Dear NSA Spies

An open letter to the guys monitoring my Internet transmissions:

Hi guys,

I heard in episode 085 of the Peace Revolution Podcast that one of your goals is to slow things down so you have more time to analyze (and maybe control) the data flow.

I understand that my efforts to educate people about the true nature of the income tax could lead to a decrease in what you earn by doing your jobs, since the federal government will have less revenue.  I've been thinking about this.  I think you are probably good guys with an interest in helping to make the world a better place.  This is laudable, and I am glad you're out there working on this effort.

If you have time, listen to some of the podcasts put out by Peace Revolution in the past, like the Whistleblower one, or even the current episode 085.  You will probably be kind of pissed off at the system that employs you because of some of the things it does.  For example, if I remember correctly, both the CIA and the FBI have hired agents to seek out potential terrorists and encourage them to get involved in terrorist plots.  The success of these efforts is measured by increased authorization for FBI and CIA power and increases in their budgets.  Pretty sick, right?  Unbelievable, you might think.  So go research it.  See what you can find on Bill Binney, Tom Drake, Richard Grove, and others.  Sibel Edmonds is another good name - she has a website, boilingfrogspost.com.

If you haven't had the stomach for Hendrickson's site, give it another try.  He recognizes the long term damage that the US government's increased financial power is doing to the human race.  Isn't that the kind of stuff you'd rather prevent than encourage?

If none of this interests you, at least put a little more effort into analyzing what I write.  It should be pretty clear that my success will lead to the kind of world most people want.  While it's true that I am trying to starve your employer of funds, a lot of my writing and appeals are about replacing suffering with joy.  If you haven't seen it yet, I just made this my Skype status: "Tolerance and Privacy are slowly squeezing coercion out of human interaction. Think about it, encourage it, and promote it."

The idea behind that new Skype status is that coercive authorities, when they do things people don't like, are nearly always trying to alleviate a problem that their friends or employers do not wish to tolerate.  Big Pharma, for example, knows that many of its products can easily be replaced with pot.  Look into Dr. Burzynski, and see that the FDA is actually causing a lot of cancer to remain ineffectively treated with chemo while a much better treatment is available, apparently because the chemo manufacturers do not wish to tolerate competition from this individual researcher.

But it's not just pot.  Every company connected up to Washington with lobbyists enjoys the benefit of using coercion against those who would compete with it.  That is the raison d'etre of those lobbyists.  Government is coercion, essentially, and it survives as the monopoly on publicly accepted coercion, useful to those who don't see clearly enough that coercion always increases suffering, generally more than it helps.

If you would start respecting my privacy, then I could work faster.  If you join the private sector with your skills and knowledge, the liberty movement could work faster.  Leave a trail of breadcrumbs for the newbies who replace you when you leave so that they, too, can convert to the side of peace and freedom.

Thanks!

A "Concept Essay" on Cerrorism ("Care Or Ism")

Pronunciation: \ˈker-ər-ˌi-zəm\
 
"What is Cerrorism?" you ask.  Good!  I invented the word, though I see there are already some examples in use on the Internet.  It is a cross between Care and Error.  It is also a portmanteau of "economic terrorism."  When I noticed that "cerrorism" fits both of these linguistic tricks, I figured I'd have to write about it.

My friend Jeanie is supposed to write a "concept essay" and she has chosen the topic of health in the USA where information that should be available to the masses is not.  We were discussing what might be meant by this term, "concept essay" and I came up with the theory that it is an essay that describes a concept.  So I'm writing my own version even though I suggested that she write one on virtually the same concept.

Her emphasis will be on health in the USA, but mine will be on cerrorism itself.

The fundamental human condition consists of seeking joy.  I recognize two main categories in which we pursue that end.  We seek joy for ourselves primarily, but a significant part of the joy we seek comes from experiencing it vicariously.  Parents and loved ones who feel joy because of something we did cause us to feel joy too.  There is a contention between these two modes of seeking joy, for if we put too much effort into one, the dearth of the other will make us miserable.  Certainly, there are hermit-like people who need no vicarious joy, but they are rare and I choose to ignore their existence, for my good and theirs.

Many of us discover that by solving problems for others, we can create joy in them, and they will often express that joy by providing us with resources. This is the fundamental principle that underpins economic behavior: do something for others in order to receive something in return.  What we receive in return must prove useful ultimately in our own joy-seeking efforts.  If it fails to help, then the original effort to solve a problem for someone else might feel like a waste.  Or it might not.  We can still get the vicarious joy, but is it important enough?

