Supposedly what I call the Non-Problem of Evil is the strongest argument against the existence of God. Boston College Professor of Philosophy Peter Kreeft explains that the concept of evil, both human willed action and natural evil, only makes sense in the context of God's existence. Without God setting a benchmark for goodness evil is reduced to nothing more than personal preference. Rather than serving as an argument against the existence of God, the existence of evil is an argument for the existence of God.
Runs 4:50
Monday, July 13, 2015
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Mind in Tibetan Buddhism
At death you can no longer lie to yourself. You cannot rationalise away all the negative aspects of your life and your personality. The state of mind you have at the moment of death determins what you will experience, so it is vitally important to prepare now, while you are in this body, for what is to come. Lama Ole Nydahl of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism explains the mind and the bardos.
Friday, June 5, 2015
The Myth of Cultural Relativity
Why is it that on every video about Egypt, or archaeology in general, there has to be someone who leaves a comment about racialism? "You don't think [insert minority here] was smart enough to create something on their own! You're racialist!"
The truth of the matter is, most people in the world were not smart enough to do things on their own. People from Eurasia, and Egypt, did invent a whole lot, and had achieved a whole lot, and everyone else in the world was pretty much stuck in the stone age until the 18th century when they were dragged kicking and screaming into modernity.
People in North America did not have wheels, few had any form of record keeping, and those who had a limited usage of metal used it for ornamental purposes, not for anything practical. However impressive the accomplishments of the Maya or the Peruvian peoples, those accomplishments were all equivalent to things Eurasians had done many thousands of years earlier. Megalithic cairns dating back over 10,000 years map out precise astronomical alignments. While Egyptian pyramids were made from enormous blocks of cut stone, Mesoamerican pyramids were mostly made of rubble, only faced with stone. There were people in the Americas who built tumuli (earthen mounds), even up to probably 1500, while Eurasians had advanced beyond this thousands of years earlier. Not all cultures are equivalent, not scientifically, not technologically, not philosophically, not artistically, and not morally.
I don't think there is anyone who would argue that all breeds of dog are equivalent. Some dogs run really fast, others are exceptional at hunting waterfowl, others are useful for military work. No one would argue that all dogs are equivalent. And yet, somehow, there are some people who manage to think that all humans are equivalent. Some humans are exceptional at metal work, and philosophy, and construction, and hydrology, and navigation, and agriculture, and science, and they almost all come from the same areas. And some humans are great at making mud huts, and they pretty much live everywhere else.
The mistake is to separate humans from the natural world and make equal that which is not. As groups of humans separated geographically breed, just like dogs, different traits are passed on. Some breeds of human accumulate more beneficial traits than others, just like dogs. Some dogs (created in modern times by sick humans) have severe physical deformities that are a terrible detriment to their health. Some dogs are so deformed they cannot even breed without human intervention. The same is true with humans. Certain groups of humans are really short, others have developed the ability to digest milk into adulthood, some can run for days without tiring, and some groups of humans are incredibly smart. But for some reason while it is perfectly fine to talk about how breeding affects dogs, people get up in arms when anyone talks about breeding in humans.
I'm not talking about intrinsic human-ness, I'm not saying other groups of people should be enslaved or exterminated, as people who feel instead of think have already assumed my argument is and have stopped reading. Stupid people are just as human as smart people, just as small deformed dogs are just as dog as reasonable-sized healthy dogs. It's just that stupid people are not as smart as smart people, and so one would find it a lot more difficult to believe that a group of stupid people would be able to create more advanced structures than a group of smart people. That's what the whole issue is. It is easier to believe that certain cultures with long histories of great achievements could create certain monuments with their technology than it is to believe another culture could do the same with much more primitive technology and no suitable record of achievements. It's logic, not feelings. Try using it.
The truth of the matter is, most people in the world were not smart enough to do things on their own. People from Eurasia, and Egypt, did invent a whole lot, and had achieved a whole lot, and everyone else in the world was pretty much stuck in the stone age until the 18th century when they were dragged kicking and screaming into modernity.
