Random Reflections Pt7

21. Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson irritate me. They’re further examples of how to get ahead in the world by promoting your image rather than your talents. Their highly publicized breakup was supposedly a terribly tearful and awful experience, but what do they do? Besides going out and finding new pals to slum with immediately (dissolving a 3-5 year marriage should merit a time out for reflection of at least a year, or so one would think) but they each come out with CDs, the selling point of which is that each is about the breakup. I’m just cynical enough to believe that maybe just maybe they orchestrated the whole thing to give their careers a little Bam! (as a well known cook would say) Jessica Simpson’s certainly gotten a fair share of publicity from the divorce, and Nick Lachey’s music was ignored beforehand, now it gets some airplay. Gah, the whole thing makes me sick. Have some class you morons.

22. California seems to be racing New Jersey and Massachusetts to see who’s going to be the first to nationalize health care. We all know how well socialist medicine works – look at Russia. During the heyday of the USSR, every good little peasant had the right to free healthcare paid for by all the other good little peasants. As such, their lifespans were 10-20 years lower than every other civilized country, infant mortality was twice as high as in every other civilized country, mental retardation afflicted 25% of the children, 80 million people had chronic illnesses, and 68% of the public was health-deficient by accepted international standards. Every good little peasant had the “right” to free heart surgery, but the reality was 98% of those needing a bypass died waiting to get one.

Russia’s best and brightest went to work churning out MiG fighters and AK47s, because that’s where the fame and opportunity were. Canada (who also has socialized medicine) is seeing a dramatic decline in doctors going into specialty fields, because there’s no pay incentive to continue on through college. They may have cheap or free medication, but their waiting lists are interminable, and their free physicals last somewhere around 2 seconds. Their best and brightest are jumping into the lifeboats and paddling away from the sinking wreck of socialist medicine – and coming here, where they have a financial incentive to do well.

What’s even funnier about all of this is that those advocating socialist medicine get extremely irritated with me when I compare them to the communists of yore, and do things like quote Communist party platforms and literature at them. If you’re going to look like a commie, have feathers like a commie, and quack like a commie, then be proud of it – you obviously think you’re doing the right thing – and don’t be offended when I call you, of all things: A commie. Take some responsibility for your political beliefs. That I can at least respect.

While pointing and laughing of course.

23. There are those out there who are drawn to religion because it gives them a position of power. Having an “in” with your all-powerful invisible friend makes it really easy to cast declarations of damnation down on the average folks, while maintaining your own superiority. In all seriousness, I’m religious. But my religion is between me and the Creator I’ve chosen to believe created me. It’s not between me and you, you and Him, or anyone else and anyone else. If you wanna know, I’ll be happy to tell you what I believe, but I have no vested interest in seeing you have the same invisible friend as me. Those who use religion as a step-stool to raise themselves above everyone else are incredibly dangerous – because they believe they have the ear of the most high, they WON’T stop, they’ve been appointed by God himself. They also give real religion a bad name. If you see one of these people, tear them down, publicly. Or, if you’re assured of their being disliked, let them prattle on until they self-marginalize themselves.

These religious types that love power – they never, ever listen to reason. Or rational thought. You can bring it to bear against them, but they don’t understand it. What is rationality compared to a mission from God?

Religion is a matter of choice, of opinion. From a purely rational standpoint, there’s no right answer – one is just as good as another. There is a “right” answer in relation to human affairs however, and that is what ensures the freedom of the most people. Let that be your guiding light in whatever you do.

24. All laws have a basis in force. They must, otherwise they would not be law. In order for any law to have any power, there’s gotta be some guy somewhere, who puts on a uniform, straps on a gun, and goes out and cracks some heads when people don’t obey the law. Understand this, and you’ll have a leg up on the rest of society, because no one else gets it. To enforce any law, there ABSOLUTELY MUST be the threat of force, of violence, of death, behind it to extract compliance.

