It is uncontroversial that the UN Charter:

• Was ratified by the United States in 1945
• Is the foundation of modern international law
• Is a treaty
• In accordance with the US Constitution, is therefore “the supreme law of the land”

As a matter of course, therefore, violating the UN Charter is not only a violation of international law, but our own.

Now, let’s move to the legality of the 2003 Iraq war. You asked something like “…so you’re one of those ‘George Bush is a war criminal people?’” This was more or less a loaded question considering the fact that there is no US president in recent history who is remembered as a “war criminal”, regardless of acts consistent with war crimes. Reagan comes to mind, with his mining of Nicaraguan ports and support, arming  and training of the Contras – all war crimes. Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs(attempt to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba), war crime.

Whatever justification you might dream up for these acts (and please don’t attempt moral ones. The planning, execution and results of these acts would render any moral justification asinine), it’s likely that under the Nuremberg Principles, both – and probably most presidents in the last 50 years or so – would be hanged for them. Fortunately for the US, any charge brought to the UN security council can be vetoed effortlessly (and has been in both cases I mentioned), and any conviction by the World Court can be safely ignored. What are they going to do, attack us? Sanction us? Please.

At any rate, international law authorizes the use of force under two conditions: self-defense, and under express authorization from the UN Security Council. The United States had neither in the case of Iraq invasion, so prima facie it was a violation of international law, and a war crime. Indeed, under the Nuremberg principles, it is the “supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Even if, by some unintended loophole, previous resolutions against Iraq somehow justified an invasion (which the Bush administration claimed) the notion would be so controversial (and in fact, was so controversial) that a clarifying resolution would be necessary if any shred of moral, legal, or intellectual integrity was to be upheld. Such a resolution was not sought, of course, because it would have failed miserably.

Is George W Bush a war criminal? No. War criminals only exist in defeated countries and are named by the victors (see Nuremberg and the Asian trials after WWII, where people were hanged for far less than GWB’s acts). Was the invasion of Iraq a war crime?  I don’t see what there is to discuss. Considering the predictable outcome of death, destruction and misery consequent to any war, failure to achieve proof and justification “above reproach” before waging one is gross criminality at best.

What is the value of defending the state and power, or imputing the state with moral virtue? I don’t trust power and I don’t trust the state, and I don’t believe many of our founding fathers did, either. George W, his administration, and Congress didn’t care if we wanted to invade Iraq, and they didn’t care that we wanted to end the war. Neither my dissent nor your (apparent) support has any relevance to them beyond election day. That is a problem in itself. Maybe the biggest problem.

Still, I am getting serious “just war” vibes from you on this issue, and I want to remind you of the preamble of the Charter of the United Nations, written by people who had seen the human race, despite all our achievements, proceed toward the  precipice of extinction at our own hands:

“WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind”

… and try to figure out how United States foreign policy since WWII fulfills the hope of our forebears. Sure, no “world wars” since then – though we came close thanks to Kennedy and the USSR – but mutatis mutandis for the “scourge of war”, which has been ever-present since we were born, and since our parents were born, courtesy of our government, for which we’re responsible.

Update: I just received your indictment of Hugo Chavez – and find it irrelevant. :p Shall we compare him to his predecessors who were apparently more acceptable to US political and financial interests? I’ll get into that next, I guess.

“Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.”

Fateful words from the Dixie Chicks in 2003.  Some criticized them for insulting the President of the United States while in a foreign country, and their core audience punished them with boycotts and criticism.  Some believed they were unpatriotic, and Natalie Maines doubled down in a Daily Telegraph interview by questioning the value of patriotism at all.  This did not help record sales, and led to further criticism by the conservative press.

Much has been made of President Obama’s speeches around the world, with many conservatives claiming that President Obama is apologizing for America, and as a result, weakening our position in the world.  I am chiefly concerned with National Review.

Victor Hansen wrote:

By separating himself from the past, Obama sends the implicit message to allies (like Israel, India, Columbia, the Maliki government, eastern Europe, Sarkozy, Merkel, etc) that there must have been something wrong with them to have allied themselves with the U.S. during the Bush years — and to enemies and belligerents that their anti-Americanism is perhaps understandable given a shared antipathy for the Bush regime;

The Editors wrote a piece entitled “Obama’s Confession“, where they criticize President Obama for criticizing the actions of previous administrations:

Uncle Sam arrived at the U.N. in penitential mode. He promised to mend his ways, to treat the other governments with proper deference, and to continue to pay everyone’s bills. He can get ovations every time with similar speeches. But he will also continue another trend that began yesterday: losing their respect.

And yet, when Sarah Palin gives a speech in Hong Kong to a group of investors, the conservative press is strangely uncritical of Governor Palin’s criticism of the President and the government of the United States.  It is not too far a stretch to say that Governor Palin was critical of America, given that both the government and the President of the United States were both elected by a majority of the electorate in this country.  I suppose it would at least be helpful if she was factual in her criticisms, but her some of her statements and prescriptions regarding the economy are the stuff of fantasy.

Do the editors of National Review believe that Sarah Palin’s remarks are intended to increase the respect for America?  Do they truly believe that Governor Palin’s words strengthen our country?  Apparently, Rich Lowry believes the speech is a “step in the right direction.”  Perhaps for Governor Palin, but is it really the right direction for politicians to travel the world and criticize the President and the government?  Is it good for America?

And finally, is it good for Conservatives to promote the criticism of our government and elected officials by conservatives while overseas?  Were Sarah Palin to deliver such a speech in Florida, it would hardly be news.  But to travel to a territory of the People’s Republic of China in order to deliver a speech excoriating the present administration and congress is not patriotic.  It is self-aggrandizement, which is another criticism National Review hands out liberally, so long as the subject is a Democrat.

If conservatives believe that attracting independents to the Republican Party is good for all of us, they will simply ignore those who prefer to put themselves over duty to country.  When we elevate these people, we just appear foolish.

A significant percentage of conservatives seem ready for a revolution. They are mad as hell, and aren’t going to take it anymore. They carry guns to town hall meetings. They wave Gadsden flags.  They wistfully evoke memories of historical 1776. They quote Jefferson about the evils of tyranny and the need for blood.

I listened to a man named Dominick call into Michael Medved this week.  Medved had on polling expert Frank Luntz, who found 76% of Americans describe themselves as “mad as hell”.  Though most of those are not necessarily conservatives or the Tea Party set, 3% of Americans are like Dominick — outraged enough to revolt.

The recent 9-12 Tea Party march on DC had a disproportionate number of those people.  This enlightening video interview gives us some idea of what they’re so angry about:

Certain members of the media seem perfectly willing to stoke the fire. Yes, I’ll name names. Fox News. Glenn Beck. Rush Limbaugh. Michael Savage. They not only perpetuate the myths that make people feel their liberty and lives are in serious danger, but often come just short of actual calls to violence. They do so in a way that gives them plausible deniablity, so that they can feign innocence. But should disaster strike (as it already has to a limited extent), they are in every way as responsible as someone who shouts “Fire!” in a crowded theater.

I used to be one of that 3%, long before it was popular with anyone to be so.

I felt oppressed. I own such books as, “101 Things To Do ’til the Revolution“.  Though I never got around to reading them, I planned all sorts of activist activities to spread the word. I thought of provocative slogans, like “Dan Rather is a Commie”, and “You Are A Welfare Slave”.  I plotted methods for organizing fellow revolters into anonymous cells similar in organization to ELF, but with additional rules against harming property or people.

And should it have come to firing actual weapons at the Government, I was ready to do that, too.

So I understand the anger, but at the same time feel ashamed to admit I was once one of them. Because now, I realize what a terrible, horrible thing a violent revolution would be.

Like Dominick, I had not fully thought through my vision. I assumed we would dodge some bullets, raise up the fallen as martyrs, defeat the military, and then simply kick the bastards out.  Everyone would see the error of their ways, and the country would return to the Constitutional libertarian liassez faire utopia the Founding Fathers intended.

But that isn’t what the Founders intended.  Yes, Jefferson may have written about the benefits of periodic revolution. But he also co-wrote a much more important document: The Constitution.

The Founders foresaw the many power struggles that our society would face. They implanted ingenious checks and balances to keep too much power from collecting in one place. They designed it so that if any group or individual got out of control, another side or organization or societal force would be motivated and have the power to step in and change things.

In my studies of history, I’d say they succeeded remarkably well.  Yes, I think things are a little out of whack. Certainly if I were Queen of the World for a day, I would make some drastic changes.  But they didn’t design America to be run by me alone. Or you alone. Or Glenn Beck. Certainly, they didn’t design it to be run by which ever group was the most angry and had the most guns.

When the Constitution says, “We the People”, it doesn’t just mean you and your opinion.  It means all people, all our opinions, everyone’s motives.  Consensus, the sum desires of an entire nation. Certainly the Tea Party people don’t want the extreme left overthrowing the government to set up Communism… That would be treason. It would go against the will of the majority of Americans.

So likewise to conservatives and libertarians!

So let’s think this through for a second.  What happens when a flawed, but otherwise stable government gets toppled by angry revolutionaries demanding liberty?  We get a great nation like the United States, just like in 1776, right?

Rarely. Let’s look at history. France revolted against their aristocratic tyranny shortly after we won our victory. What they ended up with, after lots of blood, was a ruthless dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte.

In 1917, Russia overturned a long line of Czars. They tried to install a government that would bring freedom and justice for all.  Unfortunately, no one could quite agree on what that meant, so the great country quickly devolved into civil war. The “Reds”, aka Bolsheviks, aka Communists, won.  That’s when Vladimir Lenin established the Soviet Union.

In 1905, the people of Persia (now Iran) got tired of oppression, and after a 6 year conflict, toppled their corrupt dynasty. They implemented a constitution, parliament, and a Shah.  But that didn’t work out so well, because 60 years later, they were still tired of oppression, and started another revolution in 1979. This time, it was lead by a religious leader who promised freedom. Instead, they got a near-total oppression that lasts to this day.

I could go on with dozens of historical examples of revolutions gone wrong. If they fail, all revolutionaries are executed and the tyrannical grip tightens to prevent future revolts. When they succeed, the people win an even worse totalitarianist state to replace the old one.

Yes, there have been a few successful revolutions that ended with a better life.  Yet no revolution has been as successful as the American Revolution.  We realistically have no chance of improving upon that.  Do we really want to mess with what is comparatively a decent government?

We could only make it worse.

Violent revolution should be reserved for true tyranny. In 1776, we were being oppressed by a distant king who had ultimate power over the colonies. There were no elected representatives to speak for the people.

But now we have elected representatives. You may not feel they speak for you. And you are probably right. They are influenced by all kinds of forces. They are often not doing the right thing. But sometimes they are. And there are many peaceful methods that actually work to change things, to increase the influence of oppressed groups and individuals. The process may be slow, but it works as assuredly as the Colorado River still carves the Grand Canyon.

How do I know this? Because again, I study history.

It is easy to imagine a steady climb towards one extreme or another. Perhaps you feel the 1780′s were a magical utopia of unfettered freedom, moral leadership, and honest Presidents who always did the right thing.

But an honest look at history shows they had the same problems we have. Lawmakers ignored the Constitution. Politicians lied. Officials became corrupt. Merchants got kickbacks. Parties committed vote fraud. Yes, even vote fraud.

America hasn’t always ramped steadily towards godlessness, either. In fact, the most secular time in this country was the early 19th Century, just before the Second Great Awakening.

This isn’t anywhere near the most socialist time in our history. During the first part of the 20th century, Socialism was considered legitimate and desirable. Many elected leaders were openly socialist.  By the 1970′s, the top marginal tax rate was 70%. During, and for two decades after World War II, it was 91%!

