Interestingly enough, despite my xTweeters assertions that 'the common good' justifies unjustly taking from those who successfully earn wealth in order to somehow enhance 'liberty for all', our Founders made it very clear that their understanding of Liberty and their understanding of a Republic, were tightly bound up with upholding and defending every individual citizen's property rights.
I put a few quotations together to clarify the importance of this in a post several years ago, especially for those whose thoughts tend to run along the lines of "It's only property!", to show them the actual meaning of what it is that they're thinking of as being for 'the common good'. These quotations come from three different Founding Fathers of two very different systems, John Adams, James Madison & Karl Marx:
"Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist." John Adams, 'Discourses on Davila', following his 'A Defense of the Constitutions of the Governments of the United States of America'
"...Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own...." James Madison, 'Property', 29 Mar. 1792
"In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."
Karl Marx, 'Communist Manifesto'
The point being that the one principle that the Founders of both America and of modern Communism understood and agreed upon, was that private property was indispensable to securing your individual rights under a government of limited powers, and that when private property is abolished, the doors are thrown wide open to a government of total and unlimited power over its people.
Ben Franklin had further expressed that understanding as early as 1772, in one of his 'Silence Dogood' essays,, and America could not have been born if there hadn't been a sizable number of people who understood this as well,
"Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or controul the Right of another: And this is the only Check it ought to suffer, and the only Bounds it ought to know.
"This sacred Privilege is so essential to free Governments, that the Security of Property, and the Freedom of Speech always go together; and in those wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can scarce call any Thing else his own."
In that brief passage, Franklin expressed a conceptual integration of the ideas of freedom of speech, property, wisdom, and liberty, which shows Property to be infinitely more than merely a claim to a material possession, and which "...where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own..." is a marvelous illustration of having Property IN speech (read Madison's essay!), and in the very spirit of his life.
Now with that in mind, how do you suppose an 'Economic' proposal to deprive 'rentiers' (AKA: people) of that property which is rightfully theirs, could somehow fit in with an understanding of both liberty and the concept of the 'common good', which our laws are based upon, and are in service to?
Here are just a few questions that such answers deter people from asking:
Where does what they propose to distribute, re-distribute, or 'more fairly' distribute, come from?
Where does the authority and power which they advise the taking of 'it' with, come from?
How do they decide who 'it' should be distributed to?
And who it should not go to? In what way is this 'more fair' distribution, fair?
What, beyond their assertion that it would be 'good' to give them that power to 'help you' with, could that be either 'helpful', 'fair', or 'good'?
Why, I wonder, does thinking of such questions remind me of the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: "I'm from the government and I'm here to help"?
One big truth we need to understand is that 'Economic Thinking' equivocates upon two very different meanings of 'good', when speaking of 'fairness' or of a 'common good', and it counts upon the newer sense being able to borrow some 'respectability' from the older sense, so as to garner approval of a new policy they've labeled as 'good'.
To see what these two senses of 'good' are, is not difficult to do, though the traditional sense may require more than one web search to find (or looking in an old printed dictionary), with the result being that the older definition will be something along the lines of: "Morally excellent, Virtuous, Righteous, Pious", and the newer sense will be some variant of 'pleasant', 'useful' and 'acceptable'.
The traditional view reflects a frame of mind that takes the existence of reality and the importance of conforming to what is real and true, and right & wrong, seriously. That's an understanding that presumes that what is good is worthwhile and valuable because it is good, whether or not it also produces other immediately measurable material results.
The newer sense entails a quantitative approach that aims at calculating a cost/benefit ratio of overall 'greater good'ness, as justification for incurring whatever 'negatives' that other groups (rentiers, citizens, biological women, etc.,) might experience, so that 'good' is measured as what outweighs, and so justifies, doing 'bad' to some (rentiers, people, etc.), to balance the scales.
Only when 'good' is used in the quantitative (collective) sense, can 'Economic Thinking' function fully in its role as the 'practical' hand of social engineering, which requires 'economic thinkers' (and all who think through it) to use the moderns' form of 'epistemology' to justify ignoring, subverting, and excluding, traditional concerns of metaphysics, causality, and ethics, from our conscious consideration.
Consequently what 'economic thinkers' mean by the word 'good' cannot be understood to reflect the quality of Good, and what they mean by a 'common good' can be neither common, nor good, but only a quantitative concern for what is useful (to their economy).
The questions that the economic answer is intended to abort, are those that would lead you to understand the uncomfortable fact that 'Economics' can only be taken seriously(!), after traditional philosophical principles have been put safely out of your mind, so as to enable reducing all relevant (!) considerations to quantitative calculations (GDP, CPI, etc.,).
Only after that's done, can they engage in the necessarily arbitrary and utilitarian calculations of n amounts of pleasure, divided amongst x quantities of people, without fear of some traditionalist raising questions about what's right and wrong, or infringing upon individual rights, etc., which are of course the goods we all can and should have in common, which 'Economic Thinking' is designed to put safely out of the common mind.
Why have I not had anything to say about the 'Infrastructure Bill' (which considers requiring Breathalyzers in new cars, to be part of 'infrastructure') or Biden's CDC '60-day eviction moratorium' (AKA: elimination of private property)? Why bother pretending that supporting either one is anything other than deciding against 'the American way', to choose between whichever flavor of tyranny - socialism, marxism, communism, fascism - it is that you prefer? There is no way to read either of these, and pretend that isn't what they are about, and I just have no interest in helping anyone pretend there's something legitimately debatable in either one.
I've gone over the ideas and principles involved here, way too many times, and the reality is that the issue really is as simple as what James Madison laid it out in his essay on Property, back in 1792. Fortunately, with the level of literacy and understanding that was the norm in America at that time, those who didn't already understand the nature of private property, could read his essay, and both understand his point, and the importance of it.
The issue that is being decided with these two... 'measures' today, is really whether a century of 'modern *education*' was enough to eliminate Americans from America, or if it still requires a few more semesters to complete the process.
Pop-Quiz: Do you understand that these two statements are saying the same thing:
"Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist."
John Adams, 'Discourses on Davila', following his 'A Defense of the Constitutions of the Governments of the United States of America'
"In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."
Karl Marx, 'Communist Manifesto'
If not, then the answer is that in your case, a century of 'modern *education*' was enough for you - you've either made your choice, or abandoned the effort altogether.
This term in its particular application means "that dominion
which one man claims and exercises over the external
things of the world, in exclusion of every other
individual."
In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing
to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and
which leaves to every one else the like advantage.
In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or
money is called his property.
In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions
and the free communication of them.
He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions,
and in the profession and practice dictated by them.
He has a property very dear to him in the safety and
liberty of his person.
He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties
and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.
In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property,
he may be equally said to have a property in his
rights.
Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort
is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person,
his faculties, or his possessions.
Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the
same, tho' from an opposite cause.
Government is instituted to protect property of every
sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals,
as that which the term particularly expresses. This
being the end of government, that alone is a just government,
which impartially secures to every man, whatever is
his own.
According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording
a just securing to property, should be sparingly
bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously
guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect
them in the enjoyment and communication of their opinions,
in which they have an equal, and in the estimation of
some, a more valuable property.
More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government,
where a man's religious rights are violated by
penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy.
Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property
depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that,
being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's
house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts
with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a
man's conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or
to withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the
public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original
conditions of the social pact.
That is not a just government, nor is property secure
under it, where the property which a man has in his personal
safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary
seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.
A magistrate issuing his warrants to a press gang, would
be in his proper functions in Turkey or Indostan, under
appellations proverbial of the most compleat despotism.
That is not a just government, nor is property secure
under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and
monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of
their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which
not only constitute their property in the general sense of
the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly
so called. What must be the spirit of legislation where a
manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own
child in a linen shroud, in order to favour his neighbour
who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer
and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the oeconomical
use of buttons of that material, in favor of the
manufacturer of buttons of other materials!
A just security to property is not afforded by that government,
under which unequal taxes oppress one species
of property and reward another species: where arbitrary
taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive
taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness
and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient
spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling
policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property,
which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread
by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the
small repose that could be spared from the supply of his
necessities.
If there be a government then which prides itself in
maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides
that none shall be taken directly even for public use without
indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the
property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion,
their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which
indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions,
in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the
hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues
and soothe their cares, the influence [inference?]
will have been anticipated, that such a government is not
a pattern for the United States.
If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full
praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally
respect the rights of property, and the property in rights:
they will rival the government that most sacredly guards
the former; and by repelling its example in violating the
latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other
governments.
The Founders' Constitution
Volume 1, Chapter 16, Document 23
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s23.html
The University of Chicago Press
The Papers of James Madison. Edited by William T. Hutchinson et al. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1962--77 (vols. 1--10); Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977--(vols. 11--).
