I like to say things like ‘when I become the ruler of the Universe’…but, really, if I ever became that, I would pluck Thomas Sowell out and make him do the actual ruler. Because he is that awesome.
I would place Thomas Sowell along with Socrates, Thomas Aquinas, Richard Feynman, Thomas Payne and, well, all the giants that advanced humanity. The only difference between him and them is that he is still alive, able to share his wisdom with us.
So far, I hope to have established that Ancient Greeks tried a path to integrate the peoples they had conquered by matching their head god with Zeus, the Ancient Greek’s head god, which worked rather well for the larger integration, but created the problem of all the ‘goddess queens’ that were now left over…
These became, in the mythology, human women Zeus had affairs with.
The conquered men had only to blame their head god (who became fused with Zeus) for being capricious, but, whom did the conquered women have?
One of their own – a human woman from their tribe – was so awesome as to cause Zeus, the to dog god, to fall in love with her, carry her off, do all kinds of dangerous things for the love of this woman – one of their own.
In comes Hera.
She is the Goddess of ‘family’ – yet she is always being cheated on by her husband, Zeus. And with human women – to add insult to the injury!
Hera is the Goddess of protecting the nuclear family – and she cannot do it with her own family!
This rather turns Hera nasty: she cannot control her husband, the king of Gods, from cheating on her, but she still is a goddess and has the powers that come along with it. Hera, not able to punish her husband, takes her anger out on his human lovers and their children.
And she does it in very, very mean ways. There are books written just about the ways Hera punished the women Zeus romanced (whether they were willing or not).
But…let us remember: Hera threw away her son (Hephaestus/Vulcan) to what she thought would be his death simply because he was born deformed. She may be the goddess of the hearth, family and childbirth, but she did throw away her baby for having been born deformed.
So, how did she treat the children of her husband, Zeus, and human women?
Not nicely.
When there arose a particularly awesome specimen of humanity, the son of Zeus and a human woman, Hera was not happy. Like, a lot ‘not happy’.
And, she made Hercules suffer, every chance she got.
There was nothing anyone could say to her to convince her that Hercules was actually a good guy, who did good things to help people.
Yes, he had been given a bunch of tasks to do, and he did them well and cleverly, but, outside of that, he is said to have helped folks who needed help, lending his muscle power as well as his intelligence, where and when needed.
Perhaps we can argue about his worth – but, the one not willing to engage in such an argument was Hera.
For her, Hercules was a symbol of her husband’s infidelity. He had to be destroyed.
The more famous Hercules got, the more necessary it was for Hera to absolutely destroy him.
And she did – in the most devious way possible.
Hercules had a wife and two children. He loved them and protected them.
Hera knew this.
And, she had her goddess powers.
She used these powers.
When Hercules came home one day, he saw a big monster and two little monsters attacking his home – and, loving his family, he slew them to protect his wife and children.
Except that, these were not monsters, they were his wife and children. Hera’s magic made him see them as monsters. So, he slew them.
Hera’s magic made Hercules kill his own family. His wife and children…
It destroyed Hercules.
This is a sad end to an epic story – but it is really important in our times.
Hera suffered from ‘Hercules derangement syndrome’ because she had been wronged. Her role as the protector goddess of the family was challenged by her husband’s infidelity and his bastard child’s excellence.
There was no way to talk Hera down from her vengeance.
Her very being as the queen of the gods, as the patroness of the family, was completely uprooted by the very existence of Hercules. Her very essence, her reason for being, is undermined by the very existence of Hercules.
These are high stakes, for a goddess, a top goddess.
Somehow, I do not think that chatting with her about the good things Hercules did would change her mind. Rather, I think the person doing the chatting would end up in a bit of smoke…
Charity is good – just like Shakespeare spoke of mercy (paraphrasing): it blesses him who receives it as well as him who provides it.
Yet, in order for this to be true, it needs to be personal: one person choses to help another, one way or another.
When governments get involved – we are taking on a whole new thing.
Governments decide who is to ‘receive funds’ and who is to ‘surrender funds’ – you cannot give someone money without first taking it from someone else. Governments have a monopoly on taking money from some individuals (taxes) and they are permitted to use force to extract these funds.
Nay, they have a monopoly on violence to extract taxes.
These are collected from all citizens, willing or not. (We shall focus on the ‘not’ ones in just a bit.)