People in North America did not have wheels, few had any form of record keeping, and those who had a limited usage of metal used it for ornamental purposes, not for anything practical. However impressive the accomplishments of the Maya or the Peruvian peoples, those accomplishments were all equivalent to things Eurasians had done many thousands of years earlier. Megalithic cairns dating back over 10,000 years map out precise astronomical alignments. While Egyptian pyramids were made from enormous blocks of cut stone, Mesoamerican pyramids were mostly made of rubble, only faced with stone. There were people in the Americas who built tumuli (earthen mounds), even up to probably 1500, while Eurasians had advanced beyond this thousands of years earlier. Not all cultures are equivalent, not scientifically, not technologically, not philosophically, not artistically, and not morally.
I don't think there is anyone who would argue that all breeds of dog are equivalent. Some dogs run really fast, others are exceptional at hunting waterfowl, others are useful for military work. No one would argue that all dogs are equivalent. And yet, somehow, there are some people who manage to think that all humans are equivalent. Some humans are exceptional at metal work, and philosophy, and construction, and hydrology, and navigation, and agriculture, and science, and they almost all come from the same areas. And some humans are great at making mud huts, and they pretty much live everywhere else.
The mistake is to separate humans from the natural world and make equal that which is not. As groups of humans separated geographically breed, just like dogs, different traits are passed on. Some breeds of human accumulate more beneficial traits than others, just like dogs. Some dogs (created in modern times by sick humans) have severe physical deformities that are a terrible detriment to their health. Some dogs are so deformed they cannot even breed without human intervention. The same is true with humans. Certain groups of humans are really short, others have developed the ability to digest milk into adulthood, some can run for days without tiring, and some groups of humans are incredibly smart. But for some reason while it is perfectly fine to talk about how breeding affects dogs, people get up in arms when anyone talks about breeding in humans.
I'm not talking about intrinsic human-ness, I'm not saying other groups of people should be enslaved or exterminated, as people who feel instead of think have already assumed my argument is and have stopped reading. Stupid people are just as human as smart people, just as small deformed dogs are just as dog as reasonable-sized healthy dogs. It's just that stupid people are not as smart as smart people, and so one would find it a lot more difficult to believe that a group of stupid people would be able to create more advanced structures than a group of smart people. That's what the whole issue is. It is easier to believe that certain cultures with long histories of great achievements could create certain monuments with their technology than it is to believe another culture could do the same with much more primitive technology and no suitable record of achievements. It's logic, not feelings. Try using it.
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Meditation Problems and Benefits
Here's a Daily Mail article about the supposed dangers of meditation and how it's evil and you should just take a pill. There's a bullshit study out in the Lancet about all of seven prisoners who used some sort of mindfulness practice.
Inmates at seven prisons in the Midlands took 90-minute classes once a week and completed tests to measure their higher cognitive functions in a ten week randomised control trial.
The prisoners’ moods improved, and their stress and psychological distress reduced - but they were found to be just as aggressive before the mindfulness techniques.
Aside from the uselessly small sample size, mindfulness is not designed to target aggression. Mindfulness deals with getting above feelings, thoughts, and perceptions. Mindfulness is a way of developing
wisdom, which is only the ability to recognise Emptiness. There are
separate practices for compassion and shadow work to deal with
aggression. From the perspective of the Absolute NOTHING is arising,
no thoughts, no perceptions, no emotions. It is impossible to deal
with relative issues from an Absolute perspective because there is no
relativity to deal with!
The guiding principle of mindfulness is to live more ‘in the moment’, spending less time going over past stresses and worrying about future problems.
The guiding principle of mindfulness is to notice the moment-by-moment arising and ceasing of conditions so as to disidentify with them. You have thoughts, but you are not your thoughts; you have feelings, but you are not your feelings; you have sensations, but you are not your sensations; you have perceptions, but you are not your sensations. You are the Witness of all things that are arising and ceasing, and as Witness you cannot see yourself.
It is a secular practice that is said to help people recognise and overcome negative thoughts while noticing small pleasures.
