Demand Bush And Chenney's Resignations Now

If Walmart bought the land next to your house, you could move or you could live with it.

Or, there might be zoning laws that prohibit stores in residential districts.

I don't want to speak for the Libertarians, but my understanding is that they oppose zoning laws.

My main point was that libertarianism would bring about changes in the way folks see government. That will cause friction, regardless of whether those changes are wise or not.

 

The recession Bush leaves will be far worse. The rate of debt he's running up is far greater than Clinton, Bush Sr., or Reagan. Clinton inherited a bad recession from debt run up in the Reagan-Bush Sr. era but there were some positive signs in the 90s, particularly with the consistent reduction of deficits and a surplus the two last years of Clinton. Things haven't been going anywhere in the right direction for the past five years in that respect.

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Bush is said to be a christian. He apparently believes that "the poor will be with us always" was a commandment.

 

I haven't read this whole thread but I want to point out with all due respect MagicMedicine that DOCUMENTS seem to be WORTHLESS except as tools of manipulation. Those with the intellectual, political and power means can and will interpret and use them in ANY WAY THEY WANT. Those without those means live with the consequences. "Thou shalt not kill" becomes "Support the war." "No imprisonment without charges, legal representation and a speedy trial" becomes Guantanamo Bay. The Bible or the Constitution or whatever. Frankly, and I apologize for this, it makes me want to say to document freaks "Shove your document up your ass." They are always used however those in power want to use them. Black means white. This is important. Think carefully about it. It's almost like yes, I agree, one needs documents, BUT one needs them and uses them only to serve one's own ends. So it's always a free for all and there's no reason why anyone should pay any attention to another's document if they don't want to. In fact they won't if they don't want to. The power lies in the power, not in the document, even though documents are part of the power structure.

It's quality-of-life perfection for all that's the goal of humanity. Not [life under] a constitution or any document or abstraction or any other thing. It's not a document that one should worship because no document is perfect because every document has the weakness of being used however those in power want to use it.

Documents matter insofar as they play a power role. And some documents are (even if not in application) better than others -- in the eyes of the beholder.

What it comes down to is "I'll use my documents and everybody else can shove their documents up their ass if I find their documents imperfect." Which they almost universally are found to be. Everybody needs to understand that THIS is what's really going on.

So everybody BEWARE of DOCUMENTS and DOCUMENT FREAKS of all kinds. Religious fundamantalists. Constitutionalists. Libertarians. Conservatives. Marxists. Evangelical Christians. Nationalists. All too wrapped up in documents.

"Got Power?"

As for libertarianism it is doomed because it has no moral foundation. Ideologically intrinsically deficient, it breeds and tolerates inequity and injustice.

 

SDS, please, a little less talking out your ass (with all due respect) would be nice. The reason that the people in charge do what they want is because the majority of American citizens let them. Only a handful of people can tell you what Article One, Section 8 of the Constitution is, or even how many Articles there are period. People sit back and say "well it's the law, it must be ok". Let's let this one slide around in your head - Hitler never broke a law. Did that make the concentration camps ok? It's the people like you that completely disregard our Constitution to push how you think the government should work.

The beautiful thing about libertarianism is that it dosnt have a moral foundation, which is what plagues our two parties now. But I am interested in knowing how you came up with the idea that it spawns inequity?

 

MM letting those in power do what they want is a problem no doubt about it no disagreement there.

Hitler never broke a law. This is exactly the problem I'm trying to get across to you they'll do what they want NO MATTER what the constitutions and laws do or don't say. If the document says "black" they'll find a way to interpret it or they will claim an exception that it means "white".

"It's the people like me who are the problem who ignore the Constitution and push the government to do what they want." On the contrary. My point is: Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes by always referring to their "document". Constitution Bible or whatever. Because they'll use it to their own advantage. In their hands it's of no more importance than the paper it's written on -- but simultaneously documents represent a weapon in their hands. My whole point is to NOT ignore this. Everyone who wants what he wants will use any document or other means not beneath his morality to accomplish what he wants. Everyone needs to understand it.

BEWARE of documents and document freaks.

"The beauty of libertarianism is that it doesn't have a moral foundation." For the haves but not for the have-nots. For the able but not for the not able.

