The founding documents, The Declaration of Independence, The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, these are what makes America exceptional.They are also what allows Americans to be exceptional if they choose to be.
Putin recently made a statement part of which said that America is no more exceptional than anywhere else. That Americans are no more exceptional than anyone else. He is wrong.
Well, he is partly wrong.
America was founded based in recognizing the individual. This is a dramatic departure from almost everywhere else in the world where governments hold that individuals exist to serve the collective or the state.
Not in America though. It is spelled out in so many ways that America is built on a bedrock of rugged individualism. Every person has the same rights as any other person and no single person more valuable than any other person. No one is inherently above the rest.
The Constitution was written specifically to unite the various states and specifically limits the authority of the new federal government. The main concept being that the government exists to serve the people, not the other way around.
The Bill of Rights, though I personally believe was unnecessary, spells out those rights that exist here, in this country for every individual. Not classes of people. Not castes of people. Individual persons.
Even when many of the people did not want to share those rights with others and conspired and actively worked to deny other people from having those rights, to the point of denying that they were even a person.
The basic principles prevailed. Those founding documents won out over greed and hate. People like Martin Luther King and Standing Bear wanted only to be seen as every other person, having the same rights as every other person.
America, as represented by those Founding documents, is highly exceptional as that over time, the intent to deny some people but not others, those rights as individuals was defeated. To this day, there are some who would still make the effort to deny those rights to other people based on ignorant and stupid thinking. The fight of those who are denied is carried on though and the point is always made again. America is for every individual citizen.
Today, there are too many who either have forgotten or or purely in denial of the focus on individuals in America. They want to push the collective and the state. They seek to have everyone conform to the group instead of affirming their rights as individuals.
They deny people the right to not only take their own risks to succeed but to accept the consequences of those risks which includes failure. The state has no place in attempting to mitigate or promote success or failure for any individual.
The government exists to make sure that individual citizens are able to do for themselves. To protect themselves. to make their own living and to worship, if they do, as they choose.
To try to force people to do things for the collective good or any other reason is beyond the original scope of the government. Yes, the government can work to make sure that one person or group of people is not doing something that will harm or inhibit another person or group of person's rights. Protecting clean water sources so that everyone has access to clean water and not one person or group is hoarding it or making it unusable by others, that is the kind of government regulation they were put in place to do.
America is exceptional because it ensures for individuals to attempt to do exceptional things with their lives. Few other countries at that time or even now exist in that capacity. America exists to serve the people, not for the people to serve it.
Too many people now don't understand, appreciate or respect that.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Thursday, September 12, 2013
The governement has no business enforcing the death penalty
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Mostly because I have been an ardent supporter of capital punishment.
Don't get me wrong. I have no doubt in my mind that some scumball who goes around causing harm and death to innocent people has got it coming. In fact, I think that such a person, upon threatening to take someone's life has pretty much given up their own right.
However. In one of our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, we are said to recognize as a country that all men are created equal and that we observe three inalienble rights. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That right there tells us that the state, the government, does not have the authority or right to take a person's life. Period.
Having said that. This makes the Second Amendment all the more important. Because if we are to defend ourselves properly from such scum of the earth then we must have the ability to do so.
Remember, police departments are not here to intervene. They exist to do prevention and "clean up" after the events have taken place. It is up to each one of us to see to our own protection and defense.
If criminal A comes up to person B and pulls out a gun, threatening to shoot them and person B pulls out their own gun in self defense. If criminal A should happen to shoot first or make person B they are going to shoot, and person B responds by shooting Criminal A, then Criminal A got what they had coming to them and their death is a result of their own actions coming from another citizen, NOT the state.
So, as much as I may not like it, I have to respect the Founding Documents and recognize that the government does NOT have the authority or right to execute anybody.
That doesn't mean prisons have to be pleasant or that citizens should not be ready to defend themselves with lethal force if necessary. All the more so in fact.
Don't get me wrong. I have no doubt in my mind that some scumball who goes around causing harm and death to innocent people has got it coming. In fact, I think that such a person, upon threatening to take someone's life has pretty much given up their own right.
However. In one of our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, we are said to recognize as a country that all men are created equal and that we observe three inalienble rights. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That right there tells us that the state, the government, does not have the authority or right to take a person's life. Period.
Having said that. This makes the Second Amendment all the more important. Because if we are to defend ourselves properly from such scum of the earth then we must have the ability to do so.
Remember, police departments are not here to intervene. They exist to do prevention and "clean up" after the events have taken place. It is up to each one of us to see to our own protection and defense.
If criminal A comes up to person B and pulls out a gun, threatening to shoot them and person B pulls out their own gun in self defense. If criminal A should happen to shoot first or make person B they are going to shoot, and person B responds by shooting Criminal A, then Criminal A got what they had coming to them and their death is a result of their own actions coming from another citizen, NOT the state.
So, as much as I may not like it, I have to respect the Founding Documents and recognize that the government does NOT have the authority or right to execute anybody.
That doesn't mean prisons have to be pleasant or that citizens should not be ready to defend themselves with lethal force if necessary. All the more so in fact.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
make mine a stick shift
To generalize, there have been two main lifestyles for people to follow. Those who follow a "manual transmission" way of life and those who follow an "automatic transmission" way of life.