Cerrorism is what you get when the personally experienced joy is so much more important than the vicarious joy that we work to make the problem we solve persist.  Every business that solves a problem has an obvious financial interest in the existence of the problem.  Solve the problem for good, and the business dies.  Corporate personhood institutionalizes cerrorism.

Humans in their natural state work to solve problems and set up systems that prevent those problems from recurring.  Corporate persons in their (un)natural state work to make the problems they solve persistent so that the engines of profit they build on top of those problems don't run out of work.

Doctors, often without realizing it, are pulled in the direction of prescribing medicine that treats symptoms rather than eliminating their cause.  Prescription A (involving behavioral and dietary changes) can be used for the rest of patient B's life in order to eliminate problem C, but prescription D (just a pill; D is for Drug) will reduce most of problem C's symptoms.  Since the pill manufacturer provides financial encouragement to the doctor for prescribing the pill, prescription D exerts psychological pressure on the doctor to ignore prescription A.  This is cerrorism.

The FBI has attempted to foment terrorism.  This is cerrorism.

The FDA has marketed raw milk as "dangerous" even though the effect of the microbes it contains is more generally to strengthen the human body than to weaken it.  This is cerrorism.

Government is essentially cerrorism, for it is impossible for bureaucrats to vicariously experience the joy they (could but do not) create in those who are required (by police officers) to follow their rules.

If you understand what I mean by cerrorism, perhaps you can find an existing word that has that meaning, and which some people already know.  If not, please help me spread awareness of cerrorism.

Go Discriminate!

Discrimination is an important skill that everyone should learn.  Most of us can find numerous examples of a group in which some are better than others.  The ability to identify qualities or features that tend to correlate to the value of a group member often proves remarkably valuable.

Animals serve as an excellent example.  While many animals have nice soft fur which is pleasant to stroke and pet, they fall into two classes, one of which is rather dangerous.  The domestication of cats makes them ideal pets, but bears and beavers do not make such good pets.

More useful examples are found in school, where there are many people who will tell you how to do math problems.  Some of them are young and some are old, but among both groups, you can get bad information ("Just do it this way.  I don't know why, but it works") and good information ("It works for these reasons... but you can also do it this way because...").  This leads me to a very important example.

Subjects of a government are expected to obey its laws, and such obedience requires knowledge of the law.  In many cases, enforcers of the law will permit accidental disobedience of esoteric laws, but for more common laws, ignorance will be inexcusable.  Complicated laws create a different kind of dynamic that encourages most people to imprison themselves in behavior patterns that are recognized as safe and therefore followed.  In this way, complicated laws prevent innovation, growth, and progress, and instead allow governments to grow more oppressive over time.

Taxation is a great example.  Gary North points out that "Lawyers and accountants of the super-rich find ways of avoiding payment" and also makes the ridiculous claim that "they do not subject their clients to the risk of jail."  What he means, of course, is that their handling of the law tends to be legal (and therefore escapes punishment) even though it violates the spirit of taxation, which is to steal a significant portion of everyone's earnings from them.

Some of us understand that what the lawyers and accountants can do reflects legal implications of the law as written, and that those implications hold whether or not a person has an accountant or lawyer to explain them.  This is a nuance that appears to escape Mr. North.

What Mr. North fails to do is discriminate.  Instead of discriminating between those who actually find ways of avoiding payment, and those who attempt and fail to find ways of avoiding payment, he simply tags one group as "lawyers and accountants of the super-rich" and the other as "tax protestors."  If, like me, you legally avoid paying the income tax and you aren't paying an accountant or a lawyer (never mind about being super-rich - I'm not either), then you are clear evidence of Mr. North's failure here.  If you do pay an accountant or a lawyer who fails, as Wesley Snipes' accountants (and then lawyers) did (he was super-rich, by the way - might still be!), then you are still yet another clear example of Mr. North's failure.

It is important to me that you discriminate successfully.  If more people do it, then they won't have to be rich or hire lawyers or accountants to keep Uncle Sam's hands out of their pants.  They will simply have to avoid engaging in taxable activity to earn their money, and then be patient with the IRS agents who are encouraged to keep their heads where the sun doesn't shine on this issue.  The patience is necessary because they are led to believe that everyone is liable for the tax.  If the agency had to train its agents on the details of the tax code, or only hire people who already understood it, their budget would have to be far higher, and their efficacy at maximizing revenue would be far worse.  Instead, they hire people who believe what you probably believe: Everyone has to pay.

As someone who discriminates, and who also avoids taxable activity in order to prevent the US Empire from profiting off my work (and thereby avoids contributing to its growing menace to the human race), I would like to present you with this evidence showing that discrimination is helpful and profitable.

