All for none and none for all

Every so often somebody says something that I find so utterly revolting that I find it difficult to remain civil about it. This time around it is author Stephen King who has roused my ire.

I realize there is no shortage of anti-gun nuts in the Hollywood crowd. But it's the attitude that Mr. King displayed in the interview I just watched which really has me seeing red. Mr. King claims he has "no patience" for people like Mr. Wayne LaPierre of the NRA. What people would that be, exactly, Mr. King? People who believe that freedom is an absolute and not open for debate? Well count me among that group.

I believe absolutely that gays should have the freedom to marry. I believe absolutely that women should have the freedom to get an abortion. And I believe absolutely that everybody should be free to own guns.

I believe absolutely that my freedoms are not dependent on the behavior of others. I don't have to license my bathtub because a number of women drown their children in a bathtub. I don't have to be chemically neutered because some men insist on raping women. And I don't have to give up my guns because a handful of sociopaths flip out and kill people.

Liberals don't believe in freedom. They talk about freedom. They rant about freedom. They write songs about freedom. But they only believe people should have a certain set of freedoms as prescribed by the Socialati*. Liberals believe that people should be free to use words like "hick", "redneck", and "hillbilly" to describe rural folks, but words like "faggot", "nigger", and "wetback" are signs of small-minded bigotry and must be eradicated. Liberals believe people should be free to bash Christians as much as they want, but anybody who bashes Muslims is an "Islamophobe" who needs to be re-educated. Liberals believe a woman who gorges herself and then deliberately vomits to avoid gaining weight is the unfortunate victim of a disorder, but a woman who just gorges herself and skips the vomiting is merely a lazy fatass who needs to learn self-control. Liberals think it's an abomination to tax the working man to pay for the "war on terror", but it's perfectly fine to tax the working man to pay for the "war on poverty". Liberals think that Tipper Gore and her PMRC were somehow different from the book-burning, right-wing censoristas* so often vilified in movies. They see the flawed right-wing attempt to eradicate crime by prohibiting alcohol as being somehow different from the flawed left-wing attempt to eradicate crime by prohibiting guns. Liberals are quick to trot out clever quips like, "if you don't like abortion, don't get one." But they get flustered if you use the exact same logic on them and tell them, "if you don't like guns, don't get one." Liberals are fond of attacking corporations by saying, "corporations can't be treated like individuals" while out the other side of their mouth they are talking about "Society" and "The Greater Good" as though they are real, live beings whose rights supersede the rights of the individuals. Liberals don't see that they are just the flip side of the same fascist, totalitarian coin occupied by conservatives.

Enough rambling. I'll get to the point. Mr. King; if you, Mr. Michael Moore, and the rest of the Socialati think this "one" is going to stand and defend the rights of those you support while you are actively trying to take away my rights then you definitely have another thing coming. You are the same sort of small-minded vermin who burned innocent young girls to death to "protect" the community from evil witches. You seek to punish those who have hurt no-one. You seek to turn honest people into criminals simply because you do not approve of their lifestyle. I have had enough of you liberals telling me how I should think, what I should eat, how I should live my life, and then expecting me to be thrilled with the situation. I have had enough of you liberals telling me that I am a second-class person unworthy of being treated with the same respect as others. I will remain silent no longer. Fuck you, Mr. King. Fuck Mr. Moore. Fuck Mr. George Soros. Fuck every single socialist. Fuck every socialist sympathizer. I am a sovereign individual. My life is mine to live, not yours to control. I have no more respect for you than I have for the inbred bible-thumpers who try to control me. Birds of a feather, you and they.

Good day, sir.

*Socialati is a portmanteau I coined because "socialist" just doesn't convey the insidiousness of the socialist movement.

*Censorista probably doesn't need an explanation.

Brief thoughts on linux

I'm a huge fan of linux. I love the flexibility and speed of it. And it's hard to be angry about the price. But mostly I like the fact I can tinker with it and adapt it to my specific needs.

I've tried some thirty different versions of linux since I first "discovered" it several years ago. One thing I've learned the hard way is that Ubuntu is to linux what Budweiser is to beer, wildly popular despite being absolute shit.

Where are the lions when I need them?

