In this section I like to comment on events in the world, in my life, and in my readings which have come up during the month. These are things I might have shared with you in person, if we had had the opportunity to converse during the month. If we did, then you may recognize my words. If I say some things here which upset you, rest assured that you may skip over these for the very reason that I would likely have not brought up the subject to spoil our time together in person.
In this section I like to comment on events in the world, in my life, and in my reading which have come up during the month. These are things I might have shared with you if we had had the opportunity to converse during the month. If I say some things here which upset you, rest assured that you may skip over these for the very reason that I would have not brought up the subject to spoil our time together in person.
1. Coercion Identified as the Source of Oppression
From: The Federalist Patriot
Founders' Quote Daily of November 17, 2004:
"Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression." --James Madison
James Madison was thinking about “government” in the only way that "governments" existed in his time, and for that matter, in our time, up until now. The so-called "governments" exist today with a “real power” that lies in coercion, and that is what leads us inexorably to “the danger of oppression.”
What if a government existed in which its real power were to lie in each individual to make choices which were voluntarily limited to choices which affected only derivatives of their own life? Such a real power would eliminate the danger of oppression. Oppression necessarily presupposes actions which affect other people’s lives or the derivatives thereof.
From my Cassel’s Concise Dictionary:
Oppress v.t. 1 to tyrannize over, to keep subservient. 2. To inflict hardships, cruelties, or exactions upon, to govern cruelly or unjustly
What is meant by “derivatives of one’s life”? It means one’s thoughts and ideas, and it means everything one acquires in one’s lifetime. This way of looking at one’s life and derivatives thereof was formulated by Dr. Andrew Joseph Galambos in his operational definition of “property”, which established the basis for his operational definition of freedom. An operational definition, simply put, is one which specifies operations you can perform to determine if some thing or situation fits the definition. His definition of property is this: “Property is a person’s life and all non-procreative derivatives thereof.” (Offspring are excluded as property.)
Property is a loaded word for many people exactly because of the coercive abuses to which property has historically been subjected. It was those abuses stemming from coercion which led James Madison to warn about the oppression that can arise from the government of his time. There is no need to warn about the possibility of oppression from coercive governments today, as it is the only form of government extant, and every one should know of the possibility from personal exposure to such so-called governments. It is the only way in which “government” can be conceived to operate, up until now. Up until Dr. Galambos and his landmark lectures on Volitional Science. It was these lectures which established the basis for true government in which the “real power” is the absence of coercion, and, as such, creates the possibility for a government which cannot, by definition, result in oppression.
One would think that everyone who claims to be against oppression would open their arms to such a concept, and one would be underestimating the forces of coercion which pervade society’s thoughts and mores. One can hear the rabble-rousers and the ignorant chant: “It’s never been done.” “It can’t be done.” “We already have the best government possible.” “Who would control it?” “It would be subject to all kinds of abuses.” “It sounds like Utopia.” “The people would never buy it.” And so on.
In his introductory course on Volitional Science, V50T, Dr. Galambos answers all the questions and lays out the basis for a non-coercive government. If you have even a glimmer that this might be possible, read his new book which is a complete transcript of the lecture course which was given around the country and world to about 50,000 people by my estimate, and decide for yourself. For an introduction to the book, read my review of it here: Sic Itur Ad Astra. When I drew the cartoon above, no such book existed. Today it can be obtained for about one-fifth of the cost of the course I took in 1982 from any large on-line bookseller.
If you agree that coercion is clearly the source of oppression, then it should be clear to you that the removal of coercion will lead to the removal of oppression. And that removal will come about when one begins to understand this other operational definition promulgated by Dr. Galambos:
"Freedom is the societal condition which exists when everyone has 100% control over all non-procreative derivatives of their own life."
If, instead, you lose faith that freedom from coercion will ever be built, I remind you that what is possible for the flights of human thought often takes a long time to reach those who teach in the highest thinking institutions in our country. No single event epitomizes that situation so well as the words of the famous academician, Professor Newcomb, who swore, "Man will never achieve heavier-than-air flight," some days after the Wright Brothers, Orville and Wilbur, had already accomplished that very deed! Look carefully around you and you may begin to find that some people are already achieving the flight of freedom that the highest academics today will swear is impossible.