A close look at history shows our country’s politics are like a pendulum. Actually more like a Spirograph, with a pen wildly spinning in all directions. Just as it’s about to get too extreme, people push back, and the pen starts its swing too far in the other direction.

Obviously no one, not even the filthy rich, have an income tax as high as 90% any more. It’s 35% at its highest rate. So what happened?

Democracy worked, that’s what happened. The Constitution did its job. The Founders of this nation came through for us. It worked before, and it will work again.

Peaceful revolution has more power than you can imagine. Remember the 1960′s?

Granted, a few of those protesters got violent. In fact, conservatives to this day revile them, naming them terrorists. The Weather Underground, for example, believed nothing but violence could change the government, which they believed was unjustly killing innocent people in Vietnam.  They used bombs and caused a lot of damage to buildings, though they avoided killing any people. The group disbanded when a bomb-making accident killed three of their own number.

Ironically, President Obama was criticized during the elections for associating with Bill Ayes, a former member of this group.  Yet now some conservatives want to emulate Ayers’ behavior?

Do we really want to live in a country where force is law? Where who ever has the most munitions and the will to use them get to run the show?

The Founding Fathers didn’t believe so. They knew that that way lead to anarchy and eventual tyranny. They believed we should petition the government for redress. That we should exercise free assembly, and freedom of press, and freedom of speech. They believed we should vote. It’s all there, in the Constitution.  And yes, we were given the right to bear arms, but no where does it say we are allowed to shoot rightfully elected leaders who (by and large) follow due process, just because we disagree with them or “feel” threatened.

The Beatles said, “You say you want a revolution / we all want to change the world / but when you talk about destruction / don’t you know that you can count me out.” The Beatles should know what they were talking about, because they were one of many inspirations during one of the biggest revolutions our country has seen.  While a few groups in the 1960′s got violent, the majority remained peaceful. They affected enormous change to free oppressed peoples and end injustices.

In fact, those who started riots, set off bombs, or shot at innocent people detracted from the cause of civil rights and anti-war protesters!  It marginalized the entire movement. It gave their political opponents (just about everyone in government, both right and left) justification to ignore, and sometimes even “fire back”at non-violent protesters.

Jefferson has gotten his tree of liberty refreshed periodically.  It just hasn’t required much blood. The Civil Rights movement is one of the more extreme examples, but every generation or two has fought in a struggle to overthrow some oppression or injustice, and every time, they have succeeded in giving that Spirograph pen a good shove in a different direction.

So to the Right, I say yes, march on Washington. Burn tea bags, hold up signs, chant, yell, kick and scream. But for the sake of America, with every ounce of love I hold for this great country, please, do not take this to the level of violence. Do not initiate force. I know you believe you live under tyranny, that nothing but killing will free you. But you are wrong.

If you get your wish and topple the government, it will only end in death, chaos, anarchy. The already-weakened US economy will collapse completely. When you find your visions of utopia are not identical to those of your compatriots, civil war will break out.  Infrastructure will be further damaged. There won’t be enough jobs, fuel, electricity, or food.

Whatever rises out of those ashes will show you what real tyranny looks like.

The science on medical marijuana use is in:  http://students.washington.edu/sunila/JOM_5-3-03.pdf

The results?  A few quotes from the article:

In its 4,000+ years of documented use, there is no report of death from overdose with cannabis. In contrast, as little as 2 grams of dried opium poppy sap can be a lethal dose in humans as a result of severe respiratory depression. This fact about opium is borne out today in the unintentional deaths from prescribed opioids that continue to escalate.

It is clear that, as an analgesic, cannabis is extremely safe with minimal toxicity. Unlike opioids, cannabinoid medicines do not promote appetite loss, wasting, and constipation, but instead can be used therapeutically to treat these symptoms.

Nonetheless, the purpose of this article is not to discuss the pros and cons of medicinal versus recreational marijuana use. That is a totally separate and altogether different issue. Yet, at the very least, it should be noted that there is no evidence that recreational cannabis use is any higher in states that allow for its medicinal use.

The article drew data from over 33 controlled clinical trials taken over 38 years.  It is irrefutable and makes plain that Marijuana has no business being a Schedule I drug.

Republicans should take the point on this from a policy perspective.  Become known as the party who fought to end an illogical and harmful policy and as the party that aligns itself with the truth.  Speak on it every chance you get.  Arm yourselves with the information and decry those who argue from any basis of fear, rhetoric, or anecdotes.  If you find yourself running low on material, review “The War on Drugs is Lost” at National Review.

Take this issue and make hay with the people you represent, and the ones you hope to represent.  Or simply let the Democrats have it by default.  Drug policy reform is inevitable; for now, your legacy is yours to define.

by Roland Lindsey

David Frum posted an excellent post on the Bush Economic Legacy over at NewMajority.com.  I hope that the Republican leadership reads it.

When you look at the traditional levers of tax policy, interest and inflation rates, there is just not much room to make things any easier on business to create jobs and raise income levels, let alone pay for health care. There are many things we can do to encourage business and wage growth, however. Like fix this odious, job-killing system we have in America called Health Care.

Reforming health insurance alone will not solve the problem of cost. Even if all insurers became non-profits but otherwise performed at the same rate, it would only reduce the cost of health care by 1% of the $2.4 trillion it costs us now.  Want to see the data?  Check an NPR analysis of the data here.  From the article:

To negate this notion, AHIP features a dollar bill with one tiny slice out of it (shown below) on their Web site, illustrating that their members only make 1 cent of every dollar spent on health care.

That may be the case, says Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt, but “whether it’s fair or not depends on what it is you want to describe,” he says.

“All that statement says is, if you eliminated all our [insurance company] profits, national health spending in America would be 1 percent lower. It has meaning only in that context,” Reinhardt says.

Tort reform is not going to bring our costs significantly down. How do I know this? Look at the size of the medical malpractice insurance industry. Not only is the medical malpractice insurance industry doing very well from a profitability point of view, the cost of medical malpractice is at a 30 year low. In fact, in 2008, the total cost of medical malpractice insurance premiums was $10.7 billion. That is less than one half of one percent of the $2.4 trillion we spend on health care. Total payouts from malpractice insurance in 2008? $4.7 billion.  There is a study here on tort reform by the CBO from 2004.  They did not believe then that it would affect the economics of health care.  There is another study undertaken by Americans for Insurance Reform.  Same deal, it’s just not a significant factor, and honestly should just be taken off of Republican talking points.

Come on, Republicans. We can do much better than this. And the independents, those people who really decide elections… They know whether or not they did better in the last decade or if they did worse. They don’t care what Glenn Beck says, and they don’t care what Keith Olbermann says. They care about their own situation and their own prosperity. And while Republicans do not solve problems for them, they will vote Democrat. It’s the simple truth.

We hear the comparisons to Canada and the UK and Switzerland, and we laugh it off because we say, “Well sure, they may control costs better than we do, but I’d hate to get sick over there!” And then we lay out a lot of reasons why our system is better.

Except the costs of our system are crushing individuals, business, and our economy. And we Republicans are blind to the reality that our “solutions” to the problem are tiny drops in an enormous bucket. Would you prefer the economic growth of the ’80s or the ’90s to the economic growth of the ’00s? We all would agree that would be preferable. Would you be willing to go back to an ’80s standard of Health Care to achieve that?

If the only substantive choice to contain health care costs is to move over to a Single Payer system like Canada (costs 10.6% of GDP), or a Nationalized system like the UK (costs 7.5% of GDP), then we must support the substantive choice. We can cry about losing our liberty and freedom all we want, but do not forget that economic freedom equals real freedom. That personal liberty is not possible without economic liberty. And the trajectory we are on is one that leads to economic slavery.

If I have to choose between continuing economic disaster in this country while the Republicans remain in permanent minority status and waiting 3 months for a doctor visit, I’ll take the waiting list.

Remember this guy? He's still doing it wrong.

by Luna Flesher

We have explored what thought reform is not in Mind Control 101: Myths of Brainwashing.  But what is it? What force can shut down people’s minds and get them to do things they otherwise would never consent to?

Cult Conversion Walkthrough (Storytime!)

No one is immune from mind control.  And contrariwise, mind control doesn’t always work. It takes the right combination of factors; specifically trust, common ideals, and receptivity.

Cults are a good place to study mind control because the changes they effect on people’s lives are extremely obvious.

Pretend for a moment you are having a difficult time in your life: a recent tragedy or major transition.  Maybe you’ve just gone through divorce, lost a loved one, you’ve moved to a new town, or have recently been fired.  You’re feeling alone, scared, depressed, ashamed, or desperate.

One day you encounter someone who is nice to you.  Either it’s a friend or associate, or even a complete stranger.  Maybe it is someone handing out pamphlets, or speaking to a crowd.  Who ever it is, he has kind eyes, and you feel a little better when you’re around him.  He also seems to share your values.  Maybe he wants to help the poor, or he talks about the power of love, or God, or protecting animals.  Imagine your greatest value, and he also shares that value with a level of passion you admire.

He invites you to a meeting or a party.  Once there, you find a room full of people who say nice things to you, lifting your spirits.  They are involved in a cause you wholeheartedly endorse.  They take care of the sick or collect food for the poor, or educate kids about capitalism, or share the message of God to the world.

Being around these people makes you feel good.  You feel as if you belong.  You quickly forget your personal problems and begin spending more time with this group, working towards making the world a better place.

They have won your trust.

Now you are fairly receptive to what the leader may tell you.  He will use this time to win more of your trust and make you more receptive.  If you’ve had niggling doubts about your new friends or their beliefs, they are easily explained away.

Slowly, you are introduced to new ideas you may not have accepted at first.  Over time, more is required of you.  More money, more time, more sacrifices.  Your behavior is slowly restricted.  Maybe you are required to dress a special way, eat or not eat certain foods, show up at a certain number of meetings, be so busy you don’t get proper sleep or nutrition.

Now the grip tightens.  The leader teaches you doctrines to instill phobias about the outside world.  You learn that your group has many enemies to fear.  Those enemies are not to be listened to because you will be unable to resist when they try to lead you away from the love of the group.  You are given thought-terminating cliche’s, phrases or words that help you easily dismiss criticism.  You are elite, one of the chosen to help save the world from political error, or one of the blessed of God.  Your very language is altered, as your words become “loaded”. This prevents you from properly thinking about certain concepts, and from properly communicating with people outside the group.  You have become dependent upon the group for your emotional well-being, and you are possibly even physically or financially dependent.  You are isolated, if not physically, then mentally, because there are many sources of information you are taught to distrust.

When you think about the group and its teachings, you are filled with a sense of euphoria.  Thinking about outsiders or criticisms makes you feel anger or confusion.  The thought of leaving the group or “switching sides” makes you feel guilty, ashamed, or afraid.  If something is not going as promised, you blame yourself, not the group.  There are no gray areas left in your world view — things are either good or evil, left or right, pure or tainted, full of life or death.

You now automatically reject any criticism, no matter how valid it is.  You reject any fact that goes contrary to your beliefs, because your beliefs have become more important than reality.  Certain words are now triggers that cause you to reject specific ideas before you even have a chance to hear them out.

You feel yourself to be perfectly rational, far more enlightened or intelligent than those with opposing views.  Yet instead, your brain has been crippled from the mind viruses you voluntarily made part of you.

What Just Happened?

Here is the process:

Jim Jones seemed like a really nice guy... till he lead 900 people to voluntarily drink cyanide-laced Koolaid.

1. Win Trust

Sometimes people just seem really trustworthy because they are kind, charismatic, or because everyone else also trusts and loves them.