There are two types of Christians in this world, those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus and the other 98%. The other 98% needs to shut the fuck up. You are the problem. You are the scum of the world. And if you think you're in the 2% that actually lives the life you're supposed to live I can almost guarantee you are wrong.

I've met less than a dozen true Christians in my entire life. And I've been to church quite a lot. There are no true Christians in any church. Jesus did not teach his followers to go to church. He taught them to live righteously. People who go to church do so only to try and impress others with their piety. They dress up all fancy in spite of Jesus' teachings against vanity and arrogance. True Christians want no part of such a dog & pony show.

But where the 98% utterly fail at their attempt to be Christian is in their total ignorance of the teachings they profess to follow. What part of "live and let live" do these inbred fucks not understand? Jesus did not call for you to stand outside bookstores and protest the fact they were selling fictional books about prepubescent wizards. He did not call on you to demand an end to pornography, drugs, card games, or whatever else it is you find offensive. Jesus taught people to lead by example. He taught people to live well and to leave others to live as they choose.

Psalms 1:1 warns you not to stand in the path of sinners. Yet that is precisely what the 98% do. When you are supposed to be displaying tolerance and piety you instead spew hatred and bigotry. How many people have been tortured and killed over the centuries for simply trying to live their lives according to different rules? How many? "Thou shalt not kill" is one of the ten fundamental rules of your faith. It doesn't make exceptions for abortion doctors, gays, or people with different beliefs. Yet you people are perfectly happy to kill "in god's name".

You are also not supposed to worship graven images. How many of you put up trees every December? It doesn't tell you to do that in the bible. Decorating trees was a pagan celebration of the winter solstice. For a Christian to do it is idolatry. But you don't care. You 98% are incapable of thinking for yourselves. You can't even bother to read the book you claim to follow. If you did read it you would never do half the things you do routinely.

But what annoys me most about the Christian 98% is their insistence on claiming that god is the source of morality. I am frequently questioned as to where I get my morals from since I don't worship their god. It never occurs to them that morality doesn't come from god. God is not needed to keep people in check. And the concept of god does a lousy job of keeping people in check. I have never killed anyone. I don't rob people. I find it impossible to even lie to people. And I manage all this without worrying about what god thinks about me. Conversely, there are priests in prison for killing. And a casual reading of the bible shows that god is not as opposed to killing as he claims to be. God commands people to kill on several occasions. God himself kills millions with floods and fires. God orders people to stone adulterous women and homosexuals. Is that the morality you live by? No? Then where do you get yours? What you don't realize is that only inherently bad people need an outside source of morality. Good people don't need a god in order to behave. I am a good person simply because that is the way I live. I am not good because I am trying to impress people. I am not good because I fear going to hell. But you 98% can't grasp that because you are not inherently good. You are inherently spiteful, hateful, bigoted, violent, and ignorant. So you need a strong hand to keep you in check.

Unfortunately, the hand of god just isn't strong enough. Because I look around the world and I see "Christians" doing all manner of things against the teachings of Christ. The inbred fucks at the Westboro Baptist Church are the prime example. I find it hard to comprehend just how vile and ignorant those people are. They are quite literally the lowest form of human life. Clearly, having faith in god has done nothing to make them worthwhile humans. The rest of you 98% are almost as bad. Every time you think "something needs to be done about that" you have failed as a Christian. You are called to witness, not to judge. It is not your place to judge others. Your god even tells you so. But you can't be bothered listening to him. You're too busy demanding the local porn store be shut down.

Live and let live. Or burn in the hell you claim to fear. The choice is that simple. Shut up, leave the rest of us alone.

On the origin of species

Science tells us that a degree of our behavior is genetically determined. Whether it's coded into the genome, determined by the interaction of our genes and our fetal environment, or determined by the way genes are expressed as we develop science can't say. Science is also at a loss to define how much of our behavior is genetically determined and how much is learned later. We know, for example, that congenitally blind babies know how to smile even though they've never seen a person smile. And congenitally blind adults still use hand gestures when talking even though they've never seen such gestures. Clearly these people are acting on behavior they have not learned.

