My Daughter Went To A Ron Paul Rally

[Diogenes]

Ignore this. Double post.

[KitemanSA]

[/quote]

Actually, it is fairly simple. I find it quite effective in that sort of circumstance to inform the person who is attempting to violate my right to vountary action that I do NOT volunteer and that their continued attempt to make me do whatever shall be taken as constituting THEIR permission to do whatever I choose to prevent it. Now it is true that I have not had to kill anyone to prevent them from enslaving me, but I would have no compunction against it. After all, they would have given me their permission.

Were your conflicts always to consist of one on one, your methodology might well work. However, the usual method is for the bad guys to gang up on you and give you a choice between death and submission.

Which, if you are wise, you will feign for a while until you can remove them.

The reason is to inform you that the rules for morality and ethics have a natural basis, like gravity.

This I believe as well, and I have been making this argument to others since 1991. There is a natural objective morality, and it's tenets constrain the acts of individuals and their species. For example, killing one's own offspring is a severe violation of natural morality.

True, it is a violation of morality, i.e., it is WRONG, in that you have involved another sapient being in an act (it's death) involuntarily. It is also under almost all circumstances an unethical thing (BAD) in that it reduces (usually) your genotype's chance for survival. Please not that there is a distinction between WRONG and BAD.

Some people do "evil" things because most religions are set up in such a way that they don't believe the "punishment after death" is real but their victims DO. Their victims therefore misunderstand their righteous reactions and let the "evil" ones get away with it. Thus, religions frequently CAUSE the very thing they claim to be against because the religion is based on an incorrect knowledge of morality and ethics.
I do find it interesting that the religious leader that most in the western world CLAIM to follow said a similar thing, but no one seems to understand that part so they don't understand his basic message.

And here we are back to the previous issue of what is beneficial to the individual may not be beneficial to the group, and what is beneficial to the group may not be beneficial to the individual.

I recall that the Teachings of Christianity require that "if a man makes you walk a mile, walk twain. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also."

This is an early version of reverse psychology, it takes power away from the one trying to harm you and helps leave you in control of yourself. But it is not MORAL teaching. The one true moral teaching of that entity is known as the "Golden Rule". Unfortunately, it doesn't translate well. "Do to others in the same manner as you would have them do to you". Note the "would have them" part of the teaching. Basically, "act in a voluntary manner".

One would think this is absolutely NOT the way to invoke beneficial change in a society, but this philosophy transformed the Roman Empire and created a legacy that is still powerful today.

Yes, individuals may suffer, but the group prospers. It is counter intuitive, and that is why it is so diabolically clever. You need to widen your scope to see this pattern.

This reverse psychology "ethical" teaching was aimed directly AGAINST the group and intended to allow the individual to retain control over himself. Indeed, the most widely know of this set of the teachings, the "offer the other cheek" was in fact a direct individual rejection of the Roman "group think" and social snobbery that prevailed at the time.

Romans back-hand slapped the "lesser" folk. Offering your other cheek was an invitation for them to slap you OPEN handed (front handed) which was a sign of equal status. Offering the other cheek was a statement along the line of "go ahead, treat me as an equal, I double dog DARE you".

Or when you don't realize that your understanding is grotesquely awry.

The more usual case is that someone else's understanding is grotesquely awry.

I'm glad you recognize that of your self.
No you are,
no, you are...

There is often a distinct difference between what is best for an individual and what is best for a group or species.

So far, I've not really seen this to be so. I've read science fiction stories that posit it, but that is "fiction".

Let me give you an example in nature.

Dinoflagellates are small ocean creatures that emit light when they are disturbed by predators. (Such as shrimp) This makes the individual creatures easy to see for the predator, but protects the larger group because the flashing light attracts larger predators by showing where is the smaller predator.

It also acts like zebra stipes and disorients the small predator so that itw predation has a lower individual chance of success too. So dinoflagelates acting as they do is good for the individual too.