This right here is the problem. It is not a secular practice to lower blood pressure or anything else they claim it to be. It is a spiritual practice to recognise Spirit as such. Just because there are side benefits does not mean that those benefits are the main, or even a significant, focus of the practice itself. Without a proper framework any realisation will not stick. You can get into certain states and make the mind unmovable, and then as soon as you get out of them you are back to who you were before you started. If you were a jerk before meditation you will be a jerk after meditation. The other areas you work on are to stop yourself from being a jerk in the relative world so that when you stop meditating you don't go back to being a jerk.
There are five different practices that must be used in conjunction to hit the mind from all angles if you want to do everything you can go guarantee enlightenment:
1. Wisdom
The ability to recognize Emptiness. Absolute Truth. Worked at through state training, concentrative or insight. (e.g. praying without ceasing, visualization, "the Terminator thought", awareness of the breath)
2. Compassion
The ability to manifest morality in the world. Relative truth. (Sila, radical forgiveness, tonglen)
3. Shadow
Unconscious aspects the self does not identify with. The source of attachment and projection. (Psychoanalysis, dream analysis, 3-2-1 process)
4. Framework
Thinking. Philosophy. Stages of development. This is what makes realization stick. Without it you've just had an experience that can be interpreted as anything, agita, a drug trip, hallucination, demons, messianic status, etc. (Retreat from untruth, Integral AQAL model, A Course in Miracles text, Socratic method)
5. Body
Physical exercise and nutrition. This is to maintain the body so you can be healthy and fit enough to do the mental work in the manfiest world. Having a healthy body allows the mind to transcend the body more easily because the fewer physical problems there are to serve as distractions (hunger, pains, fatigue, illness), the more effort can go into training the mind. (Calisthenics, weight lifting, hatha yoga, tai chi chuan, proper diet, vitamins)
Meditation and mindfulness is promoted by celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow and Russell Brand, who boast of its power to help people put stress out of their minds and live for the moment.
But the treatment can itself trigger mania, depression, hallucinations and psychosis, psychological studies in the UK and US have found.
The practice is part of a growing movement based on ancient Eastern traditions of meditation.
However, 60 per cent of people who had been on a meditation retreat had suffered at least one negative side effect, including panic, depression and confusion, a study in the US found.
Those mediation "retreats" are ridiculous. Spend three days stroking your own ego and you'll become enlightened.
With regard to bad drug trips, some people take drugs to try to short cut enlightenment. And when they get taken above the mundane and see that life as they know it is all illusion and time doesn't exist they cannot handle it all at once and some commit suicide. You shouldn't take dope looking for pretty lights and sounds because you might get all of Beethoven downloaded into your brain in a nanosecond.
Dangers exist because we've spent countless eons living with reduced consciousness, practically unconscious compared to the great heights we are meant to attain. Change requires a great many steps that one must necessarily traverse. That's why most change is gradual. So gradual, in fact, that most people don't even notice it, like aging. Abrupt change requires going through all those steps all at once and usually looks like getting struck by lightning. One cannot bench 500 pounds having never exercised before, the muscles need to adapt. And if one were to attempt such a feat it would be very painful. The same is true with trying to force all of cosmic consciousness into a brain that is hardwired to focus on food and reproduction and the egoic pursuits.
Problems only arise when people try to force too much current through a wire that is not rated to handle it. In most people there's little current, but some people spend years getting the current to expand to the point where they can handle it. Sometimes, usually when people do something they're not supposed to, there's too much current and people have bad experiences, but that's not some jerk God doing it to be mean, that's someone who has only lifted a pool noodle trying to bench 500 pounds all at once.
That's why there's so much secrecy surrounding mystical initiation. It's the same reason calculus or sniper training aren't taught to kindergartners, there are a lot of prior steps that must be learned first because there are a whole lot of ways to mess things up even with simple mistakes.