Why does libertarianism breed inequity? Because if you don't spell out what direction you intend to go you're not going to get there. If something -- in this case equity and fairness -- is not a goal then it'll never be realized.

To accord you a little latitude MM I understand what you probably mean when you say that the beauty of libertarianism is no moral code. You probably mean that it's attractive because it does not manifest any obviously false moral code and doesn't get mixed up in the morass in a world where some aspects of morality are much debated. The problem is that it has no moral dimension whatsoever. There do exist basic moral principles and they can't be ignored.

 

I can see where your going with that, and I can respect your opinion.

Libertarians have a pretty simple goal - complete and unrestricted liberty. The movement away from socialism (proposed free healthcare, welfare handouts) and towards capitalism. Anyone who understands libertarianism would understand that Libertarians have a very clear direction in which way they intend to head.

I suppose your right about inequity, but even in todays world there is no such thing as real "fairness". Even at nineteen, I have a very firm grasp on this.

 

MagicMedicine there's just a hint of open-mindedness in your last words and that means it's a good time for me to say I apologize for the diatribe tone of my posts.

It's really good you have at least some sense of the problem of unfairness in the world. I wish there were something I could say in just a few words to help cultivate this sensitivity on your part.

I'll be brief of necessity I'm always short on time. Unfortunately I have to start out with some negative stuff. I really don't understand the appeal of Libertarianism at all. Unrestricted liberty? When you really think about that it's just crazy because society is based on cooperation and that means committments. For your own benefit and the benefit of others. Nobody lives in a vacuum. And I hate to sound like a broken record from the 60s but there's real truth to those lyrics "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose".

Capitalism? It's not capitalism or any other "ism" that we want to worship. What we do want to achieve and enshrine is as perfect a world as possible. The only interest in any of these "isms" is the capacity to which they will take us where we want to go. And where is that? A polluted planet with corporations cancelling pension benefits after years of work? One man having more net worth than the combined assets of the 30 milllion poorest of his fellow citizens? I don't think so. Nor do I think any simple little philosophy or formula is going to solve the problems of a complex world.

And please understand that I say this with an entirely kind heart but, heck yes, I attribute your "enthusiasm" (for libertarianism, capitalism or whatever else it might be) to youth. Young people are always getting mixed up in one credo or another. Hey I don't know if you know much about this guy but there's this author Robet Anton Wilson who is kind of a cult favorite in some circles and he says quote "What I have been saying -- the important lesson of this book -- can be put into two simple imperatives: 1)Never believe totally in anyone else's BS and 2) Never believe totally in your own BS." Sounds like good advice to me. He looks back with amusement at how he considered himself a Marxist at age 17. "Just seventeen!" he says. The "BS" stands for "belief system" but probably Wilson meant it as a kind of double entendre where it also could stand for "bullshit."

Most importantly Magic Medicine I want to finish up going back to the issue of fairness which is my own major area of interest and concern. Yes I understand the visceral appeal in systems like libertarianism of getting back at whiners, cheaters and lazy bums. But not all people fall into that category. Those who do so can often be understood in terms of causal factors. So I want to offer the following scenario, I hope you will give it careful thought in, yes, the years to come and that it will germinate in your enthusiastic brain and turn into something really good for society. Imagine two guys 70 years old living in different parts of town. Both totally nice individuals. Both worked as hard as they really could. One couldn't have asked more of either. But one has every excess you can imagine and more and the other guy hardly has enough to eat and can't afford healthcare. Why? Because of differences in luck, inheritance, physical attractiveness, social skills, special skills, athletic ability, originality, mental dexterity, genetics, upbringing, learning ability, handicaps, domestic strife you name it. This is not fair and not right and things can be done about this and need to be done about this and MagicMedicine I think you understand what that means. It means they both, and when you think about it we all, really deserve the very best and that and not some "ism" is what we need to strive for.

Adios MM.

 

hehehhee. honestly im just trying to reply as much as i can to see if i can get my thingy to change.

 

There are too many ignorant closed minded people....

 

Good point, and I used to think that way until I had a professor show me what really happens.