Then, a portion of these tax-collected funds are given out to people who do not work (cannot or are not willing to – sad, but irrelevant to the point of my argument).
So, some people work without compensation (taxes taken away) for a period of time (part of the year) only to support the lifestyle of other people who do not work.
In other words: people who are on welfare are ‘slave owners’ who do not need to work yet have their living needs provided for by other people who do work, but who would not support them if it were not for the threat of force (in this case, by the tax collecting governments).
If working/doing things for the benefit of others under the threat of force is not THE definition of ‘slavery’, then I do not know what is: and I would like your input – please correct me if I am wrong!
Usually, I cherish in commenting on the videos I post.
This time, I’d like to let this one stand on its own merits.
(Sorry not to embed, but please, do click through. It is worth it. In case the link stops working, here is the original video address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQFU_CU6q18)
Growing up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, I got a first hand education on the difference between communism and socialism.
Yet, having arrived on the right side of the curtain, and seeing it fall down, I still studied this topic: what differentiates communism from socialism. And, it has been a life-long study – which brought me back to the basics, as I had been taught them, in a communist propaganda school.
Which they actually were truthful about.
Communism can only come around when all of the populace agree to this co-mingling of effort vs benefit. According to Marx, this would mean the State is no longer needed, as the populace will just do what is needed, without anyone telling/directing them to do so.
People will produce things – from food on up – because they want to, and they will not be paid to do so because they love doing what it is they are doing. In return, they will get goods from everyone else, because they too are giving the results of their toil away for free!
In other words, one is expected to work hard, to the best of their abilities – without ever reaping the benefits, as those are reaped by the greater society.
And that should be award enough.
The problem is that this might have worked in our earliest societies – which is what socialism/communism is trying to emulate, even though this does not scale up, as we have seen in history, over and over.
So, what IS the difference between ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’?
VIOLENCE.
Communism can only be achieved by having a 100% brainwashed populace that works towards ‘the common goal’ – whatever that goal is put forth from above.
Socialism is the step before communism: the children are in school, being brain-washed (I was taught it will take a minimum of 5 generations to ‘perfect’ the children), but everyone else has communist ideals imposed on them by force.
This is not frivolous speak – it is what we had been taught in school. Socialism requires force to be imposed, until people are brainwashed enough for the force not to be needed.
In other words, socialism is communism imposed by force.
Yes, it is true – I dislike most music.
Playing music just to drown out the silence, the thinking time – that is how our culture has gone.
But, there are a few songs I do enjoy – and yes, they are political in their nature or I would not find any merit in them. Music is awesome, because it is a most potent vehicle of brain-washing. It is silly not to acknowledge that each and every song is a tool of brainwashing.
We can drill down to folk songs back when they were sung by peasants to make their plight tolerable…yeah, I am a descendant of these peasants and fully understand their songs, for what they are…
Many European countries have adopted ‘proportional representation’ as their means of electing their elected representatives.
Yes, there are many variations of how ‘proportional representation’ is implemented, so, let me be at least a little bit specific.
I am referring to a system where registered parties are listed on the voting ballot and voters (again, the qualifications for who is ‘a voter’ may vary, but that is not a path I want to explore in this post) cast their votes for a specific party.
If ‘Party A’ receives 20% of the vote, they are allotted 20% of the seats in the house/chamber/etc. of the representatives. The party that received that portion of the votes/seats (the translation may not be 100% accurate, but as close as possible without chopping representatives into fractions, figuratively – or time based) then names its members who will take these seats and represent the voters who had chosen this party.
This seems like a very fair system in one aspect: the populace is represented proportionally. If your party got only 8% of the votes overall, that party would still get 8% of the representatives.
Let’s compare one alternative, which is based mostly on the Anglosphere culture: a country is divided up into areas – hopefully representing roughly similar number of voters per area (but, again, this and jerrymandering are topics for another post). Real world is not ideal and burdened with history, but, the ideal would be for each ‘riding’ to represent roughly similar number of voters. Then, the voters chose candidates in ‘their’ riding – where they reside – based on the character and political positions that candidate has put forward.
Some candidates (most, these days) are affiliated with political parties: political parties will actually have internal contests as to who can represent that party in a specific riding. But, independents are just as able to put their name on the ballot, and, if they appeal to enough voters, they can win ‘the seat’ to represent their constituents.