The average person is nowhere near ready to find out the inner workings of one's own mind. It would be like taking someone from the middle of the Amazon forest who has never had contact with the modern world and putting that person in the middle of Hong Kong and expecting the Amazonian to become a millionaire in a weekend. It's impossible. That's why the eightfold path does not begin with samadhi, it begins with the intention, or determination to follow the path through till the end, and then it immediately moves to morality. A moral framework is necessary to get a person to become receptive to these higher realities.
If you're using meditation as a means of blissing out or lowering your blood pressure you're trying to fly a kite during a thunderstorm and hoping that lightning might produce a really cool sensation when it strikes you.
Inmates at seven prisons in the Midlands took 90-minute classes once a week and completed tests to measure their higher cognitive functions in a ten week randomised control trial.
The prisoners’ moods improved, and their stress and psychological distress reduced - but they were found to be just as aggressive before the mindfulness techniques.
Aside from the uselessly small sample size, mindfulness is not designed to target aggression. Mindfulness deals with getting above feelings, thoughts, and perceptions. Mindfulness is a way of developing
wisdom, which is only the ability to recognise Emptiness. There are
separate practices for compassion and shadow work to deal with
aggression. From the perspective of the Absolute NOTHING is arising,
no thoughts, no perceptions, no emotions. It is impossible to deal
with relative issues from an Absolute perspective because there is no
relativity to deal with!
The guiding principle of mindfulness is to live more ‘in the moment’, spending less time going over past stresses and worrying about future problems.
The guiding principle of mindfulness is to notice the moment-by-moment arising and ceasing of conditions so as to disidentify with them. You have thoughts, but you are not your thoughts; you have feelings, but you are not your feelings; you have sensations, but you are not your sensations; you have perceptions, but you are not your sensations. You are the Witness of all things that are arising and ceasing, and as Witness you cannot see yourself.
It is a secular practice that is said to help people recognise and overcome negative thoughts while noticing small pleasures.
This right here is the problem. It is not a secular practice to lower blood pressure or anything else they claim it to be. It is a spiritual practice to recognise Spirit as such. Just because there are side benefits does not mean that those benefits are the main, or even a significant, focus of the practice itself. Without a proper framework any realisation will not stick. You can get into certain states and make the mind unmovable, and then as soon as you get out of them you are back to who you were before you started. If you were a jerk before meditation you will be a jerk after meditation. The other areas you work on are to stop yourself from being a jerk in the relative world so that when you stop meditating you don't go back to being a jerk.
There are five different practices that must be used in conjunction to hit the mind from all angles if you want to do everything you can go guarantee enlightenment:
1. Wisdom
The ability to recognize Emptiness. Absolute Truth. Worked at through state training, concentrative or insight. (e.g. praying without ceasing, visualization, "the Terminator thought", awareness of the breath)
2. Compassion
The ability to manifest morality in the world. Relative truth. (Sila, radical forgiveness, tonglen)
3. Shadow
Unconscious aspects the self does not identify with. The source of attachment and projection. (Psychoanalysis, dream analysis, 3-2-1 process)
4. Framework
Thinking. Philosophy. Stages of development. This is what makes realization stick. Without it you've just had an experience that can be interpreted as anything, agita, a drug trip, hallucination, demons, messianic status, etc. (Retreat from untruth, Integral AQAL model, A Course in Miracles text, Socratic method)
5. Body
Physical exercise and nutrition. This is to maintain the body so you can be healthy and fit enough to do the mental work in the manfiest world. Having a healthy body allows the mind to transcend the body more easily because the fewer physical problems there are to serve as distractions (hunger, pains, fatigue, illness), the more effort can go into training the mind. (Calisthenics, weight lifting, hatha yoga, tai chi chuan, proper diet, vitamins)
Meditation and mindfulness is promoted by celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow and Russell Brand, who boast of its power to help people put stress out of their minds and live for the moment.
But the treatment can itself trigger mania, depression, hallucinations and psychosis, psychological studies in the UK and US have found.
The practice is part of a growing movement based on ancient Eastern traditions of meditation.
However, 60 per cent of people who had been on a meditation retreat had suffered at least one negative side effect, including panic, depression and confusion, a study in the US found.
