Medieval Political Thought

Barons of King John:

• Free men have a right to liberty protected by law.
• A despotic monarch can exploit his subjects and punish them arbitrarily.
• A monarch’s power should be limited by the law of the land.
• Thus, no free man shall be imprisoned, except by the law of the land.

Thomas Aquinas:

• External law is divine, and comes directly from God. The eternal law rules the entire universe.
• Natural law is made clear to us through our God-given gift of reason. It guides our moral and ethical behavior.
• Thus, human laws on crime and punishment must be based on reason, so that they relate to the values we deduce from natural law.

Niccolo Machiavelli:

• The well-being of the state is the responsibility of the ruler…
• …and should be achieved by any means possible including deception and intrigue.
• The ruler’s own morality is less important than the good of the state…
• …and he will be judged on the results rather than the means he has used.
• Therefore, a prudent ruler cannot, and must not, honor his word.

Source: The Politics Book.

Machiavelli also thought that people are like sheep in that they can be manipulated by harnessing the weaker traits of humanity such as credulity, instinct for self-preservation, lack of individuality, and fickleness. Machiavelli advised rulers not to be deceptive in their private life, but only in their public political life. Well, I would think to pull that off you would have to be a border line sociopath. Otherwise, a ruler would eventually have a spiritual breakdown. It’s true that a leader is responsible for the well-being of a state, but  Machiavelli’s advice is I believe twisted.

Miscellaneous Thoughts Part 33

• If corporations aren’t people then neither are labor unions.
• I think it would be confusing if you were schizophrenic medium. You never know for sure if you were talking to spirits or not.
• Overregulations is a war on the small businessman.
• To make a student learn a subject make it interesting, or fun, or forbid the student from learning it.
• Voter-id laws are a war on the dead and illegal voter.
• Liberty is the enemy of socialism, communism, fascism, and progressivism.
• If you have a life advisor you can blame him on any bad choices you make.
• Next time a Leftist blames Bush on the Iraq war someone should say, “What difference, at this point, does it make?!”
• Power is the food (drug?) for the progressives.
• I am old school. I prefer email to texting.

Ancient Political Thought

Confucianism:

• A leader should be a “superior man.”
• Less than perfect people can be changed by an example of sincere goodness.
• This superior man possesses the qualities of virtue, faithfulness, and sincerity, which he shows in rituals and ceremonies.
• The superior man therefore sets a good example for his people.
• Therefore, if a leader’s desire is for good, the people will be good.

Mohism:

• Only virtuous capable people should be given positions of authority.
• Virtue and ability do not necessarily come from adherence to tradition or belonging to a noble family. 
• Virtue and ability can be learned through study.
• Therefore, plans for the country are only to be shared with the learned.

Aristotle:

• People come together to form households to form villages, and villages form cities.
• The purpose of our lives is to lead a “good life.”
• We have developed ways of organizing these city-states in order to live a “good life.”
• Living in a society organized by reason such as a city-state, is what makes us human.
• Anybody who lives outside the city-state is either a beast or a god.
• Thus, man is by nature a political animal.

Source: The Politics Book. Big Ideas Simply Explained (2013) by DK Publishing.

Not bad philosophy. The current administration could learn from the first two political thoughts. Especially the virtue and sincerity parts.

The founder of Mohism said if a leader is unrighteous these disasters would happen to a country:

1. Neglect of the country's defense, yet there is much lavished on the palace.
2. When pressured by foreigners, neighboring countries are not willing to help.
3. The people are engaged in unconstructive work while useless fools are rewarded.
4. Law and regulations became too heavy such that there is repressive fear and people only look after their own good.
5. The ruler lives in a mistaken illusion of his own ability and his country's strength.
6. Trusted people are not loyal while loyal people are not trusted.
7. Lack of food. Ministers are not able to carry out their work. Punishment fails to bring fear and reward fails to bring happiness.