The problem with your scenario is that to give healthcare to one of the men, you have to take money from the other to provide it. There is no such thing as "free" anything. "Free healthcare" is really "Taking money from the rich to provide pre-paid healthcare for the poor". I understand that one man needs healthcare, but why should another be forced to pay for it? The wealthy man has every right to give to charity and willingly help the other out, but stealing is wrong, even if the government tries to convince you it's right.
That right there is the root of libertarianism.

It dosn't "get back" at anyone. It simply rewards those who plan ahead, such as planning for their own retirement instead of relying on the government to do it for them. The libertarian economic model actually discoruages cheaters, liars, and lazyness.

Just start with understanding "legal plunder".

 

Goddamn here I am again. MagicMedicine I said 'Adios' and I wasn't intending to return soon because in recent days I've been spending so much time here and I've got other stuff to do but it's absolutely totally necessary I reply to your last post. You know I don't know if it's ever possible for one person in disputes about political and moral issues to say to his opponent "Hey dude I have to admit you're right and I was wrong" but MM I'm so confident of what I'm going to be saying that I've got to go over the top and allude to this possibility on your part -- in advance!

So apparently a professor said something like "Stealing is wrong. And when the government takes money away from you against your will that's stealing." And when someone (in occurence, you) heard this suddenly everything became clear and you understood what the world and politics and morality is all about let us say.

And "that right there is the root of libertarianism." Yes, unfortunately, indeed it seems to be. [But please see what I wrote about "property" being the heart of Libertarianism further down.]

So what's my problem with this professor and his angle?

Well:

What this professor is doing in effect is making stealing -- but as you will see below it's not really stealing but even if it were -- the Ultimate Moral Sin and building his political and moral world around that. But there are other sins and I don't think stealing is the ultimate one. There are other sins like suffering, torturing and killing. Are they worse than stealing? You tell me.

When one person has more than he needs and another has less than he needs and the former person voluntarily for no good reason will not give of his surplus he is in effect torturing and, as the case may be, killing the latter. It's just like passing a desperately wounded person on the street and doing nothing. Is the fact that one person's surplus is his 'property' a justifiable reason not to give of that surplus? It is not. Human life and well being take moral precedence over material property.

In the face of a human need of greater importance the gentleman with the surplus won't contribute what he has. Because "It's my property" or "I earned it" or "I don't have to do anything I don't voluntarily want to do." His character is morally flawed. People are dying because of his stance. One doesn't even need to say it's his fault. Maybe he can't help the way he is. But so what happens? One does the same thing one always does as when there's a crime or a pressing need. On intervenes. One intervenes just like in a crime to keep people from being unnecessarily hurt. It's not as you say to "get back" at the guy who's too bone headed to help (although for some revenge is an issue). It's to help mankind.

And so it's not really stealing is it. Not reallly legal plunder at all. Any more than it's stealing to grab the gun out of the hand of a killer.

So people get together and work together to be sure bad stuff like this doesn't happen and so that people are treated fair and square. It's called government. And I would go ahead and say "And I can't help it that government goes astray and gets corrupt and does bad things and ends up treating people unfairly" except that's NOT TRUE. Government is just PEOPLE and if they're fucking up then we all need to do something about it and can do something about it. And if it weren't GOVERNMENT then it would just be SOME OTHER POWER STRUCTURE a corporation a labor union a faith based group or the scheming bastards down the road ANY power structure is composed of people and they're all always susceptible to corruption BUT we NEED power structures for the big tasks we need to accomplish and how to have such entities but with the right checks and balances and with the right moral foundation in my view is the fundamental political debate.


MagicMedicine I can't help but say that I think you can't help but conclude that you need to go back to the way you thought before you were influenced by this professor guy because he is very seriously shortsighted and in a way that promises real harm. I need to be teaching in this guy's place. Jesus Fucking Christ. (My apology to Christians.) Sorry again to be so over the top but goddamn this is the real world we're living in and real lives we're talking about.