Those mediation "retreats" are ridiculous. Spend three days stroking your own ego and you'll become enlightened.
With regard to bad drug trips, some people take drugs to try to short cut enlightenment. And when they get taken above the mundane and see that life as they know it is all illusion and time doesn't exist they cannot handle it all at once and some commit suicide. You shouldn't take dope looking for pretty lights and sounds because you might get all of Beethoven downloaded into your brain in a nanosecond.
Dangers exist because we've spent countless eons living with reduced consciousness, practically unconscious compared to the great heights we are meant to attain. Change requires a great many steps that one must necessarily traverse. That's why most change is gradual. So gradual, in fact, that most people don't even notice it, like aging. Abrupt change requires going through all those steps all at once and usually looks like getting struck by lightning. One cannot bench 500 pounds having never exercised before, the muscles need to adapt. And if one were to attempt such a feat it would be very painful. The same is true with trying to force all of cosmic consciousness into a brain that is hardwired to focus on food and reproduction and the egoic pursuits.
Problems only arise when people try to force too much current through a wire that is not rated to handle it. In most people there's little current, but some people spend years getting the current to expand to the point where they can handle it. Sometimes, usually when people do something they're not supposed to, there's too much current and people have bad experiences, but that's not some jerk God doing it to be mean, that's someone who has only lifted a pool noodle trying to bench 500 pounds all at once.
That's why there's so much secrecy surrounding mystical initiation. It's the same reason calculus or sniper training aren't taught to kindergartners, there are a lot of prior steps that must be learned first because there are a whole lot of ways to mess things up even with simple mistakes.
The average person is nowhere near ready to find out the inner workings of one's own mind. It would be like taking someone from the middle of the Amazon forest who has never had contact with the modern world and putting that person in the middle of Hong Kong and expecting the Amazonian to become a millionaire in a weekend. It's impossible. That's why the eightfold path does not begin with samadhi, it begins with the intention, or determination to follow the path through till the end, and then it immediately moves to morality. A moral framework is necessary to get a person to become receptive to these higher realities.
If you're using meditation as a means of blissing out or lowering your blood pressure you're trying to fly a kite during a thunderstorm and hoping that lightning might produce a really cool sensation when it strikes you.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Uri Geller's Tricks?
If y'all remember the early days of The Urban Mystic, there was probably the biggest, and maybe the only, controversey in Urban Mystic history when Bob Couttie tried to spam the site! I let him post his comment and then eight months later he posted the same comment and I deleted it and then he accused me of censorship. That led to some work by a reader/guest contributer countering Couttie's claims regarding Uri Geller and nitinol. I purchased a very old copy of Couttie's book (which is out of print), read it, and wrote a 16 page refutation that so far is up only in PDF format. One day I will turn it into a separate page on the site as well as a video series.
That was 2010. The crux of the matter is does Uri Geller use trickery to bend spoons or not? I don't have an answer, and I've made clear on The Urban Mystic many times that I think it could go either way. Some of his feats are probably tricks, but there is good evidence that he has genuine powers as well. Remember, Uri Geller became a multi millionaire not by bending spoons, but by dowsing for oil, and he has been very successful at finding oil and minerals just by pointing at spots on maps. There is also the experiments performed at SRI with dowsing that appear legitimate.
The reason I bring this up is that I have discovered a video of Bob Couttie talking about Uri Geller, with some evidence of what might be trickery. I'll leave any interpretation up to you, my valued couple of readers. Enjoy.
That was 2010. The crux of the matter is does Uri Geller use trickery to bend spoons or not? I don't have an answer, and I've made clear on The Urban Mystic many times that I think it could go either way. Some of his feats are probably tricks, but there is good evidence that he has genuine powers as well. Remember, Uri Geller became a multi millionaire not by bending spoons, but by dowsing for oil, and he has been very successful at finding oil and minerals just by pointing at spots on maps. There is also the experiments performed at SRI with dowsing that appear legitimate.