A veritable thirst for kneeling to narratives fills the air, a demand that we show our support for some lives mattering, demanding that we all echo that 'Silence is Violence!' and 'Check Your Privilege!', even the heinous notion that 'It's only property!'. These demands for compliance come from kids, neighbors, friends, even former Tea Partiers, and though many I'm sure are innocently urging the narratives along as if it really is a matter of Justice, there are still some of them who should absolutely know that real Justice is not, and cannot, be served by such narratives as those. And yet all around me I see people thirsting for this faux 'justice!', and what comes to my mind is "Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink", and I wonder how many of them understand that some waters are not fit to drink?
Do you understand that? And if so... then what?
"But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."
Imagine if someone were actually dying of thirst, would you want to deny them the water they're reaching for? Of course no decent human being would want to do that. But would you deny them that water, if their health and even their life depended upon it? If you knew that the water they were reaching for was poisoned with a carcinogen that guaranteed they'd soon develop a fatal cancer, would you stop them, or maybe, seeing how desperate they were, would you step aside to allow them to satisfy their thirst? I hope you wouldn't step aside... but I'm far from convinced.
Why? Well, tell me, how would you explain refusing that water to the person dying of thirst? After all, the poison isn't obvious, you can't see, smell or taste it, it requires close examination to identify it, and as no one's dropping dead on the spot from drinking it... do you really think they'd calmly listen to your reasons for denying them the water they're desperately thirsting for? And on a scorching hot day, with the poisoned water tantalizingly sparkling & cool and clear right before their eyes, how likely are they to calmly listen to you telling them they need to climb up a steep hill to drink warm, slightly muddy water that you're telling them is truly good to drink? Would you risk injury to turn the desperately thirsty away from the bad water, to lead them to the water that is truly good to drink? Maybe some of you would do all you could, but... looking both around me, and yes, inwardly too, I feel deluged with many more disturbing questions, than satisfying answers.
For instance - what of yourself? If you were near to death with ravenous thirst, would you resist quenching it with what on the surface appears to be cool, clear, pure water, just because someone cautioned you that it contained a fatal carcinogen? Would you resist taking a cool drink, while crowds of people pushed you aside and gasped about how good it made them feel to drink it? Would you take the time to probe deeper, to examine and test the water you are thirsting to drink to see for yourself if it truly is good to drink? People adrift at sea often become so desperately thirsty that they drink their fill of saltwater, even knowing that they'll sicken and die from it - would you?
Maybe you'd resist. But what would it take to do that? To resist the tempting thirst for the sake of an unanswered question, and then... to prove it to yourself, and stick to that understanding, I suspect that would come down to how much you actually care about what is real and true, and how consistently you connect such matters to what you should do, even in the face of external opposition and internal desire... where would you learn to make such connections and value abiding by them? School?(!) Doubtful. Those sorts of lessons don't come from worksheets and multiple choice questions, now do they? You've been to school, you can answer that question yourself.
Even so, if you somehow are that uncommonly sensible and brave person, what would you do about your fellows who, ignorant of the poisoned water, are innocently and enthusiastically directing the thirsty crowds to drink it?
Worse, what would you do about those who do know that the water's carcinogenic, but, worried about how they'd react to being kept from drinking it, hastily mix it with good water in hopes that will make it safe (Spoiler alert: It won't, but they're ok with the easy ignorance of hoping it might)?
How would we, how should we, respond to that?
And what of those who do know that the water is poisoned, and still direct the thirsty to it, and those who do know that diluting it won't make it good, but they choose to do it so that more and more will drink and eventually sicken and die from it?
And in what might be the worst predicament of all, knowing that those who're consciously corrupt are few & far between, and that those who're innocently ignorant of the dangers are many, and with still more fools mixed in between, we feel the need to act yet have no way of immediately distinguishing which from which - what are we to do?
You can scoff at my questions, but it seems plain to me that this is the very situation we are in, following in the wake of George Floyd's life being ended beneath the knees of four cops in Minneapolis.
Those who truly intend to peacefully protest, and who innocently seek after Justice while chanting and supporting these narratives, are for the most part unaware that they are drinking in the deceptive waters of a socially carcinogenic 'justice!', and yet most are neither willing, nor tolerant of having any discussion of the less appealing, tepid and distant muddy waters of a distant Justice, even though that system is the only one that mankind has ever had any hope of finding any actual Justice through.
And then there are those who do have some knowledge of who BLM & Antifa truly are, what their ideas are founded upon and promote, and yet they still 'bend the knee' by virtuously signaling that 'black lives matter!', and demand we join in on chants of 'silence is violence', 'acknowledge your privilege', 'it's only property!', which are at best, rationalizations for diluting good water with bad, and furthering the poisoning of our society. And there are some among us who know damn well that their message is lethal to America, and deliberately spread it to stir up as many cancerous waves as they can - such as those of Seattle's CHAZ/CHOP Autonomous Zones, violently 'peaceful protests', and Talcom X's iconoclastic calls for statues of Jesus to be thrown down - in hopes that they will grow into a tidal wave that will sweep our land from sea to shining sea.
I know that the majority of my 'fellow Americans' have a thirst for Justice, but in a monumental case of mistaken identity, most are chasing after 'justice!' instead, ignorant of the fundamental injustice that lies just beneath its glistening surface, amounts to vengeance (at best) clothed in finery, which they've been taught to see as 'justice', and even as being something that is admirable to demand.
If you're surprised, maybe you didn't pay attention in school... or to school, but our educational systems have for decades taught that so long as only property is destroyed and people aren't killed, such violent riots are really 'peaceful protests', and with such pernicious lessons they've taught generations of students that the shallow waters of what they learn from textbooks, worksheets and multiple-choice tests, are deep enough for students to swim in and to dive headfirst into adulthood with. Decades of such misguided graduates have taught additional generations of successively more misguided graduates, who's instruction has made them doubly zealous as living examples of the Dunning-Kruger Effect in their calls for this misidentified 'justice!', and they do not see the true nature of the monster that they are staring straight into the face of. They see what they've been taught to see, and want to see, and even what they want to be seen, as seeing - yet most are unwilling to pursue any further questions that might poke beneath the pleasing surface of appearances, unwilling to stick even a toe into the water, let alone examine its depths - and very little of what they've learned has taught them that they should.
"Know Thyself" has been exchanged for "Just do it!" - whatever 'it' might popularly be believed to be at the moment.
That being the root cause, it should come as no surprise that no simple "other" can be neatly blamed for our predicament, the Pro-Regressive Left hasn't been acting alone (if ever) for over a century, and their early 'progress' has ensured that a great many Libertarians, and members of the Right & Conservatives, are involved as well. All have gone through the same educational system, and all have learned "How to Think" through the same lesson templates, which reduce concepts and ideals to the disintegrated pabulum of textbooks, captioned pictures, and worksheet factoids, whose meaningless text all students soon learn to scan for the options framed for them in multiple choice tests to choose their 'answers' from, which involves neither teaching nor learning, in any traditional sense, instead it trains both teachers and students to seek out and further selected narratives.
"... in the absence of thinking, many teachers who engage in indoctrination do so unconsciously. They themselves take what they’re given and pass it along without thinking. Ideologues often intervene at this level by writing the scripts for teachers, which is how LGBT advocacy and anti-Semitic fabrications become included in their lessons.
Thoughtlessness is essential. As the fictional demon Screwtape, from C.S. Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters,” states in his letters to Wormwood, “It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.” ..."
As most educational theory from John Dewey on down to the present makes quite clear, their lessons have much less to do with the material being taught in them (mere 'rote facts', dontcha know), than with the form of the lessons, which are intended to teach "How to Think".
Even those who might manage to reject the particular conclusions of some lessons, nevertheless have learned how to perceive the world through the limited scope of those same lesson plans, textbook pabulum, captioned pictures, worksheet factoids and multiple choice tests, and so their differences are less often actual disagreements, than a differing matter of preference within the same multiple choices already provided to be 'chosen' from (BTW, the flowcharted 'Critical Thinking' which 'educators' devised in 1946 as an 'alternative' to the system of reasoning developed over 3,000 years of Western Civilization, is but another gimmick for diverting the thoughtful away from deeper reasoning). Few look beyond the 'worksheet lessons' provided, and fewer still see the need to question what they think they know, as a result of them.
And so here we are.
If you say 'Prove it!'... what do you mean by 'prove'?
