Church and State

"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
- Thomas Jefferson

---

The separation of church and state is a point of pride to many American people.  However, were they to see the reality of the Law, they may not be so bold in their claims.

The American government is broken down into this design:

• Representatives are decided upon by the largest group of people.
• These representatives then decide what is right on behalf of the largest group of people.
• Other representatives and their staff enforce the decision on not just the largest group of people, but on all people, punishing those who behave in a "wrong" way.
• These representatives appoint men to a position to judge those who are claimed to behave in the wrong way.
• The rules that govern these representatives are under these representatives' control.

So, what you have is a group of people who decide morality, judge people on that decision, punish people for being "wrong," and also have control over the rules that govern them.

Now, "the will of the whole people," what is this?  This is the belief that all people agreed to this in the first place.  Now, when was the last time, in all the history you remember, that a popular vote was unanimous?  Certainly not in all the time i've been alive.  So, if a vote was not unanimous, meaning that all voting individuals agreed to a single vote, how can "whole" be applied to people?

It can't.

The "will of the people" is an illusion, designed for rhetoric to give the listener the impression that everyone agrees, despite the fact that the unlucky fewer who were ignored and sidelined had disagreed.  This is never mentioned when speaking of "the will of the people."  However, the "will of the people" are used as a reason for new things to be determined good or bad, and therefore enforced.

So, in essence, it seems that government is one big religion, with "the will of the people" as a form of God, lawmakers and judges as their high priests, lawyers as clergy, and the police and military as the paladins and crusaders of the order.   And the law itself is scripted in the penal code, the order's bible.

Separation of church and state is thus impossible, as the state is a church.

Force Multipliers

Having been laid off, I certainly understand the fear one has about no longer having an income to sustain oneself, but I hear a lot of people talk about looking everywhere for work, and not finding it.  Of course, where I live is pretty well-populated, so while there's a lot of jobs available, there's also a lot of people around to fill them.

However, a lot of people seem to have the impression that they need to throw the fishing line in for each job in order to come up with something.  They play the numbers game in an additive way, putting in anywhere from 5-30 lines in the water at any given time.

Well, it is a numbers game.  The more lines in the water, the more the likelihood of catching a fish, possibly a big one.

The interesting thing about the numbers game is that many play it in an additive way, wearing themselves out in order to place so many lines in the water.  This can be an especially difficult situation if each line requires watching, and possibly maintenance.  This can result in a maximum number of lines at any given time, since any more would be unsustainable.

There is a military phrase that should be used in non-military applications far more often than it is.  "Force Multiplication."  Force multiplication improves the ability of each member of a group, thereby "multiplying" the ability of the group to accomplish the goal in question, and can also divide the necessary maintenance, thereby resulting in a massive net gain with little effort.

If you have 30 lines in the water, and you double each one's effectiveness, then you've got the equivalent of 60 lines in the water.  If you find a way to cause those lines to work together, say making them into a net, then you've essentially increased the effectiveness by an order of magnitude, and reduced the maintenance by a similar order of magnitude.

While the fishing metaphor isn't quite accurate (as I'm hardly a fisherman, and I know a 30-line net isn't going to catch much, sans lures), it does apply to many things outside of military lore.  The search for employment is one such thing.

Think about this: in a business, a project will consist of many different kinds of people.  Each person will have some specialty in a relevant piece of the project, and therefore, can accomplish that piece far better than an average person.  By combining these experts into one project, you've essentially multiplied the ability of the project to exceed demands.  This is not limited to "projects" of the corporate sense, but also can apply to personal or community projects.  In essence, the combination of experts can multiply the force of work towards a goal.

There are force-multipliers for the job market.  Temporary agencies and contract agencies essentially combine specialists and connected people into a group that can essentially handle the equivalent groundwork, in a day, to what a single person would need a whole week to accomplish.  By themselves, such agencies are a powerful force multiplier.

There are force-multipliers for the dating world.  You could go to nice places where you are likely to meet the people you want to spend time with, but, like the job market above, there is very little efficiency in the practice, especially given the limited information one has on any potential interest they encounter.  Many exes from hell are encountered in this way.  Granted, there's also stories of "dating site exes from hell" stories out there, but at least the field can be effectively narrowed a lot quicker and more effectively through such sites than it can in a bar or a library (or any other place you care to name).