2. Appeal to ideals, goals, beliefs

You probably feel very passionate about your beliefs, so it’s easy to involve you on this level. It’s also another way to win trust.

3. Create a state of emotions and receptivity

Once your defenses are down, there are many techniques for turning off your critical mind and putting you in an emotional state. There you are more willing to believe anything. Emotions may include fear, anger, idealistic euphoria, camaraderie, love, or any other strong emotion.

4. Slowly introduce new ideas and restrictions on thoughts and/or behavior

These are ideas or restrictions that dehumanize opponents, instill fears of the enemy, introduce thought-terminating cliche’s, create loaded words, give you feelings of elitism or of being special, and so on.   This is the point at which you become tangled in the lie and become a perpetuator of that lie using the same techniques used against you.

It’s How We’re Wired

You don’t have to be a full member of a suicide cult to be manipulated.  Mind control techniques are used every day: in the news, in commercials, in political speeches, on billboards, on the radio, in forwarded emails, and in conversations. Even abusive relationships practice the same manipulative methods.

We are always being asked to trust someone who wants to tell us who to fear, when to shut down our brains, who’s side to never respect, which facts are skewed and which are true.  We are asked to immediately reject everything we disagree with and accept everything we agree with without question.

There used to be a lot more bowing and scraping. Those prone to backtalk were usually beheaded.

This process seems to be the rule rather than the exception.  Our society now values free-thought, intellectual honesty, and persuasion through facts and reason, but this has not always been so.  For most of history, mankind has blindly followed authority.  Arguably, civilization might not have survived this far without these traits. Certainly, rebellious, contrarian individuals in those cultures didn’t survive long. Our minds seem prone to accept deceptive persuasive processes that bypass critical thinking. The tendency towards free thought was literally bred out of us.

It’s actually hard work to employ honest persuasion. We have to risk the discomfort of cognitive dissonance, which seems ever present in the harsh light of honesty. Our very brain chemicals make us unhappy when we critically question cherished beliefs.

Conversely, coercive persuasion is a much more comfortable process, but it always involves deception.  Typically such persuaders believe the lies they tell.  Followers of these distortions are just repeating the program, including mind control methods, they have been taught.

Who Can I Trust?

Ironically, you are actually more likely to be brainwashed by those you least expect to be capable.  These will be people you fully trust, people with similar values and goals as you, someone who is on your side.

You cannot be brainwashed by someone you distrust, unless you are physically held hostage by them.  This means if you hate liberals, you can’t be brainwashed by liberals.  If you hate Republicans, you can’t be brainwashed by Republicans.  If you’re God-fearing, you can never be brainwashed by atheists.

Think about that for a moment.  The groups you might suspect most capable of mystically infecting your mind with deceit are actually the most incapable.  Those you believe to be benevolent are those most capable of deceiving you, if they so choose.

There are members of every camp, every ideology, every school of thought who have used the powers of deceptive thought reform.  Out there, somewhere, is a controlling group or belief system that is likely to appeal to you, that has the power to hook you and reel you in.  It’s even possible, likely in fact, that it’s already happened to you to one degree or another.

When we’re born, we are about as helpless and dependent as we ever will be. We start out being programmed by our parents.  In most ways, this is a good thing, because this is how we learn basic survival, how to behave in society, and how we gain culture and language.  We learn useful values and principles.  But we also come to blindly accept many untruths and thought patterns that keep us from critically thinking or asking questions when maybe we should.

I know it's true. I saw it on TV.

We also become susceptible when the world itself becomes terrifying.  There are many things to fear: War, terrorism, disease, crime, violence, immorality, anarchy, socialism, racism, tyranny, oppression, and so on.  Many will stand on podiums or behind TV screens and amplify those fears, and then promise to ease them if we but trust them.  This isn’t much different from when a cult targets someone who has had a recent loss in their lives.

I have been brainwashed about some things.  I still am, to some degree, even though I am aware of these techniques and do everything I can to spot them.  But when someone is “on my side”, saying things I already tend to agree with, I’m just a little susceptible.  And so are you.

Ultimately, you can only trust yourself.  That is why questioning and critical thinking are so important.  If you can become comfortable with cognitive dissonance and ok with being wrong, your mind becomes agile.  If you learn good research techniques, you make yourself the ultimate authority.  If you teach yourself rational habits and learn about the difference between good logic and fallacy, you can give yourself a built-in bullshit detector.  If you study mind control techniques, you shield yourself with awareness to disarm the lies.  Trust yourself and become the guardian of your own mind.

In future Mind Control 101 posts, I will explore each of the known mind control techniques in detail, describing exactly how they work to entrap us.  I will also explore cognitive theories that explain why and how our brains cling so desperately to what we already believe, easily rejecting conflicting data.

Hopefully, armed with this knowledge, you can be that much more immune to mind control.  Because no one else can do it for you.

I read The Death of Conservatism a few days ago, right after reading through “Right Reason” by William F. Buckley, Jr. for the first time.  Something occurred to me that I initially observed as a teenager growing up in George H.W. Bush’s America.

Conservatives, it seemed to me, had an optimistic view of individual behavior.  Liberals on the other hand seemed to have a distressingly pessimistic opinion of human behavior.  I saw Conservatives desirous of creating an environment where people would choose to do the right thing, while Liberals had given up on the idea long ago and would nullify such behavior with the actions of a state.  Now I know that Conservative essayists go on and on about how much they believe in the fallibility of man, but it didn’t seem that way to me.  On issue after issue, my observation seemed to hold true.

An example of this dichotomy is present when we consider the welfare state.  Conservatives argue that the government safety net discourages the church and communities from taking care of their own needy members, and that if government were out of the way, individuals and citizen organizations would take care of the needy on a local level.  Liberals seem to be unwilling to trust in the good nature of individuals and citizen organizations, and engage the state in an act of faceless paternalism in order to avoid the unpleasantness of the starving and destitute.  It’s not exactly a Hallmark moment, but at least people are being fed.

A more recent example is that the Liberal establishment believes that corporations and individuals will not do the right thing in regards to health care, and therefore have to create another faceless parent to take care of us all.  Conservatives argue instead for more market deregulation, less government involvement, more capitalism and competition, holding the belief that the individuals and the corporations will do the right thing.

When Conservatives seek to prevent a personal behavior, it is argued that behavior is immoral.  Immorality (as defined largely by Judeo-Christian values) is anathema to policy that depends on each person doing the right thing.  If Conservative policy, by and large, expects individuals to act virtuously, than a virtuous people is required for said policy to be successful.  Enter the Culture War.

You can hardly listen to a Republican elected official without hearing about “the erosion of values” or “the moral decay” of our country.  They wring their hands about the immorality of abortion while simultaneously doing nothing to stop it.  They complained about Marilyn Manson, and “Gansta Rap” and Murphy Brown.  To what end?  They gnashed their teeth when Janet Jackson pulled a stunt at the Superbowl that really didn’t matter to most Americans.

It has become clear to me that Republicans believe “traditional family values” and proper tax legislation are inextricably linked.  If the moral decay is not staunched, then perhaps these individuals who we believe should be virtuous will cheat on their taxes.  Or perhaps instead of investing their tax rebate into the stock market, they will instead blow it on the Sex and the City Boxed set, cocaine, and hookers.  It sounds far-fetched, but I believe it is consistent with the ideology.

Conservatives have been woefully unsuccessful in engaging individuals on their ideas for health care reform, but they can certainly get a lot of press once they cry loudly about 16 year-olds being educated on safe sex.  And since in their view, governance depends on the virtue of the governed, it is rational to go for the morality play.  In order for their policy to work properly, people must behave “morally”.  What they haven’t realized yet is what is killing them:  Most college-educated people do not share their philosophy.

I’m 37 and work in the software industry.  The typical profile of my peers is “Social Liberal, Fiscal Conservative.”  You all know them, and you know what they mean by that.  They believe that sometimes people are virtuous, and sometimes people are not.  They believe that sometimes you must bring equality through government mandate, yet there is a price to be paid.  We hear from Republicans about how immoral we all are, and we turn them off.  Who wants to hear about what a cesspool it is that we all live in?  We hear from Democrats about injustice, and we at least give them a listen.  Above all, we believe in reality, not whether or not a spiritual leader would agree with how we are spending our Saturday evenings.

For Republicans to make headway with our demographic, they must table the desire to manage our virtue, and move forward with the desire to govern the country.  When we hear a Republican, we shouldn’t be hearing about how traditional marriage is under assault, rather we should be hearing about how school vouchers give us a better education for our children.  When we listen to a Republican, we shouldn’t be hearing about how Marijuana is a terrible vice, rather how a strong defense will ensure peace.

I’m not asking Republicans to forsake their values; I’m asking Republicans to push for ideas and reforms that make sense to us divorced from a moral framework.  Whether or not we will ever have, or indeed ever had the virtue to live according to perfect Conservative principles, I don’t know.  What I do know is that morality is a lot less important to us today than it seems to be to the Republican party.  And while this disconnect exists, the Republicans will stay out in the wilderness.

Despite much media adulation over the President’s speech on Health Care, we didn’t hear anything last night we haven’t heard before.  There are all the same reforms we have heard over and over again, with a token nod toward tort reform, much like a cherry on top.  He still stands by a public option, a position I find weakened by his own admission that only 5% of Americans would sign up for such an option.  If so few will use it, why is it so critical?

He gave an impassioned defense of liberalism, while first acknowledging the base conservative leanings of Americans.  Pledging allegiance to neither side, he struck a centrist tone while asking Americans to consider proper government involvement in their lives.  This is a reasonable question, and anyone who would argue that Utopia can be found in either extreme needs to study history.

But in the end, we are left where we were in the last days of July.  More of the same.

The Republican response was a caricature of what we have come to expect of the Republicans throughout this entire debate.  First up was Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouting “You lie!” to the President during his speech.  This was a shameful display of bad manners regardless of whether or not he is correct.  In this case, he is indisputably wrong.  Illegal immigrants are specifically barred from receiving any federal health care in the legislation.  But being correct is not high on the Republican agenda these days, much to our nation’s injury.

Throughout this process, both sides have come down on the wrong side of reality more than a few times, but Republicans have become notable for complete fabrications.  From “Death Panels” to calling the public option a “government takeover of the health care industry”, the Republicans have played fast and loose with the truth time and again.

Despite the fact that Conservatives concern themselves with reality, the Republicans preferred the fiction once again.  Representative Charles Boustany (R-FL) let loose with many of the memes that have marginalized Conservatives throughout this debate.  And this is a shame, because we need a strong Conservative presence in this country.  Appeals to unreality is not an attractive trait to intelligent voters.

Rep Boustany began by saying that most Americans wanted the President to tell Congress he wanted them to start over.  A CNN poll taken at the beginning of the month indicated that 25% wanted them to start over, with 53% wanting the legislation to be passed with minor or major changes.  25% is not most Americans.  An AP poll taken this week claimed 4 out of 10 Americans wanted Congress to start over, and the same percentage wanted them to pass the legislation.

REALITY: Most Americans did not want the President to tell Congress to start over.

Rep. Boustany claimed that “Replacing your family’s health care with government-run health care is not the answer.”  He may be right about that.  But there two components of this statement fly in the face of reality.

The President quoted the CBO in saying that only 5% of Americans would use the public option, and that it would only go to those who currently do not have health care.  The President wasn’t just making that up; the CBO analyzed the legislation and determined that only 10-11 million Americans would use the option.

REALITY: You cannot replace something you don’t already have.  No one is replacing anything with the public option.

