http://www.contracostatimes.com/politics/ci_12589887?nclick_check=1

Why would we teach Americans that other Americans who are peacefully protesting against our government are in the same category as Osama Bin Laden? Why are governments so afraid of dissent?

But Obama will change this, right? Bush was totalitarian, but now we have a Liberal in office, things will turn around. Ahh, no.

Obama plans to hold Gitmo detainees indefinitely, just as Bush did.

Obama flip flops on CEO pay caps and his pledge to prosecute illegal wiretapping.

Obama flip flops on his pledge to prosecute those who tortured prisoners during Bush’s presidency.

Obama invokes states secret authority as President, yet condemned Bush for using it while on the campaign trail.

And of course, you have the secret Anti Counterfeiting Treaty. The US is trying to extend US copyright laws to every country, and for some reason, this is considered a ‘national security’ level secret, since Obama rejected a Freedom if Information Request declaring details on this treaty a national security secret.

When Obama won the presidency, I thought I would have to move this blog away from finding the ‘Truth’ in the political realm, and do more reading on psychology, economics, or some other subject. But it seems Obama will be offering up a lot of material for me to blog on. Depressing, actually.

Is there any benefit to society if the population is patriotic? It makes people feel like they are part of a group, which is hard wired into us through evolution. Those that grouped together lived, those that tried the lone wolf approach died.

Patriotism makes us more likely to belief someone when they say our country was right, and another one was wrong. It makes people more likely to feel cognitive dissonance when told their country has done something wrong – just look at how Americans fight against the truth that Iraq was not involved in 9/11, and that Hussein had US backing when he killed the Kurds (the chemicals he used were made in Rochester NY!). Or that the US pushed sanctions in the 1990s that killed hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq. I push this last point all the time, because it amazes me how people can continue on with a conversation when I make this statement. We turned the world upside down over 3,000 dead in NYC, but a few hundred thousand dead children? Hmm, yes that is horrible Shane… do you know if it is supposed to rain tomorrow?

Hitler used patriotism, along with other methods, to get Germans to ignore the truth. He himself was patriotic. Although he was extremely evil, he thought his actions were helping his country.

So why do we look at Patriotism as a good thing here in the US, if it is so often used for evil purposes?

If you continue down that path, then you have to ask yourself if someone should be ridiculed for not being successful, or lazy, or stupid, or a criminal. If genes determine a person’s ability to be a Physicist, does it determine if they are a naturally happy person? Sarcastic? Pessimistic, loving, funny?

I once read an article that said a woman, after having problems for years holding down jobs and keeping friends… found out she had a hormone imbalance. A few drugs later, she is basically normal, if there is such a thing, and she was leading a pretty typical life. Let’s say a person who is ‘normal’ is a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10, and this woman was a 10. 10 being horribly moody, angry, antagonistic etc. Most people are probably in the low numbers – it is likely the reason this woman finally got treatment is because she was very different from what we would call normal. What if someone is a 3? If the woman’s life changed when she had her hormone imbalance fixed, then obviously hormones affect who we are. And we do not control those hormones. Someone at a 3 or 4 might just be called Bitchy, never get treatment, and forever be told she Made The Wrong Choices. No matter what you believe, her personality is shaped by hormone levels and while we know they are determined by genetics, even someone who believes God created that woman has to admit that God GAVE her that imbalance, right?

So for the 100th time on this blog – why do people continue to say people have Free Will and that people make their own choices. You might argue that the physicist might have never gone into physics – he might have tried to be an opera singer. Is that not free will? No, just as some people are given/receive the ability to be Great, not everyone is given the desire to be Great. He might have the genes that make him able to understand physics, but he might also have the genes that make him LOVE opera, and hate physics. Is it free will that he chose to sing?

Genes or a God Given Talent, either way YOU did not choose what God gave you, or your genes. Free will does not exist.

Only Ventura could come up with the question: “If waterboarding isn’t torture, why don’t our police use it on suspects?” His answer on Hasslepuke’s comment that waterboarding is just enhanced interrogation techniques is also priceless. Finally someone was able to shut her up.

Think about how many things in our society are shaped by the idea that humans are completely free to do what they wish and that their misfortunes are almost always caused by their own choices. Are criminals just evil, or are they a product of poverty and a harsh environment? Free will would say criminals always have a choice. Those people are poor because they choose to be! Hmm, sure.

So here are some questions to ask yourself the next time someone brushes off the idea that people’s problems are not entirely of their own making:

1. Why do you care about how your children are raised if they have free will?  Won’t they just turn out to be the person they chose to be?
2. Why do religious people have such a problem with evolution being taught in schools?  Won’t their kids make the right choice to believe in God, no matter what they are taught?
3. For that matter, why do Atheists fear religion being taught in schools?  Won’t THEIR kids see through the veil on their own?
4. Why do we watch Law and Order shows and feel bad for the child molester once we find out he was molested as a child also?  Didn’t he make his own choices?
5. Why do we fear having a Communist Party in the United States (is there one anymore?).  Won’t Americans make their own choices, and stick with our oh-so-great-defenders-of-the-people political parties, the Repugnicans and the Dipshitocrats??
6. Why do 90% of the people who grow up in a religious household end up staying in that religion?  If people really had free will, wouldn’t it be pretty scattered?  “Mom, I am no longer a Baptist, I am now a Hindu.  Praise Shiva!”
7. Why does propaganda work?
8. Why does advertising work?
9. Why do we have anger management programs?  Didn’t they make the choice themselves?  Why can’t they just choose to be ‘normal’?

