Saturday, August 16, 2008

So it goes.

You get so used to the numbers, the numbers of people voting, the numbers on your lottery ticket, the numbers for your phones, your bills, your checks, the number of people in your family; all the sudden one person doesn’t seem like anything. One person died in a fire tonight, luckily it wasn’t more. One person was stabbed to death, at least not the whole family was. Why is the loss of one life so damned insignificant, eventually, even 135,000 doesn’t sound like much, even if the entire city of Dresden was wiped clean by American bombers. It’s war, who cares. So it goes.

What a Brave New World

So I was wandering through various, mostly random, ideas about culture and one thought grabbed me. Have you ever noticed how in American Football there seems to be a central leader, yes all the other players on the particular team knows the routine but there is still the man who decides to throw the ball, or not. Does this guy decide the plan? is he the planner? or is there another man who tells him what to do? In football does each man stand on his own, depending on the angle you look at it from, each has his purpose, which creates a whole (like any sport, or thing in general). But he's being told what to do in this sport, which hopefully supports the goal of the individual; to have his team win. I think that American Football, at least to me (not knowing the intricacies), dictates very very clearly a mindset very much present in todays America...
"PLAN" "DICTATE" "PLOW" "DESTROY" "WIN"
. My question is, in the larger arena, what is it that we are trying to win? In "planning" for everyones future, what they should know, "dictating" how they get to that end, "plowing" all that stands in the way of the collective ""altruist"" (which I spoke of in an earlier post), "destroying" the I,



WHAT IS THE PRIZE?


and that's just the team I was speaking of, the crowd gets? Beer, Violence, Sex Appeal (players, cheerleaders, and your fellow fans body heat), Comradarie, Pride.


It's not all bad, I'm not here to say that it is., I do look at some strange parallels between sports and the way governments run themselves.



What a Brave New World, what will its Anthem be?.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Living in a democracy.

What are my responsibilities as I attain adult age of living in a democracy?

I believe that my responsibilities depend upon my values and standards. I value freedoms so I should uphold the right for everyone to have those same freedoms. Living in a democracy the responsibilities that I hold rely solely upon how content I am with going along with a flow. I don’t believe that my responsibility comes in the form of a vote, it comes in the form of understanding what I believe in order to vote, if possible, for those who uphold my beliefs. My responsibilities are to be clear with what I currently believe when asked, to ask questions of my self and others, to educate myself with the truth.
“ Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” (Declaration of Independence, 2nd paragraph).

It is my responsibility to be aware and act in light of those few sentences. I have a responsibility to become comfortable with myself, but not necessarily with my surroundings. I hold myself accountable for those responsibilities because I am the only one that I can control.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Saving vs Spending. MARKET TRENDS

In the past few months I've been talking to my father about how now is not the time to save, "there is no set, or true, value to the dollar, so we should buy things that have true value, like...gold or silver." Of course, my suggestions have not been heeded but, it's worth the breath to say it again.

"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold…The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves." - Alan Greenspan


"But that was before he turned to the dark side. His name? Alan Greenspan. The above quote is from his 1967 essay Gold and Economic Freedom, long before he ever became Fed Chairman." - C.F.LIBERTY

It's all been a joke. Even the value of gold was fiddled with when we did use the standard, though it was certianly better than it is now.


"You know, no nation that abandoned the gold standard has remained great," said Reagan...."would really have stabilized the economy"
Regan, the Gold Standard, and Ron Paul


We naturally have boons and busts, or "spending and saving periods" the problem is not that American's are missing the natural signals, the problem is that the Government is covering THESE United States with unnatural and harmful signals.

So, stay sharp. Buy value.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

World Peace?

How do I want to contribute to world peace?


Well, what is “world peace”? When thinking of world peace, does one think of all mankind “singing the same song.” Possibly, but what is the song being sung? Is it the song of the collective or of the Individual? As Ghandi said, "The first step in peace for all is to reach out to the person next to you." Here, the important person is not yourself but your fellows; your responsibility lays in the service of others, how does that create peace? To speak of World Peace is almost detachment of self-responsibility, of course you serve others, but if you yourself are not whole and at peace then in reality you are not doing your true part.

Fighting for world peace can be much like fighting in a bloody war, you are nameless, and in some ways your responsibility of the deaths you have caused now lay as a collective whole on everyone. World peace, I believe, is an abstraction of the true goal, that is, individual peace; the task of true individual peace is more arduous. Now we come to the question, what is peace? I believe peace comes from knowing your own wants and needs and being at peace with the process you choose to achieve such things. To look yourself in the eyes and be comfortable, no doubt that you are at “one” with yourself, your self-purpose. How can this be achieved “peacefully”? To peacefully achieve your own ends you must be conscious of every individuals right to do so, and be wary not to encroach upon the rights of others. In reality, world peace is found in a candy shop, where the child buying candy wants what he’s buying and the man selling the candy values the return. Or, at the street corner at the hotdog booth, the balloon salesman, the hug, honest smiles between any individuals. Humankind is nothing without the individual, and so the world should be regarded as a place of individuals that through striving for their own ends support others in achieve their separate ends, and for the most part, peacefully.