The Trouble With Utopia

We already have "decreased individual freedom" right here in America.

Government CAN and (most of us claim "rightly") DOES mandate things like bicycle helmets, enforces seat belt laws, punishes public drinking (NOT "to excess," just public consumption of alcohol in many places), restricts smoking, etc.

IF we're going to have a healthcare system funded by taxpayer funds, then mandating restrictive, healthier diets, punishing unhealthy snacking and requiring a daily exercise regimen in order to deliver "maximum results for the taxpayer's investment in health" seems both legitimate and prudent.

When people accept benefits from any entity (an employer, for instance, or government) there IS a quid pro quo, whether it's stated, or not, whether it's enforced at a given point, or not.

The FACT is...it CAN BE enforced at any given time.

Misinformed people just don't realize that.

It's like gun control. We actually HAVE more than enough LAWS to seriously restrict gun possession...we just haven't enforced them fully...at least, not yet.

Laws ALREADY ban mentally ill people from owning guns...NOT merely "buying guns," BUT even HAVING them.

Isn't PTSD a mental illness?

It sure is.

How about someone sentenced to "Anger Management" over a road rage, or domestic abuse issue? COULD they be classified as having a "mental/emotional illness," allowing that person's guns to be confiscated.

It would definitely seem so.

Much of this hasn't been done...YET, perhaps in order to preserve the illusion of "unbridled freedom," which we no longer have, nor deserve.

A dependent people (a people dependent upon government's business and education loans, grants, home mortgage and property tax deductions, Social Security, SSDI, Medicare, public assistance of all kinds, etc) are NOT and CANNOT BE a free people.

FREEDOM is the "fend-for-yourself" personal responsibility that a life without all those things (College loans, small business loans, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.) would entail.

So, yes, even though many of the quid pro quo's haven't been enforced...YET, doesn't negate government's right, nor ability to enforce them.

So what's the problem with greater government control over the economy?

We call the government-run economy the "Command Economy," and it's been tried many times, many ways and under varying conditions.

The primary problem the Command Economy faces is HUMAN NATURE.

Stalin killed all those Russians and Ukrainians over "land reform" because "none of those selfish bastards would just give up the land they owned and their family's developed. Mao killed all those small business owners because he KNEW they all were "incorrigible Capitalists." SAME with Hitler, the REAL sin of the Jews wasn't religion, nor their Leftist inclinations, it was that the Jew is also...an incorrigible Capitalist at heart.

The biggest enemy of Marxists...true Marxists are owners/producers.

IF they would just surrender meekly and produce at maximum effort for minimum return, they could subsist under a system very close to chattel slavery...ironically enough, the enslavement of the producing class, the former ownership/landlord class, BUT people DON'T do that. They WON'T do that...so, they have to be killed.

Marxism/Socialism/Collectivism CANNOT take hold absent the violent eradication of the producer/owner class.

After that, it's merely a matter of terrorizing the rest of the population to work 10, 12, 16 hours each day, 6 days a week to produce the bare minimum required for survival.

I have a Series 3 license. I've traded commodities and rarely currencies. I was once much less concerned about the Globalist/Unified Earth agenda. "How could it hurt?"

A single currency, a unifying set of laws, easy commercial access to trade across borders...SOUNDED GOOD.

Of course, I hadn't considered that a over 60% of today's world legitimizes chattel slavery, even more relegate women to a 2nd, or 3rd class status, most criminalize homosexuality. We WOULD NOT impose our morality on such a world in a "global democracy," THEY'D impose theirs on us!

There'd be a great chance for global tyranny, far greater than that of anything benevolent.

Generally religious people SHOULD BE Leftists. In fact, many are. That ALL aren't, I chalk up to poor outreach and poorer communication on the part of the Left.

I KNOW that I am NOT "my brother's keeper." We may have spiritual souls...who knows(?)...BUT we ARE corporeal beings, in these physical vessels and...."we all gotta eat," as they say.

I don't trust myself with much power over others, so I trust those who seek it (politicians) even less.

Weaponized Words

There are people who look to "weaponize" words and use them to silence others (racist, Nazi, fascist, etc.)

Ironically enough, it's the people most prone to using words as weapons who most exude authoritarian ("Nazistic"/"fascistic") tendencies. They have a name for those who use such tactics, "Cry-bullies."

Most often they're hopelessly ignorant. Hopeless because they're not open to facts. People like that often see facts (FBI crime stats, actual race and gender wage scales, the science and math that prove Socialism's Command Economy CAN'T work, etc.) as "racist, sexist, homophobic, fascistic," etc.

They're so easily angered because, facts/reality undermine what they want to believe. Ironically enough, these people often claim to "support science" without understanding it.

They deride "faith-based" religious thinking in others, while engaging in it themselves. Science is never "settled." Most Climatologists DON'T agree with the Al Gore viewpoint. When presented with the views of those scientists, faith-based, emotional thinkers react like 16th Century religious fanatics did to heretics.