And labeling the public option “Government-run health care” is even more ridiculous.  It simply isn’t government-run health care.  It is a government-run insurance company.  It isn’t even taking over the insurance industry, rather entering it as a severely restricted competitor.  And even then, it’s only competing for individuals that don’t even buy insurance anyway.

REALITY: Nothing in the President’s plan amounts to government-run health care, unless you count modifications to Medicare.  And according to what I’ve seen these last few months, there is no support among Republicans for ending Medicare.

Next, Rep. Boustany’s assault on reality exploded full force, leaving no truth standing.

“I read the bill Democrats passed through committee in July. It creates 53 new government bureaucracies, adds hundreds of billions to our national debt, and raises taxes on job-creators by $600 billion. And, it cuts Medicare by $500 billion, while doing virtually nothing to make the program better for our seniors.”

Well, perhaps one truth is left standing, I don’t deny that he read HR 3200.  I do deny his comprehension of aforementioned legislation.

REALITY: HR 3200 does not create 53 new government bureaucracies.  Go read the bill yourself.  It simply doesn’t.

REALITY: The President has called for a budget-neutral bill, enforced by mandatory budget cuts if it does add to the deficit.  It doesn’t add hundreds of billions to our national debt.  And if it does, cuts would be required by law.

REALITY: It doesn’t raise taxes on “job-creators” by $600 billion, unless you consider everyone who makes over $350,000 a year a “job-creator”.

REALITY: $500 billion in projected increases are cut, meaning that nothing is really being cut, it’s just not being increased. What is being increased is an additional $240 billion in payments to doctors.  The CBO says that net savings will be around $241 billion.

After listing the precious few bona fide ideas the Republicans have for Health Care Reform, he ends on this note, saying, “These are common-sense reforms we can achieve right away – without destroying jobs, exploding the deficit, rationing care, or taking away the freedom American families cherish.”  Doomsday, full steam ahead!

REALITY: This legislation may destroy a job or two, or create a job or two, but it won’t explode the deficit, ration care, or take away the freedom American families cherish.  It just won’t.

Are Conservatives concerned with reality?  Are Republicans conservative?  If Conservatives are, then Republicans aren’t.

Our PAX Posse includes Luna, Roland, Joci, John, Danielle, and teens Betsy, Tori, Stephan, Meadow, and Judah. Whew!

Roland and I will be liveblogging the event in this post, meaning, check back periodically, as this post will be updated every few hours.

(For anyone waiting for the next Mind Control 101 entry, I’ll write it soon. PAX comes first! XD)

Friday

10:11am Luna: At PAX. Glad we pre-reged early. All badges are of course sold out. I wonder where they will have PAX next year, since the Washington State Convention Center is the largest venue in Seattle (to my knowledge).

Now standing in line for swag bag and lanyard. This line is far, far the longest line I’ve seen at a con. Guessing twice as long as the Adam Savage line at Defcon.

See how this line wraps over and under itself

10:27am Roland: This line is more awesomely long than any con line I’ve ever been in, and everyone is already registered!

11:02am Luna: OMG the exhibit hall has spilled out into what last year was the LAN room. Swag bag came with full copy of LOTR: Mines of Moria. We were all playing LOTR plain last year. We could start again, and rope the kids into it. Make them our own personal gold farming slaves.

Bag also holds a mouse pad, t-shirt, buttons, stickers. Program guide looks like a retro NES game manual. Awesome job, PAX swag committee!

11:40 Luna: spotted a Reverse-Scalper at the entrance. The poor guy is offering $100 for a three day pass. Planning to sew the kids’ badges to their clothing so they don’t lose and/or get pwned out of them.

1:46pm Luna: Sitting at the AION panel. I hadn’t really heard of this MMORPG until now. Looks maybe cool. Most of the audience is in closed beta and they apparently love it.

1:54pm Luna: iPhone users, be sure to check out the PAX iPhone app to check schedules, events, and other information. (Assuming AT&T lets us have any bandwidth.)

Do not Access this from the Apple Store. It awesomely installs from the web. So browse to this link in Safari:

http://pax.expojunkie.com/#_home

Oh, and Gmail is down again. Weird.

5:37pm Luna: John says he’s disappointed with the racial ratios in the Pax crowds. Mostly white and Asian.

I was greatly disappointed with the booth babe at Atari’s booth. Nothing against her, just against Atari for putting a paid model who seems to have zero interest in games, standing scantily clad with the sole purpose of attracting male gamers. Just like EA at Comicon, you guys have no understanding of the changing gamer demographic – not only are there more women gamers, bur more if the guys want smart gamer girlfriends, not just pretty naked bodies.

Speaking of girls, there seemed to be fewer women this year. That could have something to do with the time of day. My jury is still out till tomorrow.

I didn’t have time to finish the walk of the expo hall. But here are the games I’m excited about:

Machinarium
Lego Rock Band
Beetles Rick Band
Elemental: War of Magic
Tales of Monkey Island

I had a great time at the Stardock / Impulse booth. We are constant fans of that company. Their Gamer’s Bill of Rights was a long time coming. I love a company who believes at it’s roots their customers should be treated with respect, not suspected as thieves.

Stardock staff recommended a game I plan to check out: Kitten Sanctuary

6:28pm Luna: Watching in fascination as the nVidia numbers game unfolds. Saw this happen two years ago. The game works this way: nvidia booth hands you a button. Your button has a number and presumably, someone else has another button with the same number. Find your match. Then you can spin a wheel or something, and the grand prize everyday is some snazzy top of the line expensive graphics gear.

At this stage, we’re watching the beginnings if self-organization. Some people are content to labor away, walking around and manually looking at buttons. But already, people have scrawled their numbers in 5″ on lined paper and ink pen. Hashtag #nvidia and your number on Twitter so others can search you.

It should be interesting to see if the final stages of this look anything like two years ago.

7:52pm Luna: Watched the Bioshock 2 preview.  Wow.  Leave it to Bioshock to force me into upgrading my video card again.  Now I’m more motivated to win one. ;)

It doesn’t just look like another version of Bioshock with new graphic overlays over the same old gameplay.  For one thing, it seems a little more like a zombie game.  Since you’re playing a Big Daddy, not much can hurt you, so you generally get ganged up upon.  You’re trying to protect a Little Sister, so I sincerely hope the game doesn’t end up being the world’s longest escort quest (I hate escort quests!)

Storyline is still immersive.  Big Sisters are fucking scary.  Graphics?  Well, let’s say it’s impressive when the ocean floods into the room, water beads up on camera, and then you’re walking around with floating chairs and murky ocean goo floating around you.

Yeah, I see a new GPU in my future.

Gameboy Music

Earlier, we walked past the Gameboy Music people outside.  They are much, much better this year.  Not only is the novelty of the instrument cool, they’re actually starting to sound good.  I stayed to listen just because I actually liked the sound.

In the Console Freeplay room on floor 5, you can play with a Microsoft Surface. I’m always excited about these paradigm-blowing new technologies.

Surface of course is a table a few feet across.  4-6 people can sit comfortably around it.  It has a touch-sensitive screen.  Actually, I learned it’s technically a camera, and touch sensitivity is approximated. You drag elements around on the screen.  So if there are dots or icons flying around, you can touch to add new dots, drag them places, etc.

There is also a chip system, where coded chips can be placed on the screen.  They have various functions — like gravity, springs, solid objects, and so on.  So if you have dots flowing across the screen, and place down a gravity chip, it can attract or repulse the dots.  My intuitive impulse was to twist the chip, and I quickly learned twisting one way created a stronger and stronger repulse reaction.  Counterclockwise twists created stronger and stronger incoming gravity.

Another application showed you a little better how the camera was working.  I could lay my arm across it, and it “saw” my arm down to the last eyelet on my fancy sleeves, in a sort of black-and-white “negative”.

There is also an identity card.  You lay it on the surface, and it recognizes you.  This can be used in a variety of applications.  For instance, in gaming, it tracks your score, movements, etc. When you leave for a break, you take your ID with you, so no one can cheat. :)

Another app uses your ID to show Twitter and Facebook details of the people sitting at the table.  Twitter messages can be moved around, sorted, etc.

Surface seems to bring social back to computing.  This should be a strange interface when used with Natal. That will bring not only facial recognition for the purpose of identification of multiple users of the same surface at the same time, but also emotion and body movement recognition.

This plus some of the augmented reality apps, like are being developed for iPhones now, make me very excited to see what the near-future holds in terms of computer interfaces and how they will change the way we think.

Surfaces are currently being marketed for commercial use only, as each one costs about $12,500.  However, the Microsoft rep said Windows 7 was build with touch interfaces in mind, so we’ll soon start seeing these types of interfaces in the form of laptops, tablets, and monitors.

9:00pm Luna: Merchants of Deva are doing an alcohol-infused fund raiser for Child’s Play, tomorrow evening 5pm-9pm at The Baltic Room on 1207 Pine. http://www.merchantsofdeva.com for more info.

But I sometimes have some additional points to make, like, “It’s a fallacy to say all of anything is bad,” or “Sometimes government is good,” or “Sometimes big business needs a kick in the rear.”  And those points keep getting lost because some of you feel the need to convert me even though I’m already converted.

So I feel the need to list my credentials, to “show my papers” to the border guard of your judgment.  I hope you will view these bona fides with approval, and nod me on so that I can get back to writing on topics I prefer.

A lot of you may not know what libertarianism is, so here it is in a nutshell.  I’m for small government.  On both sides of the aisle.  If you’re conservative, I agree with you on half of the issues — that generally government should stay out of our finances.  If you’re liberal, I generally agree with you on half of the issues, that government should stay out of our personal lives.  I prefer individualism to collectivism, innovation to control, freedom to tyranny.  If you need further details, go google it.

Just how small-government am I?  A portion of my mind is constantly dedicated to figuring out ways to privatize everything without causing mass chaos, much the same way a sci-fi authors ponder how to get between stars in a human lifetime without defying the laws of physics.  If I could think of a safe way to privatize even the military, I’d be for it!

Here are my creds:

• I voted for Ruth Bennett in 2000, the candidate who got 7% of the votes, making the LP temporarily a major party in Washington State.
• In 2001, I bought a handgun simply to exercise my Second Amendment right to do so.
• In 2002 I was an election volunteer (“Observer”) representing the LP in Benton County, Washington.  I observed the delivery of ballot boxes, as well as the testing of counting equipment.
• I helped with the Bruce Guthrie Senate campaign in 2006.
• I started the Wikipedia article on Neo-Objectivism (It persisted several years, but since, sadly, has been unfairly merged into the Objectivist Movement article. Those bastards!)
• I subscribed to Reason magazine for several years, and have one of the coveted personalized issues that has my name and satellite image of my house printed on the cover.
• My copies of Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Anthem are very underlined, dog-eared, and annotated in pencil.
• Have a look at the books I have tagged as “Changed My Life” on Librarything.com.  These books had a profound effect on my outlook.
• I convinced an anthropology-majoring, socialist-leaning, pot-smoking lesbian that mandatory recycling is wrong.
• I regularly donate to the EFF, ACLU, and other civil liberties organizations.
• My major heroes include Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Ayn Rand, Wendy McElroy, Penn & Teller, Ron Paul, David Brin.
• Karl Marx is a scumbag.

So why do my posts sound Liberal/Socialist/Right-Wing/[insert evil side you oppose here]?  Because there are already millions of information resources for Libertarian/Objectivist/Civil Liberties/Small Government Conservative philosophies.  There are organizations like CATO, ACLU, EFF, and the Reason Foundation.  There are blogs like the Agitator and Below the Beltway. Anyone can go out and read Adam Smith and Ludwig Von Mises books until their eyes swell.

And of course for every one libertarian evangelist, there are 100 right wing or left wing authors repeating the same things.  (Since again, libertarians are half-breeds.)

