[clinton/website/site/unknownlamer.org.git] / Politics.html

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    <h1>Do Not Accept the Weak State of Mind in Our Time</h1>
   <div class="contents">
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec1">The Basis of My Philosophy</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec2">The Current Economic and Political Structure Is Broken</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec3">The Government of the Unites States</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec4">Healthcare <em>Reform</em></a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec5">Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec6">Misc</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec7">Long Term Copyright Causes Harm to Society (<code>Draft Revision 2</code>)</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec8">Fewer Laws Are Better</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec9">Individuals should not have their actions regulated</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec10">Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec11">Social Ills</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec12">Mass Culture</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec13">The Talking Heads</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec14">The Automobile</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec15">Learned Ignorance and Weakness</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
</dl>
</div>


<!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here -->
<p>I have views that could perhaps be seen as odd. Do note that I am <strong>not</strong>
a liberal; nor am I a conservative. I do not buy into the traditional
socieconomic dipole scale, and I also reject the <em>political compass</em> two
dimensional scale; my political belief system could best be described
as <em>curmudgeonly bastard</em> if you must have a label for it. This is only
because being a curmudgeonly bastard isn't an ideology, but rather a
broad set of ideas centered around the rejection of traditional
political and social structures (<em>i.e</em> hating everything). I reject the
<em>ressentiment</em> (lookit I'm Nietzsche) of traditional anarchism and
believe not that every man should have no master (for then <em>all</em> would
be weak), but rather that he should be his own master (does that even
<em>mean</em> anything? Eh, it sounds nice so who cares).</p>

<p>These short essays are mere stubs I wrote a long while ago, and each
will perhaps be extended in the future.</p>

<h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a>
<a href="Wisdom.html">The Basis of My Philosophy</a></h2>

<p class="first">I read some things and thought they were cool. Now I can make people
think I'm smarter than I really am.</p>


<h2><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a>
The Current Economic and Political Structure Is Broken</h2>

<h3><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a>
The Government of the Unites States</h3>

<p class="first">I feel that the government in the United States is very close to being
broken beyond repair (perhaps this is a bit conservative, but one must
hope). As it stands the government above the local level (and even
there!) ignores the individual citizen and instead is only forced to
do anything by large scale action. As far as the individual is
concerned we no longer live in a Republic, but rather in an Plutocracy
which is quickly descending into something far worse.</p>

<h4><a name="sec4" id="sec4"></a>
Healthcare <em>Reform</em></h4>

<p class="first">Upon airing my objections to the current Healthcare <em>Reform</em> bill, I was
asked: did you read the bill? To which I replied with action and read
<a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3590&amp;tab=summary">the official summary of the bill</a>. And now I ask those who asked me if
I had read it: have <em>you</em> read it. I received as a reply an unequivocal:
<em>why should I have to</em>.</p>

<p>Fun fact: it isn't as bad as some people make it seem, but guess what?
<em>It does nothing beneficial to the individual</em>. All it does it require
that anyone over 30 purchase insurance, severely restricts the usage
of Health Savings Accounts (which, may be not so bad&mdash;I have no
opinion on their usefulness... but <em>Republicans</em> created them so they
<em>must</em> be <em>evil</em>), and is generally a piece of hey-look-I-did-something
(but nothing goes into effect until I am out of office)
legislation. This has never happened before, obviously. We are on the
surface of Mars now too didn't you know.</p>

<p>Meanwhile there is what amounts to no price controls, an actual <em>ban</em> on
the formation of State run healthcare (until 2017, and then only at
the discretion of the HHS secretary), and token (unfunded) support for
the formation of healthcare cooperatives. There are some taxes on
large drug makers, but the research required by the FDA for drug
approval is <em>tax deductible</em> (and so the larger drug makers can avoid
most of the new taxes, har). And... an excise tax on overly fancy
healthcare plans... more or less, a nice bill that, if it manages to
not be overturned by 2018, will do absolutely nothing one way or the
other.</p>

<p>It is obvious that I am indeed a dirty Nazi redneck terrorist
teabagger Republican piece of shit who hates the poor and black
people. I guess it's time for my white ass to move to Iran and see how
I like it there!</p>


<h3><a name="sec5" id="sec5"></a>
Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil</h3>

<p class="first">Cooperation is better than exploitation. How can one justify an
economic system based upon paying others as little as possible in an
attempt to make the most profit from their labor so as to make some
profit?</p>