The benefit of this system is that the voters have chosen to represent them in the legislative body – and, that person is personally responsible to them for each and every vote they cast, each and every piece of legislation they put forward.
If their constituents overwhelmingly disagree with the way their elected representative’s party is moving forward, they are (theoretically) free to vote their conscience rather than the party line, because they are (again, theoretically) responsible to the voters in their riding, not the party they are affiliated with. It happens seldom, but it does happen.
It also happens that elected representatives, if their party becomes too extreme, leave their party and sit as independents or members of another party. This is not an everyday thing, nor is it rare or unheard of. The point is, whatever they do, these folks are answerable (theoretically) primarily to the people wo directly elected them, and only secondarily to their party.
The problem with this system is that with multiple parties, a person can win a seat with 30% of the vote in a multi-candidate race and a party can form a government with barely 33% of the popular vote. So, yes, a party with 51+% of the popular vote can lose, if the contested ridings are skin tight loses while the ridings they win in are blowouts. More votes does not translate to more seats, and the seats have it.
In this light, proportional representation sounds rather nice…except that…
In proportional representation, it is the party that gets the seats and appoints its members to it. These members now have no responsibility to any group of actual voters – their only responsibility is to the party, as it is at the pleasure of the party that they have their seats.
Yes, I have used the term ‘theoretical’ rather frequently regarding party vs voter affiliation/responsibility/responsiveness. And, yes, the parties ‘whip’ the vote of members by threats of all kinds, but, the members are still responsible to the people who elected them and a representative that crosses their will too far will be voted out, regardless the party. Not often, but it has been done.
Still, the primary responsibility of an elected representative is to champion the causes the majority of their constituents support.
This is the problem with proportional representation: the sitting member is not responsible to any group of voters, only to the party that appointed them to one of the seats they had won.
Being responsible to voters is one thing. Being responsible to the party that placed you into your seat is quite another.
Yes, in both systems, it is a balancing act.
And, the more powerful parties become, the less responsive representatives will be to their members.
So, let us strive for a system where the majority of representatives are independent of parties as much as possible and responsive to the will of their voters, whom they are supposed to represent.
Well, this does not bode well…
Romania held elections, and the ‘wrong’ party won
What to do, what to do, what to do…
Oh – here is an idea: arrest and criminally charge the leader of said party!
Then, cancel the election altogether!
That is exactly what had happened to Romania’s Calin Georgecu…
https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/1894713321422721070
Just because it is called ‘a democracy’ does not mean it is, actually, a democracy. Think DDR – the Democratic Republic of Germany, there are many. It’s newspeak – call things by the opposite of what they are.
In the EU, the elected politicians are not allowed to reject the laws drafted by the unelected bureaucrats: they may only vote ‘yes’ or request a delay to re-negotiate the terms in the proposed law, to be re-crafted by the same bureaucrats who engineered the original proposed law.
OK – we have a bit of a pattern here: in Czech, the opposition leader is being criminally charged (just ahead of the elections) for opposing the ruling coalition’s policies, because even though ‘opposing’ is actually in his job title as an opposition leader in Parliament, ‘actually opposing’ is … ‘divisive’.
In Romania, the ‘wrong’ party wins, so the election is cancelled and the winning party leader is criminally charged and arrested.
In Germany, the most popular party in current elections has flipped on the issues that it ran on, and the second most popular party that has held true on these same issues is being frozen out of the governing structure…
This makes it look like President Trump – having been charged with a no-victim crime and convicted just prior to the US elections – got off easy. OK, the assasination attempts against him were not ‘getting away easy’, of course, and I am in no way making light of that. All I mean is that despite the establishment ruling interests, Trump won despite their lawfare.
Now, we will have to see how – now criminally charged opposition leader in the Czech Republic, Mr. Tomio Okamura, and Mr. Calin Georgescu, the winning candidate now arrested in Romania, will fare.
End well, this will not…
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 
Having grown up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, everything I learned about the USA was just how bad and evil it was. And then there was this campfire song that people sang – well out of the hearing of the officials and their spies. It was called ‘John Brown’s Body’.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown%27s_Body
While there are many versions of this song in English, none are exactly the same as the one that I learned and loved to sing as a kid – but this one comes the closest. Please, enjoy