There are force-multipliers for hobbies out there.  As previous posts have mentioned, I have a particular interest in making my own tools; custom-made tools means a hobby can be fined tuned to fit your needs, and with far less cost, and in less time than it can if you were to search out and buy all your tools.  With good scavenging skills (dumpster diving, curbside collection, etc.), you might not even need a lot of materials... never mind recycling materials like plastic and metal, or desoldering and collecting items like electronic components, from those things you might otherwise throw out. (Although I can't stress enough you MUST be careful about ensuring some high-voltage equipment like CRT displays are drained... there's no efficiency in dying a horrible, painful, and particularly gruesome death, or ending up a vegetable)

All these examples cover the exact same thing; applying something to your actions that multiply their effectiveness, rather than just working harder to add to your effectiveness.  As the saying goes, "Work smarter, not harder."  Whatever you do, take a few minutes, and actually look at the steps you are following.  See what you can do to multiply their effectiveness, whether it is to increase speed, decrease cost and/or effort, and possibly to do things in parallel.  You might just see a new way to accomplish your goals a lot faster than you would if you wore yourself out with hard work.

Keeping the Constitution on Trial

Remember this simple set of points in order to ensure that the constitutional arguments cannot be expelled in a court without making the judge look bad as a result. Just remember that this will work much better if the court is populated with neutral onlookers as well as biased visitors.

The first law in each state is the state constitution. This is the law that defines the positions of the state officials. The role for judges, legislators, and enforcement personnel are all defined by a constitution, whether it be city, state, or federal. In addition, their limits are also defined by the constitution. Without the constitution, the laws passed by legislators have no meaning, and the actions of police and judges have no authority.

In essence, if the constitution does not apply to a case, then there can be no case, because without a constitution, the court, jury, judge, and all police personnel have no authority, and the laws passed are not enforceable without severe loss of face.

The Words of Cognitive Dissonance

I'm lying.

The above phrase was used by a Captain James T. Kirk in order to confuse a robot into a sort of mental paradox where two conflicting statements are simultaneously accepted as truth, even at the same time that they are rejected as lies. After all, if Jim was lying, then he was telling the truth. If he was telling the truth, then he was lying.

This is the basis of the more generalized concept known as "Cognitive Dissonance," where two conflicting facts vie to be accepted to a person's worldview. While it's not nearly as fatal to a human being, it does have a side effect; a person who suffers cognitive dissonance becomes uncomfortable with the topic, and either attempts to change the topic, or ignores anything that conflicts with it in the hope that it will go away.

Generally, the correct action to prevent cognitive dissonance is to reject the incorrect concept. However, when some evidence turns up to conflict with a deeply-held belief, rejecting a foundation of your combined sum of knowledge can make this a difficult process. The more deep the belief, the more dissonance you will need to experience before you can finally reject that deeply-held belief for something more realistic. Some can never release the incorrect belief, either because it was too deeply placed, or because there's too much fear of the alternative.

Before I continue, let's read an excerpt from The Golden Apple, by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea.

At this point, it would seem prudent to make a clearer distinction, and offer my own definition of the word fnord, as well as contra-fnord, which is actually what the word 'law' is.

• Fnord: (n.) A word or concept that people are conditioned to feel discomfort and/or fear at its observation. Its absence results in comfort.
• Contra-fnord: (n.) A word or concept that people are conditioned to feel comfort at its observation. Its absence results in discomfort and/or fear.

Fnords and contra-fnords differ from normal phobias and comforts in that they are intentionally laid down as conditioning, sometimes through some form of hypnosis, but more commonly through a longer-term, systemic process of repetition, such as the training one receives in schools.

Examples of fnords are 'illegal' and 'sin.' Anything associated with these words are generally feared by the general populace, and often laws are formed specifically to give a subset of this population, called 'law enforcers' the permission to attack those people associated with these words.

Examples of contra-fnords are 'legal,' 'sacred,' and 'mandatory.' Anything associated with these words are generally permitted by the general populace, and those who have/do anything associated with these words are generally safe from attack by the above 'law enforcers.'

Laws are considered the key tool to direct fnords and counter-fnords. Any time someone fears a specific thing, they can add that thing to the fnord association, thereby ensuring that future generations of people will consider that thing as positive or negative, and act accordingly.

Fnords and contra-fnords are most easily laid down during childhood, which the children do not know enough to counter the questionable claims. The above excerpt also mentioned hypnosis in passing, but such a step, while expedient, is not absolutely necessary if the conditioning begins early enough in life.

The purpose of a fnord is essentially to encourage people to avoid inconsistencies, rather than resolving them. It's much easier to say that marijuana is illegal than to explain why it's actually bad. It's much easier to claim national security as a reason to keep those Spanish-speaking people from coming to one's hometown, instead of actually explaining that one does not wish to speak Spanish. And it's MUCH easier to blame the breakdown of families on homosexuals than to think about the breakdown on individual responsibility.

This encouragement causes ignorance of contradiction and inconsistency. People who ignore contradiction and inconsistency are easier to control. Their lives become easier, because alternatives are safely kept away from them. They become slaves, while still believing they are free, and as a result, are much easier to fleece.

The worst happens, though, when the aware are no longer around. The fleecing will continue, but the masters will believe the very same story that the slaves do, and eventually, the lie becomes the master in place of the liar, and becomes a twisted dance of inconsistency and contradiction.

