How the System Works

The uneasy feeling that many Americans have, that their country has
changed, but they can't put their finger on how or why...and the outrage that
many have with how Washington politicians do business, is based on the
common sense intuition that they're getting hosed.  It's a free country, but
it's been getting less and less free for many years.

That America was the only country in the world founded on the  unique
concept that there were freedoms and rights that belonged either to individuals,
or to the states that those individuals resided in, and did NOT belong to the
federal government, was what made it exceptional.

But gradually, bit by bit over many years, the federal government has
crept into control of many areas that were never intended to be
regulated by Washington.

Education was supposed to be controlled by the individual states and/or
by local communities.

Welfare was supposed to be a state program.  It was never supposed to
funded by, or mandated from, Washington.  How did that happen?

Healthcare was never supposed to be mandated and funded from our
nation's capital, but it gradually became a federal program imposed on
states by Obamacare.

Granted, all these programs were created with the best of intentions.  They
were designed to deal with real problems that people had, and they
helped many people, by forcefully taking money from many more people.

But they were not problems that the federal government was supposed to
solve...they were supposed to be handled at the state level, and one of
the unintended (or maybe intended) consequences of federalizing these
problems is that power came to be consolidated in Washington.

How did Washington consolidate that power?  By using the power to tax
the American people to accumulate enough money to influence (bribe?)
the states and local communities to follow their suggestions (orders?).

It's ironic that the feds tax the citizens of the states in order to raise the
money that the feds give back to the states...and that money gives the 
feds control of the programs and the ability to regulate them. That's how
power ends up in Washington, even if that power was, Constitutionally,
never supposed to reside there.

And the really sad part of this is that many (if not all) of the states ceded
this power to the feds voluntarily.  Local politicians knew there were
limits to the amount of taxes their local citizens would stand to pay for
these programs, and, if they pushed too hard for higher taxes, they
could be on the street after the next election.

It was easier to take the money, and the orders, from the Feds.  Now,
Washington has the power, and the responsibility for dealing with a
national debt that continues to rise and rise.

How do I know that this is a power issue between the feds and the states?
Because no Washington politician (NONE, not even ONE) EVER talks
about returning the responsibility for raising the money that funds these
programs to the states or local communities.

In the Halls of Congress, no Democrat or Republican, no Liberal or
Conservative, ever suggests that the federal government should lower
the federal tax rate and eliminate funding these programs to pass the
control and responsibility back to the states, where it originally belonged.
The feds still want to collect those taxes, and keep that control.

The most radical comment you'll get out of Congress is an occasional
Conservative who calls for returning the money to the states in a "block
grant" so that the states can "spend it as they see fit"...as if the states
won't figure out where the money is coming from and continue to worry about
what Washington feels is "the fit way to spend the money".

There's an old saying in business about the "golden rule".  "He who has the gold,
sets the rules."  That applies equally well to the federal government's power to tax,
regulate, and control.

It's time to revisit the original principles our federal government was founded upon,
and begin to roll back the leviathan to a more limited, fiscally responsible, and
sustainable form.        

 

  






 

  

The Eleventh Commandment

One can make a case for the existence of a higher form of higher
intelligence or life, but it's another thing altogether for a mere human
to attempt to explain the purpose of the creation.

By definition, a monkey cannot explain Beethoven, and a human cannot
understand or comprehend a "God", whatever name He (or She) is given.

The purpose of "The Poor Man's Philosophy" (especially the first fifteen
posts, from "The Beginning" to "The End of the Beginning")  has never
been to explain or understand the nature of the higher being.

The purpose of the philosophy has always been to look at the universe
that was created around us, and search it for clues and laws to help us
better understand the universe around us, and to better understand the
nature of Man.

And the purpose of that search is to help us live more peacefully together,
to allow each of us to more fully reach our own potential, and to give each
of us the satisfaction of a fulfilling life lived well.

All the talk about "the arational mind" or "universal morality" or
"the implicit if" in the earlier posts are about another way of looking
at the human condition and the world around us.