<p>But then again, what does <em>evil</em> mean?</p>


<h2><a name="sec6" id="sec6"></a>
Misc</h2>

<h3><a name="sec7" id="sec7"></a>
Long Term Copyright Causes Harm to Society (<code>Draft Revision 2</code>)</h3>


<p>It is straightforward to calculate a fair cost for material goods. The
material cost follows from the materials, and the labor cost generally
derives from the complexity of construction. The fixed price for each
item consists of both of these factors. Thus it is trivial to ensure
that a craftsman is fairly compensated for his effort.</p>


<p>Creative works must have their value calculated via a more circuitous
route. The physical form of a creative work is of little importance;
the ideas it represents are. The material and direct labor costs
(printing, binding, etc.) are thus so small as to be of negligible
importance when calculating value. There is effectively no objective
way to place value on abstract work; all the value judgements we can
make are subjective. We must then rely on irrational human valuations
to determine the value on their own.</p>


<p>Creative works are fundamentally different from concrete works. A
painting may inspire others start a new stylistic movement, the
structure of a story may cause the formation of a new literary form,
an essay may incite a new political movement, etc. Creative works
weave themselves into the mental fabric of each individual exposed to
them in a way that material goods cannot. A book may change your life;
a table will never do that. This suggests that the abstract concepts
which compose a work have a strange nature and great value. Those who
control the distribution of creative works wield great power as a
result of the ability of ideas to change the individual.</p>

<p>After a certain period of time the physical manifestation of a
creative work loses commercial value. New art is being created
continually, and no one can be expected to read every important book
written, see every film, and so on for other areas. When a work ceases
to be profitable to publish distribution ceases. Allowing abstract
works to simply drop from the market creates a serious problem. New
ideas are built upon old ones, and after ideas have assimilated into
the collective concious it is important to be able to go back to the
old ideas and analyze them to understand the present culture. If a
work is no longer available it is impossible to do this. Thus works
that are no longer being commercially exploited should become the
property of the public so that any worth preserving will be preserved
by <em>someone</em> and avoid death.</p>


<p>Copyright manages to work fairly well for ensuring creators are
compensated for their effort, preventing abuse of creator rights to
the detriment of society, and ensuring that works will become public
property after they are commercially unprofitable. Irrational human
judgements over time often work well, and so giving exclusive right to
copy a work makes sense for a period of time to allow society to
determine its monetary value. The fair use provisions of copyright
give society reasonable leeway in the use of the ideas contained
within a work while the work is protected, and this allows society to
continue enriching its creative culture. The limited term of copyright
and ensuing reversion to the public domain prevents the cultural
stagnation and the loss of history that would result from works
becoming unavailable.</p>


<p>The term of copyright must be finely balanced between the need to
ensure creators have enough time to receive fair compensation for
their effort, and the desire to avoid cultural stagnation from
unavailable works. The term must be short enough that a work will not
be unavailable for too long after commercial interest dies. Every year
that passes where the work isn't being published tends to reduce the
number of copies in existence. It must also be long enough that a
creator can profit according to the value that society puts upon his
work.</p>

<p>A term should be just long enough that a work will fall out of
copyright when physical copies are still likely to exist. A man may
keep his book collection unto his death, but his children may simply
sell them off or discard them after he departs the mortal
coil. Intuitive judgement says that things that are worth entering the
public domain will be preserved by someone for at least his life. A
person who has creative works in his posession is often attached to
them and will keep the ones he likes the most for as long as possible
(e.g. my music collection is backed up in flac so that I will be able
to listen to my music forever). After he dies there is a large
increase in the chance that the works will perish unless he by chance
made special arrangements to have them preserved.</p>

<p>A generation then seems to be a reasonable term; how many things are
really commercially viable after thirty years? Some works may be
relevant to the children of the generation who created them; it seems
reasonable then that if a work is still commercially viable after a
generation then the creator deserves to retain copyright for a second
generation. It is questionable whether more terms would be good
(issues of supression of information, right to profit, etc. come into
play), but they can't quite be ruled out. A renewal system with a span
of roughly thirty years ensures that a work will be out of publication
for at most a generation's time. This appears to be a good balance
between the right of the creator and the desire to keep knowledge from
dying (from my eyes).</p>

<p>The works of the current generation, their parents, their
grandparents, and their great-grandparents are still copyrighted in
the US. Works created in the present will be copyrighted for the
lifetime of the author and seventy years after; a span of roughly six
generations.</p>


<h3><a name="sec8" id="sec8"></a>
Fewer Laws Are Better</h3>

<h4><a name="sec9" id="sec9"></a>
Individuals should not have their actions regulated</h4>