You have now allowed me to introduce you to the slightly deeper mistery of the first rule. The ACTUAL first rule is that all things have a right to exhibit their character. The unique character of sapient beings is to be able to volunteer. So sapient beings have the right to voluntary action.

Out at sea, dinoflagellates use bioluminescence as a sort of 'burglar alarm': when disturbed, the plankton flash or light up, essentially creating a glowing trail that leads right to their assailant. This silent signal alerts predators higher up in the food chain about the dinoflagellates' nemesis. '[The burglar alarm] is a scream for help,' Widder says. 'The best chance you have when you're getting attacked is to attract something bigger than what is eating you.'" (Hadhazy 2009)

IBID

Emitting light is not good for the individual, but it protects the group.

Actually, it is. But since we are discussion morality, and these creatures are not sapient, the right to voluntary action does not apply.

In a way, we are all cells in a larger body.

This is the classic fall back of the failing argument. You have used it a numbver of times. You compare/equate/analogize people as non-sapient or inanimate things and suggest that becasue it is good for the non-sapient or inanimate things it is therefore MORAL for people.
Listen well.... P E O P L E - A R E - N O T - A L G A E ! ! !
Nor are we drugs. Nor are we fingernails, nor... nor... nor.
People are, as far as can be seen to date, UNIQUE in our ability to act voluntarily. We are sapient. Trying to define OUR morality to those other things ethics is just plain silly.

Why must I continuously tell folks like you that "utopia is not an option". Your magical condition is not true. If it ever DOES become true, that will be when an accurate SCIENCE of morality is most needed.

This response is incomprehensible to me, so I cannot comment on it.

Maybe you will eventually learn enough to understand it. Then you will be that CIVILIZED citizen I mentioned before.

Till then, what is best for the human individual, at least so far, is to have a body programmed to die at about 70 years. Otherwise, they would die at more like 30. I've explained why elsewhere.

I don't know what you've "explained", but I believe we die because we are programed to do so, BECAUSE evolution has resulted in this being the best way to allow the species to survive.

There is no data supporting that, it is a conclusion to placate those who fear death. The body is programmed to die at a particular time to prevent tumors and from becoming cancers and killing them earlier. Our programmed death MAXIMIZES out life, not the other way around. If you r way were true, we'd die at 30 or 40 when child rearing is done.

They do this because their victims are programmed by incorrect moral teaching to let them get away with it.

Nonsense! They do this because their victims are weaker than are they. Do you think Genghis Khan's victims were programmed to let him get away with it?

Actually, yes. His mystique (the programming) was so great, his lowliest soldier could get away with wanton executions against far stronger groups.

Your statement is ridiculous on it's very face. The stronger have ALWAYS abused the weaker, and it has NOTHING to do with what the Weaker has been taught.

The weaker has been TAUGHT to be weak. Women kill their husbands with poisons and the like. Such things don't take STRENGTH. Similarly, a 5 poubd gun makes a 70 pound girl as "strong" as a 250 pound man, if she has not been trained into subservience.
Most religions preach subservience. Such religions are NOT the people's friend.

As a result, society gets hurt, and they being part of society get hurt too. I never said folks were necessarily WISE, just that the have the CAPABILITY to be wise.

Not if they believe that people are TAUGHT to be victims. Victimhood is always the unfortunate consequence of dealing with someone from a position of weakness.

Weakness is taught. Technology levels all strength. It has for many centuries.

Nope. What is in the best interest of the community, for civilization, is for people to be act morally. With morallity can come ethics, but not without. An you can fool folks into an APPROXIMATION of moral behavior for a while, but eventually it all comes acropper. That is why a science of morality is needed.

An APPROXIMATION is optimal when no other method works. To the Victims, they don't care WHY they aren't being victimized, they are only glad that they are not being victimized.

An approximation is better than a worse approximation but worse that a better approximation or the truth. The problem with approximations start when people denigh they are approximations and try to maintain them as "THE TRUTH". Christian teaching is an evolving approximation, not the truth.

