The evil Blue line

I understand that there is a cultural love of police, even a holdout view of police as they may have appeared in Father Knows Best or Leave it to Beaver, but the friendly neighborhood policeman, who is good, trustworthy, and would never do wrong is and probably always has been a myth. 

For those who are still clinging to the unfortunate idea that cops are somehow or sometimes good, here is yet another in a never ending list of acts of pure evil by the boys in blue: 

http://wendymcelroy.com/news.php?item.2847.3

I liked to the blog post, which itself contains links to the story, because the commentary is worthwhile. The gist for those who need some reason to click through, is that the police decided in their presumptions of omniscience and omnibenevolence, that tackling then tasing the guy who just finished risking his own life to save the  lives of at least a half dozen other people, getting severely burned in the process and probably suffering lung damage as well, was not only the desirable but the only necessary action. 

Of course the guy had it coming.. so the cops claim. After all he stuttered while under great stress, and after being told to essentially F-off, he turned to walk away.. 

I grew up around police. Not just like everyone does, but being considered somewhat of an insider, one of the boys because I had a parent who was in law enforcement and many many relatives who also fed themselves at the "public" trough this way. I still am related to active law enforcement (what a bizarre misleading label!!) personnel. Nothing I can do about blood or other people's marriages.. The point is that I was privy to many many scenes where the cops bragged about their exploits. They would tell stories trying to impress each other, and likely folks like me who are supposedly impressionable boys who would envy the cops.. They would tell how they would stop long haired guys just because they had long hair and threaten them until the cops could search the car. They would tell how they would lie, cheat, and steal without any worry of being caught because they are cops. The stories were told in a funny way, and I recall one guy who was better than most (kind of like being a good Stazi.. ) telling a story about pulling  a guy over for the crime of having long hair, and thinking to himself that the guy could have been the cop ten years before.. At least that one time the cop let the guy go for a misplaced nostalgia. (Not that the guy pulled over actually did anything wrong..)

All of which is my usual long winded way of saying that I come by this well grounded belief naturally, and with overwhelming evidence. Sadly the first accusation is almost alway of bias, under some assumption that the conclusion precedes all evidence. This could not be any less accurate. 

So do yourself a favor, avoid police. If related or friends with them, distance yourself. There simply is no such thing as a good cop. Remember his job relies upon finding you guilty of something, and as I once pointed out to a DMV employee when asked "Are you living in the US legally?": it is not possible to live in the US legally! There are too many laws, too many contradictory laws, and absolutely no aspect of our lives is not regulated in some fashion. This is the very epitome of a police state. 

To make the point ever more clear, I will ask a question which I ought to trademark, if I believed in such things: Can you find a single activity which is not in some way regulated in the US? 

I have been asking the same question for at least a decade and thus far no one, neither conservative, nor liberal, not libertarian nor avid statist, has ever offered anything which was even close to being in doubt, much less any example of some unregulated action.  

I would honestly love to be proved wrong.. 

Open Letter to the Members of the Nobel Prize Committee:

 Open Letter to the Members of the Nobel Prize Committee:

While we respect that this award is yours alone to give, we would appreciate it if you would reconsider this year's recipient.

The awardee is still pursuing, and in fact has increased the efforts in two acknowledged war, and has been engaging in acts of war against the civilians of at least one other nation. While it is true that he did not initiate the two wars, neither has he withdrawn from them or ceased the killing of individuals who have never threatened him or any one at all as far as we know. 

We have been told that the reason behind your decision is his frequent use of speeches and appeals to the hearts of some, much along the lines of some of the most famous leaders across time who have been responsible for the deaths of millions. We feel that speeches are not sufficient indication of a peaceful intent, much less demonstrations of successful peaceful efforts, and on this basis ask you to reconsider your decision. 

To be fair, we have not have not been able to hear these speeches as we cannot travel to these rallies, nor can we listen on the radio or television as our electricity plants are always going offline. Nor can we find the time to listen even if we had the opportunity, for we must spend out days eluding the bombs, snipers, tanks, and troops of the occupational forces which control our countries, just to try to find enough food and some shelter for our families. 

