American citizenship used to mean something. We live under a federal government that was designed in a very interesting and distinct way: certain functions were centralized, but many were given to the responsibility of the individual states. The way this country was colonized and eventually taken over, and due to its sheer size, each state [...]
Posts Tagged ‘passive aggression’
The meaningless life of a pet
Everywhere in modern civilization we find our societies getting drunk on all kinds of useless freedoms; one of the most useless is that of owning pets which neatly follows from the undeniable ‘human rights’. The reason why many people buy pets these days may be familiar to what Ted Kackzynski called the power process. In this it [...]
Heresies
I like to make lists. Sometimes I make lists of heresies. All heresies start with this precept: reality is different than dogma. That’s what makes them heretical; they offend dogma. If our leaders and fellow citizens tell us that something is true, and we point to a contrary example, we are heretics. In a “free” [...]
The hero is dead; Long live the hero
For those who value the false idea of “equality” in our society, incidents like this cause cognitive dissonance: Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said Paul Langone, 33, of Reading, heard the screams of Dr. Astrid Desrosiers on the fifth floor of an MGH office building on Staniford Street. Langone entered the doctor’s office [...]
When Fear Runs Your Life, Ask Yourself Why
Fear controls the lives of most moderns as we lack goals at the community level. We watch movies about abductions, murders, and superheros saving the day, and since we don’t even know who our neighbors are let alone our selectmen and other community leaders, fear rattles around in our brains. We feel that if it can happen [...]
George Sodini: What the media doesn’t want you to read
The story of George Sodini is sad but fascinating. I agree that memoirs and personal diaries of the supposedly deranged should not be removed from the web (as was done by Mr. Sodini’s web host) simply because he ended up randomly killing a bunch of people. He lived his life in silent torture, cursing the [...]
Why conservatives are doomed
American conservative thinking has overwhelmed most of the world’s conservative parties. Their idea is to base intense patriotism on the idea that we’re “free,” and can do whatever we want as individuals, and use that to justify caring about social order. Ultimately what conservatives are trying to argue toward is that the society as a [...]
The climate change elephant in the room
Humans are funny. Because we are personalities that control the mind and body, we view the world through the same filter, and tend to defer to authority even if it’s incompetent — so long as it leaves us alone. No obligation to others means we’re just fine pretending we’re solitary hunter-gatherers, even if we depend [...]
Self-pity and Darwin
Our society is very fond of the idea that we are enlightened. We are scientific, progressive, compassionate humanity. Underneath this veneer of nice, the usual manipulations go on for personal profit — which is the underlying theme of humanity in every age: sacrifice the self for the whole, or sacrifice the whole for the self. [...]
The psychological consequences of equality
Our nitwit species has never overcome its own cleverness. If we find an idea or symbol or image that appears to compel people, we’ll use it — and worry about the consequences later. Equality is a powerful symbol to use. It conveys inclusiveness, and an automatic sense of group bonding. “We all agree we all [...]