As most graduates can attest, most of the names and dates meaninglessly drilled into our heads over twelve or more years of schooling - public or private - are gone from our heads soon after graduation, but the methods and patterns we learned to think with, those aren't lost at graduation, that habit of 'learning' to scan for 'answers' from the options presented - that habit stays with us and we don't stop employing it without making a deliberate, sustained and conscious effort to look beyond what's given. If you haven't consciously relearned how to learn, then every lesson learned since school, is likely still leading you to the easiest and shallowest of answers, which was the central lesson that the lesson plans were designed to teach.
If you're laughing, I may be able to turn your mirth into embarrassment, with just a few example narratives that've been so helpfully provided to us by several outlets for Leftists, Libertarians, and various members the Right. Having exchanged our school's textbooks and worksheets, for media's pictures, videos & commentary posted in our news & tweets, it's notable that those narratives, though differing each from the other in some measures, all bear a similarly common shallow signature. But before we take a closer look, let me ask you:
A) Are you the narrator of your own narrative? And B) if so, how well do you know the nature of what it is it that you're narrating? And C) is that narrative something that can or should be thought of as being reasonably human?
My guess is that you're A) not, B) not well, and that C) no it can't. But to prove me wrong, all you've got to do is observe a couple videos, and ask yourself whether or not you are seeing what you expect or wish to see, or what is available to be seen by you.
First, seeing as the racial accelerant that's so inflaming people's passions at the moment, obscures so much of what we see, it'd be best to start with one without that, and believe it or not there is one which fits that bill, the much videoed incident of the elderly man who was hospitalized after clashing with police at a demonstration in Buffalo, New York.
Have you already seen or heard of it? Write you're impressions of the incident down.
Now watch the two videos of the incident while noting your own reactions as well as the action in them, and ask yourself if the reactions you find yourself feeling follow from what you're actually observing, or from what you expected to see in them? Did those come from your own judgment (current or past?), or from a larger narrative that's popular with you & yours? And one more thing which may be the most important of all, as you focus on what you have observed, how intently do you remind yourself that what you are observing isn't all there is to observe, or to know, about the context of the matter you're observing?
Ok, so now let's go through them together. The Libertarian eZine, Reason, gives us the headline: "Buffalo Police Seriously Injure 75-Year-Old Man During Protest", while CNN, emphasizing a more distant camera angle, and with much setting up what they desire you to assume and echo, they caption it (from :34 mark) as "Video captures Buffalo police push elderly man to the ground", and then at the :41 mark: "...officers knocked down elderly protestor Martin Guigino", and which NPR simply captions their video as "Police officers shove man in Niagara Square to the ground"
Now I want to emphasize here, I am neither excusing nor condemning the police (a worthwhile evaluation of their actions can only come from a methodical on-the-spot investigation), I'm simply pointing out how easily popular narratives lead us to see something, that isn't actually there to be seen, and how easily people then agree that they are in fact seeing it.
Watch the videos, and note what you think you saw.
Ok, so here's what I can observe:
The 1st observation is on what's ignored in the reporting on the video, and that is the context that this incident is occurring after days of violently 'peaceful protests' and rioting, in which significant damage and injury and even death, have been inflicted upon the places, persons and police, in that city, and across the land.
The video picks up as police have already given an order to the people gathered there (and almost not shown in the video at all) to disperse, and
they have formed a line for the purpose of pushing back the remaining protesters, and the police are advancing as a line for that purpose.
The elderly man has ignored that order,
at the :02 mark (of the NPR Twitter video) he pokes at the 1st of the two cops involved with his iPhone (?), which is ignored, and then
he pokes the 2nd cop with it, which is again at first ignored,
but then as he pokes again around his weapons (?) belt,
the cop that raises one arm and pushes him backwards. In my evaluation of the movements in that much described shove, I can observe no movement in the push to suggest that it was intended to shove the man down to the ground, in that his push moves up and straight outwards, he is not grabbed ahold of, and the cop's arm doesn't curve downwards during the contact or appear to strain with a downward shove or pull.
The man staggers directly backwards, stumbles a little sideways, and then falls back, and in the long distance video we see his head hit sickeningly hard on the pavement.
The police are still formed up in a line stretching across the street and most of them visibly turn and react as the man hits the ground,
the 1st cop's initial reaction is to attend to the man, but he is motioned back into the front of the crowd control line, as such lines are supposed to be maintained as unbroken as possible, the strategy being that breaking the line reduces its effectiveness and even puts the rest of the police in jeopardy.
Another cop almost immediately makes a call into his radio, motions are made, calls for 'get a medic' are heard and an onlooker is answered that 'we have an EMT'.
At the :19 second mark we see, and loudly hear, one of the protestors swearing, making threats, swinging his sign in the disorderly manner of resistance, which is the reason why the police line was formed to push the remaining protestors back.
Seconds later at the :24 mark uniformed people from the rear are kneeling down to attend to the man.
The NPR reporter is saying "better get an ambulance" and is told that "we have an EMT on the scene".
I'll repeat, I'm not defending the cop's actions, I'm describing what both you and I can see in the videos, all of which should be taken into consideration before making any judgement one way or the other - which you should be noting that the scene was not only not described that way by Reason, CNN or NPR, but instead they deliberately phrased the scene very differently, with essential details omitted from their captions and stories, in order to form the narrative that the two cops involved had deliberately and without provocation shoved an old man to the ground, and coldly stepped past his bleeding body. Worse still, there's a narrative that was popular with fringes of the Right and Libertarians, suggesting - in a very "I'm not saying its aliens, but it's aliens!" kind of way - that wires can be seen coming out of the man's scalp, that the blood was a WWE Wrestling stunt packet of fake blood, and that the fall was staged, which... staggers the mind to grasp how much of what can be seen, not to mention the hospital personal who'd have to be in on it, which must be ignored. Like Descartes, the conspiracist prefers "...that all the things which we very clearly and distinctly conceive are true..." over what their 'their own lyin' eyes' might dare to show them.
Such popular media narratives as those, gain the appearance of substance through repetition, and become in our minds the virtual textbook captions & worksheets which we've all spent 12, 16, 20 years being taught 'how to think!' from, and most people - of all political leanings - dutifully scan them for the multiple choice options to select 'our own' answer from.
Some criticized the official police report for describing the incident as 'a man tripped and fell', calling them out for committing 'lies of omission', saying, as one friend did:
"...They forcibly pushed him down and now he is at a hospital in critical condition. But we should also note that the police report was all a lie and it didn't reflect what was captured on camera..."
, while ignoring the 7 very relevant factors that they themselves omitted, and without noting their own evaluation of the 8th point, which, by the terms of their own criticism, makes their own statements into 'lies of omission', and of a far greater magnitude than what they're criticizing the police for. Perhaps not surprisingly, neither appreciated my pointing that fact out.
Consistently, across political beliefs, most people (Left, Libertarian, Right) either attacked the cops, or (Right & Conservative) attacked the protestor via his reported history of agitation, or even made wild claims of fabricated theatrics, etc, by which those narratives became what they believe they actually saw, instead of what was there to actually be seen. My point being that neither CNN, NPR, Reason, nor the vast majority of those of the Left, Libertarian, Right or Conservative camps, made any sustained attempt to observe first, and judge second, let alone reserve final judgement on what they couldn't know, and shouldn't pretend to know.
That's just one lesson in the lessons of 'how to think!', which we've all learned in pursuit (or avoidance) of A's in school. So again I ask you,
"Are you the narrator of your own narrative? And if so, how well do you know the nature of what it is that you're narrating? And is that narrative something that can or should be thought of as being reasonably human?"
As you've probably guessed, I have my doubts about that. What I don't have many doubts about, is that that is our problem, and all of the causes, politics, ideologies, are but symptomatic diversions for them.
But wait! There's more!
The previous narrative is almost sanitary in comparison to how dirty they become, once the racial accelerant is added in and sends us down into the ideological gutter, at which point the 'thinking' can no longer be considered to be even reasonably human. The bizarre comments below, came at me from a sorta-family member - let's call her 'Karen' - who'd posted a video showing someone dressed in black & breaking windows in one of the 1st Floyd protests, accompanied with the caption "Are White Dudes Sabotaging The George Floyd Uprising".
No one else had yet commented, and after watching the video a couple times, and doing some searching I could see several reports of people inflaming the protests, which some claimed to be 'racist' cops (which the police had immediately investigated and debunked), and other reports of Antifa taking an active part in inflaming the demonstrations, some accompanied with pictures and video of known members. I then made this comment:
Looks a lot like antifa.
'Karen' immediately replied to my comment by posting a still of the four cops kneeling on George Floyd, and:
What does this look like you bozo? Wrong again, Van. I call bullshit on you. Are you a racist? Then defend George Lloyd. Ok?