Well, it is a good thing none of those disasters are happening in America. Emperor President Obama being a righteous and honorable leader. Hey, wait a second… Doesn’t the country have most of those points? Hmm…

Canvas Fingerprinting

From Komando.com (July 22):

There's a scary new method of tracking people's behavior online. It's called "canvas fingerprinting" and it's fascinating but frightening technology.

Typically, sites and advertisers know what sites you click on and when by installing what are known as "tracking cookies" on your computer whenever you visit a site.

Here's how it works:

In HTML 5 - the standard computer code for most modern websites - every site can be programmed with a "canvas" that you can draw pictures on. This canvas doesn't have to be visible and can't currently be blocked by the usual methods.

Sites that track  you with canvas fingerprinting use the canvas to capture an image of your browser. Every browser on each individual computer is unique, just like a fingerprint. This tracking tool follows that fingerprint around the Web. [read more]

Yea, it is kind of unnerving. Some of the websites that use this technology are: The Blaze.com (kind of surprised by this), NOAA.gov, usnews.com, dailykos.com, aarp.org, whitehouse.gov (no surprise there), ssa.gov, dhs.gov  etc. You can go to the “secure homes” website to search for a specific website.  There are in total 5,619 sites that use the software. That’s quite a few.

If you wondering the NSA.gov and CIA.gov website doesn’t use the technology for some reason.  At least they are not listed on the website anyway. 48 gov’t websites use canvas fingerprinting including cities, states and foreign countries.

The AddThis.com website  and another company created the software. That’s why it is on a lot of website. To be transparent, I use the AddThis widget on my blog but don’t see any of the analytics.

According to Wikapedia.com, AddThis only uses the data from the tests for internal research.

Early Champions of Liberty

The chief purpose in the establishment of states and constitutional orders was that individual property rights might be secured…It is the peculiar function of state and city to guarantee to every man the free and undisturbed control of his own property.  -- Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC)

And unnatural, irrational, sinful, wicked, unjust, devilish, and tyrannical it is, for any man whatsoever — spiritual or temporal, clergyman or layman — to appropriate and assume unto himself a power, authority and jurisdiction to rule, govern or reign over any sort of men in the world without their free consent; and whosoever doth it — whether clergyman or any other whatsoever — do thereby as much as in them lies endeavor to appropriate and assume unto themselves the office and sovereignty of God (who alone doth, and is to rule by His will and pleasure), and to be like their creator, which was the sin of the devils', who, not being content with their first station but would be like God; for which sin they were thrown down into hell,…   --  John Lilburne (1614 - 1657)

Where there is no property there is no injustice. – John Locke (1632 - 1704)

The price of liberty is constant vigilance. –- Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)

Those who expect to reap the blessings of liberty must undergo the fatigues of supporting it. – Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809)

Let women share the rights, and she will emulate the virtues of man; for she must grow more perfect when emancipated. --  Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 - 1779)

The accursed system of slavery! To sustain that system, there is general willingness to destroy liberty of speech and of the press, and to mob or murder all who oppose it. – William Lloyd Garrison (1805 - 1879)

All taxes, levied upon a man’s property for the support of government, without his consent, are mere robbery; a violation of his natural right to property.  -- Lysander Spooner (1808 - 1887)

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand (1905 – 1982)

These guys (and gals) don’t know the meaning of the word “politically correct.” You can’t say they are not outspoken. Hat tip to Jim Powell’s 2000 book The Triumph of Liberty : A 2,000-year History, Told Through the Lives of Freedom's Greatest Champions for the list of names. These names (and there are many others) come out of the first section.

Cicero was admired by John Locke. Cicero was killed by Marc Anthony (not directly—he ordered some thugs to do it) for criticizing  him. Both John Locke and Cicero were read and studied by the Founding Fathers.

A lot of libertarians claim Ayn Rand as their own. But she always said she wasn’t one. She had her own philosophy—objectivism. Matter of fact, she criticized the libertarian philosophy. She also said, to be fair, she wasn’t a conservative either. But she definitely wasn’t a Leftist. The Left was criticized most by her. She was a strong supporter and advocator for the free-market system. What’s interesting is even though she was an atheist she still respected Christianity. The fanatical atheistic fascists who want to remove God from the dollar bill should take a lesson from her.