I don’t merely want to parrot all of the above.  Why should I when I can link to them, or reference them, or just rest assured those voices are out there saying what needs to be said?  If I repeated the same old lines, this blog would be boring, and you wouldn’t be here reading it.

In fact, it is because I am a true individualist that I choose to not be a parrot.  Instead, I choose to be an innovator.  I want to think of original ideas and new twists on old ideas.  I want to look at issues in a fresh way.

As a blogger I get to write about what I am most interested in.  I find most interesting those areas where I disagree with the rank and file.

This is not so I can be a contrarian, to disagree for disagreement’s sake.  I simply hold reason above ideology. So while my core values match those of core libertarianism, I am always asking questions. “Where does my ideology break down?  Are there exceptions to my ‘rules’?  How do my core principles really apply to this topic?” I am not comfortable with jumping to a conclusion based solely on my old assumptions.  Nor am I comfortable arguing for something I know very little about, even if doing so would follow some party line.

I find exceptions to the rule extremely fascinating and worthy of discussion.  Just because I disagree with you on one point, or a dozen, doesn’t automatically put me on The Same Side As The Enemy.  That is a thought terminating clichè which could be disabling your ability to thoughtfully consider what could otherwise be very good ideas.

So before you go getting all excited, please rest assured: I believe government sucks.  There are major problems with the EPA, FDA, IRS, Federal Reserve, SEC, NSA, CIA, DEA, and most every other member of the Government Acronym Soup.  I love liberty and support our troops and red meat is tasty and the internet should be free.  People should be responsible and personally accountable for all their actions.  Hard work and innovation should be rewarded.  Capitalism and democracy are the greatest human forces yet discovered to increase happiness and quality of life of every person on earth.

Honest.  I get that.  I really do.

So now that I’ve regurgitated the party line, I hope to get back to the business of being an individual.  Like writing about something you haven’t heard before.

Mind catrol - ur doing it rong akshully

by Luna Flesher

I’ve studied a lot about mind control over the years.  My interest piqued shortly after I left a rigorous and restrictive religion.  I wanted to better understand how I had willingly allowed myself to be controlled, all the while believing and protesting loudly that I was free.

These methods are deceptive and unethical, tricking the mind rather than persuading through honesty and reason. Knowing this, I now have a very unique perspective on American politics.  I can see these techniques used all the time, by politicians, media, and regular people.

This is not owing to a vast conspiracy. It doesn’t take an evil mastermind to notice certain approaches work better to persuade. These methods have always worked and will always continue to work, and so they perpetuate through society.  Some who study memetics might even say they self-replicate.

This post begins a series called “Mind Control 101″, which precedes its non-evil step-twin, “Logical Fallacies 101″.

Please do not use this as a How To!  I address this topic not with the intent that you try to take over the world. In instead wish to make you better able to defend yourself when your mind comes under assault.

Let’s begin with the myths.  The entire subject of brainwashing is “loaded”.  Loading a word is itself, fittingly, a mind control technique that limits thought by giving you preconceived and highly incorrect notions. I’ll start “deprogramming” you by showing where your existing understanding of the topic is probably far from reality.

When I say these words, “Thought Control” or “Brainwashing”, you no doubt envision a wild-haired hypnotist swinging a silver watch, while a stern doctor injects your arm with a strange serum.  In the background, hooded figures chant, and soon your eyes begin to glaze over.  All the while you are helpless to resist because you are strapped to a chair.

This is all complete fantasy.  The great secret is that while being brainwashed you feel in complete control of yourself.  A much more accurate term is “coercive persuasion“, because you are persuaded to want the same thing the manipulator wants, to believe as he wants you to believe.

Those who have been thusly persuaded never know they have been brainwashed.  Conversely if you think you’ve been brainwashed, you probably haven’t been.

So let’s dispel some myths, shall we?

Thought reform does not require physical restraint.

Scientists used to think this, back in the 1950s, when American POWs returned from Korea singing the praises of their captors.  But coercive persuasion in our free society requires a little more skill.  No force is required.  All it takes is listening to someone who is talking.  It also requires that you trust them, at least a little bit.  If they do their job right, you will go willingly.

This picture is totally photoshopped

It does not involve hypnotic disks.

Hypnosis is a broad word that means any varying state of consciousness other than the one you’re probably experiencing now.  Various levels of hypnosis, trance, and meditation are sometimes used by cult groups, but this is never, ever a requirement.

No drugs, truth serums, elixirs, or magical incantations are used in brainwashing.

Other than a few 60′s cults that were using drugs anyway, I’ve never come across any thought reform involving chemicals.  Nor does it have anything to do with Satan.  No demonic possession, summoning of evil spirits, or worshiping pagan gods is required.

Brainwashed people are not glassy-eyed, drooling zombies.

Most actually appear quite normal.  In fact, I would venture to say everyone ends up brainwashed to one degree or another, at some point in their lives. Our brains seem wired to accept manipulation and deception. It seems logical that humankind would have better survived those very dangerous first 100,000 years of pre-history by following a leader without question. Thought control merely capitalizes on those build-in survival skills we are all born with.

There is absolutely no way to know that you’ve been brainwashed.

That’s exactly the point. If you knew you were being controlled, you wouldn’t like it very much, and you wouldn’t stand for it.  The manipulated fully believe they are making their own choices, that they are completely free to act in any way they choose.

A good deal of brainwashing involves setting up trigger thoughts, little tricks and traps that help you deflect any incoming facts, beliefs, thoughts, or feelings that would make you suddenly stop believing the lies you’ve been duped into.  Part of this series is going to be identifying those traps, so you can avoid them in the first place.

(I could say “…and so you can escape if you’re already brainwashed.”  But you see, if I were to accuse you of being controlled, you would immediately become defensive and protest, thinking, “There is no possible way!” That is exactly what I’m talking about.)

There is no “one size fits all” method of mind control.

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, you can control some of the people all of the time, or all the people some of the time, but you can’t control all the people all the time.  Manipulators throw out a line with some bait to see what bites.  Sometimes it’s you, but usually you will laugh at their crazy ideas.  Everyone is ripe for being manipulated at some point in their lives.  Someone has something to say that will appeal specifically to you. You will always be able to see how other people are being brainwashed, but you won’t necessarily notice when it’s happening to you, because you will like it.

There are a lot of mind control tricks, but not all are required.

There isn’t a checklist that says, “Must meet all 50 requirements to be considered mind control”.  To control, you only need to do what works.

Brainwashing is not total.

It is possible to be partly brainwashed.  You can be brainwashed about certain topics but not others.  You can be brainwashed to the point of doing or believing almost everything the leader wants, but not quite. Victims of mind control can eventually be freed.

A completely staged, totally unrealistic depiction of a typical brainwasher. (Note the evil eyebrows.)

Brainwashers are not creepy, bizarre, crazy, mean-spirited men who ooze evil and darkness from every pore.

Images of cackling, sneering, British-accept-wielding villains were created for the drama of movie fiction, not to reflect reality.

If you’re going to be good at manipulation, you’ve got to be likable. To persuade, you must be charismatic. To convince, you must be, well… convincing. I listened to old recordings of Jim Jones recorded just before the infamous Jonestown kool-aid mass-suicides and he sounded sincere, kind, loving, and wise.

Furthermore, controlling groups or ideologies work best when believers are taught to use brainwashing techniques themselves.  That’s right. In almost every case, the controlled end up controlling.

No one is immune from mind control.

Not even me, not even after all I’ve learned about it. I can build up defenses, but even then I will be susceptible to it at some point.

Conclusion

Now you know what mind control is not, which gives you an advantage over most people.  In the next post I will, in the most basic of terms, describe what it is. Later on, I will delve into the details each technique so you can learn to recognize these methods in the wild.

I am a global warming agnostic.  I stick my toe in the water every year or so check the temperature on both sides of the debate.  I tend to waffle around somewhere just barely on either side of the fence.  There’s a lot of convincing data on both sides, and I really think science hasn’t come far enough to know either way.  It’s as if two astrologers have gazed into the same crystal ball and come up with completely different futures.

First you have a majority of scientists who firmly believe global anthropogenic (man-made) climate change (warming) is occurring due to carbon dioxide emissions.  In fact, some now say it is inevitable, and there is nothing we can do to stop it.  I can’t believe this is due to a sinister, anti-capitalist conspiracy here because far too many smart scientists have made this conclusion.  They might be mistaken, but they are not all “in on it”.

There is an overwhelming amount of data to indicate global temperatures are on the rise.  You have atmospheric and oceanic measurements of temperatures.  You have massive local weather fluctuations.  You have the melting ice caps.  You have plants that bloom at all the wrong times.

To confuse matters, scientists are actually noting a more recent cooling trend in very recent years.  Scientists retain existing warming theories, blaming various  conditions such as regular oceanic current cycles.

Some fringe scientists claim warming now will actually trigger an ice age.

Whether it’s cooling or warming, something certainly seems to be going on with the climate, even if it seems no one can be entirely sure what.

Then you have the debate on what is causing climate change.  Obviously the prevailing theory it that it’s caused by increasing CO2 in the atmosphere, due of course to fossil fuel consumption.

There is certainly a historical correlation between CO2 conditions and average global temperatures.  However, I have one small doubt: the classical fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for “After this, therefore because of this”. Just because Event B happens after Event A, does not mean Event A was the cause.  This is also known in statistics as correlation does not imply causation. It’s an easy one to fall for, even for scientists.

Here is an example of why we might have a CO2 to temperature correlation where Co2 is not the cause.

We all know that decaying vegetable matter releases CO2. The more plants, the more CO2 can decay once that plant dies.  Increased global temperature increases the percentage of landmass viable for plant growth, and increases vegetation densities all over.  The Keeling Curve shows how plant decay produces sharp ups and downs of CO2 each year as things die off the fall and grow in the spring.  We have no way of knowing how increased vegetation over entire landmasses would increase CO2 levels for us to find in the ice eons later.

To further my point on cause vs. effect, we have been recently told the current trend of warming will thaw now-frozen plant matter, which will increase CO2 even further.  How do we know the spikes in CO2 in our distant past weren’t caused by some arbitrary warming factor thawing once-frozen tundra, suddenly releasing ages-old carbon as is now happening?

Global warming could just as possibly cause CO2.

CO2 greenhouse theory itself becomes shaky in light of saturation theory. Greenhouse theory states gases absorb sunlight as energy as it bounces off the earth’s surface and back into space.  However, CO2 can only absorb certain bandwidths of light.  Other greenhouses gases also absorb light, each with its own bands.  Water vapor absorbs the most energy from the highest number of frequencies, and is responsible for 90% of atmospheric heat absorption. There is some crossover, for example water absorbs some of the same frequencies of light as carbon, methane, and so on.  Once a gas has absorbed 100% of the bandwidths of light that it can, it can no longer retain any further energy.  All the other frequencies of light pass through.

Saturation theory concludes that carbon will increase temperatures only so much, until its entire range of light has been absorbed, and then it will stop.

To add one more little push as I lean over the fence, there is a new study showing how global warming models are not following their predicted paths. The paper is out of MIT, and is written by a highly respected atmospheric scientist.

The Little Ice Age showed us the earth can suddenly change climates for geologically short periods of time.  History records, and geological records corroborate, that the earth plunged into a period of cold starting as early as 1350 and ending possibly in the 1850′s, with many decades-long ups and downs interspersed.  1816 was known as the Year Without Summer.  Europe and the Americas suffered off-and-on periods of mass starvation.

This was not caused by man. It was caused by the whims of nature, and proves to me just how much at the mercy of the environment we are.

