Thursday, March 21, 2013

Another Mans Shoes


     Present a problem to ten different people that do not know each other and ask them too independently without consultation put forth a solution. In all likelihood you get back ten different ways to solve the problem. Now present those solutions to ten different people independently that meet the same criteria and ask them to select the best solution by numbering 1-10 w/# 1 being the best. In all likelihood you will not get a consensus for any of the ten solutions. The point being; that people don’t think the same in specific terms nor will they agree in the same specific manner absent influencing each other. So it is with human nature.
   The past (history) is or should be an accurate accounting of events minus the opinions of causal effects unless we just want to repeat them also. We have to make the same choices of history under the same conditions that were present back then; we can never have any certainty that our choices will make any difference as too the result of our actions.
   In today’s world and societies when children commit unacceptable acts we lessen their blame or responsibility based on their youthful ignorance and capacity to understand the gravity of their actions. The historical choices of man should also be in like fashion, to consider man’s maturity on the specifics of history. Even in today’s so called modern world, man is still grappling with and repeating many of the same misplaced choices and judgments of history that we never understood all along the way from then till now.
   Much of it has to do with the perspective of the powers that be at any given time. The powers that be could have been the individual? Ethnicity?, king?, president?, union? Etc; for example; from the prospective of a king, slavery is a good thing if done right and excludes specific ethnicities or classes whereas from an individual perspective it’s only good if their specific ethnicity or class is excluded from slavery and so on. History has never played favorites at one time or another on slavery it all boiled down to the choices of the powers that be yesterday, today or tomorrow.
   GAP

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Freedom; what it is, and what it is not.


                              Freedom; what it is, and what it is not.


   Unadulterated freedom is an unattainable goal; that is what the founders of America knew and understood, which was their impetus behind the documents that established our great nation. They also knew that one of the primary driving forces in human nature is the unconscious desire to be truly free. This meant to them that mankind if totally left completely unrestricted would pursue all things in life without any awareness or acknowledgement of the consequences of his/her own actions leaving only the individual conscience if they had one as a control on behavior. This would not bode well in the development of a great society. Yet the founders of America chose to allow men/women as much liberty as could be, with minimum impact on the freedom or liberties of others.
   In this light the government at all levels has lost sight by the introduction of laws that changes us from the freest nation on earth into a nation of serfs. This raises the question about the purpose or value of laws beyond those set forth in our founding.
   A law does not make a person behave in any specific way; it only represents a threat of reprisal and cannot stop a free person from taking the liberty to violate it. The sum of more laws only means more punishments and imprisonment to be carried-out by the government on the free people of our nation. Our laws should be more like; “don’t sweat the small violations and all violations are small”. Did or have you ever considered why the founders didn’t create a civil or federal police force and left policing if necessary to we the people. That as we as a nation grew we didn’t create law enforcement agencies we created police agencies for the purpose of keeping the peace, not enforcing the laws but to protect us from violence and crime and investigation, where law enforcement was strictly the purview of the legal system and the courts.
   Today our government has changed policing into surveillance of everything we do, and call it law enforcement that’s what is called a “police state” which no longer allows the liberty of being free people.
   I view myself as a free person and if someone or group approaches me in an aggressive manner and worse yet is armed I will perceive it as a threat and will aggressively defend myself, and a uniform or badge is not a permission slip for such behavior. GAP
P.S. America is a nation that desperately needs to be reset and rebooted.