<h4><a name="sec10" id="sec10"></a>
Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated</h4>

<p class="first">Corporate power disrupts the functioning of a free society. If the
power wielded by a corporation were merely the sum of the individuals
that composed it there would be little issue; the fundamental problem
is that the benefits of gaining access to mass production facilities
and a huge workforce that can be forced to cooperate on certain goals
gives a large corporation much more than this.</p>

<h5>Corporate Personhood should be revoked</h5>


<h5>Corporations should not be allowed to influence politics</h5>


<h2><a name="sec11" id="sec11"></a>
Social Ills</h2>

<h3><a name="sec12" id="sec12"></a>
Mass Culture</h3>

<p class="first">American culture in the early 1900s began to homogenize, and now there
is a single massive culture that almost all three hundred million
people in the country share. This presents problems to those who do
not fit in; in the days of the self sufficient village one could move
to another location to find people similar to him, but now there is
nowhere to go. Everywhere a <em>social deviant</em> goes he will feel alienated
and have his social options severely limited.</p>

<p>A monoculture reduces the rate of idea formation, and ours is actively
hostile toward anything not falling in line with the
mainstream. People are trained to act as a mass instead of as
individuals; this results in far less creative people. Critical
thinking is not encouraged; no, it is far worse! Critical thinking is
discouraged, and those of us who wish to argue our points with logic
are met with the undefeatable enemy of a closed mind that has been
exposed to propaganda from birth.</p>