Also this. Does Libertarianism enshrine the concept of property? Not really. There is not a single one of us who is born with any material property whatsoever other than our own naked little bodies. Any property we come to possess therefore either we TAKE from somewhere -- and you could call that stealing if you really believe in property because nothing material belongs to us to begin with -- or it is GIVEN to us by someone else. But if property is given to us by someone else and property is so sacrosanct why would the provider give more to one person than another? Why if property is so sacrosanct would the provider give one more than he needs and another less than he needs? If property were what really mattered you'd think everyone would get his fair share. If you are giving more property to some and less to others then it's neither property nor morality that's the defining element but SOMETHING ELSE that's going on. And what might that be? It's called having the wool pulled over your eyes so that the ADVANTAGED who have MORE keep more and the DISADVANTAGED who have LESS keep less. It's called immorality. Call it shit.

And I haven't even gotten into the problem of all the factors that cause advantage and disadvantage through no faults of our own. And the fact that one does not merit less. I haven't even gotten into the enormous misconception about MERIT.

It took me two fucking hours to write this.

 

Sorry to keep you here, SDS, but you're really the only intelligent person I've talked to from your perspective. Don't feel obligated to respond quick, just when you have the next chance, but I am enjoying these debates, it helps me see every angle.

Just to clear it up, my professor was not the only factor in my view change. It wasn't something that clicked. And justifying one "sin" for another makes it correct? Hmm, read on.

You assume that the rich man is going to keep all of his money and not give it away or use it, which is to be expected - it's the way most think. Truth be told, they're not all Scrooge McDucks sitting on their mountain of money doing nothing but counting gold all day. A rich person is more likely to give to charity and start a new business (creating new jobs and stimulating the economy) than someone with nothing. It's the old "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day; Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for life" quote. Free handouts to the poor won't help. Welfare has proven this, and welfare is exactly taking for the rich to feed the poor. The private sector creating new jobs and putting more money into the economy does so much more than welfare ever could. And private organizations help out a lot more for the people that really need the help. My point being that the private sector does much better than the government could ever do in this department. (Compare a good businesses customer service department VS the DMV for starters)

To address property. Your body is your property. Property dosn't always have to be material, get away from that thinking. And by aquiring property, we don't engage in a zero-sum game, instead it's all through mutual agreements. "I'll pay you X amount for this raw material". Your hands create more property, which you turn around and sell to a willing buyer at a mutually agreed upon price. This could be something like buying seeds and selling the plants. Or it could be something like buying gas. You're consenting to buy gas from the station at a said price, and the station is consenting to sell to you at said price.

Fair is all in the eye of the beholder. What's fair to you is not what's fair to someone else. It's a bad term to use when talking about markets. You definitly have a very liberal flair to you, more towards socialist and even marxist? I'm interested to know.

To sum it up, just because someone's rich dosn't give another person the right to force him to pay more. Even if life was all luck, does that mean the person that wins big at the casino should be forced to portion it up between the people that lost? Of course not. And the worst arguement possible is the "lack of class mobility" one, because I've seen first-hand that its BS. It's really about how you play the cards that have been dealt, and you shouldn't be blaming the rich for every bad play by the poor, because when it comes down to it, every person has to right to use every card to its fullest, the problem is most don't. They'd rather blame "evil capitalism" or "evil big coporations".

 

Thanks for the upbeat words MagicMedicine and yes here I am again. Come November 1st I'll be really busy so if I'm going to answer you I better do it soon. Like now.

I never figured out how to use the function to separate multiple quotes or maybe this unit somehow isn't equipped so I have to do things manually.

I'll try to be more concise this time and only add rhetoric where it's really needed for emphasis. I'll deal with analytical issues first and leave the fun stuff, the genesis and nature of my views, for the end. Always work before play.

It looks like I want to start with things in the last paragraph of your last post.

"Every person has the right to use every card to the fullest." To ignore, to neglect, to deceive, to exploit, to oppress, to subjugate, to enslave, to torture, to kill? That's what tyrants totalitarians and really nightmarish people do. Anything goes. Completely unprincipled people. Either you mean what you're saying here and you're completely unprincipled or you draw the line somewhere and you're not completely unprincipled. If you draw the line somewhere then you have a moral code. What is your moral code? What is Libertarianism's moral code?