I have a diploma in Constitutional Law from Patrick Henry University out of Virginia. My teacher, Michael Farris, was an *expletive*. Not only was he one of those folks who loved the power that having the religious “high ground” gave them (I was suitably unimpressed), he could not get it through his head that every law is enforced with, in the end, violence. He wanted to outlaw the state of being gay – I asked him if he himself was willing to put on a gun and go out and kill people who broke the law and resisted coming to court. He blustered and said that’s not what the law was about. This was a man who wanted to round up gays and put them in concentration camps (couldn’t figure out how to do it without violating everyone else’s rights, so he reserved that fate for people who’s orientation was discovered during the course of a criminal investigation), and yet he didn’t understand what obvious principle Comrade Mao stated – all political power comes from the barrel of a gun.

Legislating without the knowledge that it will be enforced by violence is a huge problem. Everyone wants special benefits, everyone wants the next cozy, cuddly, help-everyone, sunshine and bunny-rabbits West Wing law to be passed. No one wants to go out and evict a family from their home because they didn’t pay the taxes to fund that law though. No one wants to go burn that family to the ground because they refused to leave that home. No one wants to break into the house, smash the father’s teeth in with a rifle-butt, and drag him off to court. Yet, that is precisely what happens when the laws you advocate are broken. That is what HAS to happen.

Which is precisely why law should be used so sparingly. The threat of violence should only be applied in the most extreme cases, lest it be applied liberally, randomly, and to the innocent.

You can have peace, security, the illusion of safety, sunshine and bunny-rabbits for all, or you can have freedom. If you choose the first option, you’ll have to kill or imprison everyone who disagrees with you. Are you willing to do that? Are YOU willing to do that? Are you WILLING to do THAT?

If you’re not, you can just wait for the government-run schools to breed all the courage and intelligence out of our population, that should only take another 20 years or so. But that’s a story for another day.

25. Choice is the one of the few things in the world worthy of respect. Choosing, of your own free will, the right over the easy, the difficult over the wrong, is the hallmark of greatness. If there is any truth or reality to the concept of value or worth in the world, choice is the yardstick by which value is measured.

9/6/2006

26. We need to return to a culture of respect and responsibility. Respect for each other and each other’s intelligence, and responsibility, as in taking responsibility for our actions. There’s a video floating around the internet as I type, showing a highschool football player slamming another player during downtime. Shortly thereafter, slammed player’s father charges onto the field and flattens the teen who tackled his kid for no reason. Not the best thing to do, certainly not appropriate.

What’s even less appropriate is the fact that the father is getting slapped with felony child-abuse charges. What the heck, over? Used to be a time in America, a couple of guys could work out their differences in a rousing fight, loosen each other’s teeth, blacken each other’s eyes, pay for any damages they caused to the venue, shake hands, and agree to disagree. Not any more – now it’s a felony.

Not that I’m saying we should all go out and start picking barfights for fun, but we’d be better off with the days of guys getting thrown out of saloons than getting hauled down to the precinct and then off to jail for 5 years ‘cause they pounded some loud-mouth jerk into the floor.

Yet another case of the law getting used too much.

Another example: Up until about the 60s, couples mis-matched in age weren’t a problem. Lots of kids got married at 15, 16, 17, 18, etc. and if their partner was a year or two younger than them, it wasn’t a big deal. Teens around our ages pledged themselves to each other, got jobs, started families, and began responsible life a whole lot younger than the morons I see every day in college. Today a deeply-in-love-couple aged 16 and 18 would get married and whichever one was older would be hauled out in cuffs ‘afore the rice was thrown. Hell, you can’t even date a year or two down if you’re over 18, no matter what the younger feels for you – their whim changes and it doesn’t take more than an allegation to get you branded as a child molester an’ lose all your rights for life.

What’s funny is, kids my age are still having kids, almost like this was something nature intended. They’re just not getting married, not taking on any of the responsibility of a committed relationship. We had a lot fewer societal problems when we had less law and more of a sense of responsibility.