Quote of the Day: Is Man Wolf or Sheep?

So, which is it? Is man wolf or sheep? Paradoxically, it seems he is both. He’s a wolf to his fellow man, but a sheep when it comes to obeying other wolves. Perhaps this explains why so many notorious school bullies are themselves victims of bullying.

Unfortunately, the very nature of sheep is that they lack principle and courage. They want to avoid thinking about the fact that the wolf is a killer who can be restrained from devouring sheep only through the use of force. As a result, history has been written in blood and violence. 

Against this backdrop, it takes a strong individual not only to hold convictions that are in opposition to the majority, but to stick with those convictions and ignore the lemming parade as it passes his door. The sad truth is that such an individual can’t do much to put an end to the brute force that is used time and again to bend man’s will.

But what he can do is use his free will to stick to a personal moral code of nonaggression and refuse to go along with the evil actions of others — including, and especially, those of institutional leaders. Through his exercise of free will, he can choose to be vigilant about not allowing himself to become a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

If you are among the minority who are able to accomplish this on a consistent basis, I congratulate you for your heroic efforts. We each have to save our own souls before we can begin to figure out a way to save the masses from the wolves.

This excerpt is from an article of self development author Robert Ringer at his website

Video: Hunger Games' Catching Fire: Is Katniss a Modern-Day Spartacus?

My daughter wanted to watch Hunger Games: Catching Fire, so my wife and I accompanied her. I haven't seen the first episode The Hunger Games in its entirety (I saw only the last segment on cable TV) but headed to the movie with a general idea of the plot. Nonetheless, I came out quite impressed by the second series.  Reason? The movie seem like an allegorical portrayal of real world politics; freedom versus despotic political power

Learn liberty has a video explaining the popular appeal of Hunger Games and related movies: (hat tip Cafe Hayek)

Literature and legend often reflect their culture. Some themes, like that of rulers imposing coercive power, or of individuals rising up against tyrants, are as relevant today as they were in antiquity. Suzanne Collins drew on Greek mythology's story of the Minotaur and on the legend of Spartacus in ancient Rome as she created the Hunger Games series. Her hero, like the heroes in these stories, does not seek her own power or profit but is standing up against a violent and tyrannical government. "People everywhere yearn for the freedom to pursue their own goals and dreams," says Prof. Amy Sturgis. Even though the themes are ancient, stories like the Hunger Games resonate with readers because the anxieties and fears they portray are real and relevant. "These stories aren't just entertainment," Sturgis says. "They are reflections of who and what we are." Do the themes in these stories resonate with you? Why?

Scarborough Shoal Dispute: The Politics of Nationalism

The Inquirer.net reports

As the dispute between China and the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal entered its 18th day Friday, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile called on the nation to rally behind President Aquino in asserting the country’s sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea)…

At the hearing, Enrile explained that the dispute over territorial waters in the West Philippine Sea was not political.

“This is a national issue that requires the support of the entire nation, and we support the President on this,” Enrile said. There should be no deviation. “There should be unanimity of all Filipinos in supporting Malacañang regardless of political persuasion and affiliation on this particular issue,” he said.

“We must show the People’s Republic of China that in this particular issue, the Filipino nation is one in supporting the leadership of the Republic of the Philippines in asserting the sovereign rights of this republic and the Filipino people over the Scarborough Shoal and the Reed Bank, and all the areas the Republic of the Philippines occupy in the South China Sea,” said Enrile.

Say what? Asking for popular approval is NOT about politics?

The definition of politics according to dictionary.com

exercising or seeking power in the governmental or public affairs of a state, municipality, etc.: a political machine; apolitical boss.

of, pertaining to, or involving the state or its government: apolitical offense.

So seeking power in public affairs and or the involvement of the state IS political. And we have a national politician stirring up dangerous nationalist fervor with sloganeering based on untruths.

As George Orwell once wrote,

Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

As I earlier pointed out, the Scarborough Shoal territorial dispute has NOT been about oil or resources and which has mostly likely been about political DIVERSION amidst internal political divisions in China and or the PROMOTION of arms sales for the military industrial complex. Further it is not in the interest of China to provoke military conflagrations when she has been promoting her currency as the region's foreign currency reserve.

And the seeming insouciance of financial markets over the brinkmanship politics, expressed through the price mechanism, has limned on the perceived risk environment where political sensationalism has departed from people voting with their money. The Phisix closed the week at record highs while the local currency the Philippine Peso closed the week up at 42.37 and seems to be approaching the February highs.

In other words, what politicians sees as urgency that requires “unanimity of all Filipinos” which is being touted by mainstream media, seems to depart from the actions of the marketplace, where the latter sees the risks of a shooting war to be negligible.

Of course, politicians know that in case of a real military skirmish, they or their families will not be at the battlefront (they will most likely be ensconced abroad), thus their audacity to call for implied aggressive populist nationalism that might justify an armed confrontation.

Furthermore, considering that both Spratlys and Scarborough Shoals have largely been uninhabited or has no population, the main benefits over the disputed “resource rich” islands will likely accrue to the cronies and the interests of political authorities than that of the nation. Yet the masses are being conjured to fight for their interests via calls for pretentious nationalism.

The history of war, said Michael Rivero, is the history of powerful individuals willing to sacrifice thousands upon thousands of other people’s lives for personal gains.

Finally, the real target of these war mongers are our civil liberties and economic freedom.

As French historian Alexis de Tocqueville wrote,

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.

Thus, the call for nationalism over territorial disputes is like putting the proverbial lipstick on the political pig.

Health Risks of Sitting and Smoking

Health risks from smoking parallels extended sitting.

So says the San Francisco CBS

Smoking cigarettes is the cause of so much preventable, deadly disease. But now new research shows sitting for long stretches of time may be just as dangerous.

