An open letter to Tammy Baldwin.

Thank you for not shoehorning in a gun control band wagon plea in your most recent mass mailing.

It seems the whole democratic party has selective amnesia when it comes to gun control. Like all of the sudden respect for the constitution and the actual effect of prohibition are completely blanked out. Like it completely slipped all their minds why NDAA and the drug war are bad policies. Seriously, you want to see some disturbing mental gymnastics ask a die hard left partisan about this discrepancy.

I can’t stand hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance in people who would presume to make policy for the rest of us so I’ve been unsubscribing to left leaning news sources and activism organizations for days now. I’m pleased to not have to add you to this list. (Yet?)

I hope you’ll consider being perhaps the first among the current crop to, especially now, admit somewhere the logic of opposing knee jerk gun laws as they are unconstitutional and completely unworkable, as criminals and psychotics don’t care, and they are the last to be disarmed. Further to remind everyone that the biggest school massacre in history was not a shooting, but a bombing, in 1927.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/12/18/bath_school_bombing_remembering_the_deadliest_school_massacre_in_american.html

Now if the left wants to organize to repeal the second, that’s at least legitimate and honest, if stupid. The debate would then become about tyranny and social impact in other nations and other states. But asking for gun laws clearly designed to circumvent the 2nd to varying degrees without openly calling for its repeal is for lack of a better word, cheating. It is the exact kind of shenanigans the left has (rightfully) opposed throughout the drug and terror wars.

Their cheating has gotten so substantial that it has, and I quote…

“…led to what’s essentially a separate justice system for Muslims. In this system, the principle of due process is twisted and selectively applied, if it is applied at all.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/16/court-terrorism-morales-gangs-meaningless

The left’s position on gun control is a gargantuan policy mistake and really the only solid point republicans have.

I am a one issue voter on this because among other things it’s the clearest way to spot hypocrisy and thoughtless allegiance in a left leaning representative.

If the left were to base its position on facts, reason, and history, or even if the left abandoned the position entirely at the federal level, leaving entirely up to the states, the right wing would hemorrhage left libertarians and other one issue gun voter to the point of permanent advantage and real social change.

Interestingly, with the country so closely divided and the access to nearly unlimited funds, the right has this opportunity as well with regard to the drug war.

As I said on G+ months ago…

On the right we have gun law: http://gunfacts.info/
Everyone in favor of gun control, which is basically the whole democratic party, ignores this set of facts because PR is exceptionally skilled at loading questions and misrepresenting data.

And on the left we have drug law: http://www.leap.cc/
Everyone in favor of the drug war, which is basically the whole republican party, ignores this set of facts because PR is exceptionally skilled at loading questions and misrepresenting data.

If either party switched sides on their issue based on the facts they would quickly dominate the opposing party.

That neither side does this, despite the opportunity to truly win and accomplish all their other goals, shows how adept the PR industry is.

It’s not just about laziness, that’s another PR myth. Critical thinking is a skill like any other and we as a culture are a culture of specialists, while it would be nice if everyone could become expert data analysts to demand that of everyone is unrealistic to put it mildly.

Indeed a huge portion of Ron Paul’s supporters are in this “left libertarian” category if you examine their positions issue by issue, and more importantly their conviction on those issues. (There are very few one issue medicare or military spending voters.)

It would behoove you and any other forward thinking democrat in congress to consider a leadership role in reforming the democratic party on this issue, or at the very least, deferring the issue to the state level.

Harsh truths and the real solution.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/

6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person Man

There. Fixed that for you. Because if you were born with ovaries your usefulness is automatic as far as 200,000 years of evolutionary training are concerned.

That’s why every culture on the planet spent its formative years controlling the shit out of women like property because they were and are a valuable resource while men are experimental models who’s usefulness must be ascertained after production, their freedom, to a degree, is critical for the system’s evolution.

Sure women can sharpen this value, or they can demonstrate that they have and additional more critical value that eclipses it, but basically all this shit on the list only applies to men.

Take all the women in your life whom you’ve ever known. How many of them ended up with kids or at least a mate? I assure you you know more single men than single women and the above coupled with the things in this article are why. Women get a silver medal by default. Because even if they get the gold, so what? How is the wife of a billionaire different from a billionaire? Flip that around though and things get radically different, especially in a society that doesn’t enforce monogamy.

For women, as far as the gene game goes, there is no brass ring. Sure their offspring might have the best possible chance, but there are going to be like 20 of them at most. While a man can have thousands.

Women have ascribed value by default. Men have to achieve their value. That’s why we have manhood rituals, the harder the better (for the culture.)

