"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured.
To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace." - Tacitus
Dear Internauts,
There are so many thoughts my brain chars with neuro-electric bubble-sparks!
I got to see an incredibly brilliant, funky, passionate, smart, captivating, moving, joyful, solid as a state of matter master-class in rockin a crowd the other night with SINCLAIR. I mean, wow. Part of me wishes I had a better memory or had taken notes, but then not really because I got so lost in the show I can only give you dabs of the details except to say that it takes such a combination of practiced skill, brilliant charm, and explosive talent to even go anywhere in the same star cluster as this TRUE ARTIST.
Both The Promise and Colossal are very worthwhile films I would def recommend.
I maybe kinda sorta might possibly have a "job" thing. Obviously, updates will follow.
And I've been pushing ahead with making the art for chapter one of the graphic novel thing.
Heh, at an open mic on Tuesday, I played "What Really Matters" and two folks there at the bar started dancing. I think that's a first for any of my music. Sure, it helps that it's in 3/4, but I never thought anyone might actually waltz to my stuff. Or shuffle around at least.
Truly, I've got a lot of inspiration. Motivation, though, is ephemeral. Well, everything is, though, right? It's that kinda thinking that makes it heart to get out of bed. Strange how the fleeting nature of existence can in some moments and for some people be a source of exhilarating joy and for others a well of nauseating distraction.
Sometimes I wish I could be a liberal. Not very much a liberal, but just enough to feel included, y'know?
You may think that of course he's a liberal. He just can't stop blabbering on about poor people and the environment and animals and racist cops. Well, do I have you fooled? I do care about those things, or at least my blog and t-shirt collection seem to tell me that I do.
Now, you know I have no idea what I'm writing about, but I do think it's a bit of a problem to consider anything progressive when it says on one hand we should treat people better and on the other hand that we should only do so by getting the government to make us treat people better.
So, the government takes power (via money) from the people, and then the government allocates a portion of that power toward protecting and promoting the rights of the people. However, the majority of the power is used for protecting and promoting the rights of the government.
Taxation, and thus the government for which it exists, is a threat to human rights. The government takes from the people in order to give to the people in a way it deems best. So long as the giving remains desirable, the taking is permitted to rise proportionally. The most common solution is to take from one group more or less than from another. Not only does this serve to present a subtext of justice without doing anything besides taking, it places the government as some neutral party, more like a natural disaster than an institution made of and run by other people.
And sure, this makes sense if you truly believe that the only way to get people to behave in a way you think is right is if the law tells them they have to, that people won't do good or treat others how they'd want to be treated unless they're under threat of punishment from a highly-funded and well-armed super power. If that's what you think of people, then by all means, you should totally entrust the most power hungry and manipulative of those folks with the most power and resources in order to control everyone else. But of course, I'm not like that, and you're not like that. I mean, if only I didn't have to pay so much money in taxes, I'd spent it all on helping build a better community with my fellow human beings. You would too, right?
Obviously, this isn't just a liberal problem. This is a people problem. Are we lazy? Do we crave subjugation? Are we doomed to lives so nasty, brutish, and short? Are we not unlike the owl from the tootsie-pop commercials who counts a-one, a-two-hoo, a-three, then crunches the pop and declares the counting complete?
It's easy for me to see the worst of humanity in myself, but then again I can just as easily point to all the bad stuff I'm not doing and hope somebody steps in and stops THOSE PEOPLE. I mean, while I'd like to think I'm the type of person who would help the underground railroad of LGBT Chechnya refugees flee to safety, I have to realize that what I actually am is someone who grew up in a subculture that actively promotes the kind of religious extremism leading to the concentration camps those folks have to flee.
I recognize that I'm me, sitting here and typing at night with no real plans for actively improving the world. I probably would speed dangerously down the road without the fear of being pulled over by a cop. I most definitely would use far more profanity on here if I didn't think it might affect my little corner of readership. Truth is, on a purely emotional level, I get more angry at smokers flicking butts out their windows then I did about Trump's hypocritical Earth-Day statement.
We don't have to believe that people are inherently good or that local communities can interact in civil and mutually beneficial ways. We don't have to do anything. It might be interesting if more of us started looking at the predatory role of government as less of a given at the same time as we took a more active role in being good to each other regardless of borders or by-laws. It might be interesting if instead of allowing ourselves to be automatically grouped in with ideas about mass murder, war-profiteering, and violent obedience to authority, we made sure to support our kids before they ever become troops.
I don't know. I'm just a blogger. Why are you reading this? Does anything exist?
What is time?
Thanks for yours tho,
Odist
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