Doing Unto Others

Many adults routinely vote in deeply immoral ways.  For example, they vote in favor of taxes to fund government schools.  Or they vote for politicians whom they know will tax their neighbors.

These are clear, unambiguous violations of the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”)

Would these unethical voters want you to encourage an armed thief to break into their homes or bank accounts to steal their money?  Obviously not, yet they are sanctimoniously delighted to encourage armed thieves who call themselves  “IRS agents” or “sheriffs” to break into their neighbors’ bank accounts and steal their money.

And when one of their neighbors resists, they are quite pleased when this “tax evader” is kidnapped by heavily armed thugs and locked in a cage. Whenever they have the pleasure to be a member of the jury that will decide whether a “tax evader” is guilty of a so-called “crime” and should spend years being raped in a cage, they happily shout “Guilty, guilty, guilty!”

Not all people do such wicked things, but many do.   And those who do such things are clearly showing, by their actions, that they do not think the Golden Rule is a correct moral rule.   They are showing that they live by primitive, childish rules such as “Might makes right” and “Whatever ends I selfishly desire justify whatever means that I (or my rulers) can use to achieve them.”

If you know such a person then it is appropriate for you to apply his own moral rules in all your dealings with him.

For example, if you selfishly want his money and you have the means to take it away from him, you are not bound by any moral rule to refrain from doing so.  You would simply be doing unto him what he has already encouraged others (e.g., his rulers) to do unto you.

Eating the Way Lobbyists Want You to Eat

Whenever I spot a fat person, here are some of the things I do NOT think:

• That person eats way too much.
• That person needs to exercise.
• That person has no self control.
• That person is lazy.

Here’s what I do think:

• There goes another victim of the government’s organized insulin poisoning program.

Like me, you have probably believed (hopefully in the far distant past) that it is healthy to eat according to the guidelines encapsulated in the USDA’s Food Pyramid.

If you eat like this you are probably fat or under age 30.   If not, then it’s likely you frequently starve yourself miserably.

The food pyramid is not based on science.  It is based on politics.   The USDA is not a scientific organization, it is a political organization.  If you are eating the way self-interested, money-motivated farm lobbyists, congressmen and bureaucrats want you to eat, you are being successfully hoodwinked by professional liars.

Discussion Question:  What do you think would happen if legitimate scientists persuaded USDA bureaucrats to publish a Pyramid showing that grain products (cereal, bread, crackers, cakes, etc.) should be avoided at all costs because they cause obesity and diabetes, that fruits should be limited to a small fraction of one’s diet, and that fruit juices and skim milk should never be consumed?

Here’s my answer:  The USDA bureaucrats would immediately receive a swarm of calls from violently angry farm-state congressmen.  They would be reprimanded and threatened.  And they would withdraw the new Pyramid before the sun set.

If this is similar to your answer, then you MUST IGNORE THE POLITICAL FOOD PYRAMID and do your own research about nutrition.

And here is an excellent place to start: http://www.why-low-carb-diets-work.com/

Parasites Celebrating Themselves

Apparently this has been “Public Service Recognition Week,” a celebration for amoral, incompetent, self-congratulatory parasites who prey on productive people by “working” in government make-work jobs.

Saturday Night Live lampooned these parasites in a skit that would be funnier to me if it didn’t seem so sadly accurate.

Here’s some career advice:  Do not take a  job in a government bureaucracy, ever – not even temporarily.  It will be a permanent stain on your “work” history.   If you are employed in the bowels of a government agency for five years or more, you risk being viewed as unemployable anywhere within the legitimate, non-criminal, voluntary economy.   It will generally be assumed that you have absorbed the anti-customer, “me-first” entitlement mentality shared by virtually all bureaucratic parasites and you will be shunned.

If you hope to retain any self-respect and to live a fulfilling, productive life, accepting a position on a government payroll is not worth the risk.

Think about it.  How many people can you name who have wallowed in the pestilential mudscape of a government bureaucracy for at least five years and who were then able to pursue a successful career in a legitimate job?    Please post their stories, if you can come up with any examples.

Otherwise, keep your reputation pure.  Don’t accept a position as a paid parasite!

Obama’s Excellent Climate Change Policy

I consider Obama to be my oracle on climate change.  Nobody has easier access to a larger number of climate scientists than Obama.  So by golly, I figure he knows far more about climate than I ever will.

This frees me from having to study the issue myself.  I can maximize my efficiency simply by watching Obama and attempting do do whatever he personally does to address climate change.

And what has Obama been doing?