Similarly, for centuries, Religions have provided comfort, purpose,
meaning, and morality in the lives of millions.  At the same time,
Religions have also sparked conflict, wars, and suffering as millions
also sought to impose their version of "God's Will" on others.

"Poor Man's Philosophy" has always felt that each individual has the
right to choose the religion (or not) that inspires them, but does not
have the right for force others to agree with that choice.

The Jewish and Christian religions have "The Ten Commandants" as
a bastion of their morality.  It's a great moral guide.  And I'm a Christian.
But I wish we had an eleventh commandment..."Thou shalt not force
thy Religion on others".

How different the world would be if all Religions had those eight words
as one of their guiding principles.  How much death, suffering, and
misery would have been eliminated in generations past?  How much
would be eliminated this year?

Is it too much to ask of a Religion?  Is it too much to ask of you?  Is
it too late to ask the question, or should we start asking it now?

  


  

Does God Exist? Does Science Know?

Someone once said something to the effect of "if you set a monkey in
front of a piano for a long enough time, it would eventually be able to
randomly plink the keys to come up with the "Moonlight Sonata"."

Statistically, that may be true...just as, statistically, you might be able to
jump out of a flying airplane and survive, but no one in their right mind
would attempt it without a parachute.

And, inductive reasoning would lead you to deduce that it was impossible
for a monkey (or team of monkeys) to invent the piano...or to come up
with written music to memorialize the sonata for others to reproduce and play.

It is logical to deduce that it would take a "higher" form of "being" or
"intelligence" or "life" to bring such complicated and analytical creations
to fruition.  Lo and behold, humans evolved, and the impossible became
possible.

But, if that monkey were listening to the "Moonlight Sonata" come over a
speaker, and had just a glimmering of intelligence to recognize that it was
impossible for him to create such a beautiful sound, wouldn't it be logical
for him to attribute it to "God", or "Allah", or some other being with a
capacity for creation far beyond his own?  And wouldn't he be right?

Enter our scientists today.  For generations we have been studying the
nature of the world and universe around us.  For generations, we have been
breaking the world down beyond atoms into smaller and smaller
particles, yet they all can be explained as existing logically under the
rules of mathematics, gravity, mass, etc.

For generations, we've been recognizing that the universe is much larger
and expansive than we ever imagined, yet this can be explained logically
under rational scientific rules.  We can mathematically plot travel to other
worlds and back. 

But, for all of our scientific breakthroughs, what we have really found is
that there is rhyme and reason to the universe, and that we can expand
our knowledge by studying and using the laws of nature.

We're still at the stage of the monkey listening to the "Moonlight Sonata"
and wondering how, or why, or from where, did it come.  We have enough
intelligence to study how such a complicated, amazing, logical creation as
the universe operates, but not enough intelligence to comprehend how, and
why, it came into existence before we were here to create it.

Just as Man is the higher form of life than a monkey, isn't it logical to
attribute a higher form of Being than Man to have created the universe before
Man existed?

Perhaps it takes inductive reasoning rather than deductive reasoning to reach
this conclusion.  But, until our scientists can (1) show us how to create something
from nothing, and (2) can show us not just that all the random things and places
in the universe follow logical laws of nature, but why and how those laws
came into existence, what other logical explanation is there?

Actually, as more and more of our scientists find that the universe follows rational
and logical laws, the more it would lead a logical person to believe that such a
system had to have been designed.  It would be next to impossible to happen
in a haphazard manner.

Just as a monkey cannot comprehend what a human can do, a man cannot
comprehend what a higher form of life (or being) can do.  Eventually, we
may evolve to a higher level of understanding, but, at present, the best we
can do is induce that there must be that higher level.

As hard as that may be for a proud, "I'm the center of the universe", human
to admit, it makes sense that there is a higher power.

We cannot know what that higher level is, but it's logical that
there is such a level.  Whether we call that level God, Allah, Nature, the
Spirit of Life, or some other name doesn't matter.  

We can argue about what that higher level expects or asks from us
(maybe something, maybe nothing), but to achieve happiness and
understanding in life, one must first start from an understanding of one's
place in the big scheme of things.