<h4><a name="sec13" id="sec13"></a>
The Talking Heads</h4>

<p class="first">Poison the well. Burn a strawman.</p>

<p>This is real argument. Real thought.</p>


<h3><a name="sec14" id="sec14"></a>
The Automobile</h3>


<h3><a name="sec15" id="sec15"></a>
Learned Ignorance and Weakness</h3>

<p><a href="Old%20Viewpoints.html">obsolete</a></p>

<p><a href="TRUTH.html">TRUTH</a></p>


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	6	<title>Do Not Accept the Weak State of Mind in Our Time</title>
	7	<meta name="generator" content="muse.el" />
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2aff8b5c	16	</head>
	17	<body>
	18	<h1>Do Not Accept the Weak State of Mind in Our Time</h1>
	19	<div class="contents">
	20	<dl>
	21	<dt>
	22	<a href="#sec1">The Basis of My Philosophy</a>
	23	</dt>
	24	<dt>
	25	<a href="#sec2">The Current Economic and Political Structure Is Broken</a>
	26	</dt>
	27	<dd>
	28	<dl>
	29	<dt>
	30	<a href="#sec3">The Government of the Unites States</a>
	31	</dt>
4863a6da	32	<dd>
	33	<dl>
	34	<dt>
	35	<a href="#sec4">Healthcare <em>Reform</em></a>
	36	</dt>
	37	</dl>
	38	</dd>
2aff8b5c	39	<dt>
4863a6da	40	<a href="#sec5">Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil</a>
2aff8b5c	41	</dt>
	42	</dl>
	43	</dd>
	44	<dt>
4863a6da	45	<a href="#sec6">Misc</a>
2aff8b5c	46	</dt>
	47	<dd>
	48	<dl>
	49	<dt>
4863a6da	50	<a href="#sec7">Long Term Copyright Causes Harm to Society (<code>Draft Revision 2</code>)</a>
2aff8b5c	51	</dt>
2aff8b5c	52	<dt>
4863a6da	53	<a href="#sec8">Fewer Laws Are Better</a>
2aff8b5c	54	</dt>
	55	<dd>
	56	<dl>
	57	<dt>
4863a6da	58	<a href="#sec9">Individuals should not have their actions regulated</a>
2aff8b5c	59	</dt>
2aff8b5c	60	<dt>
4863a6da	61	<a href="#sec10">Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated</a>
2aff8b5c	62	</dt>
	63	</dl>
	64	</dd>
	65	</dl>
	66	</dd>
	67	<dt>
4863a6da	68	<a href="#sec11">Social Ills</a>
2aff8b5c	69	</dt>
	70	<dd>
	71	<dl>
	72	<dt>
4863a6da	73	<a href="#sec12">Mass Culture</a>
2aff8b5c	74	</dt>
4863a6da	75	<dd>
	76	<dl>
	77	<dt>
	78	<a href="#sec13">The Talking Heads</a>
	79	</dt>
	80	</dl>
	81	</dd>
2aff8b5c	82	<dt>
4863a6da	83	<a href="#sec14">The Automobile</a>
2aff8b5c	84	</dt>
2aff8b5c	85	<dt>
4863a6da	86	<a href="#sec15">Learned Ignorance and Weakness</a>
2aff8b5c	87	</dt>
	88	</dl>
	89	</dd>
	90	</dl>
	91	</div>
	92
	93
11f9bd69 CE	94	<!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here -->
11f9bd69 CE	95	<p>I have views that could perhaps be seen as odd. Do note that I am <strong>not</strong>
2aff8b5c	96	a liberal; nor am I a conservative. I do not buy into the traditional
	97	socieconomic dipole scale, and I also reject the <em>political compass</em> two
	98	dimensional scale; my political belief system could best be described
9dcdb59d	99	as <em>curmudgeonly bastard</em> if you must have a label for it. This is only
c2a3216c	100	because being a curmudgeonly bastard isn't an ideology, but rather a
9dcdb59d	101	broad set of ideas centered around the rejection of traditional
c2a3216c	102	political and social structures (<em>i.e</em> hating everything). I reject the
	103	<em>ressentiment</em> (lookit I'm Nietzsche) of traditional anarchism and
	104	believe not that every man should have no master (for then <em>all</em> would
4863a6da	105	be weak), but rather that he should be his own master (does that even
4863a6da	106	<em>mean</em> anything? Eh, it sounds nice so who cares).</p>
9dcdb59d	107
	108	<p>These short essays are mere stubs I wrote a long while ago, and each
	109	will perhaps be extended in the future.</p>
2aff8b5c	110
	111	<h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a>
	112	<a href="Wisdom.html">The Basis of My Philosophy</a></h2>
	113
9dcdb59d	114	<p class="first">I read some things and thought they were cool. Now I can make people
9dcdb59d	115	think I'm smarter than I really am.</p>
2aff8b5c	116
	117
	118	<h2><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a>
	119	The Current Economic and Political Structure Is Broken</h2>
	120
	121	<h3><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a>
	122	The Government of the Unites States</h3>
	123
	124	<p class="first">I feel that the government in the United States is very close to being
9dcdb59d	125	broken beyond repair (perhaps this is a bit conservative, but one must
	126	hope). As it stands the government above the local level (and even
	127	there!) ignores the individual citizen and instead is only forced to
	128	do anything by large scale action. As far as the individual is
	129	concerned we no longer live in a Republic, but rather in an Plutocracy
	130	which is quickly descending into something far worse.</p>
2aff8b5c	131
4863a6da	132	<h4><a name="sec4" id="sec4"></a>
	133	Healthcare <em>Reform</em></h4>
	134
	135	<p class="first">Upon airing my objections to the current Healthcare <em>Reform</em> bill, I was
	136	asked: did you read the bill? To which I replied with action and read
	137	<a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3590&tab=summary">the official summary of the bill</a>. And now I ask those who asked me if
	138	I had read it: have <em>you</em> read it. I received as a reply an unequivocal:
	139	<em>why should I have to</em>.</p>
	140
	141	<p>Fun fact: it isn't as bad as some people make it seem, but guess what?
	142	<em>It does nothing beneficial to the individual</em>. All it does it require
	143	that anyone over 30 purchase insurance, severely restricts the usage
	144	of Health Savings Accounts (which, may be not so bad—I have no
	145	opinion on their usefulness... but <em>Republicans</em> created them so they
	146	<em>must</em> be <em>evil</em>), and is generally a piece of hey-look-I-did-something
	147	(but nothing goes into effect until I am out of office)
	148	legislation. This has never happened before, obviously. We are on the
	149	surface of Mars now too didn't you know.</p>
	150
	151	<p>Meanwhile there is what amounts to no price controls, an actual <em>ban</em> on
	152	the formation of State run healthcare (until 2017, and then only at
