KILLER U-TURN

Years and years ago, morality was entwined with the Ten Commandments.  They spelled out what was a code of morality: don't steal, don't kill, don't bear false witness, etc.  And the payoff was clear and personal:  Obey the Commandments and they would be your admission ticket to Heaven.  And the alternative was equally clear and personal: eternity in the Inferno.

During the past 2,000 years, morality has taken a U-turn.  Doing the right thing, being moral, has come to be not something one does for oneself, but one does for others.  How could our interactive society survive, is the common refrain, if we all did whatever we wanted to do, if everybody went his/her own way?  There has to be certain rules, restrictions.  There has to be a moral code of behavior.

The problem with that view is that it runs up against this argument:  Why should I do what's right, why should I toe the line, when no one else is?  Doggie dog world.  If its good for him, its good for me.  I ain't no fool.  Get what you can when you can, and the winner is the one who gets away with the most.

And thus the precipitous decline of morality in a world heading toward its self-inflicted Armageddon.  Check yesterday's headlines, today's headlines. tomorrow's.

Morality is a code of pro-life conduct.  It benefits you, the individual, not indirectly because it benefits society, but directly because it benefits your life.  Productivity, integrity, rationality, honesty, justice, independence and pride (the Objectivist virtues) are moral virtues because they enrich your life here and now, in this world, regardless of your participation in society, regardless of what the other guy does or doesn't do. It has been said that if a man on a desert island were not moral, he could not survive for very long.

Can you sit down with your children this afternoon and convincingly explain to them why this is so?

Now you know the problem.

UNREAL REAL ESTATE TAXES

I received a new real estate tax bill in the mail and saw to my chagrin that over 60% of it is earmarked for our town's public school system.

Now, a couple of preliminary points:

1.  The government should not be in the educational business.  Nothing in our Constitution to sustain it.  And turning the decision as to what should be taught our children over to politicos untrained in education is as foolish and dangerous as is imaginable.

2.  All taxes are a forceful taking of property and a violation of our Constitutionally-protected rights.

3.  It is illogical to ask "What is the right way to do something wrong?"  E.g., what is the proper length of a lynch mob's rope?

Having said all that, I now say this:  It is an absurdity that I be required to pay for the public school system when I have no kids in school.  My family is not using this "free" government service.  Ignoring #3 above, those that are using the service should pay for it, no?  Should I pay highway tolls when I don't ride the highways?  Ignoring #3 again, the government should charge those who avail themselves of government services, and not those who don't.

Further:  does it make any sense that the higher the value of one's real property, the more one pays for the schools (and everything else).  The two are not connected.  One could be a multimillionaire, own no real property, and pay the big fat Zero.  And one could own real property, yet be impoverished, and pay a bundle.

Taxes are wrong and have no place in a free society.  B ut they are here and will very likely remain here.  Can't we, shouldn't we, try to see if we can imbue them with a drop of smarts?

(I forgot.  What do smarts have to do with our public education system?)

CUSTOMER SERVICE RAP

 Here is the new phony language of the Customer Service Representative.  It is the robot-like song-and-dance you are victim to when you call any major company to inquire about its product/service, question an invoice they have sent, etc.

Listen to the music:

"Thank you for calling XYZ Corporation"
(Can't you figure this out by yourself?)

"If you would like to continue in English, press 1"
(I hope you didn't understand what I just said)

"If you would like to continue in Spanish, empuja dos"
(And I won't have to handle your annying, complaining call)

"This call may be monitored or taped for quality purposes"
("May be" means 1 in 17,000)

"Your estimated wait time is about 5 minutes"
(How would we know?)

"Pay close attention as our options have changed"
(Changed them some time in 1998.  But it spreads out the call and we take fewer calls each day)

"Please key in or speak your 22-digit account number"
(About 30& of our calls can't find it and have to hang up+
"It's in the lower left hand corner of your bimonthly statement "
(Love that one, too, no one ever has it)

"Did you say 233967545637530098H55?"
(Probably not)

"I can't hear you, I will have to transfer you"
(That' was a short one)


"Who am I speaking with?"
(They're all  the same)

"For confirmation purposes, what is your last 4?"
(No, not children)

"And what number are you calling from?"
(As if my Call Waiting isn't working today)

"What's your mother's maiden name?"
(Was she ever a maidenBut you shouldn't give that out over the phone)

"How can I help you?"
(Quick, I'm already late for lunch)

"Oh, I have to transfer you to another department.  Thank you"
(Whew, really hungry, maybe sushi today)

"If you get disconnected..."
(Which you probably will)

"...call back"
(Just joking).

BBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRing

THE FDA

The federal government oversteps its constitutional bounds (what's new?) when, through the FDA, it restricts what medicines we can lawfully take.  To cure my ailment, I can swallow defecation and a thousand other self-prescribed "medications"...but I can't take a drug prepared by a major pharmaceutical company after investing millions of research dollars until the FDA (Forbidden, Dumb Americans) says it is safe for me to take.

And no, I cannot take that drug even if I assume all responsibility and sign a release in triplicate absolving everyone from any harm that drug may cause me.  The FDA (Federal Dictator Agency) is determined to keep me safe from myself.