We even tacitly recognize this idea in our personal lives. Our personal fetishes and taboos have largely been with us since birth. I, for example, never made a conscious choice to be turned on by redheads. Nor can I consciously decide to not be turned on by redheads. It's an urge that has always been there and will be there as long as I draw breath.

If we accept the validity of the hypothesis that some behavior is genetically determined, I think we have to accept a somewhat more radical hypothesis. This is the radical idea that there is not a single human species. If behavior indicates something about your genome then radically different behaviors must indicate differences in the genome. So just like we differentiate between caucasians and occidentals we may have to differentiate between liberals and conservatives or between marxists and capitalists.

Not that I think there's a gene specifically for voting a certain way or similarly minute behaviors. But there is a strong possibility that there is a genetic predisposition to have a mindset which causes you to think in a way that leads you to voting a certain way. And this is why you can never win political debates. You aren't asking your opponent to change his mind. You are asking him to change his genes. Asking a liberal to become conservative is like asking an Asian man to stop squinting or asking a midget to grow. It is beyond the realm of the possible.

So I posit that much of the conflict we see in the world today is the result of interspecies rivalry, not merely a battle of ideas. This conflict cannot be resolved by the means we are accustomed to using since those means typically requires compromise and people cannot compromise their genetics. I think this hypothesis further strengthens the case for absolute individualism. It is impossible to create a system under which so many disparate views can be treated equally. The only way to allow all these views to coexist harmoniously is to remove any hierarchy among them and thereby to let people fully express themselves without coercion. As long as we have a hierarchal system we will have people fighting to put their ideals in control. Because, according to my hypothesis, there is no way we will ever get everybody to agree on a single best way to live.

Get a grip

So Ryan Dunn gets drunk, flies down the road, loses control, crashes, and dies and people call it a tragedy. What if it had just been some no-name shmuck? How many drunks die every day in similar crashes? Does anybody consider those deaths tragedies? No, they don't. But let a celebritard die and the fanboys come out of the woodwork.

Ryan Dunn was a moron. He lived his life doing stupid shit to get attention. You can't gamble your life constantly and expect to never lose. He wasn't about to cure cancer, end world hunger, or bring about global peace. He was just a drunk retard who made a living swimming in septic tanks. The world will not suffer for the loss. And if that is the sort of person you look up to, the world will not suffer when it loses you either.

Ignoble savages

So I'm scanning my Facebook newsfeed this morning and see this link. Really? Are we still beating that drum? This drivel is intellectually dishonest and counterproductive.

By way of explanation for those unfamiliar with anarchist philosophy and its various schools, the idea behind this picture is that every last acre of land in this territory was rightfully owned by the Skraelings when filthy Europeans arrived. Europeans then proceeded to rape, pillage, and plunder their way across the continent. They slaughtered everything in sight and stole all the land for their own nefarious purposes. Communists masquerading as anarchists say all land deeds today are invalid because all land was stolen.

And these claims are pure bullshit. It's caucasian self-loathing and revisionist history at its finest.

To review actual history, Europeans arrived peacefully in this territory. They colonized areas and traded with the natives. At least in the northern sections. South of the Rio Grande was definitely a different story. But Plymouth Rock was not a war zone. Nor did it become one for quite some time.

Gradually, more and more Europeans arrived. The colonies expanded. It was not until 1634, 137 years after John Cabot "discovered" the region, that the first violence broke out. This was the Pequot War. And it was started when allies of the Narragansett tribe raided a local trading vessel. They killed the ship's owner and several of his crew, and made off with the cargo. The natives started a war over protecting their trade routes. A war of protectionism. That's far from an anarchic ideal.

If you scan westward you will find more of the same. Homesteaders did not rush out with guns blazing. They found open fields and homesteaded them. That's where we get the word "homestead". This is important because homesteading is universally accepted by anarchist thinkers as a legitimate way of claiming unused land. Most schools of thought consider it the only legitimate way. This is the part I love. The standard within the anarchist community is that a person must "mix their labor" with the land in order to own it. In other words, you only own as much lawn as you are willing to mow or as much field as you are willing to plow. But most plains tribes were nomadic. They didn't have big cities with outlying farms. They followed the buffalo and ate what nature provided. According to the view created by John Locke and held as the standard in the anarchist community, the skraelings did not "own" their hunting grounds. They never applied their labor to it. So homesteaders had every right, under anarchist philosophy, to settle the land as they did.