Yup. But eventually they figure out it is tripe and are left with nothing. With a valid science of morality, this would end.

Not at all. It will be rejected by true believers of a different stripe who come in to fill the vacuum left by scientific determinism and replace it with a more stringent meme of their belief.

Ahhh grasshopper, but a valid science of morality would result in the strongest social / civil structure available and would be beyond a psycho-meme.

i.e. the Muslims don't respect atheists or their arguments, and will eventually have the numbers to FORCE the atheists to accept Islamic doctrine or die.

Only if we stick to a weaker psycho-meme instead of getting real.

In the evolution of memes the violent and Oppressive Islamic meme will defeat the weaker Christian meme which is apparently too weak to even fight for itself. The Agnostic/Athiest meme won't even get out the gate because people are born ignorant, not educated and knowledgeable.

Wow. Your arguement is that one of the psycho-memes will have to take over becasue it will be the stronger of the mentally defective memes. Interesting circular thought there.

Evolution, thy will be done.

I for one, Welcome our new Islamic Overlords!

That from Diogenes Brockman, Springfield News.

No, JUSTICE is the basic foundation of Justice. Justice involves the re-attainment of the voluntary condition.

You talk of "utopia" in a demeaning fashion, and here we see that you are actually a believer in it.

No utopia here. Just wrong-doers paying back.

What makes you think the Eugenicists are done?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2862011/posts

I don't. I said that they will only be a problem if they control government.
Government's righteous purpose is to protect the human (aka sapient) right. Government's awful power and perversion is to become the fist of groups like eugenicists.

I fear you have a serious misunderstanding of the nature and origin of government. Government originated with the Strong man who would see his will done. It started as tyranny and evolved (based on the philosophers of natural law) towards what we regard as serving a civil purpose, but make no mistake, Totalitarianism is government's natural condition, and the Liberals are trying to evolve us away from Republican government back to the Aristocracy/Monarchy form of government, where THEY (Media elites, University Elites, Legal Elites, etc.) are the new Aristocrats.

Well, actually, they started out as cooperatives. But without the "science" meme, they were subject to the psycho-memes of strongman government. Their EXCUSE was that the good of the "group" (menaing them) was more important than the right of the individual. So obviously slavery is right, see, the stongman said it, the preist said it. GOD said it, it must be true.

Then science and technology eliminated the slaves and now it is time for the science (and technology) of morality to eliminate strongman government too.

MORE LATER. Its EXHAUSTING correcting you!

[CaptainBeowulf]

I fear you have a serious misunderstanding of the nature and origin of government. Government originated with the Strong man who would see his will done. It started as tyranny and evolved (based on the philosophers of natural law) towards what we regard as serving a civil purpose, but make no mistake, Totalitarianism is government's natural condition

I am not entirely sure it's so simple. Early Roman accounts of encounters with Germanic and Celtic tribes suggest that in some cases, the tribal groups elected their kings. Etymology would seem to support this. The Modern English word king comes from Old English/kyning - where "kyn" has become the modern English word "kin." Along with the words leode and theod, the word kyn could simply mean "people." In other words, the English word king originally meant "of the people" - which in a pre-modern tribal language is probably as close as they can come to saying "president" or "prime minister."

The Gothic language, which was very closely related to Old English (pretty much the eastern dialect of late proto-Germanic, while Old English would be the western dialect) uses the same sort of structure. The Gothic version of "theod" is "thiud," and the word for king is "thiudan," again meaning "of the people."

Then there were the ancient Greek democracies, the Roman Republic itself, and in northeastern North America the Iroquois Confederacy.

You can argue about to what extent any of these were "real" democracies. In most cases we know that who could vote was usually limited to certain classes of people. Quite possibly elections were frequently rigged by the tough guys. Also, you were usually expected to vote in the open, at the same time as everyone else - meaning that everyone could see your vote and the possibility for vote intimidation would have been significant. Nonetheless, these are examples of a range of societies in which a democratic impulse was there from a comparatively early stage.