The reason I bring this up is that I have discovered a video of Bob Couttie talking about Uri Geller, with some evidence of what might be trickery. I'll leave any interpretation up to you, my valued couple of readers. Enjoy.
Friday, April 24, 2015
Why "Taxing the Rich" Doesn't Work
There are at least 7 reasons why the idea of taxing the rich and giving it to the poor does not work. I'll break them down for you below.
1. "Not Rich" Syndrome
The definition of who is "rich" is a lot like a number of other terms that belong on sliding scales. Someone who is rich is usually someone who has more money than the person making the definition. "I'm not rich, but that guy over there making $30,000, he's rich." That guy says "Rich? You must be joking! I'm just getting by, but that guy, making $80,000, now he's rich." The third guy says "I'm not rich! Those greedy bastards making $250,000, they're rich, and they should be taxed more!"
2. "Not I" Syndrome
The people who do admit they are rich usually believe they deserve some exemption to having to pay higher taxes. A leftist who wanted to raise taxes on the rich called in to The Savage Nation a few days ago and he admitted that he was, in fact, rich. However, he believed he shouldn't have to pay higher taxes, only other rich people. You see, he takes every tax exemption he can so he only pays a fraction of what a less crafty person would at his income bracket, and he believes that his genius at finding these loopholes means he is entitled to pay less. The caller wanted to raise taxes but did not want to close the loopholes that would shield him from having to pay those higher taxes! Taxes, in this instance, become a penalty for stupid people.
3. Rich People Don't Pay Taxes
The 80 people who possess half the money in the world never pay taxes anyway. Warren Buffett pays as little taxes as possible, so do the Clintons and the Bushes. The really rich people don't get money from income, so they already don't have to pay income tax – the form of tax that people who want to "tax the rich" want to increase, and they have armies of lawyers to find every single loophole to get out of paying the taxes that do apply to them. Warren Buffett always says that income tax should be raised and that his secretary pays more income tax than he does, but what he never mentions is he makes very little income. Most of the money Buffett gets is in the form of capital gains, which he conveniently does not want taxed any higher. He's distracting the public with one hand to disguise what his other hand is doing.
Remember, in the US, the IRS does not care how much you pay beyond the minimum amount you owe. You can legally give them as much money as you want over what you legally owe. If you owe $50,000, you can legally give them a million dollars and they will gladly accept it to buy a new hammer or toilet seat.
4. Corporations Don't Pay Taxes
Just like rich people, corporations (which somehow count as "people" but unborn children are just "tissues") don't pay taxes either. Corporations are to people what Superman is to man. Corporations can deduct expenses, like utilities. If you try to get off having to pay your gas bill or make a car payment you'd get your gas shut off and your car repossessed. A corporation can get a tax break. Corporations can use past losses to offset future gains. In the red last year? It doesn't matter that you've made billions, you can subtract what you didn't make from what you did and get free money from Uncle Sam! Corporations can create smaller, shell corporations in tax havens to launder money and avoid paying taxes. And the big one, corporations that are really super in the red can get bailouts if they have their hands in too many cookie jars. If a big corporation like AIG were to go bankrupt it would cause a depression, so the government can't let that happen. You see, some corporations are "too big to fail."
5. Dekulakization
Whenever taxes are raised the only people who lose more money directly are kulaks. Kulaks are the mythical "tight-fisted" independent farmers (mostly Poles and Ukrainians) who Stalin murdered out of racial hatred while claiming to fight capitalism. In American terms the kulaks are the entrepreneurs. They are the people with two mortgages on their homes to fund a business that employs a couple dozen people. On paper they may be millionaires, but very little of that money is liquid. In fact most of these modern day kulaks are in the red, but few ever speak of real world economics, and so these paper millionaires must be taxed to the point where they lose their businesses. Destroying small businesses is a death sentence for the economy, because that's where most new jobs are created. Raising taxes is like pouring cement into a car's engine.