Well, Obama has apparently decided that flying around to meet his friends and colleagues in a huge fuel-sucking jet is far more important than reducing his carbon footprint.  And it’s also very important for Obama to take his family and his secret service entourage and his fleet of limos and secret service armored SUVs and all his favorite beach toys to Hawaii for frequent long relaxing vacations.

Wow, I’ll be thrilled to make these same kinds of contributions to the fight against global warming!  Pardon me while I briefly interrupt this post so I can book a few airline tickets on Expedia.  <<clock ticking>> Okay, I’m back now, poorer, but excited about my upcoming vacation plans!

Gosh, this is fun!  Now let’s see what else is Obama doing about climate change!

Well, he is personally authorizing the expenditure of billions of dollars to burn the billions of gallons of fuel necessary for him to continue his invasion and hostile occupation of foreign nations, and to murder various civilians who happen to get in his way by, for example, attending weddings.

And what is his rationale for dumping billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere in order to pursue these noxious activities?  Security!

So what do we learn from this?  We learn that Obama, after having received unlimited advice from the world’s finest climate scientists, has decided it is a good idea to dump billions of tons of extra greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, as long as it will make a fraction of voting Americans feel more secure.  Okay!  Lesson learned!

I am an American, and I would certainly enjoy feeling more secure.  I happen to know that I am millions of times more likely to be injured or killed in an auto accident than by a terrorist.  I can therefore improve my personal security tremendously simply by purchasing and driving the largest, heaviest SUV I can possibly afford.  Okay!  Consider it done!

I am simply glowing all over with pride.  Although I am just an insignificant private individual who cannot hope to do more than a tiny fraction of the things Obama has been doing about greenhouse gasses, I can still do something – and I will!

I must cut this post short now, because it’s time for me to hop into my gigantic SUV and dash off to the airport.  I don’t want to miss my flight to Monaco.  The entire planet’s climate is depending on me!

Fetters

The economist Joseph Stiglitz has written an amazingly crappy book entitled Freefall.   Here are some excerpts:

For a quarter century, certain free market doctrines have prevailed:  Free and unfettered markets are efficient; if they make mistakes, they quickly correct them.  (page xi)

One might have thought that with the crisis of 2008, the debate over … – the notion that unfettered markets by themselves can ensure economic prosperity and growth – would be over (page xiii)

…many who observed the long expansion of the world economy during the era of deregulation concluded that unfettered markets worked… (page xx)

Many countries may conclude not simply that unfettered capitalism, American-style, has failed… (page 225)

…that does not mean that the unfettered price system itself is efficient. (page 273)

And many are increasingly convinced that the free and unfettered market ideals America seems to hold are ideals to run from rather than embrace.  ( page 223)

It is simply impossible for an economist, or any rational person for that matter, to look at the American economy and conclude that it can be described accurately as unfettered free market capitalism.  Therefore I do not know what I can logically conclude except that Joseph Stiglitz is a shameless liar whose lies are designed to serve our rulers, from whom I believe he has derived a significant portion of his income.

Let’s start with a simple fact:  In an unfettered free market economy the government does NOT give a monopoly on the creation (i.e. counterfeiting) of paper money to a government-chartered central bank (e.g. the Federal Reserve Bank of the U.S.).

And now, just for fun, let’s have a little look at one of the millions of regulations that governments impose on financial institutions in our supposedly “unfettered free market” economy.  This regulation happens to be one that the rulers of Texas impose on life insurance companies.  If this rule is something you think we’d see in an unfettered, deregulated financial system then you and I did not grow up on the same planet.  (Read this entire rule carefully!  Ignorance of the Law is no excuse!)

§ 1105.012. PROGRESSION OF CASH SURRENDER VALUES.

