Individuology

We hear a lot about wealth re-distribution, but exactly what is it, and how does it work? These are some of the details I’ve been able to gather so far…

Wealth re-distribution, previously called stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, requires 3 not 2, groups of people to make it work. This is rarely talked or written about, and this is by design.

The First group is the wealth creators: the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the marketers, etc. If no wealth is created, nothing can be stolen & re-distributed.

Second is the ‘needy’ group, historically the ‘poor’. If there are no poor there is no justification for stealing from the rich.

Third is the re-distributors themselves. Some one individual, or small group, has to manage the actual process of stealing from some and giving to others, or. . . keeping the wealth themselves. This group prefers to work in secret, and if possible, prevent people from even knowing that they exist.

How, in detail, does this re-distribution process work?

To steal from the wealthy (Code name: Rich), re-distributors first need to seize all defensive weapons from the wealth producers so they can no longer defend themselves. This is typically done using political power, and passing laws. Then the re-distributors can steal to their hearts content.

The re-distributors, and this is rarely mentioned, having stolen the wealth from the wealth producers, can either give it to others, the so-called needy, or simply keep it for themselves.

To avoid people seeing that this is what they are doing, some PR (Public Relations) is necessary. So for every say $100 they steal; they, with great show & fan fare, give $2-$5 to their favorite ‘needy’ group. In addition to the PR effect, this also keeps the needy group in their ‘needy’ state. The so-called poor will remain poor. The re-distributors need to maintain & nourish these needy groups, as they are the sole justification for stealing from the wealth creators, and then keeping that wealth for themselves.

But sometimes events outside of the re-distributors control can occur. During the 20th century (1900-1999) the ‘poor’ of the United States of America experienced constantly increasing standards of comfort & living. This posed a significant threat to the re-distributors.

So, the re-distributors greatly encouraged a new fashion – Rights!

Rights became the cultural in-thing, like mini-skirts. Rights were subtle, and often so compelling. Today, anyone can stand up and shout, they rarely whisper, “I have a ‘Right’ to whatever they want, and no one is giving me my newly created ‘right’”. They then demand: Would someone, Please, go out and steal from the wealth producers and give my new right to me for ‘free’.”
As a commission for doing this robbery for me, the re-distributors can keep anywhere from 1% to 99% of the take.

Historical Background:
If you, as an Individual, wanted to have something you could not afford, say a big screen TV, you could have become a criminal and go out and steal it yourself. You could either steal the TV, or the money to buy the TV.

But a criminal career has it’s drawbacks. The hours are poor. Sometimes you have to work (steal) in the evening or nighttime, when others are going to restaurants & shows. You also have to buy guns, ammunition, holsters, etc. and devote some non-productive hours to target shooting, learning how to clean-up a crime scene (getting increasingly high tech), drive get-away cars safely, etc. There’s also the risk of being shot by a homeowner, or police officer. This risk can be minimized by restricting your activities to states or cities where homeowners have already had their self-defense weapons confiscated.

What do you think?

Do you know some re-distributors?

One of the phrases I’m coming to really hate is:
The American people, want blah, blah, blah,…

I am an American person, and no one has ever asked me, what I think, yet they continually speak for me, how dare they…

I watch debates on C-Span and elsewhere.
Both sides say, make that shout, the American people, want blah, blah, blah,…

Sometimes they modify it slightly:
The American people, REALLY want blah, blah, blah,…
or
The Bottom Line is:  The American people, want blah, blah, blah,…

To justify in their own minds, their claim to talk for the American people, they often quote surveys or polls, yet they can never produce the ‘poll’ that their fantasies are based on. If they had the slightest shred of integrity, which they don’t, they would say: “I want blah, blah, blah,…”

One of the greatest offenders is Robert Gibbs, the White House Press Secretary.
He starts almost every 2nd sentence with: The American people, want blah, blah, blah,… He justifies everything the president does or doesn’t do as being for the American people! We are not fooled!

His intervening sentences start with: Obviously……..
A condescending remark to whoever asked the question, which means: It’s obvious to me; so if you differ in your opinion, you must be a complete and total idiot.

To be fair, he’s only doing his job, his totally condescending attitude towards almost everyone, accurately reflects his boss, our 1/2 black president Barach Obama.

I am an American person, and no one has ever asked me, what I think,
yet they continually speak for me, how dare they…

Have they asked you?

Have you given them permission to speak for you?

Is it this or is it that?

That seems to be the way decisions are portrayed by the media, politicians, and most academics. Whether to fund a new program, or start a new war, all the pundits make the decision appear simple: Is it this is it or that?

But for those of us in the real world, it’s almost never that simple.