Neither do I think this flies in the face of nature. Humans are not very fast or strong, and so when we became omnivores we had to become pack hunters. You need to get everyone to cooperate on the hunt. Bullying, grandstanding and other prima-donna-esque behaviors tend to demotivate the group, get people killed, and scare off the prey before you get close enough. Later on, building towns, learning to farm, domesticate animals etc. all required cooperation, so there was a constant selection pressure for cooperative instincts in humans.

Now I agree with Diogenes that other early societies bear all the hallmarks of having been structured by the strong man of the strongest tribe in the area, and were fundamentally totalitarian. However, I suspect that both impulses are natural to humans: cooperation/democracy and authoritarianism/totalitarianism.

Also, looking at it from Aquinas' interpretation of natural law: both democracy and totalitarianism are rational. It is rational to get everyone's input and agreement before making a decision, so as to be able to see all possible options and judge the best one, and also so as to make everyone feel involved and therefore be as motivated as possible. On the other hand, it is also possible to rationally judge that democracy at times seems to become inefficient, as no one can agree and all the factions argue and continually fail to come to a decision. Therefore, you need an imperator to force a decision and take action quickly and decisively, before opportunities slip away. Either conclusion can "make sense" to a rational mind.

[CaptainBeowulf]

what is beneficial to the group may not be beneficial to the individual.

There are some other ways to accomplish this than just tricking people with religion, though.

First, the biological imperative. As everyone has pointed out, there are examples in nature where the individual participates in an action that may harm it but which benefits the group. With humans, this was likely originally limited to small kinship groups. A person might be willing to get killed fighting off a predator, rescuing someone else from drowning, etc., since the other members of the group were close genetic relatives, and saving them advancing your own genes. This instinct is probably strongest in a parent protecting its children. Nonetheless, from this instinct a greater altruism towards the rest of humanity outside of one's kin group can arise.

Second, once again we have the rationality argument. People can be rationally taught that if they curb their own selfish impulses, all of humanity benefits, which in turn helps them. If you rob from stores in your locality and there are no laws or state structure to stop you, eventually no one will run a store near where you live, and you'll have to grow your own food, move, or starve. Or a more extreme example: if you start a nuclear war, you'll likely get nuked back - MAD.

The right sort of religion can help to ingrain these lessons - but it's not absolutely necessary. A proper education, with some examination of history, law and philosophy (and perhaps evolutionary biology), even at the high school level, can also make these things clear.

My sense is that what's going on in Western civilization and a number of other societies right now isn't so much due to a lack of religion, but due to a lack of rationality. A great many people have been willfully refusing to consider the consequences of their actions for quite a while. Maybe that's because so many of us have "cheater genes," but I doubt humanity would have evolved in the first place if the "cooperation genes" did not exert as much influence on the average person's behavior as the "cheater" ones. A powerful societal meme in favor of rationality would give the cooperation instinct the upper hand over the selfishness instinct.

I like the rationality meme because, unlike religion, it is not prone to the possibility of being undermined by a crisis of faith, in which the individual says "everything I believed was a lie" and then proceeds to throw away his or her morality in the belief that God was the only reason to hold those morals.

[MSimon]

For example, killing one's own offspring is a severe violation of natural morality.

Well no. Actually it isn't. Happens all the time in nature. Among humans it has been a known - if despised - "procedure" for at least 2,500 years. Why has it happened in the past? Scarcity of resources is one reason. Also social standing - which is to say the woman (or family) thinks it can get a better deal if the woman doesn't start out with a family. Probably a good idea since it leads to stepfathers.

Which is to say competition for resources.

It is all quite complicated. And however much we don't understand the forces at work - there are forces at work. We should respect our ignorance. It reduces hubris. Which is often followed by nemesis.