A "Manual Transmission" way of life is one in which you are responsible for doing for yourself those thing you want done in life. Until the industrial revolution, most people lived a "Manual Transmission" lifestyle whether they wanted to or not.
Some people still live such a lifestyle whether they want to or not in the less industrialized countries.
Some people, even living in industrialized countries, prefer to continue to live a "Manual Transmission" way of life.
Many people consider the "Manual Transmission" way of life to be low tech and physically demanding. Those people are pretty much correct in that. However, in the "Manual Transmission" lifestyle, people have a much greater degree of control over their day to day lives and, for those who choose to live this way, feel more accomplished in their lives and find a satisfaction in being very self sufficient.
The "Automatic Transmission" way of life is one in which many things are done for you. Technology becomes even more important, not only in getting major tasks done, but in most other areas of life as well.
Machines, people, government and even general social activity is largely done with an eye towards people expecting things to be done for them, simplified by having computers, machines and even other people perform tasks they they would not prefer to do themselves.
People who live an "Automatic Transmission" way of life often become dependent on technology and on institutions for things to work smoothly in their lives.
Personally, I am very much a "Manual Transmission" way of life person. Things may be more physically challenging and more time consuming, but I have control over what happens and I am able to live as independently as possible. That's all I ask. Things are usually lower cost and simpler technology so that more people are able to use it and learn it.
If someone else prefers to live an "Automatic Transmission" way of life, that's fine, I have no problem, as long as they aren't expecting me to be the one doing their work for them or providing for them. The advanced technology usually requires more complex learning and complicated tasks that need to be performed.
It is also usually more expensive in terms that the more complexity involved in technology, the more possibilities for breakdown there are.
The problem comes though when a society, a government tries to force everyone within that society to live a give lifestyle, even against their will.
"Planned Obsolescence" is a concept used in technology that came with devising things that could be more easily replaced than repaired. As things become more advanced and cheaper to produce with volume manufacturing and ordering, other items that don't fit that model anymore are done away with and discarded rather than repaired and put back into use.
When governments begin to force people in a society to have to "drive an automatic" vs their stick shift by way of legislating that industry stop making manual transmissions or dramatically fewer of them, then we have a problem.
That is what the U.S. government is doing. It is forcing people to have to adopt an "Automatic Transmission" lifestyle with all of it's increased expenses and complexities whether they can afford it or desire it or not.
Individual liberty is one of the inalienable rights this country is built upon. Of all the things that should be ensured above all else, it is that personal liberty is obstructed the least.
A "Manual Transmission" way of life is one in which you are responsible for doing for yourself those thing you want done in life. Until the industrial revolution, most people lived a "Manual Transmission" lifestyle whether they wanted to or not.
Some people still live such a lifestyle whether they want to or not in the less industrialized countries.
Some people, even living in industrialized countries, prefer to continue to live a "Manual Transmission" way of life.
Many people consider the "Manual Transmission" way of life to be low tech and physically demanding. Those people are pretty much correct in that. However, in the "Manual Transmission" lifestyle, people have a much greater degree of control over their day to day lives and, for those who choose to live this way, feel more accomplished in their lives and find a satisfaction in being very self sufficient.
The "Automatic Transmission" way of life is one in which many things are done for you. Technology becomes even more important, not only in getting major tasks done, but in most other areas of life as well.
Machines, people, government and even general social activity is largely done with an eye towards people expecting things to be done for them, simplified by having computers, machines and even other people perform tasks they they would not prefer to do themselves.
People who live an "Automatic Transmission" way of life often become dependent on technology and on institutions for things to work smoothly in their lives.
Personally, I am very much a "Manual Transmission" way of life person. Things may be more physically challenging and more time consuming, but I have control over what happens and I am able to live as independently as possible. That's all I ask. Things are usually lower cost and simpler technology so that more people are able to use it and learn it.
If someone else prefers to live an "Automatic Transmission" way of life, that's fine, I have no problem, as long as they aren't expecting me to be the one doing their work for them or providing for them. The advanced technology usually requires more complex learning and complicated tasks that need to be performed.
It is also usually more expensive in terms that the more complexity involved in technology, the more possibilities for breakdown there are.
The problem comes though when a society, a government tries to force everyone within that society to live a give lifestyle, even against their will.
"Planned Obsolescence" is a concept used in technology that came with devising things that could be more easily replaced than repaired. As things become more advanced and cheaper to produce with volume manufacturing and ordering, other items that don't fit that model anymore are done away with and discarded rather than repaired and put back into use.
When governments begin to force people in a society to have to "drive an automatic" vs their stick shift by way of legislating that industry stop making manual transmissions or dramatically fewer of them, then we have a problem.
That is what the U.S. government is doing. It is forcing people to have to adopt an "Automatic Transmission" lifestyle with all of it's increased expenses and complexities whether they can afford it or desire it or not.
Individual liberty is one of the inalienable rights this country is built upon. Of all the things that should be ensured above all else, it is that personal liberty is obstructed the least.
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