The list goes on and on.  Everyone knows that news programs present stories that make us afraid, because we are more likely to watch.   An evolutionary psychologist would say that it is our evolved defensive instincts, pushing us to notice anything that threatens us.  Yet we still claim to have free will.

Now at this just about anyone reading this will say “but 10% of the people DID choose another religion!   No psychology experiment ever comes out that 100% of the people did the same thing every single time.  Propaganda doesn’t work on everyone.  People DO turn away from a life of crime.”

Scientists have found the gene that can predict alcoholism in a person.   If you have this gene, you are more likely to become addicted.  If you do not have this gene, you are more likely to not have a problem with alcohol.  So when some people break away from addiction, is it their willpower?  Their Free Will in action?  Or did they just get lucky enough to miss having that one gene?  If one gene can make you an addict, are there others that make you cranky and pessimistic?  If so, can we really fault people for being that way?

People tell me that the problem with this theory is that it would ruin society.  I say just the opposite – it will save it.  Jesus forgave everyone for their sins, why do people think I am a nutcase when I say we should forgive everyone for their sins?

Most of the problems in our society are explained away by people by the idea of free will.  Poor people in the US?  They are lazy.  Someone is stuck working at WalMart and can’t afford to make ends meet?   They just need to choose to work harder and find another job.   Drug addict?  They are weak willed.  Criminal?  They made their choice.

Once we start admiting that people are not free, we can really start looking at WHY people do what they do.  Until then, only far left Liberals will weep for the poor and tired, and that means nothing will ever really get done.  People who believe in personal responsibility and free will AND refuse to admit how much our environment and genes affect us will fight changes that could help those unfortunate enough to be born into an environment where drugs and crime are normal, or have the wrong gene that means you are in danger of becoming an alcoholic.

Until then many people will always argue that there are poor people in the US because they chose to be there, and as long as there is a struggle over this, nothing substantial will ever be done to really fix any of the big problems we face.

This guy originally said waterboarding was not torture.  Watch the video and see how a tiny amount of water makes him give up in a matter of seconds…

Even CIA agents only last 14 seconds at this, on average.

Here is the list:

1. (1) “American Idol” (Wednesday), Fox, 22.98 million viewers.

2. (2) “American Idol” (Tuesday), Fox, 22.81 million viewers.

3. (3) “Dancing with the Stars,” ABC, 19.88 million viewers.

4. (5) “NCIS,” CBS, 17.81 million viewers.

5. (X) NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship: Michigan St. vs. North Carolina,” CBS, 17.65 million viewers.

6. (7) “The Mentalist,” CBS, 16.92 million viewers.

7. (4) “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 16.62 million viewers.

8. (8) “Dancing with the Stars Results,” ABC, 14.56 million viewers.

9. (12) “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 13.61 million viewers.

10. (18) “House,” Fox, 13.29 million viewers.

11. (X) “60 Minutes,” CBS, 12.82 million viewers.

12. (16) “CSI: NY,” CBS, 12.5 million viewers.

13. (18) “Without a Trace,” CBS, 12.15 million viewers.

14. (X) “Prelude to a Championship,” CBS, 12.15 million viewers.

15. (22) “Surviving Suburbia,” ABC, 11.25 million viewers.

16. (16) “Survivor: Tocantins,” CBS, 11.24 million viewers.

17. (20) “24,” Fox, 10.96 million viewers.

18. (X) “Amazing Race 14,” CBS, 10.57 million viewers.

19. (X) “Cold Case,” CBS, 10.56 million viewers.

20. (32) “Harper’s Island,” CBS, 10.21 million viewers.

How boring are we? Cops, hospitals, reality TV. That’s about it. And then people tell me they quit watching Lost because ‘it got too weird’ or ‘they couldn’t understand it’. That concludes my useless rant for today folks, go back to watching CSI Miami.

What does inflation do?

• It gives people an incentive to invest their money.  Those who cannot invest have a harder time keeping up with inflation.  This benefits businesses, giving them capital to expand and grow.
• It helps those who own assets, and hurts those who spend a large portion of their income on consumables.  This benefits the rich, but hurts the poor who have to spend most of their income on things like food and gas.
• It lets banks always increase profits.
• As Henry Hazlitt said, it “deceives labor” by reducing a worker’s real wages, without them realizing it. This benefits businesses, because if you do not receive a raise each year, you are really taking a pay cut – and you don’t realize it.
• Inflation allows a government to tax the citizens without their knowledge.
• It creates malinvestment.  People have a harder time assessing risk.  Take for example, the fact that less than a year ago people making $50K a year were buying 2-3 homes just to sell them a few years later and make a huge profit.