(a)   This section applies only to a policy issued on or after January 1, 1985.
(b)  Any cash surrender value available under a policy to which this section applies on default in the payment of a premium due on any policy anniversary must be in an amount that does not differ by more than two-tenths of one percent of the amount of insurance, if the insurance is uniform in amount, or the average amount of insurance at the beginning of each of the first 10 policy years, from the sum of:
(1)  the greater of:
(A)  zero;  or
(B)  the basic cash value as determined under Subsection (c);  and
(2)  the present value of any existing paid-up additions minus the amount of any indebtedness to the company under the policy.
(c)  The basic cash value must be equal to the present value, on the applicable policy anniversary, of the future guaranteed benefits that would have been available under the policy, excluding any existing paid-up additions and before deduction of any indebtedness to the company, had there not been a default, less the then present value of the nonforfeiture factors specified by Subsection (d) corresponding to premiums that would have become due on and after that anniversary.  The effects on the basic cash value of supplemental life insurance or annuity benefits or of family coverage, as described by Section 1105.007 or 1105.151, as applicable, must be the same as the effects specified by Section 1105.007 or 1105.151, as applicable, on the cash surrender values determined under the applicable section.
(d)  The nonforfeiture factor for each policy year must be an amount equal to a percentage of the adjusted premium for the policy year, as computed under Section 1105.052 or 1105.151, as applicable.  That percentage must:
(1)  be the same percentage for each policy year between the second policy anniversary and the later of:
(A)  the fifth policy anniversary;  or
(B)  the first policy anniversary at which there is available under the policy a cash surrender value in an amount, before including any paid-up additions and before deducting any indebtedness, of at least two-tenths of one percent of:
(i)  the amount of insurance, if the insurance is uniform in amount;  or
(ii)  the average amount of insurance at the beginning of each of the first 10 policy years;  and
(2)  be such that each percentage after the later of the policy anniversaries specified by Subdivision (1) applies to at least five consecutive policy years.
(e)  Notwithstanding Subsection (d), the basic cash value may not be less than the value that would be obtained if the adjusted premiums for the policy, as computed under Section 1105.052 or 1105.151, as applicable, were substituted for the nonforfeiture factors in the computation of the basic cash value.
(f)  In this section:
(1)  an adjusted premium or present value for a particular policy must be computed on the same mortality and interest bases as those used to demonstrate that the policy complies with the other sections of this chapter;  and
(2)  the cash surrender values must include any endowment benefits available under the policy.
(g)  The amount of any cash surrender value available other than on default in payment of a premium due on a policy anniversary, and the amount of any paid-up nonforfeiture benefits available under the policy on default in the payment of a premium, must be determined in a manner consistent with the manner specified by Section 1105.004, 1105.007, 1105.008, 1105.009, 1105. 010, 1105.011, or Subchapter B to determine the analogous minimum amount.  The amounts of any cash surrender value or paid-up nonforfeiture benefits granted in connection with additional benefits, such as those listed in Section 1105.011(b), must comply with the principles of this section.

Anger

You have probably heard of Dale Carnegie’s book,  How to Win Friends & Influence People.  If you have not read it, you are leaving money on the table.  Your career and interpersonal relationships can be dramatically improved by practicing the  principals described in this book.

Have I employed Carnegie’s principals in the blog entries I have written so far?  I don’t think so.  But I think I know why.

Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on Carnegie:

…he returned to New York, unemployed, nearly broke, and living at the YMCA on 125th Street. It was there that he got the idea to teach public speaking, and he persuaded the “Y” manager to allow him to instruct a class in return for 80% of the net proceeds. In his first session, he had run out of material; improvising, he suggested that students speak about “something that made them angry”, and discovered that the technique made speakers unafraid to address a public audience.

Anger seems to motivate people to do things they would ordinarily avoid.  It works for me!  I am far more motivated to write about subjects that make me angry than anything else.  Anger cures writer’s block.  And that is probably why you see so many angry posts from me in this blog.

I doubt that these are my most persuasive posts though.  The list of efficacious techniques for influencing people in Carnegie’s book do not include “be sarcastic” or “let them know how angry you feel” or “belittle other people’s beloved political heroes.”

Fish Sex and Tax Dollars

This is from an old Washington Post article (2004) but the lesson it teaches about government is timeless.  Every summer (at least, in 2004), the government forces dams along the Columbia river in Washington and Oregon to dump huge quantities of water over their spillways in order to raise the downstream water levels so salmon can swim upstream to spawn more easily.

Here is the result, as reported by the Post (and reprinted in the Seattle Times):

At an Oregon legislative hearing last week, the BPA trotted out computer projections showing that the spill this summer will cost $77 million while ensuring the return of only about 20 adult salmon listed under federal law as endangered. That’s $3.85 million per fish.

Isn’t that sweet?  Aren’t we lucky to have noble government rulers who care much more about twenty fish than they do about the personal financial problems of millions of taxpayers?

This is the kind of thing that happens when people get the idiotic idea that force can be used to solve environmental problems.  (“Government … is force“,  observed George Washington).

But perhaps you think idiotic overspending on fish was a one-time government mistake.  You wish.  The Seattle Times recently provided this little report on one of the many fish-charity programs that the rulers of Washington State currently inflict on their subjects:

Puget Sound’s popular blackmouth fishery — made possible by a complex system of hatcheries that produce and rear these plump young versions of chinook salmon — costs $768 for every fish that’s caught.

That’s a calculation made by the state Auditor’s Office in an audit released Friday of the state’s politically popular key winter fishery.