Leaving aside that my comment was not on the cops ending Floyd's (with an "F" BTW, not an "L") life, but on a masked white vandal breaking store windows, I was being called a racist, for, ironically, not assuming that the vandal was a racist because he was white, and even though I knew nothing more about the unidentified person than that they were clothed and masked in black. Apparently because I didn't 'judge' the vandal on appearances alone, but instead considered their actions in the video, and news reports of similar incidents before suggesting that they might be antifa... I was called a bozo, a racist, and was assumed to be unconcerned about George Floyd's death.
I shrugged and replied,
"Always nice to see your judgment on display 'Karen'"
Which was immediately followed by 'Karen' replying that:
"And yours too. Racism is the provenance of the right. And your worldview. That is why you twist everything up. Hate. You want to come after me, Van? Really? I see you. All of you."
I'd made a statement about what was seen in a video, twisted nothing, expressed no hate, and neither said or did anything that I can imagine being interpreted as threatening to 'come after' her. I called her no names and made no insults, and yet I was immediately barraged by a slew of insults, and those were the more calm & considered comments of the thread, a plateau which she rapidly slipped downhill from. And BTW, for someone to imagine such a common human failing as racism, as being something that is 'the provenance of the [other]', is not only a bigoted statement, but a confession of their own ignorance of human nature, and (reaching into the psycho-babble grab-bag) possibly symptomatic of deep seated tendencies of denial and projection, being used to hide her own guilt of the same, from herself. Eh, [shrugs] beats 'bozo'.
I don't think 'Karen' consciously fabricated these things about me, more like she pre-selected the 'multiple-choice' answer that she knew should be 'true' of anyone questioning her narrative, and then reflexively pasted all of its baggage onto me.
It's worth noting that she is and has worked as a High School guidance counselor, for years. Let that one... sink all the way in.
So no, I don't think that most people are their own narrators. It seems clear that the narratives which most people attend to, are not narrations of what they saw was there to be seen - their narratives and the conclusions they draw from them, are not reasonably human ones - they themselves are human, sure, but they're not reasonable. Where do their narratives come from? It seems that in most cases they are less instrument, than echo, relaying the ideological lessons that they've previously heard or habitually associated with what they 'approve' of.
I think the vast majority of people who saw the George Floyd tape, or heard about it, reacted with horror at seeing a man's life being ended in such a way as few of us can imagine there being any reasonable excuse for. Whether or not such incidents are common or not (and the fact that the narrative is statistically unfounded, matters not), we want such issues to stop. Period. People don't want any people to be mistreated by the very police who are supposed to protect & serve them - the police are supposed to uphold the peace, not violate it - and so, as the narrative goes, they've assembled to protest.
If that were all there was to it, I would be fully behind them. If that were all there was to it, I'd be fully behind the Sheriff who took off his helmet and kneeled with the protestors, and you can see by everyone's reaction, and the way it went viral, that that was greeted like the cool clear water of rationality and justice that everyone so deeply desires it to be.
But. Believing that requires ignoring the entire context of the matter, and nothing reasonable can follow from doing that.
The inescapable fact is that people are not assembling peacefully; even the more orderly ones are assembling enmasse wherever they please. They forcibly obstruct traffic and businesses, they surge onto highways, and most soon after begin damaging property, verbally and often physically abusing dissenters (actual or presumed). By such means their peaceful assemblies are transformed into mobs and riots - those are not peaceful, they are riots, and calling them peaceful changes nothing - a riot by any other name would reek the same, and they cannot be permitted to stand. And yet, that is exactly what organizations such as Antifa & BLM desire, encourage, and instigate.
Similarly, the organization 'Black Lives Matter', claims to care about black lives, but their words are sharply at odds with their actions, and it becomes clear on paying closer attention to both, that like Google's "Don't be Evil" motto, it's only words to them, their corporate logo, their pretext for being - Brandon Morse put it perfectly in the title of his post: "Black Lives Matter” Is Preying on America’s Belief That Black Lives Matter", in order to get what they want.
The 'Black Lives Matter' organization, is not simply designed to end unjustified violence against Blacks, if it was there'd be nothing to push back against, and much to welcome them for and to aid them in. But that isn't their sole motive (if at all), which can be seen in the nature of what they denounce as being 'systemic racism', One obvious problem with the 'systemic' issue, is that our system has no documented system of laws, agreements, rules, etc, to support the claim. South African Apartheid and 'Jim Crow' laws, were examples of 'systemic racism', and we knew them to be, because they were written down in a system of laws for enforcing racism. Those laws are gone now, those laws are now systemically forbidden in our written laws which define such actions as being unlawful. Are there racists who live amongst us? Sure there are, I've seen and dealt with them myself. Are there racists in law enforcement? As policemen are drawn from our population, no doubt there are... and you know what? The written laws that they are sworn to uphold, forbid them to act on their own racist beliefs in violation of those laws, and if they do, if they violate the law, they can and are prosecuted for violating our systemically non-racist laws which forbid that behavior.
If you say that that's not enough... what more do you seek? Is eliminating the Rule of Law, or eliminating the Police, going to eliminate racism? How? Is promoting mob rule more likely to bring Justice to any minority, or is it more likely to result in the majority forming a mob against them?!
Words not only have meaning, they bring about actions - what actions are likely to follow from the meaning of the words you are chanting?!
In regards to 'systemic racism!', the fact is, that nothing of the kind exists.
If you want to shift your goal posts and claim instead that what you mean by 'systemic racism!', is instead some non-written 'systemic racist beliefs' which drive racist behavior, well then there is one systematic fact which you've somehow failed to observe, and which pervades nearly all of the locations that are rife with charges of 'systemic racism!', and that fact is that they are nearly all in Democrat strongholds, where Leftist, 'Progressive' beliefs, have near total political control of the areas that are most troubled by riotous behavior and unrest. As Walter E. Williams pointed out,
"...the most dangerous big cities are: St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Oakland, Chicago, Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham, Newark, Buffalo and Philadelphia. The most common characteristic of these cities is that for decades, all of them have been run by liberal Democrats. Some cities — such as Detroit, Buffalo, Newark and Philadelphia — haven’t elected a Republican mayor for more than a half-century. On top of this, in many of these cities, blacks are mayors, often they dominate city councils, and they are chiefs of police and superintendents of schools...."
, to which should also be added the fact that most School District Administrators, Ivory Towers of Academia, Corporate Human Resources Dept's, the Entertainment Industry, and News Media, all are overwhelmingly controlled by not just the Left, but by the radical Left.
If BLM cared about 'systemic racism!' or 'systemic racist beliefs', they'd focus on reforming the Left in general and those Democrat party policies in particular which contain these bastions of 'systemic racist beliefs'. Instead, they consistently $upport the '$ystemic Left', and overwhelmingly align with those policies, and are openly dedicated to advancing still more absurd 'causes', such as America needing "... to dismantle cisgender privilege...", and to "...disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure..." (who in America has had their family structures more disrupted and harmed by the helpful hand of govt, than Black families?) in favor of the highly Marxist notion of "...“villages” that collectively care for one another..." (self avowed 'trained Marxists' don't form organizations to seize political power in order to urge people to behave more neighborly, they do so to impose an even more extreme version of Child Care Services, which will regulate - and enforce - every aspect of any and every family's daily life, to ensure they adhere to the politically correct party-line) and "... freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking...". Such ideas cannot benefit any society, they disrupt, corrode, and collapse them without regard to race or religion (so there's that...).
What is plain to see, is that BLM does not care about 'systemic racism!' as being anything more than a useful means to their ulterior ends. What ulterior ends? Eric D. July reminded people of those ulterior ends once more, when he again pointed out that the founders of the 'Black Lives Matter' organization, are self-described Marxists, as one of its co-founders, Patrisse Cullors says herself (3:08 mark),
"...we do actually have an ideological frame, myself and Alicia in particular are trained organizers, we are trained Marxists, we are super versed on ideological theories..."
"...“If this country doesn’t give us what we want then we will burn down the system and replace it,” Newsome replied. “And I could be speaking figuratively, I could be speaking literally. It’s a matter of interpretation.”
Newsome then broke down recent history, claiming that every time a police officer had hurt someone, they had been told to wait for due process.
“But the moment people start destroying property, now cops can be fired automatically,” he continued. “What is this country rewarding? What behavior is it listening to? Obviously not marching, but when people get aggressive and they escalate their protests, cops get fired. Now, you have police officers and Republican politicians talking about police reform. I don’t condone nor do I condemn rioting, but I’m just telling what I observed.”..."
, and finally putting a finer point on the matter, Newsome stated that,
"...I just want black liberation and black sovereignty by any means necessary”
His, and their, ulterior motives, are that they believe that their Marxist ends, justify their bringing them about any means necessary, and when the ends justify the means, the means are determined by power, not justice, and their implementation will be as violent and murderous as their people's lack of decency and regard for individual rights, property and justice, will encourage.