The examples are numerous: How do police "protect and serve?" By attacking and commanding. How is freedom maintained? By passing prohibitions, mandating behavior, and killing or locking in cages everyone who disagrees with one's definition of freedom. What are rights? Benefits mandated of the providers of goods and services. How is freedom spread? By committing mass-murder.

Those who can "see the fnords" will recognize the above as completely accurate, if negative in its display. Those who are conditioned by the fnords see the above as mischaracterization and possibly downright lies. After all, it's not locking in cages if it's arresting a person. And it's not mass-murder if war is declared, right? And police serve by attacking those who do not obey the law, right? Even if the law is nothing more than a list of commands.

If one is surrounded by illusions, they may very well get hurt by what's really there. This applies when one is walking about in darkness, or under a hallucination; when someone walks in an area that they cannot observe what's there, they may hit, step on, or trip over something, possibly hurting themselves in the process.

The same applies for life. The purpose of living is to maximize one's happiness while minimizing one's misery, and similarly preventing harm and death to oneself. One cannot live free if they cannot see life for what it is, they may act against their own health, survival, or happiness in the effort to comply to some rule that may benefit someone else at their own expense.

In order to escape this trap, cognitive dissonance must be recognized and used. Flawed ideas need to be rejected, and consistency retained. Discard the illusion, take the red pill, look at the fnords, and be free. Learn to live in the real world, no longer fettered by the fnords and contra-fnords in a system gone insane. And find what it truly means to be happy.

The Philosophy of Liberty

The people at the International Society for Individual Liberty have put together a very informative video that explains the basic principles of liberty much more effectively and briefly than I can, and it does fit the "changing paradigm" theme of this particular blog.



This particular work was made by ISIL Director Ken Schoolland, who encourages everyone to "feel free to copy or link it to your website(s) – just be sure to credit us."

Missing the Forest or the Trees

There is a saying, describing a person who pays too much attention to detail, someone who misses the "big picture" in their pursuit of said details. They are "missing the forest for the trees."

Why trees? Why is it that the forest is missed simply because of the trees? Maybe the person is a birdwatcher? Or perhaps is more interested in the composition of the ground flora? Or maybe even interested in the soil composition, or maybe even the earthworms tending to the soil density? Perhaps an archeologist is looking for the signs of an ancient civilization? Perhaps someone is looking for a place to build that building they will eventually call "Home?" Or maybe we have a hunter looking to have some venison and a leather jacket?

There are many people who pay too much attention to the aggregate that they do not pay enough attention to the individual. Why is it that the trees are not important, but the forest is? And why are the trees more important than any other part of a completely healthy forest?

Even so, why should the trees be missed? Why miss the massive oak, the delicate willow, or the symmetrical pine, just because they aren't the aggregate? Aren't the individuals just as important as the aggregate they make up? Would a forest still be a forest without the trees?

Come to think of it, that saying kind of... misses the trees for the forest.

Principles of Free People

Before we begin, it is helpful to outline some basic terms for the purpose of making this article that much clearer. All the following definitions are from the Mirriam Webster Online dictionary at http://www.merriam-webster.com/. Don't worry, though, these are english defintions, not legal ones, so they should be pretty easy to understand.

---

Principle: A comprehensive and fundamental law, doctrine, or assumption.
Comprehensive: Covering completely or broadly.
Fundamental: Serving as a basis supporting existence or determining essential structure or function.
Essential: Of, relating to, or constituting essence.
Essence: The individual, real, or ultimate nature of a thing especially as opposed to its existence.

This first set of definitions are to determine the meaning of principle. A principle is comprehensive and fundamental, which boils down to the simple fact that it cannot have exceptions. If an exception can be assigned to a principle, than it cannot be a principle for that very reason.

---

Ownership: The state, relation, or fact of being an owner.
Own: To have power or mastery over.

To own something one must have power or mastery over that thing. Two people cannot own the same thing, because only one person can have power over something at any given time. Ever see the comedies where two people attempt to steer the same car? It usually has devastating (but, since it is a comedy, funny) results, since at that point, nobody really has power over the car.

---

Self: The union of elements (as body, emotions, thoughts, and sensations) that constitute the individuality and identity of a person.

You are the sum of your body, emotions, thoughts, and sensations, therefore, you are a self.

---

We now have enough definitions to determine the first principle.

Self-Ownership Principle: The comprehensive and fundamental assumption that one has mastery over the union of elements that constitute the individuality and identity of a peron.

Self-ownership is completely consistent with reality. After all, absolutely nobody has complete mastery over a person other than that person. Sometimes the behavior can be forcefully controlled, but not the emotions, thoughts, and sensations of that person. Therefore, a person owns himself.