All this is no more mapable that "climate" science is. i.e. we get parts. We don't get other parts and the interactions are quite complicated.

[MSimon]

Victimhood is a sign of a lack of self respect. If you are not a victim revenge (of various sorts) is an option. Society should be very careful about making any group victims. Because if they ever stop being victims....

[Diogenes]

This thing is getting big enough (and my time is becoming more limited) that I will have to respond to it in multiple messages.

Were your conflicts always to consist of one on one, your methodology might well work. However, the usual method is for the bad guys to gang up on you and give you a choice between death and submission.

Which, if you are wise, you will feign for a while until you can remove them.

Doing the "wise" thing will only work for those people who are in such a position as can get away with it. The other thing the bad guys do is after they have ganged up and beaten a group of people, they make them swear loyalty oaths. Those who refuse to swear are killed.

The idea is to create a social stigma against defying the King. Even if you were able to hide your discontent from the gang, what are you going to do about the loyalty oath? After you've sworn it, attempting to undermine the King, or even suggesting such a thing is called "Treason."

This I believe as well, and I have been making this argument to others since 1991. There is a natural objective morality, and it's tenets constrain the acts of individuals and their species. For example, killing one's own offspring is a severe violation of natural morality.

True, it is a violation of morality, i.e., it is WRONG, in that you have involved another sapient being in an act (it's death) involuntarily. It is also under almost all circumstances an unethical thing (BAD) in that it reduces (usually) your genotype's chance for survival. Please not that there is a distinction between WRONG and BAD.

It is a distinction with only a sophist difference. For most intents and purposes the terms are interchangeable.

And here we are back to the previous issue of what is beneficial to the individual may not be beneficial to the group, and what is beneficial to the group may not be beneficial to the individual.

I recall that the Teachings of Christianity require that "if a man makes you walk a mile, walk twain. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also."

This is an early version of reverse psychology, it takes power away from the one trying to harm you and helps leave you in control of yourself. But it is not MORAL teaching. The one true moral teaching of that entity is known as the "Golden Rule". Unfortunately, it doesn't translate well. "Do to others in the same manner as you would have them do to you". Note the "would have them" part of the teaching. Basically, "act in a voluntary manner".

It is more than just reverse psychology. People (such as Kings) will discover that groups of people who are cooperative are beneficial to them, and so are willing to fight for them and protect them.

Emperor Constantine may have had a dream "In this Sign Conquer" , but the reality was that Christianity was even without him, continuously winning converts at the time, and it was fast becoming dominant on it's own. Constantine could see which way the political winds were blowing and decided to get out in front and wave his flag.

One would think this is absolutely NOT the way to invoke beneficial change in a society, but this philosophy transformed the Roman Empire and created a legacy that is still powerful today.

Yes, individuals may suffer, but the group prospers. It is counter intuitive, and that is why it is so diabolically clever. You need to widen your scope to see this pattern.

This reverse psychology "ethical" teaching was aimed directly AGAINST the group and intended to allow the individual to retain control over himself. Indeed, the most widely know of this set of the teachings, the "offer the other cheek" was in fact a direct individual rejection of the Roman "group think" and social snobbery that prevailed at the time.

Romans back-hand slapped the "lesser" folk. Offering your other cheek was an invitation for them to slap you OPEN handed (front handed) which was a sign of equal status. Offering the other cheek was a statement along the line of "go ahead, treat me as an equal, I double dog DARE you".

I think this interpretation is completely wrong. Turning the other cheek was just one aspect of it. Walking the extra mile, giving up the cloak, etc was all intended to befriend the people who were hostile, not to challenge them. Make friends of them and you won't have to fight them.

[KitemanSA]

Were your conflicts always to consist of one on one, your methodology might well work. However, the usual method is for the bad guys to gang up on you and give you a choice between death and submission.

Which, if you are wise, you will feign for a while until you can remove them.