Thank you in advance for considering a new candidate, one who has embraced peace in actions.

Sincerely,

The innocent people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.

Subsidize the official "insurance" companies or go to jail

Since some time last summer I have been commenting, particularly to those of the Obama cult, that the health care plans that Barack wants includes and in fact relies upon prison sentences for the poor struggling to make a better life for themselves and their family. I began pointing this out when I heard that Barack wants to implement a plan akin to the one promoted by Teddy Kennedy in Mass. The Mass plan called* for financial and legal penalties for those least able to afford to subsidize the approved "insurance" companies.

* I say "called" only because I have not followed this scheme in Mass for a couple of years and so cannot say if they have changed this particular and particularly evil portion of their plan.

Well tonight while catching up on some reading, I came across this post by James Bovard: http://jimbovard.com/blog/2009/07/15/will-obamas-health-reform-lead-to-a-prison-building-boom/

In this he notes too the inevitable consequence of legal penalties for being poor, or for choosing to be personally responsible for your own health choices: prison time.

This is why good, thinking individuals wish neither to rule or be ruled.

Typically poor taste on the part of aggressors

http://198.65.14.85/News/2005/31-40/32news15.htm

In a fine demonstration of the poor taste, else grand irony, the staged attempted to reduce the impact of a greiving mother protesting the non-sensical slaughter of US troops by executive order, the protestors wore shirts that had the word "idiots" with a circle and a slash. I am putting my two cents in on the grand irony given that there is no intelligent or reasoned way to support the ongoing aggression against the people of Iraq which is resulting in the pointless deaths of soldiers such as Cindy Sheehan's son. The pro-aggression, pro-violence rally was organized by a neo-con (emphasis on the "con") talk show host who while claiming a listenership of close to 4 million, was only able to get about 50 people to show up (in a state where conservatives rule the roost) which is telling of either the "cause" or the actual listenership of this radical radio mouthpiece for the administration.

Let's hope that Cindy Sheehan is able to garner more media attention to remind folks that there is a war OF terror going on which is not currently being covered by the media, and certainly is being spun in absurd ways by the administration.

More power to Cindy and all of those who oppose aggression against innocents.

Reality

Language is much like the tools we use to create sculpture, or build a home. We can use these tools with brute force, to create gravel of the sculpture or kindling of the house, or we can use the appropriate tool at the appropriate time to create things of beauty, practicality, and/or necessity.

When we do not use language correctly, not the nit picky sort of "correctly" but where the very meaning of a word, or the very thing to which is supposed to be explained, is necessarily cast into shadow at best, we are akin to the wannabe scultor who decides that his only tool will be the sledgehammer. Hitting the rock may feel satisfying, but it will not bring out the fine detail that creates beauty, nor can it create functional items.

I am not speaking merely of the sort of confusion that many have over the use of "who" and "whom" but rather the confusion that some have over the very meaning of basic words. Specifically I have in mind a set of words that are all connected by their reference: real, reality, reason, true, truth, etc

How many times have you heard someone say one of the following:

"well it is real to them"
"That is their reality"
"Well that is your reality"

Or something along these lines?

What is real? That which actually is. So is Santa claus real? Nope.. not even for those children who believe. They believe that there is a Santa Claus, but they are mistaken in that belief, just as I would be mistaken if I believed that the earth was flat. We can hold a belief strongly and that belief can still be mistaken. Having a belief does not make the subject of that belief real.

What is reality? Reality is what is. Nothing more nothing less, reality is simply that which exists. So when someone tries to use "reality" to dismiss a point, a perspective, or to add some importance to something specific to an individual, they are literally uttering non-sense. The word when used in plural or divided means nothing, refers to nothing. "My" reality, is identical to "your" reality, because reality is simply what is.