6. Eat the Poor
The only other group of people hurt by higher taxes are poor people. Fewer businesses means fewer jobs. Fewer jobs means more unemployment, and unemployment tends to go hand-in-hand with being poor. That's not the only way poor people are hurt by higher taxes. Those tax-exempt corporate people can raise their prices if they ever get in a situation where they can't weasel their way out of having to pay a tax, thus forcing poor people to have to pay whatever the corporations owe. Sure, minimum wage might go up every few years, but it's always behind inflation, so an extra dollar an hour is really less than what you were paid five years ago because the price of commodities has gone up. It really is the case that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, whether taxes are increased or not.
7. To Each According to His Need
If we're going to redistribute wealth, and do it globally and do it right, chances are you won't see a dime. A billion Africans take precedent over the average poor person in America, because they are just that much poorer. Poor people in America have a car, a TV, and are obese, while poor people in Haiti literally eat cakes made from mud to eliminate hunger pangs because there's not enough food to eat a real meal every day.
And if we were to do this just in America? The people who would reap the rewards are the same people who reap them now: the welfare scam artists. Deadbeats who have ten children so they can get food stamps to pay for makeup and booze, people living together who all file separately so the household looks really super poor on paper, I've seen all types. There are people who know how to game the system to suck up as much welfare as possible, and they often live better than the people working two jobs who support them with their taxes. Do you think this would change if we just "tax the rich" more? In a country where 80% of government spending on welfare is lost in bureaucratic inefficiency and political slush funds, I don't think so.
Bonus 8th Reason: What is Fair?
Alright, you've convinced me, let's do this. Let's tax the rich. Let's make them pay their fair share. So, what is their fair share?
The problem with the definition of fairness is that it is even more nebulous than the definition of rich. That's why leftists have switched over to using the word equality, because enough people have caught onto the fairness nonsense. Leftists love to say the rich should pay their fair share, but if you ever press them to give a real world percentage they will turn irate and say you are deflecting the issue. Leftists never say anything concrete because then people would see they're idiots. It reveals the lie to get into details, so they stick to slogans that they repeat Ad nauseam, just like Rules for Radicals tells them to do. How much taxes are fair? More. It's never fair because you can always tax more, but if leftists ever said this you'd see they're not interested in fairness, only control.
1. "Not Rich" Syndrome
The definition of who is "rich" is a lot like a number of other terms that belong on sliding scales. Someone who is rich is usually someone who has more money than the person making the definition. "I'm not rich, but that guy over there making $30,000, he's rich." That guy says "Rich? You must be joking! I'm just getting by, but that guy, making $80,000, now he's rich." The third guy says "I'm not rich! Those greedy bastards making $250,000, they're rich, and they should be taxed more!"
2. "Not I" Syndrome
The people who do admit they are rich usually believe they deserve some exemption to having to pay higher taxes. A leftist who wanted to raise taxes on the rich called in to The Savage Nation a few days ago and he admitted that he was, in fact, rich. However, he believed he shouldn't have to pay higher taxes, only other rich people. You see, he takes every tax exemption he can so he only pays a fraction of what a less crafty person would at his income bracket, and he believes that his genius at finding these loopholes means he is entitled to pay less. The caller wanted to raise taxes but did not want to close the loopholes that would shield him from having to pay those higher taxes! Taxes, in this instance, become a penalty for stupid people.
3. Rich People Don't Pay Taxes
The 80 people who possess half the money in the world never pay taxes anyway. Warren Buffett pays as little taxes as possible, so do the Clintons and the Bushes. The really rich people don't get money from income, so they already don't have to pay income tax – the form of tax that people who want to "tax the rich" want to increase, and they have armies of lawyers to find every single loophole to get out of paying the taxes that do apply to them. Warren Buffett always says that income tax should be raised and that his secretary pays more income tax than he does, but what he never mentions is he makes very little income. Most of the money Buffett gets is in the form of capital gains, which he conveniently does not want taxed any higher. He's distracting the public with one hand to disguise what his other hand is doing.
Remember, in the US, the IRS does not care how much you pay beyond the minimum amount you owe. You can legally give them as much money as you want over what you legally owe. If you owe $50,000, you can legally give them a million dollars and they will gladly accept it to buy a new hammer or toilet seat.