---

Consent: To give assent or approval.
Force: Violence, compulsion, or constraint exerted upon or against a person or thing.
Aggression: A forceful action or procedure (as an unprovoked attack) especially when intended to dominate or master.
Provoke: To stir up purposely.

These two indicate the two prerequisites toward controlling another person. You can either acquire the consent of another through the use of persuation, or you can get compliance through force. Aggression makes the point to include the word "unprevoked," which means that the aggressive party was not provoked into their action, but acted of their own volition. It can be safely assumed that the aggressor did not acquire the consent of the target for their aggression.

---

Right: Being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper.
Just: Acting or being in conformity with what is morally upright or good.
Good: Of a favorable character or tendency.
Wrong: Action or conduct inflicting harm without due provocation or just cause.

Anything that is right is desired, and any action that inflicts harm without due provocation or just cause is wrong, and therefore not of a favorable character.

---

At this point, we have established that any action that is consented to is not wrong, because any action that is consensual cannot by definition be harm, because a person who gives consent considers the action as favorable, or else they would not have given consent.

Additionally, at this point, we have stated that force is not necessarily right, but is right if there is due provocation or just cause. We now need to define a rule that separates wrong from right force. At this point, we can cover the counterpoint to the Self-Ownership Principle.

Non-Aggression Principle: It is wrong to practice aggression against the non-consenting.

The use of the word "aggression" rather than "force" is a key piece of this principle. It could not be a principle if the word "force" was used, as pacifism, while admirable, is self-defeating. Self-defense is part and parcel with self-ownership, and is therefore a fundamental part of the principle. Eliminate the self-defensive force, and you won't own yourself for very long without external protection.

Essentially, it states that one should only use force when defending their property, e.g. themselves. Any other use of force is wrong.

---

Finally, we can bring this into what I've been talking about with just about all the articles posted so far.

Prohibit: To prevent from doing something.
Regulate: To make regulations for or concerning.
Regulation: An authoritative rule dealing with details or procedure.
Compel: To cause to do or occur by overwhelming pressure.
Jurisdiction: The power, right, or authority to interpret and apply the law.
Government: The body of persons that constitutes the governing authority of a political unit or organization, the organization, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises authority and performs functions and which is usually classified according to the distribution of power within it, and the complex of political institutions, laws, and customs through which the function of governing is carried out.

The definition of government is pretty long-winded, but then, it has to be.

A "political unit" is essentially an organized group of people who agree to a certain set of policies, also known as laws. In this political unit is a government, which is a smaller group of people who makes those laws, and sees to the punishments of those who break the laws.

Laws fall into three categories, prohibitions, regulations, and compulsions.

Prohibitions are the laws that state that something cannot be done at all. Examples of prohibitions include prostitution, mind-altering substances, and assault weapons.

Regulations are the laws that state that something can only be done in a certain way, and with the permission of the government. Regulations exist for just about every activity out there, such as building codes, licensing for many professions, and driver's licences, vehicle registrations, and tags to drive a car.

Compulsions are those laws that are mandatory for all members of the political unit. The most obvious compulsions are payment of taxes, and the acceptance of the Federal Reserve Note as a form of currency to repay debt.

The main problem with government is not that it exists. Two things cause a huge amount of the problems we see in society and the world in general:

1. Jurisdiction focuses on land area rather than voluntary membership.
2. Laws are enforced through aggressive action.
   

Land-based jurisdiction is wrong, according to the Principle of Non-Aggression, simply because the demand that all persons in a geographical area obey the laws of a group they don't necessarily want to be a part of is aggression; they do not consent to an action, and yet, they are not otherwise provoking anyone, but simply seeking their own happiness in their own way. A government that is consistent to the principle of non-aggression is one that is built around a voluntary political unit; such a unit would recruit new members, and then enforce the laws on those members, leaving open the option for the members to leave the political unit.

Additionally, enforcement through aggression is definitively against the non-aggression axiom. This, of course, doesn't apply to protective measures; a policeman protecting a victim from their aggressor is not aggressing himself, but is performing a justified (and no doubt consensual) defense of the victim, and so would not be incompatible. However, any police or military who enforces a compulsion, regulation, or prohibition on a person who is otherwise not aggressing against anyone is themselves aggressing, and therefore is violating the non-aggression principle.

And for those who believe that a nozick-style government meets the requirements even if it is area-based, let's remind you that taxes are a compulsion, and therefore a violation of the non-aggression principle.

At this point, I hope you are beginning to see the other side of government, and are able to make the connection between a government (as it exists today) and a very large gang. Perhaps the two principles might just make you realize that some of the fundamental assumptions you have of certain activities might not be correct. Or maybe you already agree with me and found this to be helpful. In any event, I hope you can come to realize the nature of freedom, and join me in the effort to enlighten others toward true freedom.