While I think an openness to dialogue and tolerance of all views is generally a good thing, what CAN'T be tolerated are those who'd seek to shut down others with weaponized words. They need to be called out on that and countered with facts, NOT as much for themselves (mostly they're hopeless), but so that other "emotional thinkers" aren't encouraged/emboldened by their successfully silencing others.

It would be one thing if such people were merely confused, but they generally tend to be hateful and meanspirited, as well. A combination that leads to their hopelessness.

On LOVE and LUST (For a good friend and young firefighter and family man, Eric)

Eric Parker Waterville, Fire Department

Sometimes (actually often) life is hard. For some of us, it can even feel unbearable, at times.

I know it's easy to say, things will get better, that, "It's always darkest before the dawn," but that doesn't change the NOW.

There are times when we all really have to reassess our lives...everything in them. Sometimes it can be, "Am I in the right job?" Sometimes, it's "Am I in the right relationship?"

It's very hard to honestly question such things, because it seems like questioning our very essence...questioning who we really are.

Beyond all that, this (the Fall into the Winter) is a very tough time of year for all of us. The days grow shorter, darkness prevails and that has a depressive effect...more pronounced in some of us and at various times when we're more susceptible.

We need to be able to forgive OURSELVES, for only then can we truly forgive others.

Despite how unbearable things may seem it's almost never the right thing to think about escape through death. It takes much more courage to confront. In the worst of times, in the depths of despair...THAT'S when we need to figure out what's really important to us.

Sometimes jobs are lost, or changed. Sometimes relationships fail...but LIFE goes on, often, ultimately for the better.

In most relationships, the bulk of our problems are communication problems. We don't put things well, or we get frustrated and hurt those we love. ALL of us go through that. It's hard to see what we're doing wrong when we're doing it. It's like trying to see our own grammatical mistakes after having written something. Someone else can spot them right away, but we can't. We overlooked them when we made them and continue to do the same each time go over what we wrote.

One thing I believe I've learned along the way is that while lust is the magnetic attraction that brings people together, it is ultimately a poor imitation of LOVE.

Lust is all attraction, hedonism and pleasure, LOVE is duty and responsibility. It's HARD WORK. Lust fades under the monotony of the mundane and crumbles under the ponderous weight of the responsibilities of family. THAT’S when the hard work of real LOVE begins.

LOVE isn't something we "fall into," LOVE is something we build. It's earned with duty, dedication and loyalty...over time. When the lust is long gone, the LOVE we build will be there stronger and bigger than ever.

I learned what love was as a child, but I didn't understand the lesson until much later in life.

My Dad, raised through the Great Depression, serving in the Navy in World War II & Korea, then getting on the FDNY in time for its "war years," wore the same old coat for nearly 20 years, rarely got new shoes, and he WORKED...struggled...and STUDIED like mad to provide his family (his wife and kids) a better life.

I took that momentous act of LOVE for granted as a child, because, as a child I couldn't understand it. Many of us live out our entire lives without understanding that...many, MANY of us!

LOVE is duty, honor, dedication and the hard work of BUILDING something of value. Lust is the mere spark of attraction that, if the eventual connection is true, allows for LOVE to take root.

Lust fades, but a well earned, well built LOVE can last forever.

The FIRST principle is "Be good to YOURSELF." FIRST, love yourself enough to forgive yourself for all the flaws we all share as mortals. We each NEED to do that, before we can truly build a lasting LOVE with someone else.

The SECOND principle is to, "Be patient with YOURSELF." Nothing worth having comes easily...or quickly.

LIFE is hard...LOVE is work, but the value of life is found in what we build, NOT that which we "fall into."

The Fatal Flaw in Collectivism

IF you feel healthcare is a right, then you must think food, clothing and shelter are even more basic "rights"....EXCEPT, of course they're NOT "rights" at all, they're COMMODITIES that some people produce and sell to others at a profit and that is quite literally, HOW an economy works...ANY/EVERY economy.

Government cannot produce a single thing. NO government has ever built a car, grown a crop, made even a single shoe.

What government CAN do, if enough of us WANT and SUPPORT it doing so, is forcing those "greedy profit making producers" to make all those things and provide them to all free of charge...or, more aptly, produce those things, then deliver them to government so that government can then make sure it's all equitably divided and delivered to ALL...kind of like SLAVERY, also known as Socialism's Command (government-run) economy.

THAT has NEVER WORKED!

You know what all those "greedy producers" do under such conditions?

They refuse to work and produce much, because there's nothing in it for them. Moreover, NO ONE, from the richest, to the poorest among us is willing to simply surrender what we each PERCEIVE to be "OURS." That’s why Stalin "HAD TO" purge the Ukrainian land owners and why Mao "HAD TO" eradicate China's small business owners. That kind of "greed" cannot be tolerated under Collectivism.

As a result, government turns to people...well, goons and thugs, to be honest, the kinds of monstrous humans who happily make people disappear in the night. They contract with monsters like that, NOT to make the "producers produce more," BUT to make EVERYONE work and slave 10, 12, even 16 hours each day, 6 days a week...every man, woman, child and invalid...to produce the bare necessities, and believe me, they'd do just that...they DO IT every time.