The Federal Reserve is supposed to keep prices stable.  They do not do a very good job of it, since we generally have consistent inflation every year.  This constant inflation helps the rich, pushes people to invest (which helps big business), helps banks, hurts Labor, and allows a government to secretly tax people.

I don’t think anyone would want a deflationary system, where prices constantly decrease, but what if we did?  If inflation is caused (mostly) by increasing the amount of money in circulation, deflation could actually be achieved just by keeping the amount of money constant.  Population growth would cause deflation.   Deflation would also happen if our economy grew.  If we produced more goods, there would be less money available for each of them, and prices would drop.  As I see it, deflation would:

• People would benefit by holding their money.  Investing would not be beneficial, and people would be extremely cautious when investing their money.  This would hurt businesses, and help consumers.
• It would hurt those who owned assets.  Your home values would go down, not up.  This would hurt everyone, but it would hurt the rich the most.   People would hold on to things they bought.  Why would you sell a car when they would devalue even faster than they do now?  People would only buy houses they really planned to live in, house flipping would be much harder to do.
• Loans would be harder to come by.  Why would a bank loan you money at 6% interest and risk losing it, when they could just sit on the money and make 3% doing nothing? (Assuming deflation was around 3% a year, just as inflation is (cough) about 2-4% a year, because of course the government does not fudge their numbers at all…)  You could still make money lending money, but banks would be very careful who they lent money to.
• People would get raises without actually being given one.  You would make (again, for argument’s sake, assume deflation was about 3% a year) 3% more a year even if your employer did give you a raise.  Raises would eventually become a thing of the past, unless you moved to a higher position.  Eventually businesses would have to get people to take a cut in pay, because as the price of the goods they sold went down over time, their labor costs would remain constant – which would mean that their labor costs would eventually become a larger and large percentage of their operating costs.  People would be able to take pay cuts though, because prices would always be getting lower.

It appears that inflation helps business and the rich, while deflation would hurt businesses (which would hurt everyone) and benefit the poor.

Does it surprise you that every politician says that deflation is more dangerous than inflation?   Economists fear high inflation but nothing is as scary as the dreaded deflation.

And yet… people have dealt with deflation in a way for years, with technology.  Computers, TV’s, etc.  Economists argue that no one would buy anything if we lived in a deflationary system, but we all obviously buy TVs and other electronics, even though they almost always drop in price over time.

If you look at the lists though, you can see that inflation causes banks to lend recklessly, it hurts the average citizen and causes people to not save money.   Is this not what people are saying is the cause of the economic crisis?  ‘No one is saving’, they say.   ‘People were reckless with their money’.  ‘The average citizen’s wages are not keeping up with housing and health care costs’.  Sound familiar?

In a deflationary system, prices would (generally) always drop, so people would always have more and more money available to them after they paid their bills.   Businesses would have to get people to take pay cuts, while today even if they can hold workers at a set wage, they are actually getting those workers to take a pay cut.   Instead of the system working for businesses, it would work for the average citizen.  People could not make money simply by ‘owning stuff’.  On the other hand, we all depend on a business for our paychecks, so there is a downside to deflation.  Just as inflation does actually help people who borrow money.  Have you ever heard someone point out that after 20 years of paying on your mortgage, that you will likely be getting paid a higher wage, so your mortgage will really become less of an expense over time?   This would not happen in a deflationary system.  Your mortgage would become a larger percentage of your income every year, not a smaller one.   A deflationary system would push people to save money as much as possible, and borrow as little as possible.  This doesn’t sound like something banks would want, does it?

Does it really surprise you then, that big business, the government, and banks ALL espouse an inflationary system, and consider deflation to be one of the worst evils?

The answer seems to be to have a system where prices are completely stable.  This would balance things out.  People would not overly save, but they would not overly spend either.  Banks would still lend, but they would not be reckless in their lending either.  People would invest, but they would careful about it.  Would this not keep us from having economic crashes like we are experiencing today?  It would seem so.

If someone can point out a flaw in my argument here, please do so.   I do not claim to be an expert in Economics, so if someone can prove me wrong, please leave a comment and tell me why. Also if anyone knows of some effects of inflation or deflation that I missed, let me know and I will add them to the lists.

I have possibly posted this before, apologies to my… 60 or so regular readers if you have already seen this here.

Click here to view, for some reason embedding google videos will not work right now.

Edit:  Well it seems the video on google was removed, here is a transcript of some of it:

“Now, there’s one thing you might have noticed I don’t complain about: politicians,” he explained in a routine that challenged all the premises of today’s half-a-loaf reformers. “Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public.”

“The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they’re an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They’ve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They’ve got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying – lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers – people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they’re coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club.”