Let’s say you want to buy a car. We have lots of preferences: Initial price; payment plans; better gas mileage; maintenance records; and the intangibles: Is it cool?, Is it easy to park? Is it comfortable?; both to drive and to get in and out of?
So after hours, or days, or weeks, we’ve narrowed it down to 3 cars: A, or B, or C! What we decide is what I call a package decision. Neither package A, nor package B, nor package C are perfect. Each has some things we like and some things we don’t like. But eventually we make a decision – a package decision!

#2: Let’s say we’re looking for a mate.
There are lots of candidates. Some obviously NO! Many so-so. And a few final contenders. We really like Alice or Sally; or John or Frank; none of them are perfect, they all have flaws, some fairly serious, but eventually, unless we wish to remain single forever, we make a decision, a package decision. Package A is better than package B.

Academics can’t seem to understand this.

Let’s look at a 3rd example. Voting for a political candidate.
If you vote a party ticket, this is not for you. You won’t enjoy it.

I’ve never belonged to a political party. The idea of some group, somewhere far away, deciding who I will vote for is totally repugnant to me. Over the years, I’m 68 now, I’ve seen lots of Individuals make & break dozens of promises. Some had to change when confronted with the reality of governing, some never intended to live up to their promises in the first place. But to me, when all is said & done I vote for an Individual – a package decision. He, or soon she, will make their own personal decisions. I’ll agree with some, and disagree with others, that’s life.

But this principle applies to much smaller decisions as well. Let’s say you want to buy a birthday cake. Chocolate or vanilla; rich cream or substitute; plain or inscribed; how big? Again, your final decision is a package decision.

How many ‘package decisions’ have you made in your life?

I remember thinking about this years ago. My thoughts try to explain ‘work’ in a non-judgmental way, reducing the so-called moral arguments to a minimum. As I see it there are 2 ways to contribute and get paid for work: By the hour, or by the piece.

The hourly people consider ‘hours worked’ as their contribution, so the notion of leaving early is wrong in their minds. Also, there is no need to define ‘success’ because success to them is putting in your time, regardless of what you
accomplish. Thank God for them, they are why we can count on a bank or grocery store being open when we expect it to be, or a plane, or a train, being on-time.

The piece work people contribute by achieving some predefined goal. If it takes 1 hour fine, but if it takes 20 hours, so be it. Without a defined goal, they would have no way of knowing when to go home.

Instead of liberal & conservative; democrat or republican; terms which tend to get everybody’s emotions all stirred up – Hourly workers and Piece-work workers can talk more rationally. To me it’s like the MBTI types*, no one is any ‘better’ than any other one. But for each Individual, whether by DNA or experiences, one definitely ‘fits’ better. Perhaps Mother Teresa said it best:

No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile
and do your own work.
– Mother Teresa (1910-1997) Albanian Missionary

* Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

We are so used to everything being dramatic, even ordinary things made to appear more dramatic than they are. And we are exhausted. Enough already. These things are mostly beyond our reach. So-called reality shows are anything but real.

I think we are all ready for a rest. A year of ordinary everyday things. Things each and everyone of us can do. Bake an apple pie. It is said that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. I believe that teacher is Sully Sullenberger. His success was not a hurricane or volcano, or blowing up a building, but 40 years of doing each day his own private best, something within the reach of all of us. All of those thousands of ordinary days built a single day of phenomenal results, good results, not bad ones. Again, this is something within the reach of all of us.

I believe that is also the root of the popularity, and polarity, of Sarah Palin. She has succeeded by doing ordinary things consistently well. She knows how to be happy every single day. She considers it a good day when she gets up, has breakfast with her family, goes out & tries not to fall on the ice, go snow-machining, or hunting, and come home to dinner with more family. She knows how to be happy Now, and I think that irritated so many. Many who ‘will be’ happy when they get the next raise, the next promotion, the next election… But they are miserable today.

This years Rose Parade, on new years day, had a similar theme – A Cut Above the Rest. No Arnold Swartzenager, Terminator type success, just being a slight cut above the rest, a goal within everyone’s reach.

Years ago, I read many books by the motivational writer Og Mandino. Many had the word ‘Secret’ in their titles. Many of the messages boiled down to being ‘a small but measurable bit better than others’. Again, a goal within everyone’s reach. So I’m going to pursue that goal of 51%, a slight bit better, rather than the perfectionist goals of 99% or 100%. It will create a lot less stress for me and maybe, just maybe, I’ll wind up doing something worthwhile this year.

There are an assortment of contexts where this conflict between Individual’s judgments and blanket rules raises its ugly head.