2. Lame Duck Congress, not President
Last night while watching the post-election folderol, I heard this bit by ABC Political Analyst, Mark Helprin, interviewed on CNN, I think it was, “Bush will be a lame duck president.” The tone of his remarks was that President Bush will have trouble for the next several months before the inauguration. The interviewer accepted his remarks and agreed with his comments. Something struck me as strange — a lame duck office-holder is one who holds office for a period of time after being voted out of office. My Webster’s agreed with my initial thought. This was an underhanded, even if unconscious, slap at the sitting president, a slap which the interviewer and the channel doing the broadcast were in cahoots with. ( Note: I have since seen references in the newspaper to “Bush's Lame Duck Term” which is a far s t r e t c h of the term “lame duck” to extend it to an entire elected term one has just won rather than simply the unexpired term before one leaves office after losing an election.)
Now, if Helprin had talked about the Minority Leader Tom Daschle as a “lame duck”, he would have been right on, in all definitions of lame duck, including, “one who falls behind in achievement.” The lame duck Congress has blocked Bush’s legislation and judicial appointments with an unprecedented use of cloture to overturn effectively the Constitutional guarantee of a majority vote to pass legislation in the Senate and to give consent to appointments by the president. With the new Congress the Senate would be wise to overturn the cloture law itself. Whatever reasons exists for its original creation, those reasons have been trumped by the overuse of the tool in a way never allowed nor intended at the time of its enactment. The sun is setting on cloture and will be followed by a return to majority rule in the Senate and the country will have its Constitution back, for better or worse, for freedom or oppression.
3. The Great Heart-Land of America
The New Orleans Times-Picayune's chart below shows the vote by counties in the USA. The heart-color red symbolizes the counties where our incumbent president won the vote. The other color represents where the blue-bloods of our country voted against him. One can see directly where the majority votes came from -- the heart vs the head. One cane see the large cities are blue with their urban culture, and one can pick out that the isolated small areas of blue mark the college towns where our young adults have their heads deeply steeped in liberal ideology. One might say theology as it requires faith to hold such principles absent demonstrations of their efficacy. I recall I letter I wrote as a liberal young adult of 24 to Senator Allen Ellender. I don't remember the contents of my liberal-slanted letter, but I clearly remember the reply I got back, "Wait 30 years, and see if you still hold the beliefs." Sen. Ellender was old enough and wise enough to perceive that I had introjected some liberal theology and that it could not be argued away. It could only be washed away by living one's life --- given enough time it would eventually fade away as a bad dream does in light of the realities of the day. Sufis say that counterfeit gold exists only because true gold exists. In our youth we can be fooled into accepting the counterfeit gold, but with age and wisdom, we insist on the true gold. By the time those thirty years had passed in my life, Senator Ellender was dead, but his words of true gold live on in me.
If one wonders where the adjective "blue-blooded" comes from, a little story will help explain it. The story comes from Rudolf Steiner and sounds like one of Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story" bits.
In the
19th Century, a man in Heilbronn, Germany, studied and qualified as a doctor. His talents unappreciated
by the university or the people of the city, he finally took the only job available, a ship's doctor, and
shipped out to the tropics of the Far East. During the rough journey with a ship full of sea-sick people,
he was kept very busy bloodletting his patients to alleviate the sea-sickness, the treatment of choice in
his time.
[page 107] People have two kinds of blood vessels. When one kind is opened, the
blood that splashes out is reddish in colour. Another kind of blood vessel runs right
alongside the first kind. If this is opened, the blood is bluish; bluish blood will come
out. Ordinarily, when you bleed someone, you do not let the red blood flow out. The
body needs this blood. You let the bluish blood flow out. Physicians know this very
well. They also know where the blue blood vessels are and do not open the red ones.
[Quote from: http://www.doyletics.com/arj/mammoths.htm.]
But our good doctor on the ship couldn't find a blue blood vessel on any member of the passenger
or crew. Every vessel he opened, sure as he was this was a blue blood vessel (a vein), came out a pale
red instead of bluish. He finally figured out that in the tropics blue blood must turn red. He had
discovered that humans need less food to heat their bodies in the tropics than they did in Germany and
the excess heat from their food went into keeping their otherwise blue blood a pale red. Scientists of his
time knew that we get our energy to perform work from our food, but Mayer showed them that our body
heat also comes from our food, something that was hitherto unknown. This man, who was thought to be
"not very gifted" by his university and town, had made a momentous discovery. Julius Robert von Mayer
did some experiments and wrote a paper which led to the Law of Conservation of Energy which every
scientist memorizes and learns to use, to this day.