Doing the "wise" thing will only work for those people who are in such a position as can get away with it. The other thing the bad guys do is after they have ganged up and beaten a group of people, they make them swear loyalty oaths. Those who refuse to swear are killed.

The idea is to create a social stigma against defying the King. Even if you were able to hide your discontent from the gang, what are you going to do about the loyalty oath? After you've sworn it, attempting to undermine the King, or even suggesting such a thing is called "Treason."

Surely you jest. As far as I know EVERYONE knows that oaths sworn under duress are not binding. Yes, you may be committing "treason" but against who? Someone who is violating your right to voluntary action. In other words, someone who is evil. What is that saying about tolerating evil is not a virtue, treason to it is not a vice?

[MSimon]

The idea is to create a social stigma against defying the King.

Defying the King is my natural habit. According to my friends:

http://classicalvalues.com/2012/03/inva ... -our-land/

They don't come right out and say it. Instead they say I'm a bad influence. In the body of the post and in the comments. I was honored.

[Diogenes]

The idea is to create a social stigma against defying the King.

Defying the King is my natural habit. According to my friends:

http://classicalvalues.com/2012/03/inva ... -our-land/

They don't come right out and say it. Instead they say I'm a bad influence. In the body of the post and in the comments. I was honored.

No doubt, the Kings would have taken a dim view of people such as yourself.

In this land, we are not supposed to have Kings, but ever since the creation of this Republic, the *IN* crowd has been trying to reassert a form of Monarchy/Aristocracy.

(Another one of my bugaboo subjects. )

[MSimon]

The key to beating them is to teach people to live without fear. An uncommon trait that used to be rather more abundant in America.

http://classicalvalues.com/2012/03/no-fear/

[Diogenes]

Let's see, Where was I?

It also acts like zebra stipes and disorients the small predator so that itw predation has a lower individual chance of success too. So dinoflagelates acting as they do is good for the individual too.

You have now allowed me to introduce you to the slightly deeper mistery of the first rule. The ACTUAL first rule is that all things have a right to exhibit their character. The unique character of sapient beings is to be able to volunteer. So sapient beings have the right to voluntary action.

How about War? That is certainly not good for the individual, but it is engaged in because it is considered to be good for the group. (In some cases it is a matter of survival for the group.)

Emitting light is not good for the individual, but it protects the group.

Actually, it is. But since we are discussion morality, and these creatures are not sapient, the right to voluntary action does not apply.

Sapience is only a measure of understanding. I see evidence of so called "sapient" beings behaving much like monkeys every day. Sapience is a question of degree. I dare say there are plenty of people out there not much smarter than a dinoflagellate.

In a way, we are all cells in a larger body.

This is the classic fall back of the failing argument. You have used it a numbver of times. You compare/equate/analogize people as non-sapient or inanimate things and suggest that becasue it is good for the non-sapient or inanimate things it is therefore MORAL for people.
Listen well.... P E O P L E - A R E - N O T - A L G A E ! ! !

You do not see the fractal analogy to which I am referring. I am not the first person to compare cells to people, and various groups of people in a society performing functions as being analogous to organs in a body.

All living things share certain common characteristics, and some rules are basic from the simplest to the most complex organisms. (Reproduction, Waste excretion, Predator\Prey etc.) There is no such thing as an individual. We did not spring from the brow of Zeus, or emerge from the nothingness as a new life form. We came from OTHER life forms, without which we would not exist at all.

When I say there is no such thing as an individual, I mean that there is no creature that exists without it's species and family. All individuals came from a group of related organisms.

Nowadays we can create DNA strings in a Laboratory, and if they have not already done so, they will soon be able to create simple life from raw chemical components. If they achieve this, then THAT will be an example of a true individual.

Nor are we drugs. Nor are we fingernails, nor... nor... nor.
People are, as far as can be seen to date, UNIQUE in our ability to act voluntarily. We are sapient. Trying to define OUR morality to those other things ethics is just plain silly.