Usually when the word is so abused, the speaker means something along the lines of "their experience" or "their lifestyle" or "their belief" or "their occupation" or any amongst a long list of other possible meanings. Since the term refers only to what actually exists, it fails to refer to that which the speaker wishes for it to refer, at the same time that it contributes to the clouding of the water so that understanding is more difficult if not impossible.

To put it another way, it prevents true communication from happening.

"True" simply means "corresponds to reality" so all of the problems that arise with the abuse of "reality" also arise with the abuse of "truth."

X is not true FOR someone, unless it is true FOR everyone. X may be true OF someone but not another, but these are specific claims, such as John is tall, the barn is red, etc. which can be verified and are not dependent upon some belief or another, but upon the nature of reality.

More later.. though I believe that I may address some other topics before returning to this one..

A slight turning

I had intended this blog to be simply a place to post those responses to what I catch on the news, or from other sources that I would like to send, but for various reasons choose otherwise. Usually this is out of the desire to stay off the radar, else to simply avoid the troubles that can come from speaking out on what is right, and against what is wrong. Those who know me, know that I am far from silent on these two subjects, but there are lines I try not to cross, lines that will garner me as an individual more attention than I desire. Especially since it is never about the person, but always about the ideas and truth.

With that in mind, I have decided to expand this blog to include some responses/reactions to other items, to things that others say and do, to incidents not on the news, but in my own life. I will still post the original sorts of letters with the same infrequency as they have appeared already, but hopefully will be posting the reactions to more common, more mundane if you will, sorts of events and occurances.

So with that in mind, a recent event, the one that spawned this change for many reasons, begs for some attention here.

In a discussion with a friend, we found ourselves at loggerheads over what I believe to be simple but crucial notions. This lead to the realization that there were different attitudes at play, different approaches to the discussion of ideas, as well as different meanings being used, which of course means that what appeared to be communication was nothing more than a fun house illusion of communication.

Consider words.. What gives them meaning? Some would say that we (each) determine their meaning by use, but what does this tell us? It could tell us that we each have a private language, which shares words, but not necessarily meanings, with the private languages of others. If this is the case, then when you say "barn" I may think of a mild vegetable which grows from vines. This does not seem to be the way that we communicate, or the way that we use words in general. Of course we know this from the misuse of words, such as the example here would indicate, but also from the fact that words point to something. If we are confused or uncertain of the meaning of "barn" we can physically point to a barn. This is true for a vast number of the words we might use, regardless of language. This even works for verbs, as to demonstrate the meaning of "running" or "to run" we need only demonstrate that action, so clearly this is not limited to nouns alone.

Words have meaning based upon the connection to that to which they refer. Consider a word to be a pointer to some item or action. The word itself may be unimportant in that it could take almost any form (though languages usually develop along defined paths for a reason) but regardless of the specific pronounciation, that to which it points (the barn for instance) remains the same.

When we converse we seldom think about the possibility of error. We do not consider that one or the other of us may have been misinformed as to the meaning of a word, or we may be sloppy in our usage, or perhaps we simply uttered the wrong word. If the other already has a given opinion, which happens to coincide with what was uttered, though not what was intended, then it is not unlikely that the intended meaning will be lost by the actual meaning of what was uttered.

This is just the first point of contention, but without this one simple element of common ground, without this connection to reality, communication will not happen.

We must understand what the words are referring to, without this we are simply are not communicating, the pointers are not pointing to anything..

More later..

"....Joe Hyams tells this story about working with Kenpo Karate master Ed Parker:

Parker got up from behind the desk and with a piece of chalk drew a line on the floor about five feet long. "How can you make this line shorter?" he asked. I studied the line and gave him several answers, including cutting the line in many pieces. He shook his head and drew a second line, longer than the first. "Now how does the first line look? "Shorter,'' I said. Parker nodded. "It is always better to improve and strengthen your own line or knowledge than to try and cut your opponent's line."

Haters need to find ways to improve themselves, to make themselves more competitive, rather than fearing others. Of course, that will never happens, because it's always easier to blame someone else."


http://www.richredman.ws/hate.html