"You shouldn't be blaming the rich for every bad play by the poor."That's true. But not the whole truth only half the truth. One half of the truth is "One should not blame the rich for all the problems of the poor." The other half of the truth is "One should not blame the poor for all the problems of the poor." It's a widespread human tendency to always blame the other group. The poor say it's all the fault of the rich and the rich say it's all the poor's own fault. The reality is that the rich need to do some things and the poor need to do some things. Unless one doesn't have a moral code and doesn't care whether or not society and the lives thus represented go to hell in a handbasket.

Now following up on the paragraph I just wrote this is very important: It's really not a matter of blame or fault at all. It's just a matter of doing things to make the world the kind of place you want it to be. And that again is defined by -- or actually that defines -- your moral code. What kind of place do you want the world to be? What is your moral code?

"It's really about how you play the cards that have been dealt." This will sound like I'm trying to be really clever but here again is something very important: How well you play the cards is a function of the cards that you have been dealt. (That is, how well one is able to perform in this world is a matter of how much or little fate happened to provide. Not just in terms of genetics and innate skills and abilities but also in terms of social cultural educational development and just plain circumstances.) Think carefully about that and never forget it. (Man do I ever pontificate.)

"It's not a matter of blame. It's just a matter of doing what's necessary to make the world the kind of place you want it to be." (Quoting myself.) Forget the past and concentrate on the future.

Now lemme see what's next.

We're going backwards here according to the way your post was written.

"Just because someone's rich doesn't give another person the right to make him pay more." Come on now MM of course it does. Because as you say yourself in the line directly above that "Fair is all in the eye of the beholder." Without a moral code or a common moral code each of us can have it any way we want it. So where do we go from here? A power struggle? In a way the answer is yes because you are going to do what you want to achieve the kind of world you want to live in and I am going to do what I want to achieve the kind of world I think is fair and that I want to live in. Or do you not really mean that? Where do you draw the line? What is your moral code?

"Fair is a bad term to use when talking about markets." If fairness is not a criterion by which you monitor the effects of the market on society then you're going to be blind to the existence of market-caused unfairness in society. Like you can't go prospecting for uranium without a Geiger counter. Unless you're just not interested in fairness at all. And then hey the sky's the limit. Talk about stealing hey why not.

"Property doesn't have to be material. Your hands create more property."
Well property doesn't have to be strictly material but it has to be something either matter, space or time. When property or rewards are conferred they have to be in the form of matter, space or time. But that's not my main concern here. My main concern is you didn't give any reason or justification why one person should be given more property (be it in the form of matter, space or time) than he needs while another has less than he needs. You might respond "Well Joe's twice as strong as Bill and can lift twice as many logs so Joe deserves twice as much compensation." But that gets back to how the cards were dealt and one does not deserve more just because one was dealt better cards stronger arms to begin with. In fact you know what: It would seem more reasonable to argue you deserve more if you were dealt fewer cards to begin with! Isn't that a fascinating idea! This gets back to the problem of merit which I haven't even dealt with yet and the misconceptions about merit that constitute this huge "evil" force that's polluting everyone's minds and deceiving them. BUT I will very simply and quickly dispense with fucking merit and resolve the whole business today at the end of this post. So please read on.

Going ever backwards here. We're approaching the end. I mean the beginning.

"You assume the rich man is Scrooge McDuck. Truth be told the rich are more likely to give to charities. And they create jobs and stimulate the economy." The issues raised here fall into the domain of questions of empirical fact, which is a good thing for a change instead of all this more abstract discussion. The proof is in the pudding and here's the pudding sittting on the shelf so how does she look? I heard recently that in the 1970s the economic disparity between the 10% poorest and 10% richest Americans was 6-fold and now in 2005 it's 15-fold. It's obvious what I'm concerned about of course it's fairness. It doesn't appear that the rich folks or those charities are doing such a good job. So I look at the political changes that have been made since the 1970s and it seems they've mostly been in the direction of freer markets, private enterprise, lower taxes, fewer social programs, a more capitalistic or libertarian approach in general. I agree much of society has shifted upscale as a unit but it might have done this anyway but then we've got this problem of inequality which is even worse than it was. So the problem needs to be addressed. But it won't be -- even if people know which way the wind's a blowin' -- if they don't care which way it's blowin' -- if they have no moral compass and are just out for themselves and don't care about fairness or how others are doing or if they're more interested just in worshipping and installing a particular system than they are in the good or bad ends of what installation of that system might mean. Just like that Wilson guy says don't get too wrapped up in any belief system or as I say it "Keep your eye on the pudding." Keep your eye on the pie.

