at night), and I just couldn’t find a comfortable position. The throbbing pain with periods of feeling like my ankle was being crushed sort of ruined those two and a half hours for me. I took two advil sometime in the midle of that, but they didn’t help. So I went upstairs to watch tv (that was hard, oh you have no idea how hard.) But I thought that maybe it would take my mind off of it.

So, I go up there, turn on the tv, and lay down on the futon up there. Slowly but surely I start to drift off. It was amazing, two and a half hours of trying to get some rest in my normal bed was nothing to the thirty minutes on the upstairs futon. the only difference was that my foot was hanging off the bed.

This morning, my foot was devoid of pain, just some pressure (like bliss after last night.) But I was worried about walking on it, so I hopped around for a bit, and then finally tried walking normally, and it was fine. Not nearly enough pain to make me jump around like an idiot any more. Also, I’ve been dying for an excuse to use this cane that my dad and I made, so I’ve been using that as well, which is great. The wrap definately helps as well, because the ankle can’t twist as much with it on.

I have a docter’s appointment at fourteen hours (two in the afternoon.) And I’ll post when I know exactly what’s wrong. I think I cracked a bone somewhere though.

-Live blissfully.

*Much Later*

So, I went to my docter (Who’s the most amazing person in the world, by the way.) and I found out that it’s just a bone contusion, and that it should be fine in a few days. Very happy. I’m almost walking normally twenty four hours after the first part of this post.

-Smurphy

Family

So, I think I’ll start by talking about family. Mostly my family, but I might throw universal stuff in.

I don’t trust people in my family. The only person I trust is my father. Every one else gossips. My father understands me, even if he’s a little bit on the eccentric side. I wouldn’t be able to tell my mother that I’m atheist- she’d start crying and yelling and wondering where she went wrong. They wouldn’t care if I were gay, but atheist? That’s out of the question.

A prime example of my family is when my brother’s ex-girlfriend kept in contact with us after he broke up with her. He went off to the marines, and she kept coming over. She likes us, and I liked hanging around with her. Unfortunately, my mom didn’t like it, so she forbid her to ever come to the house again.

Great.

Right now we’re caught up in this whole drama thing that is going to explode in more than a few faces. My brother left for California after he was discharged from the marines (honorably), and he never called us after that. Three years later, we find out that he has a girlfriend, and they have a son together. My mom was pissed before, and now she’s had time to simmer with rage. She’s been manipulating the girlfriend, hoping that she’ll convince my brother to come back into the folds of the family.

Great.

I understand my brother’s willingness to just up and leave. He wants to be on his own. He wants to not have all of this familial responsibility. He wants to be able to be his own man. He wants to not have to deal with people who he’s known his whole life.

Unfortunately, my sister is the same way, and now I have been left with the burden of keeping my mother’s hopes alive. She has been beaten by these two, and now I hold all of her dreams in my hands.

Great.

Fortunately, I still have my father. He’s a bit too into christian mythology, but other than that, he’s great.

Oh, and my sister thinks that she knows everything, but she only knows everything about my life, not everything about everything.

And her and my mom are both control freaks.

 

Whatever.

-Live long and prosper.