And therein is the error.  The function of our government is not to keep us safe from ourselves.  Quite the contrary.  It is to protect our right to live our lives as we choose...it's called freedom.  The government's function is to keep us safe from OTHERS who would use force against us to deny us our freedom..

People facing terminal illness and immediate death have been denied the right to take new experimental drugs.  Why?  They might cause harm!,  says the FDA (Foolish Damn Absurdity).

Time to FDA (Forever Demolish Altogether) the FDA (Freedom Denying Arrogants).

COVET NOT

"Jarenc," said the young god Amera to his friend,  "I have 9 commandments, I need one more, it will make the tablets look better, more balanced, 5 and 5.  What do you think of this:  'Thou shalt not lie."

"No, no, dear friend, there is great fun in lying, in getting away with things.  I wouldn't want to have to punish the People for enjoying their life.  That's the purpose of life, isn't it?"

"Ok, what about: 'Thou shalt believe that the world revolves around yourself."

"No,no.  The god Solar wants everyone to think the world revolves him, and I don't want to fight with Solar."

"How about: 'Thou shalt think rationally."

"Ha, ha, "chuckled Jarenc, "I don't think so.  We do need some people to get into heaven, don't we?"

" 'Thou shalt not be proud'.  D you like it?"

"I love it.  The people wo break that commandment will be happy about what they did, and we can have the other non-proud people ostracize them.  I love it.  It is a great commandment.  Which is why we should feel good for having thought of it."

"We?  You did not think of it, Jarenc.  I did.  This is totally my idea, and I deserve full credit for it..  You shouldn't want to take any credit for what is my idea."

"Why not?  I deserve the credit as much as you do.  I want that credit.  Why should you have it all to yourself?  It's our game,isn't it?"

And Arema and Jarenc lost their friendship.

And so the 10th commandment came to be:

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his servant, , nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's."

LOOK OUT FOR LOOKING OUT

I thought that the hippie generation starting in the 1950's was, although I was not directly a part of it, a good thing.  It was, it seemed to me, to be a call to individuality. "Do your own thing...whatever.  No social restraints.  Everything goes.  Live YOUR life."  And to some extent, that is what happened.

But then along came the internet, and...wham!...the pendulum has swung completely around, away from individuality and pointing today totally outward to a world of conformity more inclusive, more expansive, then pre-hippies ever knew or could ever imagine.  From what I see and hear, youngsters today measure themseles in every imaginable way by others, by what others are doing, by what others have.  It results in nonstop competition that can never be won.  Making everyone, everyone, losers.

"I only have 550 friends on facebook...most kids I know have close to a thousand."

"My ipod is out of date., it only has 1200 apps...new ones have over 3,000."

"I make $9 an hour...some of the guys make nine fifty or ten".

"Check the internet.  See what people are saying, the way it's done these days, the way you must do it if you want to make it in the world."

Can't win.  While conformity in the old days was with the few in the neighborhood, it is now aimed toward a global standard of seven billion others.

Can't win.   It is no longer a question whether the glass is half full or half empty...it is a third full and leaking.

Can't win.  There is always MORE.

There are to be sure some unique benefits to being in touch with the world...but none at the cost of losing one's self.  There are to be sure advantages to be gained from others, but none at the price of losing one's own identity, one's personal values.

With the help (?) of modern technology, the herd--horde--is now stampeding itself.

In the 1967 Broadway musical Hair, touting the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, one of the new age's dominant features is said to be "the mind's true liberation".

Waiting.

OR

Arema and Jarenc, two very young gods, hovered in the stratosphere, and contemplated the universe.  It. was complete.  They had nothing to do.

Arema was suddenly inspired.

"Let us create a new world to place in the universe, a world totally different from all others we have created.  Let us infuse this world with irony, contradictions, antithesis, perversity, paradox and ambiguity. It will be fun.

"I shall begin by creating little bits of life...people, I shall call them...millions of them, to inhabit and rule this new world."

"Let us give them great intelligence, like ours," said Jarenc, "but keep from them the answer to what will be their most perplexing question: What is the purpose of  life?  It will frustrate them not to know, though the answer be close at hand.  It is, of course, as it is ours:  to be exhilarated by being alive and  to rejoice."

"Let us give them more of our god-like powers.  I give them the power of choice."

"And I," said Jarenc, "shall include the seemingly pleasurable choice  to choose not to choose.  Ha ha."

"Jarenc, you are a devil.  I give them endless desire to enrich their lives."

"And I offer them laziness."

"They will have our power to create."

"And, of course, to destroy."

"To love."

"And to hate."

"To be good."

"To be evil."

"It will be fun to see how their life unfolds, what they choose or fail to choose..  We must not interfere. Should we let them come to know, Jarenc, that it is but a game?"

"No, the fun is in their thinking otherwise, they must think everything is important or they may choose not to play our game, and how then shall we spend our eternal time, Arema?"

And so it came to pass that Earth was formed, and People came to be, with the unrecognized powers of gods...and the choice not to use them..

And Arema and Jarenc saw all they had made and behold it was very good.