"The private sector does much better than the government could ever do." There is a "small and flexible" aspect of this I agree with but you also need to maintain a level playing field and an oversight mechanism to be sure things are headed where they're supposed to go. And again the government is just people and there's no intrinsic reason it can't do as well as we want it to unless it's just size, but sometimes to acomplish big things you need a big entity and no matter what that entity is you're going to have to deal with corruption and the other typical problems.

"Welfare programs and handouts don't work." Here again as far as I'm concerned it's a strictly empirical issue. Do what works and don't pursue what doesn't. Keep researching to do better. But I want to cite an example I heard about recently where disadvantaged kids who traditionally had all sorts of reading problems improved dramatically under a special program. Those in the field say this has to happpen before second grade. It affects performance all through life. But it requires extra time and money. Is this a handout? Is this welfare? Is this more important than Mr. Joe in his 10 mpg SUV? Should that money be going for education instead of literally up into the thin air as smoke (primarily C02)? Again you tell me.

There I did everything BACKWARDS!

The human race is so infantile. You know those humor things those photos where they dress chimpanzees up in human clothes. I always thought they were funny I always got a kick out of that. Somebody find and post one of those for me PLEASE. They look so stupid. The more jewelry and stuff they put on them the stupider they look. The reason they're so funny is because what it really means is that we human beings are that stupid and silly and pathetic. With our trinkets and baubles and stuff. One single person driving a 5000 lb. SUV 50 feet down the road to buy a pack of gum is just so pathetic and stupid. I mean I'd have no objection if resources and pollution and social equity weren't issues. But it's still kind of silly when you think about it.

SO where does this leave things? I said forget blame. I said forget the past. I said don't worship the vehicle, the "-ism". Worship rather the ends you want to achieve. I said I would dispense with merit. OK so let's forget about merit because merit is nothing more than a person's emotional reaction to a situation "You deserve this/You deserve that" is just your emotion reaction to what you do or don't want to do for another person whom you say "deserves" this or that. Well, what DO you really want to do for them? What would be good and what wouldn't be so good?

Forget ALL this crap. (Except the last 2 sentences in the preceding paragraph.)

And what are you left with?

It's UTTERLY SIMPLE. It's the simplest thing on earth. You can just forget all that other confusing crap.

I already said it above.

It's deciding what kind of a place you want the world to be and what kind of shape you want other people's lives and the environment to be in and taking steps to reach those goals. That constitutes your moral code.And your direction for the future. But I hope it's a code that's publicly presentable like "Everybody should have the best possible that's practical and a fair share" and not something like "I don't care if your guts are smeared all over the pavement."

Hey I forgot one and I can't cut and paste it back up there either. "Justifying one sin for another makes it correct?" Well again some things are more serious than others and one person's property bauble is not as important as another's basic human sustenance like food housing shelter health. When you're dealing with a basic need the other way around is what seems to me to qualify as theft keeping something back from where it's needed.)

Guess what. It's a fair bet that took me more than two hours. And guess what. There's no time left for the fun stuff I was going to talk about. That stuff is important though because it gives a human side to things. MagicMedicine I'll try to get around to it in the next 24.

SDS

 

OK MM here's the more enjoyable stuff. About where I'm coming from. I'm providing lots of elements so you can draw your own conclusions. Any picture probably won't come into focus until lots of the elements are in place and even then maybe not. In other words how I got where I am is not how most people get where I at least think I am.