But the question not asked by this article or sentiments like it, are we ants or minds? Is it genes or memes? And what would it take to falsify this position?

Tyler Durden was totally his job yes but he also kills himself at the end of the film. The point is to transcend this way of life. He wasn’t arguing about the way things were he was aiming at the way things should be. Thing is chuck (the author) didn’t have an answer. All his works scream that he lacks an answer. Best he could come up with is debt cancellation and a engineered social collapse. He wants to erase the board but has no idea what to put in its place.

This is the core mistake of backwards movements and lines of thought. Like the Unabomber.

I should not be my productivity.

Can I create a world where that doesn’t matter? Yes.

http://www.hedweb.com/huxley/

“Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you.” ~Puppet Master, Ghost in the Shell

And that includes your efforts to perfect what you are. This also applies to the culture. A mob of us looking for better ways to placate a culture built on torture and selfishness is clearly not the answer.

Sure, Alec’s rant is adaptive. But then again so is rape in a world that only cares about results. The trick isn’t making yourself a better fit for that world, the trick is getting out of it and making a better one.

Why did I unsubscribe?

Updated: 2017-02-06

For now, the short answer is because I get this information from other places. Such as twitter.

While the longer answer below is specific to guns, the general idea remains the same. I have no political organization that matches me. It’s better for me to focus on an array of issue specific groups.

Straight partisan groups are not for me.

Search here to find my position on specific issues. (Work in progress.)

Also I’m tired of the shady guilt tactics so often employed and the constant begging for money and the mindlessly partisan rhetoric.

Original Post:

So far this applies to Change.org, Moveon.org, Sumofus.org, and Avaaz.org. They all lost me in the past week or two.

So, why did I unsubscribe they ask? Here was my reply.

Because you executed my respect for you as an objective participant.

Clearly you’re just a partisan effort adopting your positions based on the DNC’s position and not a shred of original assessment.

Your disregard for the 2nd disgusts me for the same reasons the right’s disregard for the 4th 5th sixth and 8th (With NDAA alone.) disgusts me.

2nd Amendment and Related Links

Why I abandoned Avaaz, Moveon, and Change.org

So I’m like basically a leftist with regard to most things.

I’m not some myopic libertarian islander that thinks all forms of government are exploitative. I’m not forgetful enough to trust the market alone to stop commerce from turning into slavery. (The history of the East India Trading Company shows what happens in a setting of zero regulation.)

What this means is that among other things I ended up subscribed to a lot of activist left wing news letters. Who for the most part presumably do a lot of good and check a lot of evil.

Well what that means today thanks to the recent flurry of gun control hysteria, is that I am getting a lot of disgusting and hypocritical email.

You all know by now where I stand on this issue but I’d like to share a particularly disgusting batch of petition signature requests I got as a single email and why they are loathsome:

Reenact the Assault Weapons Ban and make it law

As I said here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/103840576618549598514/posts/3K88UjicLQs

The AWB is problematic primarily for two reasons. Firstly and most importantly the definition of “assault weapon” is murky at best. Secondly, the 2nd amendment says “shall not be infringed.” It’s pretty clear that a ban on any small arms counts as infringement. (I’d go even further given the obvious point of the 2nd amendment, but that’s a separate issue. I can no longer link to my essay, as my book is now officially for sale, and part of the terms is not giving the book away for at least 90 days.)

Basically the pro-gun crowd is for the most part worried about a slippery slope. Which I think given the government’s behavior on most issues and the progression of past events in countries which have managed to ban guns (such as Australia), is a legitimate concern.

Increase the availability of mental health services now

They are plenty available. Just no one can afford them. The left bent over fast and happily for the right when it let them and their insurance/pharma owners gut Obamacare, including Obama himself personally executing the public option.

Maybe if the left had grown a spine this never would have happened.

Protect grieving families from politically charged demonstrations at funerals.

Freedom of speech, live with it. This is a market signal. Find a cemetery with a wall and make attendance RSVP. If companies can write their own rules with EULAs and TOCs then so can cemeteries. This is how corporations have enacted a de facto national dress code via employment controls. It would be a simple matter to hire security and enforce a code of conduct worked out with the family in advance.

This is not a matter for legislation. We already have laws to deal with this. They are called property rights. It’s not even about money. If I have a private function and people show up whom I haven’t invited, that’s trespassing, and that’s why we have police.

Walmart: Stop selling assault rifles in stores.

So long as they are legal to own it’s absurd to demand that people or businesses not sell them, especially when “assault rifle” as I said above has no objective definition.

All legislative anti-gun efforts do is create niche and black markets.