Mind Blowing Optical Illusion

Hackers hit American power grid

From Komando.com (July 1):

Symantec, the company that makes Norton Anti-Virus software, announced some very scary news yesterday about the security of the energy sector. The company said that a hacker group is targeting the worldwide energy industry, and the U.S. is a main target.

The hacker group is called Dragonfly and it's using malware to access and control computers at energy companies in the U.S. and Europe. Its two main malware tools are Backdoor.Odrea and Trojan.Karagany.

Big companies aren't the only ones at risk. Malware attacks are on the rise across the board.

Karagany is capable of uploading stolen data, downloading new files, and     running executable files on an infected computer. It is also capable of running additional plugins, such as tools for collecting passwords, taking screenshots, and cataloging documents on infected computers.

Right now, it seems like the group is using its access for spying purposes, but it could cause actual damage to energy supplies and delivery if it wanted to. [read more]

Scary. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to let companies and even individuals make and sell their own electricity to others. In other words, decentralize the power grid. Right now, individuals cannot legally make and sell power to others. The big power companies won’t like it but at least the whole grid won’t have to come down.

10 Values of Branch Banking and Trust Company

1. Reality- Take things as they are. Not what you want or wish them to be.
2. Reason- an "active mind"---a mind committed to learning from experience, profiting from mistakes, and being free from evasion.
3. Independent Thinking- "the most important psychological decision you can make, to be responsible for yourself." Says, John Allison, former CEO of the bank who is also responsible for the values.
4. Productivity- For Allison, BB&T is looking for high performers who have "a gut level commitment to getting the job done."
5. Honesty- With BB&T it's an obsession with ethical conduct 24/7, complete transparency---not even a white lie, and no exceptions [my emphasis] for the bosses at the top of the pyramid.
6. Integrity- always doing the right thing, always acting consistently with one's philosophy, no matter what.
7. Justice. Justice, as Allison puts it, "means you're going to award superior performance and deal with nonperformance."
8. Pride. Allison puts it, pride is "the greatest of all virtues, because to have it you had to have all the others."
9. Self-Esteem. In the BB&T philosophy, pride is what you earn by living your values, and self-esteem is what you earn by doing excellent work.
10. Teamwork.

Source: I Am John Galt (2011) by Donald Luskin.

Good values to have in any business not just banks. Too bad the federal gov’t can’t some of these values. I would be satisfied with values 1), 2), 5) (especially the no exception part) & 6).

As a side note, in 2008 because of TARP Allison was forced to give substantial control of the bank to the U.S. government. Not because the bank was failing, but because it was succeeding. BB&T had made no subprime mortgage loans. It had 30,000 employees and over $150 billion in assets, making it the 12th largest U.S. bank.

My analysis is this: The gov’t thought even though it wasn’t failing it could fail in the near future. And we, the Fed, can’t allow that. After all it was too big too allow to fail. What this shows is a lack of trust the gov’t has in the free-market system. And yet Washington wants the citizens to completely trust them. Well, trust has to be earned.

The Radical Cool

Greg Gutfeld in his book Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War On You defines what it is to be what he calls “radical cool:”

• Honesty
• Fidelity on principle. It’s somebody who sticks to his guns, and is considered brave, in the course of daily events.
• Unpredictability that starts to make sense once you realize the person has a code. Remember when you first met someone and though, “Wow, this person is odd. Why is he doing that?” Then over time, you find that his behavior isn’t erratic at all, that there is an internal consistency embedded in his behavior that explains every tic.
• Persuasive correctness. It is one thing to be right, but it takes a real character to be right and explain why in simple, straightforward terms.

Those traits fit me to a T. For the most part. I say with all humbleness. Ha! Anyway, those are good traits to have.