Moreover, they'd NEVER tire of "making examples of people," even when such examples are no longer needed and the populace is fully intimidated, they'd still make some folks disappear...because they LOVE killing that much.

THAT is life under Collectivism (socialism, communism, etc).

In 1974 a little known math prodigy, who was at Dartmouth at the time proved, with 97 pages of equations, that Collectivism CANNOT work, but the market-based economy, in which EVERYTHING'S for sale and NOTHING'S free works extremely well.

That paper is widely known and well understood by "the global financial elite," but remains buried somewhere in the bowels of Dartmouth University's library, as that young math prodigy sold it to a banker, who posed as someone looking to publish that paper.

At any rate, I think I kind of explained WHY the market works and the Command Economy doesn't WITHOUT all those pesky quadratic equations that tend to make most people's heads hurt.

Suffice to say, it's for the BEST if we just let all those "greedy producers" keep on producing the commodities we all need at profit, because in the end...WE are ALL those "greedy producers"....in one form, or another.

Addendum to "The Detroit Firefighter Watermelon" Case...

Black Detroit Firefighters Defend White Recruit Fired Over Watermelon

It's a sad truth, but at least according to our media's playbook, "HATE = ratings."

It SHOULDN'T...in fact, it probably DOESN'T, but that's what they insist on selling us.

Earlier this month (October 6th, 2017), many media outlets picked up the story of the white Detroit probationary firefighter, fired over bringing a watermelon as a first gift/offering to his new firehouse. (http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/local-news/detroit-firefighter-fired-for-bringing-watermelon-to-station)

How many will pick up on this followup, with that guy's African-American classmates standing up to defend him? (http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/local-news/black-detroit-firefighters-stand-by-white-recruit-fired-over-watermelon)

I'm guessing, not many. From their view, this story is "NOT newsworthy."

There seems to be something very wrong with our Newsmedia's priorities.

Much of the divisiveness we see around us DOESN'T come from Police and Fire Departments, but from Human Resources/EEO Departments that continue to tout things like "micro-aggressions" and "dual consciousness" (the internalized view that you "can't be yourself" at work), something we all suffer from (and mostly, rightly so), no one more than "backwoods folks" (a/k/a "Hillbillies"), like Bill Clinton. You think Bill Clinton felt "free to be his true/authentic self" at Harvard, or Oxford?

Wittingly, or unwittingly our Personnel Departments have handicapped those they claim to seek to help by encouraging a grievance mindset that alienates the targeted groups, (women, blacks, LGBT, etc.) from others, by encouraging those folks to see the rest of society as being "against them," when, in fact, 99.5% of the people from any group are just trying to get ahead.

Both Drs. Walter E Williams and Thomas Sowell have noted that both blacks of Caribbean and African descent do significantly better, financially, than American blacks (a gand many white groups, as well).

They postulate that a BIG part of that appears to be due to those groups NOT buying into the "victim's status" much of America seeks to saddle such groups with.

Perception and attitude makes all the difference. As Henry Ford said, "Whether you think you CAN, or you think you CAN'T, you're right!"

AND THAT'S why THIS story is so important!

Shades of Eugen Hadamovsky...

Eugen Hadamovsky

When Hitler's National Socialists came to power in Germany, one of the first things they did was nationalize (place under government control) Germany's private radio stations.

Eugen Hadamovsky was made director of programming and the airwaves became filled with Joseff Goebel's propaganda, including hosts reading "adoring, thank you letters to the Fuher," daily.

Now, Jimmy Fallon, the former SNL guy who always laughed at his own jokes in his skits, has apparently taken a page from Eugen Hadamovsky in having goofy Miley Cyrus and the female writers on his staff read adorong, thank you notes to Hillary Clinton. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpzeQ1Z3Ut0&feature=share)

Johnny Carson set a standard. BOTH Leno and Letterman were poor copies of the original, BUT today's litter (Kimmel, Fallon and Colbert) are just unwatchable.

Notice? With each succeeding group, it takes more guys to disgrace the existing legacy!

Talk about "shitting the bed"!

THIS is THE Preferred "Source" on Puerto Rico's Recovery, For Our Dishonest, Globalist Media

San Juan's Mayor Yulin Cruz

NOT Puerto Rico's Governor, NOT the other Mayors who've been cooperating and working WITH FEMA....NO, just her...Yulin Cruz, San Juan's Mayor. (http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/30/exclusive-fellow-puerto-rico-mayor-rips-san-juan-mayor-shes-not-participating-in-any-meetings/)

The SAME media that pumped the Terry McAulife/Jason Kessler Charlottesville hoax, the SAME media that ignores Melbourne, Florida's Antifa chapter lauding Stephen Paddock and ISIS claiming credit for his actions. Our media pretends that this is both unlikely and unprecedented despite the fact that this HAS happened before (https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/268033/could-stephen-paddock-las-vegas-killer-be-muslim-daniel-greenfield).

It's just impossible for a reasonable person to trust such a dishonest and manipulative media.