4. Corporations Don't Pay Taxes
Just like rich people, corporations (which somehow count as "people" but unborn children are just "tissues") don't pay taxes either. Corporations are to people what Superman is to man. Corporations can deduct expenses, like utilities. If you try to get off having to pay your gas bill or make a car payment you'd get your gas shut off and your car repossessed. A corporation can get a tax break. Corporations can use past losses to offset future gains. In the red last year? It doesn't matter that you've made billions, you can subtract what you didn't make from what you did and get free money from Uncle Sam! Corporations can create smaller, shell corporations in tax havens to launder money and avoid paying taxes. And the big one, corporations that are really super in the red can get bailouts if they have their hands in too many cookie jars. If a big corporation like AIG were to go bankrupt it would cause a depression, so the government can't let that happen. You see, some corporations are "too big to fail."
5. Dekulakization
Whenever taxes are raised the only people who lose more money directly are kulaks. Kulaks are the mythical "tight-fisted" independent farmers (mostly Poles and Ukrainians) who Stalin murdered out of racial hatred while claiming to fight capitalism. In American terms the kulaks are the entrepreneurs. They are the people with two mortgages on their homes to fund a business that employs a couple dozen people. On paper they may be millionaires, but very little of that money is liquid. In fact most of these modern day kulaks are in the red, but few ever speak of real world economics, and so these paper millionaires must be taxed to the point where they lose their businesses. Destroying small businesses is a death sentence for the economy, because that's where most new jobs are created. Raising taxes is like pouring cement into a car's engine.
6. Eat the Poor
The only other group of people hurt by higher taxes are poor people. Fewer businesses means fewer jobs. Fewer jobs means more unemployment, and unemployment tends to go hand-in-hand with being poor. That's not the only way poor people are hurt by higher taxes. Those tax-exempt corporate people can raise their prices if they ever get in a situation where they can't weasel their way out of having to pay a tax, thus forcing poor people to have to pay whatever the corporations owe. Sure, minimum wage might go up every few years, but it's always behind inflation, so an extra dollar an hour is really less than what you were paid five years ago because the price of commodities has gone up. It really is the case that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, whether taxes are increased or not.
7. To Each According to His Need
If we're going to redistribute wealth, and do it globally and do it right, chances are you won't see a dime. A billion Africans take precedent over the average poor person in America, because they are just that much poorer. Poor people in America have a car, a TV, and are obese, while poor people in Haiti literally eat cakes made from mud to eliminate hunger pangs because there's not enough food to eat a real meal every day.
And if we were to do this just in America? The people who would reap the rewards are the same people who reap them now: the welfare scam artists. Deadbeats who have ten children so they can get food stamps to pay for makeup and booze, people living together who all file separately so the household looks really super poor on paper, I've seen all types. There are people who know how to game the system to suck up as much welfare as possible, and they often live better than the people working two jobs who support them with their taxes. Do you think this would change if we just "tax the rich" more? In a country where 80% of government spending on welfare is lost in bureaucratic inefficiency and political slush funds, I don't think so.
Bonus 8th Reason: What is Fair?
Alright, you've convinced me, let's do this. Let's tax the rich. Let's make them pay their fair share. So, what is their fair share?
The problem with the definition of fairness is that it is even more nebulous than the definition of rich. That's why leftists have switched over to using the word equality, because enough people have caught onto the fairness nonsense. Leftists love to say the rich should pay their fair share, but if you ever press them to give a real world percentage they will turn irate and say you are deflecting the issue. Leftists never say anything concrete because then people would see they're idiots. It reveals the lie to get into details, so they stick to slogans that they repeat Ad nauseam, just like Rules for Radicals tells them to do. How much taxes are fair? More. It's never fair because you can always tax more, but if leftists ever said this you'd see they're not interested in fairness, only control.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
God and Buddha
Robert Thurman and Deepak Chopra rap for an hour and a half on Buddhism, Vedanta, God, primordial awareness, suffering, liberation, contradiction, and everything in between. A lovely dialogue.
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