My conclusion, for now, is that the climate is probably changing, and this could very likely have a devastating effect on sea levels, food supply, weather, and ecological habitats.

I doubt it is caused by man, but I remain agnostic on this point as well.

Either way, I absolutely think we should place less effort into building computer models of CO2 effects, which is like counting angels on the head of a pin, and more towards preparing ourselves for the coming disasters.

Maybe there is some crazy idea that could cool the earth no matter what its cause, like David Keith’s proposal to use sulfate particulates in the stratosphere.

The Little Ice Age caused starvation because it took so many years to discover which crops grew well in colder conditions.  We need to get scientists like Normal Borlaug to recommend plants and agricultural methods for various scenarios, and then we need to stock up on the right seeds.

How can we apply ingenuity to save our coastal cities should sea levels rise? How can we protect our water supply if all the glaciers melt? Where will be buy swimsuits in January if stores won’t stock them until May?

In seriousness, perhaps we’re spending a lot of time and money on trying to answer the wrong question — not “Is climate change happening”, nor even, “How can we prevent it?”, but “Now that it’s happening, how can we keep humanity safe and living with a high quality of life?”

Opponents of healthcare reform fear socialism.  And rightly so.  They list a host of problems that other socialist systems have seen.  While some examples are unrealistically exaggerated, their underlying point is well-taken.  Socialism, no matter how well intended, suffers from a number of unintended consequences.

The intention of collectivism is to provide equality, but the frequent result is that everyone is equally deprived.  No one is allowed to have more than anyone else.  Motivations become skewed, producers produce less, consumers consume more. Bureaucracy increases with the intent to stop fraud and abuse, which leads to increased inefficiency.  The least common denominator is prized because it is something everyone can agree on.

The Soviet Union is one of the best examples of this cycle, when it inevitably collapsed under its own weight.

A hat tip to my socialist friends out there. Yes, I know the USSR didn’t practice “true” socialism. But I still make my claim — any collectivist system of more than 100 people will generally suffer from similar symptoms.  When properly balanced, those issues can be stabilized and mitigated somewhat, but they are real problems that need to be recognized for what they are.

Socialized medicine is criticized for the following reasons:

• Overall costs are rapidly driven up by lack of market forces.
• Providers, manufactures, and other achievers are not compensated enough.
• Choice becomes limited.
• Care is rationed.
• There are long waits for care.
• There is a high level of bureaucracy leading to inefficiency, frustration, and corruption.

Most socialist healthcare systems in the world today show at least some of these problems, to one degree or another.

Previously, I posted about how our healthcare system is in crisis.  Our free market system is supposed to be immune to these problems.  Yet I’m noticing a strange correlation.  We are already experiencing all of the issues listed above.  How can this be?

Correlation is not causation, but I had already reached this conclusion a number of years ago for different reasons.  I briefly made this claim elsewhere in this blog, when I argued for government intervention, but did not have room to make my case.

My conclusion?  Health insurance is socialist.

By design, insurance is collectivist.  By design it requires large numbers of people to pool resources which are divided it as needed.  It is wealth distribution by it’s very inherent nature.

Here we have a system where:

• Everyone pays into a “risk pool”.  You may pay different amounts based on risk factors, but you will pay even if you are actually healthy. In fact, the system works best when lots of healthy people participate. “From each according to his ability…
• Those who become sick, or those who decide to act upon their benefits to see a doctor for any reason, consume dollars from the risk pool.  …to each according to his need.” – Karl Marx

Of course our system differs from state socialism as practiced by, say the former USSR, or Canada, or Britain, or Cuba.  For one, we don’t force everyone to participate. For two, there are a large number of insurance companies, so competition forces are theoretically in play.

Unfortunately, these two factors don’t seem to affect the outcomes.  The side effects of collectivism cannot be avoided simply by having competing collectivist systems.  Privatized collectivism is still collectivism.

Of course it makes sense.  Common beliefs to the contrary, the free market does not guarantee individualism will prevail.

Let’s take a look at some of the specific problems caused by collectivism in the medical field.  I have a lot of data to back up my claims already linked in my previous post on the healthcare crisis, so please refer there.

Accelerated Rise of Costs

Socialism: Everyone is motivated to game the system. Maximizing personal gain usually works against, or takes something from, everyone else. This tends to increase costs.  The payer is a large bureaucratic government organization which easily absorbs extra costs.  It’s hard to notice or track individual abuses.

Providers such as doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies may be motivated to charge a little extra here and there.  Or perform unnecessary tests or treatments. Sometimes it’s to make up for times when the collective would not pay them enough.  And other times it’s for pure profit.

Likewise manufacturers of drugs and medical equipment will be motivated to increase prices to pass profit on through the providers.

Individuals, who can see a doctor at little or no extra cost to them, might be motivated to visit the doctor for every little hangnail and head cold. This also drives up costs.

Insurance: Simply re-read the above section, but replace the word “government” with “insurance company”.  It is equally true.

Normally, competition forces would help drive all these costs down. But we don’t actually have competition, we have pseudo-competition.

Competition works best on the individual level.  In health care, the patient (an individual) and the doctor (another individual) have the greatest control over medical decisions. If cost mattered personally to the patient, he could weigh it in his total “purchase” decision, just like consumers in other industries do.  The pressure of those decisions would “trickle up” the market to equipment suppliers and drug manufacturers.

But patients usually don’t worry about costs because the insurance company will pick that up.

And since most individuals don’t even choose their insurance company (employers do), competition forces don’t apply there either.

There are a lot of moving parts here, but most are moving to drive prices up not down, because the system is collectivist, not individualist.

Providers Sometimes Are Not Compensated Enough

Socialism: Government programs need to cut costs where ever possible to increase public perception.  There are potentially a lot of middlemen who might be receiving or giving kickbacks, “skimming” off the top, so they are also motivated to cut costs to reroute some of that wealth to themselves.

Since the system is collectivist, such decisions are not made wisely.  Costs are naturally driving upwards due to lack of competition, so cuts are contrived, and not usually in the best interests of those providing or receiving care.

Providers who actually do real work may have their rates reduced and are paid unfairly.  If the provider is employed directly by the state, they may not make as much as they otherwise would on the free market.

There is less incentive for people to go through the grueling process of becoming a doctor. This leads to a shortage of doctors.

Insurance: Again, you can read the above section and replace the words “state” or “government” with “insurance company” and it will equally apply.

Insurance companies mandate how much a doctor is able to charge, literally capping her salary. On every medical bill I receive, the doctor has tried to charge one rate, but the insurance company has allowed a lesser rate.

HMO‘s actually employ doctors directly and have full control over their compensation.

Doctors are no longer beholden to market forces, they’re slaves of the collective.  Outstanding providers are unable to charge the high fees they deserve, and poor quality providers are falsely elevated.  Many actually leave the field for these reasons.

Lack of Choice

Socialism: Collective pressures lean strongly towards doing what’s best for the collective or the people running the collective.  Choice is an individual thing, so it is often sacrificed for the best interests of the group. In socialized medicine, this means you may not be able to choose your level of care, type of care, or even your doctor.

Insurance: Our free market system lets you choose any doctor you want. As long as you have insurance. And as long as the doctor is in your network.

You can choose any level of care you want. As long as it’s covered. As long as your doctor isn’t motivated to give you a specific kind of care because he’s been pressured by the insurance company or manufacturers.

Collective systems motivate a lack of individual choice, whether it is state socialism or private insurance.

Rationing Care

Socialism: Medical resources are not infinite.  A pure free market deals with shortages each according to what he can afford. In socialism, this is done by a bureaucrat or committee.

At some point, someone gets to decide for the collective who gets what medications, the maximum length of hospital stays, and who gets what treatments when. Costs become a large factor in whether the person lives or dies.

Insurance: This effect is also clearly shown under insurance coverage. Insurance companies decide exactly what is covered and what isn’t.  And as costs skyrocket, they have been covering less and less.  You are at their mercy just as surely as you are at the mercy of a government bureaucrat — unless you can afford to pay for additional care out of pocket.

Long Waits

Socialism: The ugly step-sister of Rationing Care is long waits.  In addition to rationing, supply-side issues begin to develop.  When more people can visit the doctor at little or no cost to themselves, care is driven into shorter supply.  Unless you can increase the supply of doctors, there will never be enough to see everyone.

Worse, since doctors in socialist systems may not be compensated enough, it is hard to incent enough people to enter the field.

Insurance: With insurance, I’ve called up for an appointment and been scheduled 6 months out.  In fact, I’m usually surprised when a provider can see me in anything less than a month for anything but the most immediate of complaints.

Worse, I’ve waited doubled-over with severe pain abdominal pain at a suburban emergency room for over 4 hours in the middle of the night on a weeknight.

If those are not long waits, I’m not sure what is.

Bureaucracy

Socialism: The bureaucracy of socialism is stereotypical. Remember the movie Brazil?  You know what I’m talking about…

Government generates endless paperwork, hoops to jump through, forms to fill out.  You wait in line to get a form to wait in another line to fill out a different form only to find out you waited in the wrong line and filled out the wrong form.

People are just a number, forgotten by the system, stuck in endless circles, falling prey to bookkeeping mistakes.  Administrative overhead skyrockets.

Insurance: Insurance companies are actually motivated to intentionally make things harder.  Here’s why:

Few Americans really choose their insurance companies, so there are no normal market forces driving them.  If I can be dropped from coverage for not filling out a form correctly, the insurance company profits. If I pay a few medical bills myself because the reimbursement process is such a hassle, then the insurance company profits.  The insurance company doesn’t really care what their paperwork costs doctors, because the doctor has no choice, either.

The benefits of creating intentional bureaucracy outweigh the costs.

Individualism vs. Collectivism in Healthcare

What can we do?  As I see it, we have a choice between two systems.

Socialism, we already live with.  There are certainly many flavors of socialism.  There are ways to do it better and ways to do it worse.  I think we’re doing it better than some countries, worse than others.  There is certainly room for improvement.  So one option: we can improve our already-socialist system with the full knowledge that it is already-socialist so we stop wasting effort trying to avoid something we already have.

Or we can scrap insurance all together.  Scrap every government socialized program, and return to a more wild time.  Every individual for himself.  Competition and market forces reign supreme.  Pay for what you get, or get nothing.  Make your own way in the world with nothing in front of you but a level playing field, hard work, determination, and a good idea.

To me the answer is clear. Yes, I firmly believe in systems where people are fairly rewarded for their own labor, their efforts and creativity, their brilliance.  The problem is, normal dynamics of meritocracy do not apply to the world of medicine.

Personal health has little to do with personal choices.  You get strep because you showed up at work on a day when it was going around. You get breast cancer because you’re genetically predisposed to it.  You get leukemia because of contaminants in your local water supply. You have major reconstructive surgery on your back because you were hit by a car while crossing the street when the sign said “Walk”.

Sure, we can personally reduce risk by not smoking, eating healthily, getting annual checkups, and exercising.  But ultimately, it is a rare person indeed who never, ever gets sick or injured.  We all have bodies, and we all get sick, sometimes deathly so, because of factors entirely out of our control.

As Americans, we seem fine letting the poor starve, because, well, maybe they should get a job.  But we’re a little more squeamish when it comes to letting them suffer and die of injury or illness.  We value the lives of our fellow beings so much because we are mammals.  The social critter inside of me comes to the forefront, and says, “In this, we will take care of each other.  In this, I could be next.”  Only third world countries let their people die in the streets.  Mass-death from preventable disease is something that only happens in Africa.

So even as individualist as our culture is, we still came up with a plan called “insurance” to collectivize risk.  We accept it because the alternative is “socialism”, and socialism is bad. But in the end, it’s still socialism.