When you reward the violent by giving them what they want, they will want much, much more from you. One thing they will not want, is law & order. It should be surprising to no one that a movement founded upon Marxist ideals is violently advancing ideals which mean and require the elimination of individual rights under a system of Justice rooted in the Rule of Law - even though that system has historically been the only means of having a peaceful society that's able to enjoy justice and liberty. It is not, and should not be surprising, because justice and peace are not their goals, destroying American society is.
The sad fact is that Black Lives don't matter to BLM, except as a propaganda tool, and as a useful pretext to their ends, and if BLM's Marxist ends are ever realized, then, as July noted above, these very same Marxist ends '...has killed millions upon millions of people...' as the means of acheiving their ends. If those goals are ever realized here, it would mean death and destruction on a scale matched only by the USSR & Communist China, and you can be sure that a great many black lives would be consumed in that conflagration as well.
BLM does not seek Justice, they seek to pollute the waters of Justice by poisoning our ideals with irrational hatred and violent injustice, and if you support BLM, if you chant "Black Lives Matter", you are lending your support to promoting a lethal narrative of lies, and the elimination of the possibility of justice for people of all colors, creeds & ethnicities.
For all of these reasons and many more, I cannot, and will not, support BLM or its associated mottos & chants. At All. Ever. Their Narrative is not a reasonable one, and no Justice, and no Peace, can come from promoting either it or them.
Can it be reasonable to promote an unreasonable narrative?
Are the exchanges and narratives above, evidence of any form of higher reasoning? Are those assessments, conclusions and replies reasonable? I don't think so. All living animals, including human beings, think to some degree or another, and all react to what they've 'learned', but only human beings are capable of going above and beyond that - not automatically, but only by deliberate choice and intent - to rise above their default mentally reflexive responses. Deliberately doing so, engages us in a form of higher reasoning, with which we can imaginatively shape and reshape the contents of our minds, in a methodical manner which evaluates, questions & re-questions and verifies its contents, and so becomes what can then be considered to be, and further criticized through, reasonable thought.
Methodical reasoning is not a 'natural' process, it's not the result of a reaction that simply pops into your head, and it's not simply regurgitating ideological positions and counter-positions with emotional vitriol, it's a habit of mind that must be deliberately learned, practiced, refined, and valued, in spite of every natural inclination of yours which urges you to go with the first presumption that does naturally pop into your mind.
Given that, when I see people protesting, and looting, and rioting and claiming to do so for 'justice!', because words have meanings which I pay attention to, I can see no basis for a reasonable connection between these ideas, events and conclusions; I can see no possible, let alone justifiable, cause and effect involved here - the conclusions are non-sequiturs, they 'do not follow' - there is no interest in Justice that can be expressed with "No Justice, No Peace", rather, as a friend noted, such a chant is a declaration of your violent intention to be, and no sense of justice can be associated with, or follow from, that.
People wonder how and why we've wound up where we are, and again, the answer has and should be obvious. We have been schooled in learning lessons that systematize the dropping of context, and learning to ignore our own ignorance through the substitution of a narrative. The difficulty with such faux 'reasoning' being reasonable, becomes clearly visible, when we recall that the first lesson of Logic is to 'first make sure that your premises be true', and after having verified them, then and only then, do you move onto the syllogistic logical method of 'If this, and this, then that'. Skipping that step (and scanning worksheets for keywords that square with multiple questions, systematizes abandoning that dropping of context), unavoidably transforms peaceful reasoning into unreasonable violence.
"...Some Americans might comfort themselves with the notion that this is a passing madness, but it is instead the inescapable consequence of what is being taught from kindergarten through graduate school. A nation that teaches its children to hate their country cannot endure. A nation that pays out $700 billion a year, and trillions in taxpayer-financed student loans, to train future citizens to see their country as hopelessly and irreparably racist cannot continue.
If the justice at the heart of the American project is no longer taught in the education system, there will be no peace."
Through decades and decades of teaching an approach to thinking that leads to missing what matters, even in that which they are consciously examining and attempting to correct, their accepting untested and false premises, furthers and deepens the existing errors.
If you fail to see the truth of that, even as we've gotten to the point of teachers toppling statues, you are not simply missing it, you are refusing to see it.
You can also see these lessons learned narratives of unexamined premises continue to apply in action, in this popular meme on property and lives. On the surface it appears to be sensible, until you question its premises, where their deep flaws become incredibly dangerous to the very sense of justice it is purportedly intended to promote:
You keep saying "It's horrible that an innocent black man was killed, but destroying property has to stop"
Try saying"It's horrible that property is being destroyed, but killing innocent black men has to stop"
You're prioritizing the wrong part."
, which, seems sensible only if you are ignorant of the fact that Property doesn't mean simply possessing 'material objects', and so are ignorant of the role that the concept of Property plays in upholding and defending all of our lives and individual rights. By missing that once 'self evident fact', we miss out on what we should conclude from such a meme as that, which is that:
Becausewe tolerate property being destroyed, innocent men are and will continue to be, killed.
This is more than a failure to prioritize, but a failure to see what made America exceptional in the first place, and if you don't understand that, then you do not understand what is central to the historic exception which made America so historically exceptional!
If you too have been educated into an inability to translate the phrase "It's only property!" into its actual meaning, allow me to point you to a couple of helpful hints from three very different Founding Fathers, of two very different systems, John Adams, James Madison & Karl Marx:
"Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist." John Adams, 'Discourses on Davila', following his 'A Defense of the Constitutions of the Governments of the United States of America'
"...Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own...." James Madison, 'Property', 29 Mar. 1792
"In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."
Karl Marx, 'Communist Manifesto'
In case you missed it, this is one thought that Founders of both America and modern Communism understood and agreed upon; that private property was indispensable to securing your individual rights under a government of limited powers, and that when private property is abolished, the doors to a government of total and unlimited power over its people, are thrown wide open.
Ben Franklin expressed that understanding in 1772, in one of his 'Silence Dogood' essays,, and America could not have been born if there hadn't been a sizable number of people who understood this as well,
‘Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or controul the Right of another: And this is the only Check it ought to suffer, and the only Bounds it ought to know.
‘This sacred Privilege is so essential to free Governments, that the Security of Property, and the Freedom of Speech always go together; and in those wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can scarce call any Thing else his own.”
In that brief passage, Franklin expressed a conceptual integration of the ideas of freedom of speech, with wisdom and liberty, and of Property as being infinitely more than merely a claim to material possessions - "...where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own..." which is a marvelous illustration of having Property IN speech (read Madison's essay!), and in the very spirit of his very life.
And for those who might want to dismiss those founding principles, and the right to self defense protected by the 2nd Amendment, as 'theories,' a couple here in St. Louis, just discovered what these 'theories' mean in practice, when a mob forced their way into their neighborhood and threatened them in their homes:
"... as soon as I said this is private property, those words enraged the crowd. Horde, absolute horde came through the now smashed down gates coming right at the house. My house, my east patio was 40 feet from Portland Place Drive. And these people were right up in my face, scared to death. And then, I stood out there. The only thing we said is this is private property. Go back. Private property. Leave now. At that point, everybody got enraged. There were people wearing body armor. One person pulled out some loaded pistol magazine and clicked them together and said that you were next. We were threatened with our lives, threatened with a house being burned down, my office building being burned down, even our dog's life being threatened..."
What masked mobs promote in chants of 'silence is violence', 'punch a nazi', 'it's only property!' and firing people for daring to have a different opinion, are ideas which are fundamentally anti-American and pro-Tyranny, and an America filled with Americans who have little or no understanding of the nature of their mutually shared and assured individual rights and systems of justice, is an America that is not sustainable. I've referred to such people as those being Pro-Regressives (and they are found not just on the Left, but on the Right as well), because they actively seek to regress us to a time before ideas as fundamentally American as these were ever heard of. If we allow this regression, we cannot hope to escape from those realities which our Founder's ideas had eventually managed to displace: Slavery, Tyranny, and the form of 'justice!' which has always been preferred by those in power, wherein those who they've accused are assumed to be 'Guilty, unless (somehow) proven innocent'.
Justice and Lies serve very different ends
The idea of ending slavery in the world came about only as the Judeo-Christian religious views met and were married with ideas of Greco-Roman philosophy and law, and even then it only began to become a reality through the predominantly English recognition of the significance of Property ("Every man's home is his castle") and it's vital connection to Individual Rights under a Rule of Law (James Madison summed that up brilliantly in his brief essay on Property - read it!).