First you need to know I'm 54 years old so it's a long development (or degenerescence) we're talking about. As a kid in the 50s it was all Eisenhower and the Soviet Union and the Cold War. A kind of turquoise blue, maybe a little darker, was a popular color in the late 50s. The Space Race was fun though space exploration still interests me. My parents were Republican and the idea of Democrats and labor unions was anathema to them so it was to me too. So I didn't like Kennedy at the time I was still too young. In 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis I was really scared we were really going to die in a nuclear war there for a few days. I remember I started to cry even though I was 11 years old. Imagine your very own neighborhood being rubble like those pictures you see on TV. The first hints of a counterculture were in 64-65 in retrospect. By the presidential election in 1968 I had gotten myself together enough that I actually supported the Democrat Humphrey instead of Nixon because Humphrey actually indicated he wanted to get out of Vietnam. It was my junior year I gave a speech at school. High school graduation June 1969 two months before Woodstock I didn't even know about it too bad. I went out of state to college in Illinois in September and the first thing we did on welcoming day was sit down with the upper classmen advisors playing acoustic guitar while we all sang "If I had a hammer." There were pot plants growing on campus where people threw seeds out the window. Wealthy kind of know-it-all kids from New York state talking about bricks of hash and so forth. At the end of freshman year on the floor in my dorm they did a poll and there was only one single person who had not smoked dope at least once a kid from California curiously.

Time for a new paragraph because now things are going to get a little more important. I didn't know what I wanted to major in I kind of sampled things I took an intro to philosophy course we studied David Hume who explained that cause and effect is a total mystery this was fascinating I decided I'd be a philosophy major. This is freshman year still. May 4 1970 was the Kent State shootings I have to mention that it had a big effect on me for various reasons. What I want to share here is that the counterculture was pretty much already in full swing but the year after Kent State was the most intense time 1970-71 was the most intense period it was really like there was going to be a revolution. The counterculture seemed to permeate every aspect of everyday life. It was colors like bright yellow and orange. Just a couple weeks ago I saw a TV documentary about the 60s early 70s and a commentator said "That was the most exciting time for a young person to be alive ever, no doubt about it" and I pretty much agree. Well I was always kind of a cautious person and wasn't on the front lines by any means but I was basically sympathetic and now I regret I wasn't more involved. But there's always NOW.

A philosophy major yes but sensitive to the criticism that philosophy is useless so I added on courses to later go into an eminently practical field (medicine) and I've been enslaved ever since. One big problem with healthcare is if you've got practitioners owning their own practice they run as many people through as possible to make money but if you hand it over to managed care corporations they run as many people through as possible to make money so it's the same thing and it's no good. I should have stayed in philosophy but there are no jobs and I had to get medicine out of my system but philosophy or something is what I should have done what I enjoy most is what I'm doing here right now shoving my ideas down people's throats.

And now something I really regret. I voted for Reagan both times in the 80s. I thought maybe it there are different needs at different times. A flirtation with a different approach. I liked his more or less skill as a speaker. Actually he wasn't that good.

Yes I know the picture is not at all clear but please continue it will become more so.

Around 1990 something started to happen with me. The counterculture had sort of very gradually, imperceptibly faded away but now you realized it was definitely gone and I missed it. Bush senior tried to get a constitutional ammendment passed making burning the flag a crime and everybody has his pet peeves but that and the corresponding mentality really turned me off.

But there is one really important continuity element that was going on here all along from college days and that's philosophy. This element -- along with missing the counterculture don't forget that -- MagicMedicine is really what explains where I am now and how I got there.

So what about philosophy? Here goes.

Somewhere along the line from philosophy it became clear to me that people don't have free will. Nobody ever taught me this in philosophy. It's not a popular view at all that I know of. But it was just obvious to me that people don't have free will. Because people make decisions based on their desires. And people don't choose their own desires. So there's no free will. And there's a lot more. There are a bunch of arguments against free will. Free will makes no sense when you really think about it.

I wanted to write a book about the nonexistence of free will. I basically have the manuscript. About 100 pages. Kind of analytical and dry. Probably not much fun to read.

But in my eagerness to disprove the existence of free will I was kind of neglecting the really important thing. I write this thing about the nonexistence of free will but that's actually a matter of secondary, kind of just academic, interest. What's more important than just the nonexistence of free will is its repercussions, what the nonexistence of free will MEANS.
So this has held up my geting the book out there. But I need to get it out there.