We can never pull collectivism out of healthcare. Those days are long gone.  In retrospect, I am very glad to have not been sick during the first 150 years of this country when only the rich had access to good medical care. As a middle class person who climbed my way up from welfare, who has had a handful of potentially life-threatening illnesses, I would probably not be alive today on a system that did not, in some way, spread my costs to the collective.

You might ask yourself the same question — without collectivized risk, would you be alive and whole today?  Have you ever had an illness or injury that might have become infected or spread out of control had you gotten treatment?  How much did those treatments cost?  Would you have, at that time in your life, been able to pay for it out of pocket?

If not you, then someone in your family?

Conclusion

I feel like a traitor to my ideology, but on this pragmatism wins. I am not a reptile where logic prevails over feeling.  Or perhaps it is my logical side that sees this as an act of enlightened self-interest, since my own survival is at stake.

But I have to conclude our modern society cannot in good conscience remove collectivism from health care.  The debate on this issue today focuses on the looming menace of socialism.  But it, and all of its problems, are already inseparable from our way of life.  When we are unable to see this, it clouds our ability to make rational decisions about our future.

We should move forward with an eye towards reducing, as much as possible, the problems inherent in collectivist systems. What type of collectivist system could we design to minimize the risk and provide the greatest possible good to the health of each individual?  Which system would give the largest number of individuals the greatest amount of freedom?  Which system would best protect individual rights? And since it’s already collective, shouldn’t we aim for one of the few benefits of collectivism, to make sure everyone has care?

Perhaps we keep our beloved insurance system, but with better checks and balances. Perhaps we need more or better state programs. Perhaps someone can think of something new.

But socialized medicine, by whatever name we call it, is here to stay.

A new study from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center is a good indicator of just how poorly conceived drug policy in America is. MSNBC has the AP article here. From the article:

In the study, researchers from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center evaluated 1998-2005 data from the American Association of Poison Control Centers. During that time, nationwide calls related to teen abuse of ADHD drugs, specifically stimulants, increased from 330 to 581 yearly, and there were four deaths. Overall, 42 percent of teens involved had moderate to severe side-effects and most ended up getting emergency-room treatment.

My daughter has fairly intensive ADHD. Adopting a regimen involving Concerta in the morning and Ritalin in the afternoon meant the difference between passing and failing 9th grade. I resisted medicating her for years, and when it was clear that she was making less and less progress in school and in social relationships, I relented. I believe it was the right decision. Her grades went up, she made some friends she could keep, and so long as she took her medication, she stayed on a stable course.

Another reason I decided to put her on medication was based on a study done some years ago that linked ADHD with increased probability of drug abuse and other risky behaviors. It isn’t surprising that kids who are predisposed toward risky behavior and drug abuse will abuse drugs that are handed to them a month’s worth at a time. What is surprising is that despite all of the evidence that ADHD medication can and does kill children, and despite all the evidence that ADHD medication can and does lead children to abuse these drugs, Ritalin is legal and Marijuana is not. While Marijuana has yet to claim an overdose victim, there were 4 deaths from ADHD drug abuse in the study.

Imagine a freer America where Marijuana is controlled to the same degree that ADHD medicine is controlled. In addition to the personal liberty we would enjoy, and the drastically reduced cost of incarcerating those who deal in the substance, we would perhaps see a similar study showing Marijuana abuse, only this time it would not include the deaths of children. A Conservative who believes it is permissible to make ADHD medication available to children despite the chance of abuse and death, yet believes it is impermissible to make Marijuana available to adults is no Conservative at all. Conservatives, after all, deal in reality.

Democratic Congressman Barney Frank has recently introduced yet another bill attempting to adjust drug policy to obvious reality. Conservative Republicans should be the ones introducing this bill, if they want any credibility with those of us who would see drug policy determined by the facts, and not ideology. Ritalin is not going away, and neither is Marijuana. One kills, and the other does not. This is the reality.

“Choice” is a word we hear from talking heads and politicians nearly every time they talk about Health care in America.  President Obama recently declared on talk radio, “Choice, competition, reducing cost, those are the things I want to see accomplished in this health care bill.”  Nancy Pelosi said, “I agree with the president when he said a public option was the best way to keep the insurance companies honest, that it would be the best way to increase competition so that we can lower costs, improve quality of care, retain choice and expand coverage.”

On the other side of the debate, the Republicans have opposed Democrat plans for health care reform, often claiming it would take choice away from the American people.  Representative Paul Ryan claimed the federal bureaucracy would replace “choice and competition.”  Representative Bob Latta claimed “I believe people should have the choice to keep their own insurance, or Health Savings Accounts, if they are satisfied with their coverage and not be subjected to government intrusion into their personal choices.”

Republicans have introduced a plan called “The Patient’s Choice Act of 2009″ that would create state insurance exchanges.  The purpose of these exchanges is to make it easy to compare and select plans.  Apparently they have never heard of http://www.ehealthinsurance.com.  The plan would also… give people money to buy health insurance.  And if you are uninsurable through these plans?  They will do what Washington State did and create a “high risk” pool that would be more expensive, but would still provide coverage.

I decided to see what would happen if I were to exercise my choice in the American Health Care system.  I currently am subscribed to a large insurer through my employer.  They cover my wife and I, but I do not cover my two daughters through this plan.  This is because my wife works at a much larger company than I do, and is also covered by the same insurer on a better plan, and it is much cheaper to cover the children through her company than mine.

My current plan has a yearly deductible of $500, and $4,000 out of pocket maximum.  Let’s see how the my current insurer for individuals does…. wait a minute.  I can’t buy a plan from them because I live in Washington.  Ah, my company is incorporated in another state, that explains it.  Alright, let’s pick the most popular companies in Washington instead.  After running my information through ehealthinsurance.com, I found.

Regence Blue Shield – $1000 Deductible, no max out of pocket… but a $5000 coinsurance max!  That’s close enough, I guess.

Premera Blue Cross -$1000 Deductible, $2000 coinsurance max

Group Health – $500 Deductible, $12,500 out of pocket maximum.  Ouch.

I sent a message to Regence to ask them about pre-existing conditions and whether or not we would be able to be in one of their standard plans.  I received an e-mail from them the next day.    It read:

Thank you for your recent inquiry.

Unfortunately we are not able to provide you an answer until we’ve received the application and Health Questionnaire for each person to be on the plan.

When you apply as a family we look at each individual person separately. In some cases part of a family can be accepted and others declined.  To be eligible for health coverage each person would have to score 324 or less on the Health Questionnaire. The scoring system can be found on www.wship.org.
https://www.wship.org/Docs/SHQ%20Scores%20sort%20by%20number%20-%2001%2021%2008.pdf

is the link to the actual scoring tool so that you don’t have to search for it on www.wship.org.

I urge you all to download this document.  I was able to discover rather quickly that neither my wife, nor one of my daughters would be eligible for private insurance from any of the insurance providers.  My wife is medicated for bi-polar disorder, which immediately gives her a 217 score.  Add to that a 144 point migraine headache, and she is disqualified from receiving treatment.  My daughter is treated for ADHD, that oh-so-commonly diagnosed condition these days.  That starts her off with 276 points.   Add 28 points for hay fever, 33 points for a yeast infection, and she joins the ranks of the uninsurable.  Sorry, Governor Palin, Down’s Syndrome is a condition listed for “automatic denial.”  It appears the “death panels” already exist.

Washington has a plan that provides insurance for the uninsurable.  Before you get too excited, you must realize that the plan is not exactly optimal coverage compared to what we currently have through our employers.  I will guarantee that if any of us needed a transplant, or contracted a degenerative disease, we would not avoid bankruptcy on this plan.  However, it is a plan I could “choose.”  How much would it cost?  $2,080 a month.  If you consider a much lower level of coverage at a cost exceeding 10 times what we currently pay a “choice,” then we have a choice.  Even considering what our employers pay on our behalf, this “choice” is much more expensive.

So if we individuals don’t have a choice, who does?  The insurance companies clearly don’t compete for our dollars.  For whom do they compete?  Our employers.

But not so fast.  Eight months ago, my employer moved from a plan with Met Life to a different one.  They did this because the cost of the Met Life plan was far and away beyond our budget for health care.  I recently discovered that we may have to switch again in January.  The reason?  The premium for our coverage has increased 35% from this same time last year.  Our small company cannot afford a 35% increase in our highest outflow besides payroll.  The corporate controller confided to me that our company doesn’t really have a choice in plans; we are subject to the whims of the market, and whatever plan we can afford.  Another controller I know told me their premium went up 18% in the last year.  I hope I will be able to keep my doctor when our plan changes again.

CNN Money had an excellent piece in January outlining the problem.  It was entitled “Health care:  The hidden business killer“  I would suggest you read it.  Our employers are as enslaved as the rest of us, feeling they have no options, and no choice.

For those of you that believe we have the “best health care in the world,” and you support this belief based on the “choices” you have, I challenge you to do the research.  Ask yourself the questions.  And pray you hold onto your job.  Do we want the system that we have?  An expansion of the system that we have?  Do we actually want more choice?  The only choice we have is a Hobson’s choice:  The first horse, or no horse at all.

Here is what worries me about cynicism – and yes, I am using it in terms of the general usage of the word today, not the philosophy of Cynics of ancient Greece. What concerns me about cynicism in terms of dialogue, especially in the realm of politics and society, is that it is lazy and insincere and hence stops short the process of understanding. It prevents new ways of thinking, new approaches or honestly evaluating past and current approaches. It perpetuates prejudices and hopelessness. The arrogance of it looms so large that real and new problems are totally unnoticed or dismissed as they are just swept into everything that cynicism encompasses.

Here are some of the most egregious examples of cynicism in the United States political environment right now – usually opined by all sorts of pundits and politicians alike:

The government is generally evil and/or causes evil. (I intend to find an example to link here.)

The government must protect people from themselves.

People are lazy.

People will only ever care about themselves. (I intend to find an example to link here.)

The free market and/or capitalism will correct [insert societal/economic/civil ill here].

Corporations and industry will destroy our environment and individuals.

Cynical shortcuts, all of those statements – however these are bedrocks of political dialogue today. They may not use those exact sentences, but if you read or watch the news, listen to pundits and talk show hosts, and listen to politicians you will hear those statements, couched often in code words and phrases (“hard-working Americans” a code phrase that is meant to bring to mind all those non-hardworking Americans or “corporate greed” is a code word to remind you that greedy people just lost Grandma’s retirement and put mercury in all the fish).

Feel free to comment if you would disagree with the cynical nature of any of those comments.

So – what is so good about wisdom? How does wisdom strengthen dialogue? What does wisdom provide that pure intellect or knowledge might miss? Is there such a thing as wisdom, or is it the same as intellect+knowledge? I have a hard time answering this one myself although I have a lot of ideas, and would welcome thoughts on this.

The Republican party as it is today – not as it was when I was growing up in the 80′s and 90′s – disgusts me.

The Democratic party, as always, irritates me.

The Libertarian party, the true conservative party of this day and age, often frightens and yet delights me.

The Green party enrages and also comforts me.

What else is there? The independents? You have to look at them one by one, which I actually enjoy doing as it seems to me to be what you always ought to do in a democracy although it frequently seems all of a sameness.

I have a tendency to look at them all and see myself – my hopes and dreams, my naivete, hypocrisy and prejudices – mirrored right back at me because in the end I cannot identify with any, and they constantly remind me why.

I have a fundamental, real-world experience with the rhetoric and policies of the Republican (old and new) and Democratic parties. I have a basic understanding of Libertarian and Green Party policies and rhetoric from my own past flirtation with both parties, plenty of family/friend debating and analyzing and a recent review of specific party platforms.