Fixing America, making its millions of isolated residents into being our "Fellow Americans", requires understanding that individual rights are inherent in our nature as human beings, it requires understanding that property is our means of securing the individual rights of us all, through the Rule of Law, and it also means understanding that giving favoritism to some, means having already eliminated those rights of all, and replacing them with petty privileges bestowed upon some, by those in power, to those who are useful to them - at the moment.
Seeking after such favoritism and 'justice!' is the equivalent of being adrift in the lifeboat and drinking the saltwater, or even the cool clear carcinogenic water, in order to quench your thirst, even though it will soon bring you a slow and miserably painful death. While it may not be as plentiful or attractive as its doppelgangers, true Justice can only work if it is widely understood that in order for anyone to be secure in their rights and property, all people must be be secure in their rights and property, and that everyone must be treated equally before the law - do that and you transform the power of the state into the personal army of every one of its citizens.
It took centuries for these ideals to culminate in the founding of America. Today, we've not only willfully forgotten those ideas, but we actively teach our students that they are not true (see the '1619 Project'), and we teach them in a way that the lessons learned cannot be used to discover the errors that they hide. How long will it take to 'fix' things? I don't know... does it take more time to learn something is true, or to unlearn something that's false, so that you can relearn something that's true? The Confucian image of the monk overfilling the students tea cup comes to mind.
If you don't start with the understanding that you could be wrong, then the errors that you don't know that you have, have no way to be identified, no way to be removed, and so they'll continue to permeate all of your other beliefs - your 'tea cup' cannot be emptied - and you cannot be filled up with what is true. You must consciously insist to yourself that not only can you not know all of the context involved, but that because of that, what you are able to observe, may be more appearance than substance. Repeat to yourself that, in the words of a forgotten quipster: "To inform is to influence", both by what is said, and by what is not said.
For a society to be 'inclusive', it's people must be reasonable, and the baseline for being reasonable (not to mention for enjoying Justice), is realizing that you may be wrong, and that other's may come to different conclusions, and insisting on toleration for those you disagree with. So long as they are peaceful in their actions, society must tolerate its discontents and give them reasonable consideration, even while disagreeing with them. It also requires understanding that the primary way for discovering your own errors, is through having reasonable, methodical, discussions with people who don't fully (or at all) agree with your assessments & opinions. If you yourself exclude others from discussion because they disagree with you, you've eliminated a fundamental and essential component in your ability to discover your own errors, without which you are unlikely to grasp or understand what is true. Read the quote above from Ben Franklin, once again.
Liberty and Justice require that true form of actual inclusiveness of context, which includes the ongoing commitment to that maxim of Western Law: 'hear the other side', both are required to be reasonable, and being reasonable requires having such a respect for Truth, that you are willing and able to realize that you may have missed it.
People who are not taught to be reasonable - and once again, no, the checklist flowcharts of 'Critical Thinking' is not equivalent to being reasonable (that's what it was designed in 1945 to replace) - people who are taught that their own presumptions are unquestionable, cannot reasonably be expected to be 'allies' of Justice.
The kind of approach that assumes the worst of your own presumptions to be true, and rejects out of hand any and all who disagree with you, is an Ideological position, and not a reasonable understanding.
What is… reasonable? What do we mean by that? Do you question and verify your premises, before reasoning with them? If not, then no, you are not being reasonable.
As I said in the previous post, the default presumption that what I see on social media is not enough to form a solid judgement from, but that if the police - in this or any other matter - are found by appropriate review (made public at least immediately after the fact, if not during), or in court of law, to be in the wrong, I'm fully for bringing down the maximum force of law upon their heads, as it's a far worse thing for those charged with upholding the law, to abuse or violate it, than for others to do the same. That is, IMHO, a reasonable approach, and while it may not be the naturally human response to make, it is, IMHO, if Justice is what you seek, the only reasonable one to use.
"Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink"
So back to my original question: Will you try to stop those around you from drinking the poisoned water of 'justice!', even while reasonably suspecting that they'd attack you for it? If you doubt that is a problem, you are probably missing out on the News of school principal's being fired for not praising BLM, and even of teachers being let go for daring to express a very reasonable idea - not to mention the only one that Justice can be found within - that:
“Each of us here believes in the unparalleled force for good that is Western Civilization, that is our heritage, whether we were born here or not,”
, but the fact is that the positions promoted by the 'Black Lives Matter' and Antifa organizations, and the sentiments expressed in 'silence is violence', 'punch a nazi', 'it's only property!', are not compatible with either Western Civilization or America. To think that they are, neglects not only the News, but the 'olds' as well. The 'Olds', being what history once was used to teach us, was what was wise to know of ourselves today, through lessons from the past. Lessons such as what Thucydides spoke of, where in the final disastrous battle of the doomed Sicilian campaign, the Athenian's were desperately fleeing in thirst for water, even though they saw the enemy laying in wait for them, even as they had missiles showered down upon them, and even as the Spartans were wading through the muck and butchering them as they fell and drank, the Athenians still trampled their fellows to get to that water,
"... The Peloponnesians also came down and butchered them, especially those in the water, which was thus immediately spoiled, but which they went on drinking just the same, mud and all, bloody as it was, most even fighting to have it..."
When people have a thirst, they aren't easily reasoned away from satisfying it, and when those whose thoughts are satisfied with skating along upon surface appearances, are not inclined to be reasonable... you've got a problem.
America, we've got a problem, and 'racism!' is too often used as only a pretext and distracting symptom to obscure the deeper issues which cause it. The 'culture' that we've been educated into, has infused us with a thirst for a false and unjust 'justice!', a thirst which cannot be satisfied without destroying ourselves, and as history shows to those willing to look at themselves in the mirror, we are calling upon ourselves to do just that. If we - all of us - don't consciously begin transforming ourselves into Americans, based not upon meaningless matters of place and circumstances of birth, but through the ideas that this nation was founded upon, then all of the actions we might take to 'fix things', will only make all of our lives much, much, worse. Thinking that racism is about skin color or ancestry, rather than a usefully shallow way of thinking, for manipulators to influence others to act unwisely and unjustly, ensures only that more racism, more violence, and more murder, will be what follows, even as the possibility of true Justice recedes ever further from our grasp.
Simply put, seeking a 'justice!' that is unjust, means seeking our own self destruction. And a great many people today are very much intent upon doing just that.
Step Three I made a claim in my New Year's Eve's post that there were three concepts that were key steps to the Rule of Law, which if missed or denied, would saddle you with its Doppelganger, the Rule of Rules, instead. That post looked at the First Step as being the importance of Philosophy and emphasized the need to question the common assumptions that the Big Ideas of the West have little or nothing to do with everyday life. In the New Year's Day post we looked at the Second Step, how, through the ideas of men like Cicero and John Locke, The Law, in a general sense, functions as applied Philosophy. In this post we'll look at the Third Step, that the revolutionary concept of Property (as opposed to possessions), brings The Law into the very real interests, concerns and smallest details of our daily life - whether that's good or bad, depends upon how well the previous steps are taken. BTW, if you're a little uneasy about the "♫ ♪ ♬ it's as easy as 1,2,3...♬ ♪ ♫" nature of these three steps, good, you should be. We'll get into some of the Why's of that in the next post, but for today, first things first: Step Three, following the reality of our thoughts and actions in the world, and the vital connection between them, Property, the Biggest Ideas of the Big Thinkers of the West, and your ability to live your own life as you choose, and in society with others.
Ultimately what it comes down to when we're talking about the importance of Property to our lives, can be looked at, believe it or not, as a recognition of the unity of cause and effect in human actions.
Think of the concept of Individual Rights as a recognition of those actions which the nature of being a human being requires of us to choose to take, in order to live life as a human being
(Chief amongst those actions being: thinking, acting, speaking, associating, retaining the fruits which those actions produced, and a recourse to arms to defend them all if need be)
; and of the concept of Property as the recognition that, those effects which result from our actions having been taken, would not be as they are, in that way, in that context, without that person's time, decisions and actions having been contributed to it, and that involves that person's life in those effects which resulted from their having taken those actions. That unity of cause and effect is easily observable (whether or not they recognize it) in any people, of any time, and in any place, and it establishes the principle of a man's right, not just to, but in his property (Aristotle's recognition of four causes is better suited to this, but that's a whole 'nother post), rather simply the possession of it.
More simply put, to see a clay pot is to know that it was caused to come to be - someone did build that. The pot is the effect of the potter's thoughts and actions; you get no pottery, the effect, without its cause, the Potter, and to take that pottery by force, is taking away what some portion of that person's life went into creating.