So yeah… I’ve in the past 3 days unsubscribed to Avaaz, change.org, and Moveon.

Sucks for them because I was a pretty good promoter for other activist efforts.

Why quit the whole game over a single issue? Because it’s clear to me that in this case they aren’t looking at the facts, and they aren’t being consistent with their rhetoric of freedom and respect for the constitution. You can’t be against NDAA and in favor of gun control at the same time and claim respect for the Constitution. The 4th 5th 6th and 8th amednments are every bit as important as the second and the first.

Their capability to compromise their ethics to exploit a political opportunity undermines my faith in them entirely.

For all I know all their efforts on my behalf are disgustingly compromised, like the fair trade coffee scam.

Thorium 101 for Human Beings

Thorium and Molten Salt: The Ultimate Disruptive Technology in a Nutshell

Thorium is a naturally occurring extremely widespread natural element that in the right kind of fission reactor can be used to power the planet more cheaply and safely than coal or even conventional nuclear reactors while generating materials badly needed by the rare earths industry, cancer researchers, and NASA.

It would also allow us to convert existing nuclear waste stockpiles into fuel. What little waste LFTR does produce which we don’t have some other use for, is only dangerous for around 300 years, as opposed to several hundred thousand. This is possible because liquid fueled reactors are far more efficient than solid fuel reactors, which means less radioactivity making it to the environment because LFTRs convert much more of their fuel into heat and electricity.

Why aren’t we using Thorium in this way right now? The answer probably won’t surprise you. Basically the nuclear age was borne of war. LWRs, or light water reactors, the ones used for making bombs and which burn uranium, were more clearly understood and the infrastructure already existed to build and fuel them when the time came to choose a path. MSRs, or molten salt reactors, or the ones that burn thorium, were basically useless for producing weapons grade plutonium, and Westinghouse and GE were not familiar with how to build them. Also they would not have been able to lock utilities into fuel rod purchase contracts. The guy that holds the patent on the light water reactor opposed their use as domestic power generators until the moment he was deposed as head of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, as a result of his constant attacks on the safety of the LWR, his own invention. He is also the inventor of the molten salt reactor and his name is Alvin Weinberg.

For one reason or another, depending on what you are comparing it to, thorium is superior to every other known power source in some critical respect. The moment humanity begins producing LFTRs, or Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, the future of our species will radically improve.

Which ever country does this first will secure a lasting advantage on the global stage with a subsequent long term positive impact whose scope and intensity can only be guessed at.

This issue is of paramount importance to me. I mean that literally. It is the single most important disruptive technology not already being aggressively pursued. There are three videos you can watch to get yourself on board. They are in order of length and simplicity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYxlpeJEKmw Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR): Energy for the Future? 3:14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ9Ll5EX1jc Motherboard TV: The Thorium Dream 28:26

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tyqYP6f66Mw 29:01
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4 LFTR in 5 Minutes – THORIUM REMIX 2011 – An energy solution. 1:59:59

Why is thorium better than…

Solar/Wind: Cheaper, constant power supply, much less area consumed, and fewer transmission lines needed.
Oil: Cheaper, no spills, no wars, no CO2, far less pollution.
Coal: Cheaper, much less radiation, no CO2, far less pollution.
Conventional nuclear: Cheaper, sustainable, less waste, less radiation, no melt downs, no explosions, smaller, easier to build, no need to build near water, no cooling towers, easier to run, more process heat, radically more efficient, abundant fuel, produces extremely useful secondary materials needed for space exploration and cancer research, and breaks the Chinese global rare earth monopoly.

If you would like to know more, and possibly join us in correcting this gargantuan social error please check out Thorium Now, our G+ community. I’m doing my best to make sure it links to every other known Thorium/MSR advocacy effort on the planet. If you know of a group that isn’t listed, please list them.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115460652257293860011

Thorium Now is a group of individuals and organizations convinced that the key to humanity’s immediate and long term energy future is the proper exploitation of the Thorium atom.

Thomas Edison: Evil

So I couldn’t find a nice solid list of atrocious thing that Thomas Edison did, but I found a lot of partial things, and here are the links.

Would be monopolist:
http://hermitjim.blogspot.com/2012/06/evil-thomas-edison.html

Executing kittens:

The Evil Thomas Edison

Stealing credit for inventions:
http://www.cracked.com/article_16072_5-famous-inventors-who-stole-their-big-idea.html

All sorts of other atrocious crap:
http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/edison/index.html
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla

And finally, wasting electricity in gargantuan amounts all the way to the present day.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/115056313943520401920/posts/H4NSNV6K6ah?cfem=1