I never do like labels of any sort, so sometimes I have wondered if that alone might be a prejudice against them. That is why I started tonight with a review of platforms. I wanted to see if I could find something that I could logically and rationally be concerned with, to the point where I could not tolerate being associated with them. And I found them.

I also re-reviewed the philosophy of anarchy. I generally end up using that word to describe my own stance (using this definition “A social state in which there is no governing person or group of persons, but each individual has absolute liberty (without the implication of disorder)”), adding the modifier of “practical” in front of it. I think that if I’m going to use that description it needs that kind of modifier. True anarchy does not seem to work for any sustainable amount of time or for large groups of people crammed together. Neither does it seem capable of dealing with industrialization and the entities of corporations, and the structure of the United States today. This is also rather unsatisfying.

Now make no mistake – the title of this entry is by no means questioning whether or not examining all of the options and determining whether or not I agree with them is wise or cynical. This is quite obviously wise to my mind and no argument to the contrary will sway me.

The crux of the title centers around the fact that my rational reasons to disagree with all of those parties has allowed me to disassociate with any party and its activies. I have no desire to really talk to any of the leaders of those parties to make my views heard nor to participate in rational and/or emotional dialogue with the people of those parties who are active in governing.

Is this cynicism? Am I making the cynical assumption that anyone I talk to would never come to any sort of understanding, much less agreement? Am I right – that participating in actual dialogue with real political leaders would cause me to become so cynical about the people and nature of politics and that it might cause me to disassociate even further? Could it drive me to the point of deliberate inattention and refusal to talk about this to people who are in my sphere? Would it truly be rank hypocrisy to join whichever party that would make me feel the least dirty – just so I could do any-kind-of-something about the things that I agree with them on?

Or is it wisdom? Is it really not worth my time? Should I just keep pondering, argue and discuss and analyze with friends and family, teach my children the nature of this world we live in as I perceive it? Write about it?

The absurd thing about posing this question is that even if someone were to say something utterly brilliant, that totally illuminated the cynicism of my position, I still won’t do anything about it any time soon. Even though I loathe cynicism in myself and others (another prejudice and hypocrisy, two for one right there) I don’t currently have the motivation to truly participate right now.

And conversely, even if someone were to say something equally brilliant about how wise my current path of relative isolation from activism really is, I would always wonder if I should still be more active in grassroots politics.

I think the real reason I am writing on this topic to start is to try set out some baseline expectations for myself of what I want to really get into. Firstly, that I have profound emotional and intellectual disagreements with all of the political parties of any stature currently in the United States and I do really want to get into that. Secondly, I am on a search for something to help me find a way to encourage in our political environment what I really want to see – thoughtfulness, rationality and a fair portion of intellect, understanding of human nature, understanding of power and it’s effects on the economy, race, politics, security, diplomacy, true humility and the nature of forgiveness combined with wisdom.

I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.  –Ronald Reagan

The Government of the United States controls a great deal more of our lives than the founders would have ever imagined.  And while the Republicans make a show of limiting the power and control of government, they are as guilty as the Democrats they rail against on a daily basis.  One need look no further than this decade to realize this is the truth.

One of the greatest hypocrisies of the Republican party is its focus on the “protection” of “traditional marriage.” If I were to describe for you a tyrannical state such as the former Soviet Union, or Red China, would you shake your head in disbelief when I say that the state even controls whom its populace may marry?  If I were to describe for you the arranged marriages of history and even today in less civilized countries, would you not become enraged over the intervention of the state in this manner?

The Founders laid out for us the groundwork for a Federalist nation, where the States were given the power to regulate anything not enumerated in the Constitution.  Yet, the Federal Defense of Marriage Act removes from the states their power to make this crucial decision.  And those “stalwart defenders of Federalism” continue to push their tyranny down the throats of a populace that no longer desires it, if polls are to be believed.

There is certainly a conservative argument to be made for preserving those traditions that have served us well.  Yet, I cannot believe that subservience to tradition should trump our desire for the government to leave us alone to pursue our own happiness.  While we may be prepared to agree that a generation of youth addicted to video games and general sloth is quite detrimental to society, we would quite rightly revolt at the government mandating how we raise our children.  Yet we surrender our freedom to choose who we marry without a second thought, and worse still, we fight to impose this government control on our fellow Americans.

In this sense, we conservatives should be fighting for less government intervention, less government control, more freedom for the individual, more liberty for all.  We should not allow ourselves to be beguiled by the religious or the zealots; we should maintain our first principles.  We should be fighting for liberty.

We should stand up to Madame Pelosi, and tell her to get out of our business.  We should stand up to President Obama, and tell him to allow us to choose how our families shall be arranged.  We should not allow career politicians to determine the courses of our myriad lives.

Free Marriage for all, on the terms of the individual, not prescribed by the State.  This is my plea.  I leave you with this quote from Barry Goldwater.

The Conservative looks upon politics as the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order. The Conservative is the first to understand that the practice of freedom requires the establishment of order: it is impossible for one man to be free if another is able to deny him the exercise of his freedom. But the Conservative also recognizes that the polical power on which order is based is a self-aggrandizing force; that its appetite grows with eating.  — Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative

Tim Wise, an anti-racist writer and speaker, was recently on CNN to comment on the racial subtext present in much of the opposition to Obama and his domestic agenda (we also covered this in “American Idiot: Obama, Socialism, and the Soft-Pedaling of Racism“):

Unsurprisingly, he received some less-than-friendly feedback which he recounts on his blog (the first one is downright cordial compared to others mentioned):

‘How dare you say this is about racism!’

And a pleasant Monday to you too sunshine, I thought, as I stared at my computer screen this morning, reading over the first e-mail of the day.

It was from someone who had apparently seen my presentation on CNN last night, in which I explained why racism is indeed a driving force behind the outpouring of anger we’ve been seeing…”
Read the rest in “Racism, Right-Wing Rage and the Politics of White Nostalgia“

While you’re there, check out his other two excellent articles on the subject:

• Sick Heil: Racial Paranoia, White Victimology and the Hitlerizing of Obama, and
• Red-Baiting and Racism: Socialism as the New Black Bogeyman

Hopefully, Tim will get more opportunities to speak in the mainstream media; it’s past time we had  articulate anti-racists on the news. I’ve seen him in action many times over the years, and he’d tear the average race-baiting talking head to shreds.

William Kostric bearing arms with this sign sets gun rights back a notch

I like to think the Founders put the Bill of Rights in the order they did for a reason.  The First Amendment comes first because freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and so on are the most basic of human rights.  Then we need the Second Amendment to help us protect those rights, through use of force if necessary.

I’m just as big a fan of the Bill of Rights as the next gal.  But when the segment of our population most interested in protecting those rights is the segment most Out Of Their Minds at the moment, it seems to set the cause back just a bit.

We’ve already discussed here on this blog how those people seem to be using their free speech right to generate some of the best modern expressions of the absurd.  In a “nut” shell, they are wasting their platform to protest against fantasies and illusions, instead of bringing up a good points about something they can actually change.  Reality for instance.  Abuse of Amendment 1, already covered.

Let’s move on to Amendment 2.

Look, William Kostric.  First of all, congrats for being brave enough to go up against Chris Matthews on Hardball.  I absolutely hate that guy, because he tears down his opponent with verbal bludgeons and psychological trickery before he lets them say their piece. I would never accept an interview him. Kudos for not letting him get to you and for explaining your case as best you could.

And I totally understand your points.  The Bill of Rights doesn’t just say the right to keep arms, but keep and bear arms. I get that.  Guns are kind of useless if they’re locked up at home.

And I get the concept of doing something simply because you have the right to, and making sure to exercise rights in order not to lose them. That’s why I bought a handgun 8 years ago and still have it.

And I understand your point about how the law and culture in New Hampshire fully permits open display of weaponry without anyone batting an eye.  Free State Project, and all that.  I’ve even considered joining you guys there. Cool, fine.

And I totally get your point that public perception of guns is probably way skewed, and that maybe if more nice people open-carried guns more often, maybe everyone else would mellow out a bit.

But I’m sorry, William. You totally lost the public perception game this time. -1000 points for our side. Michale Moore couldn’t have done a better job at getting people to hate guns.  Hell, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold themselves couldn’t have made firearms seem more scary.

It’s not that you openly wore a gun on your leg on private property in New Hampshire.  It’s not that you were within sight of building where the President spoke when you wore it. It’s not that you protest the President’s views on recent issues.  No, no it’s none of those things.

It’s the sign, William.  The sign.  The sign would have been just fine all by itself. Free speech and all, and I love Thomas Jefferson so dearly.  But you had the sign, and the gun, and the current President nearby.

The sign read, “It is time to water the tree of liberty”.  Not the actual quote, which reads, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”  No, specifically “It is time” to water the tree.

Not some theoretical distant time in the future. Not some reference to blood spilt in the past. No, you said it is time. Right now. To water the tree. With blood. While you are carrying a ranged weapon. In proximity to the President. That your peers have been calling a Socialist, a Nazi, a Terrorist… a tyrant.  You might as well have held up a sign that says, “Guns don’t kill people… I DO.”

This, sir, was no patriotic act. It was not a defense of your right to bear arms. No, Mr. Kostric, you set us back. Further sullied the image of bearing arms. Further relegated it to the pastime of crazies, extremists, fundamentalists, and people who would put passion for principle far above common sense.

If you were a patriot, you would respect the President, even if you do not agree with him. You would expect him to do his best to fulfill his oath of office, to defend the Constitution, until such time as he actually proves otherwise. You would follow due process, as outlined in the rest of the constitution, to have your voice be heard. And you would do so with reason and common sense, in honor of those rational Founders who wrote that quote you reference, who ensured that right you enjoy.

Thomas Jefferson was right about needing revolutions now and then. And we’ve had them. We’ve had many revolutions since 1776. And while they haven’t been bloodless, there has been less blood than you might expect, because that Constitution worked perhaps a little better than the Founders had hoped.  For the most part, our revolutions have followed due process.  The killings came during riots, protests, and yes, even assassinations.  But the majority of the blood spilt was unfortunately of the innocent, the patriots if you will — those brave enough to stand up for important new ideas, or for the rights of those who had been ignored.

Those revolutions were about change, not about keeping things the same.

To the guy who dropped his gun at a political meeting in Arizona, you have given evidence to the American public that those who bear arms are clumsy and know nothing about gun safety, reinforcing everything they’ve heard about accidental gun deaths. Or was it intentional? Like Mr. Kostric’s sign, does it imply a veiled threat? An Appeal to Force? Do what we say or we will kill you?

It makes me wonder here, which of you are the patriots, and which the tyrants?

I am not a pacifist, just a libertarian who remembers one basic principle: Never initiate force or fraud or threat of either.  When force or fraud is committed against me, I am willing to retaliate in kind, but I make awfully damned sure of who did the initiating, and make awfully damned sure I have exhausted every other course of action.

If any of you gun nuts decides you’ve finally had enough, that it’s time to fire the first shot, please stop and consider how much damage you will do to the cause of gun rights. Please do not generate more evidence for the other side. Stop trying to prove that Guns Are Only Good For Killing People.

8/18 UPDATE: This is becoming a fad.  Yesterday, 12 armed men showed up to an Arizona protest, again within proximity of the President. One carried an AR-15 assault rifle. What are you trying to prove again? No one is actually talking about gun control right now. It’s not on the agenda. Obama hasn’t said word one about guns.

But since you brought it up, you’re not making any liberals think, “hm, maybe guns are a good idea after all”. You’re making them ask, “and why do these states have the right to allow loaded assault rifles anywhere near the President?”