But the skraelings had never read John Locke. They felt their hunting grounds belonged to them. They took offense at the settlers occupying their lands. And violence ensued. Yes, it was the noble savage that began a policy of ethnic cleansing by attempting to remove white settlers.

Frankly, it's disgracefully hypocritical for anarchists to use the skraelings as a role model. The skraelings did not recognize the Lockean view of property rights which is considered gospel by anarchists. Rather, they used deadly force against peaceful families who were simply exercising their right to make a life for themselves. In addition, anarchists vehemently oppose tighter control of the US/Mexico border by saying the right to move about is an inalienable human right. But they then ignore the skraeling use of violence to prevent "illegal immigration". Step back 200 years and you will see that Europeans heading west were treated the same by the skraelings as modern mexicans are treated when they cross the Rio Grande. So how can any intellectually honest anarchist hold skraelings in any regard?

If you support the idea of Lockean property rights, you cannot begin to claim all land is stolen. It's pure fantasy. And if you support the right of people to move about as they wish without artificial borders, you cannot hold the skraelings as a role model. They didn't invent ethnic cleansing. But they sure as hell practiced it.

There is still more hypocrisy in the claim that restitution must be made to the skraelings. Anarchy is a philosophy of individualism. You can only punish people for wrongs they themselves have committed. You can't punish a person by taking their land or money away from them because you think their great-great-great grandfather did something wrong. And you can't give restitution to people for wrongs that were not inflicted on them. The whole idea is bat-shit insane. It's a complete contradiction of anarchist ideals. Especially since it treats everybody as members of collectives instead of as individuals. Chief Ownsa Casino does not deserve money because Chief Sitting Bull was kicked out of his house. There is no connection between the two other than some vague cultural similarities.

Anarchists need to drop skraelings as a role model. The natives simply don't fit the bill. Nothing about their culture represents the anarchist ideal. Skraelings fought wars with each other, they treated women like property, they slaughtered wildlife far in excess of what they needed, they basically did everything anarchists claim to despise govts for doing.

There will be blood

I am a student of history. Not the sort of history you were taught in grade school. Specific names and dates are largely irrelevant. I study history the way a meteorologist studies the atmosphere. It's the overall currents that matter, not the local gusts. What the currents tell me is that humanity's problem is not an inherent condition of the species. Rather, it is a condition of a subset of the species. That condition is evangelism.

Merriam-Webster defines evangelism as "militant or crusading zeal". Evangelists are so sure of the superiority of their beliefs they are unable to accept that others may have different beliefs. Whether it's Muslims flying planes into buildings, socialists slaughtering millions in gulags, Christians "protesting" funerals, or vegans placing billboards to ridicule omnivores, evangelists simply cannot let others live their lives differently.

And this is where the problem begins. Because there is only one single rule to a moral life; live and let live. I do not control you. You do not control me. We are sovereign equals. The instant you seek to coerce me in any way you have violated my sovereignty. You have aggressed against me. You have initiated a conflict.

But evangelists do not mind this conflict. Because they are certain of the righteousness of their ways. They do not care about my sovereignty. To them, my very existence is immoral. I am but a bacteria infecting the body of their perfect society. And they will do whatever they can to excise me.

And so we have bloodshed. Because I do not wish to be excised. All I want is to be left alone to live my life. Living my life was precisely what I was doing before the evangelist came along to control me. The evangelist broke the peace and forced me to defend my existence. The evangelist spawned discord where there had been harmony.

That is just on the personal scale. Magnify that effect up to the regional or global scale. Factor in all the different evangelist groups with often opposing ideals. Instantly the world comes into focus. If "live and let live" were universally practiced within the human population there would be no war, no crime. War and crime are the result of evangelism. They are the result of people seeking to control their peers instead of simply allowing them to exist in peace. No good can come from evangelism. It is the mindset of the tyrant.

Is there hope for a cure for this condition? No. Evangelism will always be with us. The best we can hope for is to marginalize evangelists so that they don't gain the power they need to hurt others. And one final note for the evangelists who may read this. Your actions define your morality. So if you refuse to let me live in peace, I will return the favor.