Property, in its original understanding here, wasn't only an indicator of possession, or of monetary value, but the rightful recognition of a relation established between a person and that which they acted upon. Those actions which you legitimately take, establish your Property in your speech, in your actions, in your associations, in your effects and most of all, and first of all, in your life, in your right to it, and in your right to defend it. Importantly, to recognize and respect one person's right to their property, is to implicitly recognize every person's right to take those actions that are required by the nature of being human, and that by virtue of being human, every person shares in those same rights - and each owes
So where we left off yesterday was with saying that one thing we can say unequivocally about our Rights at this point, is that we are not Given them by legislators, philosophers or prophets, they come from a much more unimpeachable source than that.
They come to us, through us. Let me back up, to back that up, by first ticking off two big huge camps of my fellow Americans, those who are religious, and those who claim to be scientific (with the implied assumption that the religious cannot be scientific. Quick! Someone get Doc Brown to jump in his time travelling DeLorean & get that memo back to Isaac Newton, I'm sure he'll find the charge fascinating), with an analogy which, hopefully after giving it a whirl, will help smooth a path for each to set aside their beliefs and agree upon what neither of their beliefs will see as being a compromise.
Rosy Fingered Dawn
One of the first casualties of modernity was authorship. Homer, despite what those who were much closer in time to him and to the still living traditions that were handed down to them of his being a single individual poet, modernists claimed 'Homer' to be a convenient name given to many authors, and his works are claimed to be nothing more than the contributions of many that've been stitched together under that name. There's been much analysis demonstrating one assertion after another about the author, and even more about what he (they) really meant, what Achilles really was like, etc.
One thing that is easy to say, is that those claiming this don't really know, they simply find it plausible, more plausible than one individual being talented enough to write the Homerian epics (Quick! Get Doc Brown again, this time get this memo back to Shakespeare!). But the issues of authorship is of less consequence than what else you begin seeing, that amidst all the assertions about who wrote what, all of that criticism soon begins to become criticism of criticism, and the actual text, which does exist and which sparked it all, soon becomes lost beneath the jabber about it. To the point that people of Periclean Athens, would not recognize in the least the epics or those populating them, such as the pouting, man-child in a infantile temper tantrum, which today goes by the name 'Achilles' (BTW, this book "The War that killed Achilles" does an excellent job of restoring a reasoned perspective to Achilles and to Homer, and why our ancestors found the story to be so valuable).
But whether the author is Homer, or a composite of many authors, the only thing that can be said with any certainty, is that they've all nearly lost sight of the original works of the Iliad and the Odyssey and why anybody ever bothered with reading them in the first place.
But one thing that remains available to us today, and very nearly as it did nearly three thousand years ago to those in ancient Athens, are the epics themselves, The Iliad & The Odyssey.
What's my point?
My point is that if you want to understand and get value from those masterpieces, fuhgeddaboud these unsettled, and unsettle-able distractions over who authored what, and instead, concentrate upon the valuable actual works that are available to you here and now, as they were to our fore-fore-fore-fathers, then you might actually learn something.
The same point applies in regard to our Rights. Fuhgedaboud what neither of you will ever agree upon, whether the author is God, or Evolution or something else, and direct your attention to what all of you can perceive, recognize and assess together, the epic itself, Mankind. Examine the quality of 'the book', and the author will receive all do praise from that, as Jefferson said,
"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."
.
Deal? Swell. So. Onwards.
As I was saying, it is self-evident
Our Rights are not Given to us by legislators, philosophers or prophets, they come to us and to our understanding, from a much more unimpeachable source than that, they come to us, through us.
Not from our minds.
Or at least not from our minds in the same fashion as ditties, poems, stories, lies and notions come from our minds; they are not the products of our wishes, fabrications or innovations but from observations of the nature of man himself; by observing our minds as situated within our bodies and within the world; our Rights are able to be derived from the nature of what makes us human beings, and as such they are equally alike, and equally present, in every person, in every way, and as such, we are made able to hold these truths to be self-evident.
Note: To my 7th grade civics teacher, Mr. McClellan, who mocked
'Self evident? Do YOU understand what they mean by that? No? Then they can't be self evident, can they?!'
, Self-Evident does not mean something that is brain-dead obvious or something as perceptually apparent as a cold sore. What it means, is that for those who consider and come to some understanding of a matter, certain issues become self-evident, they stand out as the rest of the information becomes better understood. Just as to the first time casual observer, the actions of people standing upon or running around bases or dashing about the field in the game of baseball, seem chaotic, but to the person who understands the game, it is self-evident who and what the Short Stop is, and why, it is self-evident who the pitcher is, and why, it is self-evident who the Umpire is, and why.
For something to be self-evident to someone, requires that they have some knowledge and understanding of the matters involved, and once understood, certain matters will become self-evidently true.
If, on the other hand, you don't understand even the basics, nothing will be self-evident, nothing but your, and the civics teachers, ignorance. To people raised under the rule of law, living in liberty, and understanding the philosophical underpinnings of that liberty they had become accustomed to, certain truths most certainly do become self-evident. Because those who haven't bothered to grasp those necessary fundamentals, fail to see that, is not an indictment of those self-evident truths, but only an indictment of themselves.
To those well versed in the Greco-Roman-English and Judeo-Christian underpinnings of our culture, these truths were self-evident, and they were so no matter which source was claimed as the disputed authorship of Man and his nature; whether a person at the time of our founding (and still), were religious, and found them comfortably expressed in scriptures such as the Ten Commandments; or whether they were secular and found them expressed in the ideas of Cicero, Aquinas, Locke and Blackstone (or, more likely, both) - These Rights are indisputably written into our very fabric by the author of Mankind & who wielded the pen - deity or philosopher or scientist - in this sense, matters not in the least; if your concern is with what is true, then the reality of the evidence in this matter is sufficient enough, and readily available to any with a judiciously open and reasoning mind who is concerned with discovering the nature and properties of reality, and in doing so, our Rights do become Self-Evident.
Compressing Time
So what are your Rights? Answer that, and then you will know where they come from, and what role your govt and your legislators play in the matter, but it will require compressing some time (which I've partly uncompressed before here, and here). For those Americans who are religious and accept our Individual Rights as being God Given, no further explanation is necessary - which might be fine for you, but it leaves you no common ground to meet upon with your fellow Americans. For those who are not religious, or who would also like to grasp the argument for Individual Rights from the evidence available to their own eyes and mind, the essentials can be presented briefly (ahem), and in doing that you too will be able to find common ground from which to agree with your more religious counterparts.
The Evidence of your senses - it's a jungle out there
Each of us, if not afflicted with some dread disease or impairment, each of us has awareness, and we each of us have the ability, and necessity, of making choices about what we will do with what we become aware of, which is called Free Will (Locke & others disliked the term because it is misleading, what it describes is the vaculty of volition, not that which carries it out, the Will. Locke said
" ... liberty being as little applicable to the will, as swiftness of motion is to sleep, or squareness-to virtue. Every one would laugh at the absurdity “"
It is a little bit like saying you have 'Free Muscle'", it isn't the Will that is free, but your volitional ability to choose. But we're stuck with the label, a bit like Tidal Waves are stuck to Tsunami's. Deal with it.
That we have the volitional ability to make choices is a plain fact, available to any honest and inquiring mind, and with as first hand information as it is possible to get, seeing as how you are both the experimenter and the experiment, and the results are indisputable - those who do dispute it invariably fudge it with "It's as if you made a choice", which besides being a con, is a distinction without a difference. If you'd like to choose to assert your disagreement... well... if the absurdities in just those nine words aren't enough to make you feel ashamed of yourself... then feel free to go and dispute it with the likes of Daniel Dennett or Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris, here, allow me to give you the excuse you're looking for so you can claim that my words determined your actions, against your non-existent choice: "You're deluded or an idiot, and a dishonest one at that. Be gone."
Those of you who are still here reading, are doing so because you chose to. Those who left, chose to leave. Case closed.
There is no rationalistic fanaticizing here, and no room for it, no airy faerie conjectures are involved, nothing which some overly uneducated twit has room to say 'well, that may be true for you, but it is not for me.', no this is something which is true of every human being on the face of the earth, whether they are born and raised in New York City or in the stone age jungles of New Guinea, all men have awareness and the ability to make choices about their actions; Human Beings have Free Will. Period.
Each person is aware of their surroundings, and each must make decisions about how to respond to them, and knowledge (a contextual relation of facts which allow common generalizations to be made and from which meaning and principles can be derived, and further integrated into a wider context of knowledge) improves the quality of your decisions.
For the jungle dweller, in their awareness of being faced with a tiger, they must choose whether to run, or maybe to try and defend yourself with one of those branches you see laying near you on the ground. For the Urban dweller, if an elevator opens wide before you, should you step inside, or not? is it going Up, or Down? Will it take you nearer to or farther from your job interview? In either case you must make a choice about what to do in regards to the nature of the reality you are facing. There is no intermediary, no noumenal world, no collective consciousness to pierce, no impenetrable paradigms restraining you, and there is no escape from the necessity of choosing, there are no environmental causes that will determine a decision for you - you very well may see only one choice available but you must still make it.