“Smoking certainly is a major cardiovascular risk factor and sitting can be equivalent in many cases,” explained Dr. David Coven, cardiologist with St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York.

Dr. Coven said several new studies show prolonged sitting is now being linked to increased risk of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer, and even early death.

Each of our action seems to be wrong. So what’s next? Regulate our seating hours? Ban sitting in public places like the current anti-smoking ban drive in Metro Manila?

Fearing Symbolisms of Revolt: China Bans Jasmines

Politicians sell us symbolisms to get elected and to maintain and preserve power, yet politicians are afraid of the very imagery which they use when used against them.

The series of revolts in MENA seem to have incited a political paranoia: China’s government has banned sales of Jasmines.

This from the New York Times, (bold emphasis mine)

Since Tunisian revolutionaries this year anointed their successful revolt against the country’s dictatorial president the “Jasmine Revolution,” this flowering cousin of the olive tree has been branded a nefarious change-agent by the skittish men who keep the Chinese Communist Party in power.

Beginning in February, when anonymous calls for a Chinese “jasmine revolution” began circulating on the Internet, the Chinese characters for jasmine have been intermittently blocked in cellphone text messages while videos of President Hu Jintao singing “Mo Li Hua,” a Qing dynasty paean to the flower, have been plucked from the Web. Local officials, fearful of the flower’s destabilizing potency, canceled this summer’s China International Jasmine Cultural Festival in south China, said Wu Guangyan, manager of the Guangxi Jasmine Development and Investment Company.

Even if Chinese cities have been free from any whiff of revolutionary turmoil, the war on jasmine has not been without casualties, most notably the ever-expanding list of democracy advocates, bloggers and other would-be troublemakers who have been preemptively detained by public security agents, among them the artist provocateur Ai Weiwei, who remains in police custody after being seized at Beijing’s international airport last month.

Less well known are the tribulations endured by the tawny-skinned men and women who grow ornamental jasmine here in Daxing, a district on the rural fringe of the capital. They say prices have collapsed since March, when the police issued an open-ended jasmine ban at a number of retail and wholesale flower markets around Beijing...

Much like the initial calls on the Internet for protesters to “stroll silently holding a jasmine flower,” the floral ban is shrouded in some mystery. The Beijing Public Security Bureau, reached by phone, declined to answer questions about jasmine. But a number of cut flower and live plant business owners said they had been either visited by the police in early March or given directives indicating that it had become contraband.

This only goes to show how politicians seem to be afraid of their own shadows.

From Noble To Cruel Intentions: The Chemist's War of Prohibition

This article from Slate Magazine is a lurid example of how government policies that are initially meant to attain noble goals turn up as violating human right to life and liberty. (hat tip: Cafe Hayek)

As the Chicago Tribune editorial quoted by article in 1927, ``It is only in the curious fanaticism of Prohibition that any means, however barbarous, are considered justified."

Some excerpts... (bold emphasis mine)

``Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people.

``Although mostly forgotten today, the "chemist's war of Prohibition" remains one of the strangest and most deadly decisions in American law-enforcement history. As one of its most outspoken opponents, Charles Norris, the chief medical examiner of New York City during the 1920s, liked to say, it was "our national experiment in extermination."

The origins...

``The saga began with ratification of the 18th Amendment, which banned the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States.* High-minded crusaders and anti-alcohol organizations had helped push the amendment through in 1919, playing on fears of moral decay in a country just emerging from war. The Volstead Act, spelling out the rules for enforcement, passed shortly later, and Prohibition itself went into effect on Jan. 1, 1920.

The unintended consequences...

``But people continued to drink—and in large quantities. Alcoholism rates soared during the 1920s; insurance companies charted the increase at more than 300 more percent. Speakeasies promptly opened for business. By the decade's end, some 30,000 existed in New York City alone. Street gangs grew into bootlegging empires built on smuggling, stealing, and manufacturing illegal alcohol. The country's defiant response to the new laws shocked those who sincerely (and naively) believed that the amendment would usher in a new era of upright behavior."

The circumvention of laws, the counter policies and the aftermath....

``Rigorous enforcement had managed to slow the smuggling of alcohol from Canada and other countries. But crime syndicates responded by stealing massive quantities of industrial alcohol—used in paints and solvents, fuels and medical supplies—and redistilling it to make it potable.

"Well, sort of. Industrial alcohol is basically grain alcohol with some unpleasant chemicals mixed in to render it undrinkable. The U.S. government started requiring this "denaturing" process in 1906 for manufacturers who wanted to avoid the taxes levied on potable spirits. The U.S. Treasury Department, charged with overseeing alcohol enforcement, estimated that by the mid-1920s, some 60 million gallons of industrial alcohol were stolen annually to supply the country's drinkers. In response, in 1926, President Calvin Coolidge's government decided to turn to chemistry as an enforcement tool. Some 70 denaturing formulas existed by the 1920s. Most simply added poisonous methyl alcohol into the mix. Others used bitter-tasting compounds that were less lethal, designed to make the alcohol taste so awful that it became undrinkable.

``To sell the stolen industrial alcohol, the liquor syndicates employed chemists to "renature" the products, returning them to a drinkable state. The bootleggers paid their chemists a lot more than the government did, and they excelled at their job. Stolen and redistilled alcohol became the primary source of liquor in the country. So federal officials ordered manufacturers to make their products far more deadly."

Gruesome.

Read the rest of the article here

As self-development author Robert Ringer rightly argues, ``just because government mandates something to be right or wrong doesn’t mean that it is right or wrong. If a government mandate calls for the violation of even one individual’s sovereignty, it is wrong in the eyes of Natural Law — or what can also be referred to as the Law of Non-aggression. Aggression is always the sacred measuring stick of right and wrong — period."