So what does the nonexistence of free will mean? What's the repercussion?
Well what's [the myth of] free will ever used for? The only thing this fictive entity is ever invoked for is to assign or not assign blame. Namely: "You acted out of free will so you're to blame." "You didn't act out of free will you were coerced so you're not to blame." These are FALSE conclusions. They SEEM to make sense but they are WRONG. I explain in my book how these false impresssions/conclusions arise.

So free will has nothing to do with BLAME and nothing to do with MERIT. It can't have anything to do with them because it doesn't even exist.

Now in the history of the world they always came up with reasons why a person didn't MERIT something. You don't merit equality because you're black you're female you're an immigrant you're handicappped you're queer whatever. And as time goes on we discover that there are fewer and fewer reasons why people do not merit things. We now agree AfroAmericans and females deserve to vote just like anybody else and so forth. But there is a movement away from reasons why people "don't deserve" such and such. The more we understand things the more we realize this.

And I'm putting the last nail in the coffin of merit. The mistaken view that people do or do not merit something because they act out of free will. I am putting the nails in the coffin of free will and the last nail in the coffin of merit.

This has very important ramifications in politics and religion. Because Republicans and Conservatives and so forth are always saying "I deserve this because I did it of my own free will" and "You deserve your lousy situation because it was your own free will you made the wrong choices and no so no one owes you a thing you DESERVE what you've got". And religions that say "You deserve eternal punishment because you rejected the gift of god's son of your own free will [which free will they also claim is a gift of god]." But also religions outside Christianity do this stuff.

When free will goes out the window so do most of the religions I know of and the political tentacles of those religions.

This has very serious ramifications.

Free will does not exist. It has nothing to do with merit, what a person "deserves". Merit is just an emotional reaction to a situation. It's just however one reacts under the circumstances. Like a group of people in a theater watching a horror movie. Some will scream and some will laugh and some will sleep thru it.

And then you realize some other things like we live in a world of cause and effect and people really do the best they can under actually existing circumstances. And when you realize this it really has the effect of making one very sympathetic. The older I get and the more I look at people and everything the more I realize everyone does the best they can under the existing circumstances. The only way to make things better is to alter the circumstances.

I'm sorry this is so long. Can I wrap it up in just a couple sentences? I'll try. So where does this leave us? The exact same place as yesterday it all comes down to what kind of a world you want it to be. That's your moral code. Well after looking at the world and understanding that everyone does the best they can under the circumstances and it's not "your fault" through free will or any other such pretexts I am very sympathetic and I want everyone to have the best possible. Nobody "merits" any more or less than anyone else. This means equality is an important element.

[Here is something I edited in later to make it at this point a little more precise and clear: Since merit is just an emotional reaction and nobody really "deserves" anything and since free will does not exist and people do the best they can under the circumstances then how do I want the world to be and how do I want to comport myself toward others and how do I want them to comport themselves toward me? Well heck I want everyone to have the very best and I want to be included in that group.]

In its more or less complete form my moral code is "I want everyone to have the best possible within a context of equality and a healthy environment." This is meant to include considerations of practicality but we don't need to go into that now.

So given my exposure to the counterculture and philosophy and sympathy for my fellow human beings I looked at political systems and understood of course as you suspected already that it was most like socialism or communism. Could I emotionally get into either one of these? Sure. There have been some romantic struggles around the world it's pretty neat stuff. I like to call my thing "True Communism" or "Ideal Communism". Somehow I like the word "communism" better than "socialism". But it's not Marxism. I've never even read Marx except a little in college. And as you know I'm definitely not into documents or document freaks or worshipping individuals or worshipping economic mechanisms. I didn't get to "communism" from marxist theory or any usual pathway I got there from the counterculture and analysis (philosophy) and a sympathetic attitude and it's not historical failed communism it's "True Communism" a vision of society where everyone has the very best on an equal basis. And nobody goes to hell! We not only need a 21st century moral code and political system we also need 21st century religion I can't even buy the idea of karma. I'm not antireligion spirituality is very important but just like here on earth we need a religion that will give everybody the very best. Make us all perfect no ifs ands or buts.

Sorry I put you to sleep MagicMedicine. But I think it's all done now unless you have questions or comments.

SDS