It's a proven fact: punishment only REINFORCES bad behavior. One cannot be terrorized or coerced into being honest, ethical, obedient, or whatever. And certainly not free, sane, self-reliant, or any other imagined "good" social or political status.
Almost any lawyer or prosecutor will tell you that the police, courts, and prisons are NOT to punish anyone, but to minimize and prevent future crimes and conflicts. Yet, the average person believes absolutely in the value of extreme punishment including torture and execution in order to "deter" or otherwise prevent or minimize crime. Nothing could be further from the truth.
First rule of good government:
Don't accustom your constituents to corruption. And by that, we don't mean food stamps, Medicaid, or unions. The corruption lies in our minds and understanding - mostly originating with the corporate media, but our public media, under the false banner of "neutrality", gives the true and beneficial equal standing with the most outrageously ignorant and oppressive views, and their practitioners, and then presents us with "compromises" between them. It is our "public consciousness" which may be damaged beyond repair, as evidenced by a nuclear holocaust, climate holocaust, or just plain poverty and starvation holocausts - all of them imminent, and probably unstoppable.
2. Organize! It's the only way to accomplish anything. To do this, you must step outside the corporate parties. The Democrats, as we've seen over and over again, are no different (and often even worse, in a passive-aggressive pattern) than their Republican "counterparts." They are, in short, two sides of the same base-metal coin. They are "value-less", whether we mean "worthless" or having no moral or even epistemological values.
As Ayn Rand often reminded us, most people don't accept "the proposition that existence exists." They think they can "fake reality" at will, much like a magician or other conjurer or laboratory Frankenstein. We can actually make and patent new life-forms, and we're being killed by them on a daily basis. Do we blame God or do we blame the hubris of scientists, or the greed of the corporations which employ them?
Thus, we encounter the interface between the physical and virtual worlds - a kind of body-mind dualism, I suppose. Whim worshippers. Whatever they think, have been taught, or believe - it must be true, just because they believe it. This is the real "egoism" - not the noble pride which Rand tried to make it into. This is the selfishness of a hog, with the hunger of wolves, and often taking pleasure from inflicting pain and punishment on others.
3. We have little or no control over the external world outside of our own heads. The best we can do is try to understand it, and gain some sort of platform from which we can warn and advise those in power.
4. Facebook is such a hit because it gives people all over the world the opportunity to share thoughts and opinions with self-chosen "friends" and political allies. We are the advocates of freedom and a free, diverse, pluralistic, open society. We want to learn and trade with others, not enslave and exploit them. We want to improve humanity, not destroy it.
5. New Rules: Anti-Statism
Our existing legal systems were designed for the Roman Empire, and authoritarian, elitist regimes ever since. The English Common Law and other evolved, empirical systems are better, because they evolved in a tribal, local, and indigenous culture well-attuned with nature and natural processes. And that is probably why the British were so successful in spreading their language and knowledge around the world - it was generally humane and beneficial in intent, even if not in practice. The Common Law was like the People's Law, while the Roman Law, Code Napoleon, etc were designed to protect large estates, and enforce the dictates of a global empire, dominated by soldiers and war profiteers and plunderers.
6. The US today has abandoned all pretext at being ethical and humane, which returns us to the first point. The existing system has run its course. "Absolute power having corrupted absolutely ceases to be felt, and becomes, instead, omniscience." (That's actually a quote from me, circa 1972, in a letter to one of my fellow philosophy students).
7. It's time for a real "New Deal." Red + Green = Brown. We'll start over from scratch, with nothing held out from scrutiny, or maintained by "entitlement." As Hobbes said, "No better way to mend an ill game than with a new shuffle."
Conclusion:
Unfortunately, it's the very worst time in history for revolutions or coups d'etat. With dozens of isolated nuclear arsenals scattered around the world, it becomes a very complex exercise in game theory. That we have survived this long without a nuclear exchange of devastating magnitude is semi-miraculous. Nature, it would seem, must compensate with periodic "accidents-on-purpose" like Chernobyl or Fukushima. We simply must be reminded what the risks and dangers are, and start reversing or mitigating them.
The ability of the corporate puppet-states and their leaders to steer us away from any sane course is another minor miracle. But the only power they have is what we give them. Pres. Obama said as much the other day. You voted for me, gave me four more years, so we'll "stay the course" (and do all the same bad things we did, before, apparently).
But does this really require drone strikes, gutting the economy for bankster bailouts (L'economie, c'est moi) and being totally oblivious to all the other principles of a liberal state which people thought they had voted for? Does anybody really know this guy? He has been psycho-analyzed a lot lately. Perhaps he's trying to establish an insanity defense ahead of time. Stranger things have happened.
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