Eat, sleep, excrete, reproduce. Yes, it's all very complicated.

Why must I continuously tell folks like you that "utopia is not an option". Your magical condition is not true. If it ever DOES become true, that will be when an accurate SCIENCE of morality is most needed.

This response is incomprehensible to me, so I cannot comment on it.

Maybe you will eventually learn enough to understand it. Then you will be that CIVILIZED citizen I mentioned before.

Either that, or you could just re-write it so that it makes sense. (If possible.)

I don't know what you've "explained", but I believe we die because we are programed to do so, BECAUSE evolution has resulted in this being the best way to allow the species to survive.

There is no data supporting that, it is a conclusion to placate those who fear death.

What on Earth are you talking about? Evolution has resulted in our DNA being programed to cause death at some point. (Through loss of cell function. i.e. programmed senescence) I have never heard that this theory is a comfort to anyone, let alone a manner of placating their fear. It certainly doesn't make ME look forward to it!

The body is programmed to die at a particular time to prevent tumors and from becoming cancers and killing them earlier.

That is the theory, albeit not necessarily a complete theory. Charles Darwin's turtle died in 2006 at 176 years of age. Don't get the notion that everything is always easily comprehensible. Reality consists of myriad competing vectors, and what we end up with is the vector sum of all the forces in play. Some are more prominent than others, but don't ever get the notion that others do not have an impact as well.

While the cancer prevention aspect may seem to be all the answer you want or need, I would point out that Programmed death is also good for the species because the repetitive life and death cycles allows for a better response to environmental change for the overall species. (Normal Mutation in Children may permit some of them to better cope with the newly changed conditions, thereby insuring a better chance for species survival.)

Look at it as a negative feedback system with a ~specific interval of integration. It will WORK with a longer interval but it's response becomes more sluggish. (An example of a graph of an integrated wave shape below.)

Our programmed death MAXIMIZES out life, not the other way around. If you r way were true, we'd die at 30 or 40 when child rearing is done.

Not necessarily. There is benefit to the species of having grandparents who are able to assist in child rearing. H3ll, in today's society, many children are being raised by the grandparents exclusively! Consider Grandparents as a backup plan for regular parents, and you can see why it is advantageous for those children having them.

[MSimon]

Let me add that the NWO is way more insidious than any previous regime. They do not wish to fight their way to power. What they want is for you to ask them to take over to protect you from "........". That is the purpose of the Phantom Menace.

And the crafty bastiches exploit the fears of the left AND right. They will march under any banner if it leads to power.

=====

So D. You are aware of the danger of the UN. How about this one:

http://classicalvalues.com/2012/03/look ... stainable/

=====

As animals we know that it is unwise to show fear to other animals. Well I got news. The same goes for members of the species. The weak (fearful) will be exploited by the strong.

[MSimon]

No you are not the first to look at people like cells. Or like a herd. It is the next step that is bothersome and dangerous. Treating them like a herd. Because what if the herd needs culling? Well who are the herders?

You see what is good for the average member of the herd may be dangerous for the extremes. And long term this "herd" is most advanced by the work done at the margins i.e. by less than 1% of the "herd". The misfits. Of various stripes.

We used to know that a mostly unherded society advanced faster than one that was mostly herded.

No matter how much it hurts you have to give up the idea of herding. It will be used against you. You know, "We are already herding over there, what can it hurt to herd over here?"

[KitemanSA]

How about War? That is certainly not good for the individual, but it is engaged in because it is considered to be good for the group. (In some cases it is a matter of survival for the group.)

Are you telling me that the Revolutionary War was not good for the individuals that survived the fighting? Are you suggesting that the Tories who did NOT fight for freedom did as well?

Sometimes an individual sees an outcome in the future that is worth some immediate risk and VOLUNTEERS to participate even at some risk to himself. So, have you detected the common thread yet? Volunteer = RIGHT > good. Not volunteeer = WRONG > not good.