Term Limits:
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IF we vote a ‘bad’ person into office, i.e. he/she becomes ‘bad’ after election, we want a way to kick em out. Term Limits provides an easy answer: After 2 terms, you’re out! This requires NO action, or discrimination on our part!
BUT
What happens when we get a really, really great person into that office?
We’d like them to stay there forever…

So we have a ‘rule’ which ignores individuals; great or terrible, vs we must deal fully with an Individuals performance, i.e. vote them out of office.

Tenure:
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In academia, we have a notion called ‘tenure’. It means that if you’ve been ‘good’ for a while, you can stay around forever. This is sometimes a beneficial option, since the person, who may be controversial, and true leaders are often controversial, no longer has to fight daily petty battles. But some ‘tenured’ individuals, over time, become less ‘good’ in our eyes, or more often in the eyes of their opponents. So, again, how do we kick them out? or should we?

Judges & Minimum sentences:
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One area where we mostly expect an Individual, a judge, to decide matters is in our legal system. If there was a rule, a prescribed sentence, for every crime, we would not need judges at all. But we, for the most part, allow individual judges to exercise discretion, and decide in an individual situation what is the best way to administer justice. But when we, or certain powerful groups, do not like the way judges decide, we force ‘Minimum sentences’ on certain crimes, overriding the individual judges decisions.

So….
Today, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009, there is a prominent story where a 6-Year-Old Scout was suspended for bringing Knife-Fork-Spoon Utensil to School. The rule won and the individual lost. NO discretion.

Aircraft safety:
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We witnessed Captain “Sully” Sullenberger as an Individual, do what no set of rules in the world could have done – save ALL of his passengers & crew in virtually impossible circumstances…

There have been many, many such instances…

So how do we solve this dilemma?
I do not have answers, but I want you, each of you to ponder, to think about this issue. Here are some provocations for your thinking…

Government:
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Our founders saw public service as a temporary assignment. You might be a jeweler, or a banker, or a farmer, or a restaurant owner, or … Then you go serve a term or two, no more, as a senator, or governor, or Secretary of … or whatever. Then you return to your previous occupation. The notion of a ‘professional’ politician, serving for decades, was anathema to their thinking. I, personally, agree with them.

When someone lies to you, and you, knowing full well it is a lie, go along with it, you are as culpable as the liar! You support & validate the mis-truth.

If the emperor has no clothes;
And you see he has no clothes;
While others proclaim his fine clothes;
Is not your silence reprehensible?

Silence is never neutral, it sometimes speaks louder than words.

Example:
During the President’s health care infomercial to both houses of congress, on Wed Sept. 9, 2009, he presented many, many deliberate errors (lies).

Yet 534 members of congress (435 + 100 – Joe Wilson) by their silence went along with those lies, supporting & validating them, even at times applauding, & standing & cheering him, hence becoming as culpable as the president for those lies.

Both as members of congress and as simple decent human beings… They, like Joe Wilson, should have objected to, rather than agreeing with those mis-truths.

All bullies are, or believe themselves to be weak. Believing they could never win in a fair fight, they need to FORCE others to do their will.

There are 2 ways to do this.

The traditional ‘Bully’ uses a false sense of power. “Do what I say or I’ll beat you up, or humiliate you, or those you love”. These have been popular especially in school settings. And outrage mounts as those who are unwilling to confront them want laws passed so somebody else will confront them.

Some are well dressed and highly paid, but still, at heart, they are bullies.

But there is a second type, that hasn’t received as much press, that I’d like to address, or rather confront. It is what I chose to call the Weak Bullies, the Whiners. They lead with supposed weakness. “I’m so weak you MUST help me.”

No, I don’t!
The ultimate, and I’ve experienced it first hand, is the threat of suicide – “Do what I say or I’ll commit suicide”. Implied is that you will feel guilty for the rest of your life if you don’t acquiesce to their demands. Well let me respond clearly and forcefully: “It would be a loss for everyone if you chose to commit suicide, but that is your choice, and I for one will never feel the slightest bit of guilt for your decision”.

The primary defense against bullies is to ignore them when you can. When you can’t and sometimes they can be rather intrusive – confront their message and remove their pseudo-power.

PETA – The animals are so weak you must defend them…
No, let them fend for themselves.
These people don’t so much love animals as they HATE people!

Endangered species!
Species come and go. They have for millions of years. That’s nature. Sure I’m as sentimental as the next person and would hate to lose tigers, especially white tigers, because they’re so beautiful, but not because they’re in danger of becoming extinct.