If you would like to build up your patience and skill in dealing with very poorly trained people (who are poorly trained on purpose so that you pay more in taxes than you owe), you will enjoy reading through the stories of people who worked with IRS agents to help them understand.

Taxation isn't the only example.  The behavior of police officers is far more limited than the police officers want you to know.  Learn the limits of their behavior by googling "probable cause" and "search warrant" and "Am I being detained?"  In many cases where YOU can demand one or both of these things, the cops don't have them and will back down once they realize that you can discriminate.  The trick is to know your rights!

By the way, the racist undertones in my first paragraph are a special kick in the nuts to the nuts who decided to use the word "discriminate" when what they really meant was "generalize."  Once you start discriminating, you see that racism is a foolish application of the principle of generalization, a form of induction which is often useful, but can be dangerous in the minds of those who fail to discriminate.

Some Neologisms

I have some definitions for which I think we need new words.  If you have a better idea for a new word to fit one of these, please leave a comment.

Pugger, n.: A person who wields authority through coercion, a member of a government.  Etymology: Cross between Pig and Thug and Mugger.

Fatalink, ("fatal ink") n.: An element in a concept, idea, or story that so destroys the purity it would otherwise have that its value is opposite in nature.  Etymology: Compressed version of "fatal tincture," connoting a deadly concentrated poison buried within otherwise healthy food.

These new words were inspired by episode 308 of the SchoolSucks Podcast in which Brett talks to Tony Myers, the two of them applying the "Trivium Method" of learning anything by yourself.  The Trivium Method has three steps, the first of which is to define your terms.  If you use terms that are already in popular usage, you are in danger of falling into the traps set by those who would control you.  For example, the popular idea of "anarchy" is chaos and disorder, largely because that is how the term has been used by the public education system and the mainstream media, probably through the propaganda of puggers.

My Bitcoin Nightmare

The Central Banks of planet Earth can print as much fiat as they need.  They can hire people to hire people to hire people to... who will run trading bots against all the largest exchanges, to buy bitcoins incessantly, but slowly in order to stay just below the kind of volume that would be noticed by anyone.  In this way, a Central Bank of Planet Earth can slowly collect bitcoin without anyone taking notice.

Consider this:  If you pay enough attention to the market, there's a good chance you'll be able to identify points at which various opportunities arise, such as: when making a large trade will move the price a lot, when a movement in price will take a long time to be reversed, if it ever gets reversed, and when creating trading patterns can precipitate such opportunities.  Who has the money to do all that?  Why, Central Banks of Planet Earth of course!

Clearly then, it seems that if you have infinite financial resources (like Central Banks do), you can mess with the price of bitcoin.  I suppose that as a market matures, the frequency and size of these opportunities will decrease, though I suppose they never disappear entirely.

However, if you have a counterfeiting machine, which is the essential definition of a Central Bank of Planet Earth, then you don't care if you will lose money.  Instead, you care that some other currency is going to replace the fiat that you produce and then you won't be able to control the people in your country.  So you spend whatever you need to spend to make the value of that new threat fall.

Whenever they've accumulated enough to have a strong effect, they can dump their bitcoins, pushing the price into a nosedive.  I know of people who do this and they aren't Central Banks of Planet Earth or even hired by them under some kind of Black Ops meant to stave off the impending demise of the world's reserve currency.  They're just currency manipulators who will get mad at me if I publish their names.  I don't mind them because at least they are honest.

So regardless of who might be doing it, when does this strategy stop working?  Or do you think it can continue forever?  I don't think it can.  In the worst case scenario, my "Nightmare Scenario," the Central Banks of Planet Earth keep doing this until they and I are the only ones left who have any bitcoin.  No one else will want it, because it will be worthless.

They would hold all of the bitcoins except for the few (thousand?  million?) I still have because I like to keep my savings equally split between gold, silver, and bitcoin.  That leaves me as the only non-coercive being that has any bitcoin, and I don't think that would be such a nightmare after all.  It apparently worked out pretty well for the early miners of bitcoin, whoever they are, and I don't think I'd mind going through that.  Bitcoin would be my own personal pre-mined cryptocurrency.

Of course, any reader who catches my drift here would join me in the group of the only non-coercive people who hold bitcoin.  The combined bitcoin savings of all the people who hold bitcoin right now is worth just under 5 billion dollars (minus whatever coins have been lost).  That's a lot to split up between us and the CBEs, but it's less than 1% of the value of the centralized corporation called Apple.  That's something to chew on.