There is no possible way to live as a human being, without making choices based upon your awareness and knowledge of your surroundings, both in space and in time (and congratulations, we just shook off a good chunk of the accreted muck of nearly three centuries of 'modern' philosophy).
How carefully you consider your surroundings, and the decisions you make within them, will determine how effective your choices will likely be, which will also depend greatly upon the depth of your knowledge of your surroundings - the more deeply you perceive and understand them, the more likely your decisions will be able to benefit you, and to what extent; and again, it applies just as equally in the jungles of New Guinea or New York.
If in the arboreal jungle, your knowledge of those sticks laying on the ground before you, could be of life and death importance. If you simply look and pick one up at random to use as a club, that perceptual level understanding of your surroundings might benefit you... or it might lead to an ineffective struggle that serves only to whet the appetite of the tiger, an ineffective defense that leaves you dead and the tiger full. On the other hand, if you have some knowledge of the woods that those sticks are made of, and use your imagination to envision what you might do with the brittle, but hard wood, you might, by that process of Reason, select that particular stick, snap the end of it over your knee, and make it sharp enough to form a crude spear and up your chances of survival with the tiger by leaps and bounds.
Similarly with the urban jungle. The fellow that takes the elevator up to an interview, answers the questions well, just might get that job. But the fellow that takes the elevator up to the interview knowing something of the business he's interviewing for, and of the company and person interviewing him, might learn enough through questions of his own, to imagine that taking this particular job is likely to lead to a dead end position that won't benefit him in the long run, and so through that Reasoning, choose to continue searching for a better interview and position.
The seedling of our Rights is derived from that simple truth of our Human Nature, that we have awareness of our surroundings, the ability to transform facts into knowledge and the capability of imaginatively reasoning our way through making decisions that put us in command of our surroundings, and the need to be free to do so. Our Rights are those actions which our existence naturally requires us to be able to make, and without which, we could not live a fully human life. They also entail the responsibility of individuals recognizing that their own Rights depend upon not forcibly treading upon the rights of another in the free exercise of their Rights. In short, Rights are the logical consequence of creatures employing their Free Will in a rational respect for reality, where truth and understanding are your most vital tools of survival.
Property
Something else the two jungle scenarios have in common, is the necessity of Property to the exercise of your Rights. That stick, simply by picking it up, is transformed by your effort and purpose, from detritus of the landscape, into personal property, but not simply by the action of picking it up, as Locke seemed to think, but by picking it up for a purpose, it is the intellectual actions of your mind which enable you to transform mere matter into personal property, and such property is essential to mankind in the exercise of his Right to life and living it.
If you cannot take those actions necessary to your survival, you cannot live. If you cannot retain the materials your actions bring you - your property - you will not live. If you do not extend the same understanding to those you associate with, you will have no one to live with... and a man alone is but a meal for the animal kingdom.
The same principle applies to the urban dweller, and though not as perceptually apparent as a club or a spear, his intellectual property is just as useful and the use and right to it just as necessary, as the weapon is to his cousin in the jungles of New Guinnea. Property, Private Property, is that which we transform through our actions, guided by our mental actions, and through which, if no prior legitimate claim exists, they become ours.
That 'prior legitimate claim' brings us to another key factor in Rights. Prior legitimate claims or disputes about them, are what brings us to the point of being able to lift ourselves above the level of the jungle dweller, and into civilization, but to do so we need a method - other than bashing each other's brains in - for resolving disputes, so that we can live in association with others, and benefit from doing so, and that method is the Law, along with a system of Justice for administering it.
Laying Down the Law
Law begins with an attempt at fairness: 'If you do this, I'll do that, deal?', and slowly extends beyond simple perceptual bargaining, to dealing with situations where two or more parties who find themselves in a dispute, can be agree to have a third party decide the matter for them, even though that third party won't have any way of knowing what happened, and probably won't know either party involved - that's a huge leap. Your newly elevated society, to become elevated, needs a way to examine the situation and judge whether Joe or Bob did something, even when both deny they did (how they determine that, we'll have to leave for another time). And even stickier, you need a system where Joe, Bob and every one else understands that the truth, let alone satisfaction, may not ever be realized, but you will need a system where each person can at least agree that they had as fair a shake as possible, and agree to abide by the results.
The alternative is robbery, assault, feuds, clan warfare and Hobbes's war of all against all. The Law is your escape from the Animal Kingdom, to a Humane society.
You cannot live without making choices, using your mind to enhance and defend your life and provide yourself with the means and material required for living - your Rights, in raw form, are those actions which your life requires you to choose to perform, and what results from them, in order to to live life as is natural as a human being - that is the basis for Natural Rights, or Individual Rights.
You cannot live well, however, without doing so in association with others, and the price of that association, society, is that each person agrees to delegate their use of force against another, or their possessions, to a set of rules, administered by a widely respected few who are trusted to treat all comers fairly - that is the basis for Natural Law, and your Individual Rights find their support and defense, in it. Through Natural Law, your right to take those actions you deem necessary for your life, and which do not infringe upon another's rights, those requirements of Human life, are elevated to become Rights to freedom of speech, liberty of action and association, and a right to the property which results from those actions, and for which those actions are taken in the first place.
From an earlier post:
"That delegation, is the true, and only sense, where the community and the individual are mingled into one collective body. It is through Law, and the system of Justice which it serves, where the One in the Many, is actually found.
Good Walls Build Good Neighbors
It is important to also keep in mind that Rights are the societal recognition of barriers between individuals, which must not be crossed without invitation and consent, they are the political equivalents of walls and doors, and breaching them either individually or on the part of society (which would then reclassify itself as a mob - collective action without reason) should be viewed in the same light as physical trespassers and burglars.
More so. The violation of Rights, properly understood, is not just a violation of custom, but of reasoned rationality itself, to the safety and well being of the polity, and opposition to reality and its requirements. Rights are not permissions, having to ask permission to exercise your rights - the requirements of human life - makes you less than human in your attributes, and yielding them makes you a slave.
Where Law unites all of societies individuals into One body, Rights provide the separation which preserves them as Individuals, the Many.""
Your presence in society, as opposed to living secluded in a cave, is your private assent and signature to that societal contract.
"Wha?! I didn't sign anything?!"
, yes, you did, and no it doesn't require your physical signature, anymore than you need to explain to each person you meet
"Hi! I've chosen not to not punch you in the face."
, it is the default, if you are going to live amongst others it is 'self-evident' that you must do so reasonably and peacefully, it doesn't require your acknowledgment, only your implied consent.
And the maintenance of that contract, as the long pitiable history of man has shown, had better be carefully tended to by those entrusted with societies power, the government, and by those members of society who entrust government with their power - or that power will be abused. Individuals have Rights, States have Powers, and through carefully written, clear laws, their balance must be maintained, or Power will seek to serve itself at the people's expense.
The nature of Power is violence. The nature of those possessing Power, is the urge to use it, for 'good reasons'. As the apocryphal saying goes,
'Power, like fire, is a useful servant, but a fearful master."
Recap - Our Rights come to us, through us
We are not given our Rights by legislators, philosophers or prophets, they are written by the author of Man into our very nature as human beings. Man, by nature, has free will, he Must choose in order to live and his reason enables him to, and requires him to do so, and for his choices to be effective, they must be in accordance with what is in reality, true - when that is understood, then certain truths do become self-evident:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. "
It would be as offensive to the laws of 'natures God' to pluck the wings from birds, as to forcibly deprive a man of his choice to act, speak, associate, produce and preserve what his very nature requires of him, what "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them", to be able to do in order to live a fully human life.
It doesn't get much more God given than that, and not believing in God is no escape from realizing it; it is just as clearly spelled out for the scientist & Darwinist to see in the empirical nature of man, as can be grasped by the philosopher's concepts and principles, or through the words of the Bible.
To choose to breathe water is to choose to die, and though its impact isn't as immediately visible, to choose to live a life that denies or mocks morality, whether it comes from the Ten Commandments or the philosophers Ethics, is to make the very same choice - they aren't true because they were written, they were written because they were true - to turn away from that... even in a secular world, the wages of sin is slavery and death.
What was never theirs to give, the legislators, philosophers and prophets have been doing their very best to take away from us, attempting to transform our Rights into simple entitlements, benefits and privileges, which is exactly what modernism does, and the first casualty of modernity was Free Will , then Private Property, then Knowledge, and then Morality - next on their agenda, are our Rights, and we will find out today, with the Supreme Court decision on ObamaoCare, how successful they've been.
Next post, how Modernity made such a fine mess of things.
Papers 14:266--68