I find it somewhat fascinating that the endangered species crowd are very selective protecting tigers and many birds. But in all fairness the measles virus is almost extinct. Not only is it naturally going away, but people in large numbers are actively trying to kill it! The same is true for many other species. Perhaps we can get some people together for the following causes:
Save the ebola virus.
Save the black plague.
Save Lou Gerick’s disease…
Save Sickle Cell anemia…
Save smallpox.
And if we remember to – Save Altzheimers…

They aren’t as cute & cudly as a tiger cub,
but fair is fair – or is it?

This entry is a continuation of my series on how negative models keep us from thinking clearly about issues. Earlier entries are: “On the Use of Negative Models” & “The Myth of Lift”

Let’s look at the current paradigm or explanation for how people behave, examine why it doesn’t & indeed can’t work, and then explore a new paradigm.

Current Paradigm: People respond to various Stimuli. So if you find, predict or control the stimuli they are exposed to – you can understand, control, and/or predict their behaviors.

Assumptions:
We are passive responders, not active participants in life.
These various ‘stimuli’ have certain mysterious powers,
which in fact they do not, and never could have.
Examples: Alcohol, certain foods, pornography, firearms, PTSD memories, etc.

Closer look:
Gun Violence:
I and countless others have been around firearms for many years and have never seen one, by itself, jump off the table, turn & point itself, and then pull it’s own trigger. Knives are the same way.

Alcohol: Imagine a quart of Scotch sitting on your kitchen table. It could sit there for a hundred years and not cause a problem unless 2 specific conditions are met:
1. Someone has to drink it, a behavior. Yet even this is not enough. If you were to drink that quart of scotch over the course of a year, it would not have much effect other than some mild relaxation. So, for it to be harmful, we need a 2nd condition:
2. It must be ‘consumed’ in a very brief period of time. Again, a behavior. So the substance has no magical power, it is the behaviors that cause the problems.

PTSD memories:
Let’s imagine, for those of us fortunate enough not to have experienced this: During one of the many wars, a gun shot killed your best friend who was standing right next to you. Years later, you’re walking down the street of some small town, like New York City, and a car backfires. You dive for cover. Some would claim that the ‘noise’ triggered you. But that same noise did NOT trigger the many other people around you. So it’s not the noise but the painful, and un-processed, memory you brought to it, that creates your behavior.

I could go on and on, about chocolate, drugs, pornography & other ‘things’ that do not have the magical powers we attribute to them, but life is too short to be boring…
Also, some activities, or habits, are labeled and then treated as if they were real things, like workaholism, sex addiction, etc. These are activities, or habits, that are done by people not to people.

Thus the so-called all powerful stimulus is no more than a passive reminder.
Unless we have a personal, un-processed memory, it can’t Stimulate us!
Thus the so-called Stimulus has NO magic power in itself, only a passive reminder of powers which come from within us!

How did this wide-spread notion of Stimulus-Response come to be, and then come to be popular? This could get boring…
As near as I can construct, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (September 14, 1849 – February 27, 1936) a Russian scientist, performed and directed experiments on digestion in dogs which earned him the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.

Pavlov’s term “conditional reflex” was mis-translated from the Russian as “conditioned reflex”, and other scientists reading his work concluded that since such reflexes were conditioned, they must be produced by a process called conditioning. (Another mysterious force conjured up to explain something which was not yet understood, like the entity ‘Random’, but that’s another days topic.)

Personal experiment:
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Imagine you’re leaving your home tomorrow morning.
As you step outside, you declare:
Ah, let me go forth and experience some random stimuli!
Duh! That would never happen.

Why? Because you, being a purpose & meaning driven creature always go forth to accomplish some Purpose or Intention. Even if that purpose is simply to relax and enjoy life. Then as you poke & prod the world, you being the Stimulus, the world Responds to your energy. It may yield to you, it may resist you, and most often, it will simply ignore you.

Try it yourself.

Certified RFR – Rat Free Research
All studies have been conducted by humans, on humans, and for humans.
No rats have ever been harmed or even inconvenienced.
Bob Gorman

Over the last year I have been following Cesar Mellan ‘The Dog Whisperer’, reading both of his 2 books and watching his show on the National Geographic channel.

Then something struck me, oh how the obvious is so hard to see. When Cesar has what he calls an ‘unbalalnced’ dog, a much better label than ‘sick’ or ‘neurotic’ or ‘psychotic’ or any of the many pejorative labels we put on people, he puts them in a pack of about 40 ‘balanaced’ dogs so the ‘unbalanced’ one can learn the social and other skills it needs.

However, with people, what’s called Group Therapy, we put 1 ‘unbalanced’ person in with a dozen or so other ‘unbalanced’ people*.

How then could they possibly learn the skills they need?

* Oh, and also 1 so-called ‘balanced’ leader!