	153	the discretion of the HHS secretary), and token (unfunded) support for
	154	the formation of healthcare cooperatives. There are some taxes on
	155	large drug makers, but the research required by the FDA for drug
	156	approval is <em>tax deductible</em> (and so the larger drug makers can avoid
	157	most of the new taxes, har). And... an excise tax on overly fancy
	158	healthcare plans... more or less, a nice bill that, if it manages to
	159	not be overturned by 2018, will do absolutely nothing one way or the
	160	other.</p>
	161
	162	<p>It is obvious that I am indeed a dirty Nazi redneck terrorist
	163	teabagger Republican piece of shit who hates the poor and black
	164	people. I guess it's time for my white ass to move to Iran and see how
	165	I like it there!</p>
	166
	167
	168
	169	<h3><a name="sec5" id="sec5"></a>
2aff8b5c	170	Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil</h3>
	171
	172	<p class="first">Cooperation is better than exploitation. How can one justify an
	173	economic system based upon paying others as little as possible in an
	174	attempt to make the most profit from their labor so as to make some
	175	profit?</p>
	176
9dcdb59d	177	<p>But then again, what does <em>evil</em> mean?</p>
9dcdb59d	178
2aff8b5c	179
2aff8b5c	180
4863a6da	181	<h2><a name="sec6" id="sec6"></a>
2aff8b5c	182	Misc</h2>
2aff8b5c	183
4863a6da	184	<h3><a name="sec7" id="sec7"></a>
2aff8b5c	185	Long Term Copyright Causes Harm to Society (<code>Draft Revision 2</code>)</h3>
	186
	187
	188
	189
	190
	191	<p>It is straightforward to calculate a fair cost for material goods. The
	192	material cost follows from the materials, and the labor cost generally
	193	derives from the complexity of construction. The fixed price for each
	194	item consists of both of these factors. Thus it is trivial to ensure
	195	that a craftsman is fairly compensated for his effort.</p>
	196
	197
	198
	199
	200	<p>Creative works must have their value calculated via a more circuitous
	201	route. The physical form of a creative work is of little importance;
	202	the ideas it represents are. The material and direct labor costs
	203	(printing, binding, etc.) are thus so small as to be of negligible
	204	importance when calculating value. There is effectively no objective
	205	way to place value on abstract work; all the value judgements we can
	206	make are subjective. We must then rely on irrational human valuations
	207	to determine the value on their own.</p>
	208
	209
	210
	211
	212
	213
	214
	215
	216
	217	<p>Creative works are fundamentally different from concrete works. A
	218	painting may inspire others start a new stylistic movement, the
	219	structure of a story may cause the formation of a new literary form,
	220	an essay may incite a new political movement, etc. Creative works
	221	weave themselves into the mental fabric of each individual exposed to
	222	them in a way that material goods cannot. A book may change your life;
	223	a table will never do that. This suggests that the abstract concepts
	224	which compose a work have a strange nature and great value. Those who
	225	control the distribution of creative works wield great power as a
	226	result of the ability of ideas to change the individual.</p>
	227
	228	<p>After a certain period of time the physical manifestation of a
	229	creative work loses commercial value. New art is being created
	230	continually, and no one can be expected to read every important book
	231	written, see every film, and so on for other areas. When a work ceases
	232	to be profitable to publish distribution ceases. Allowing abstract
	233	works to simply drop from the market creates a serious problem. New
	234	ideas are built upon old ones, and after ideas have assimilated into
	235	the collective concious it is important to be able to go back to the
	236	old ideas and analyze them to understand the present culture. If a
	237	work is no longer available it is impossible to do this. Thus works
	238	that are no longer being commercially exploited should become the
	239	property of the public so that any worth preserving will be preserved
	240	by <em>someone</em> and avoid death.</p>
	241
	242
	243
	244
	245	<p>Copyright manages to work fairly well for ensuring creators are
	246	compensated for their effort, preventing abuse of creator rights to
	247	the detriment of society, and ensuring that works will become public
	248	property after they are commercially unprofitable. Irrational human
249	judgements over time often work well, and so giving exclusive right to
250	copy a work makes sense for a period of time to allow society to
251	determine its monetary value. The fair use provisions of copyright
252	give society reasonable leeway in the use of the ideas contained
253	within a work while the work is protected, and this allows society to
254	continue enriching its creative culture. The limited term of copyright
255	and ensuing reversion to the public domain prevents the cultural
256	stagnation and the loss of history that would result from works
257	becoming unavailable.</p>
258
259
260
261
262
263
264	<p>The term of copyright must be finely balanced between the need to
265	ensure creators have enough time to receive fair compensation for
266	their effort, and the desire to avoid cultural stagnation from
267	unavailable works. The term must be short enough that a work will not
268	be unavailable for too long after commercial interest dies. Every year
269	that passes where the work isn't being published tends to reduce the
270	number of copies in existence. It must also be long enough that a
271	creator can profit according to the value that society puts upon his
272	work.</p>
273
274	<p>A term should be just long enough that a work will fall out of
275	copyright when physical copies are still likely to exist. A man may
276	keep his book collection unto his death, but his children may simply
277	sell them off or discard them after he departs the mortal
278	coil. Intuitive judgement says that things that are worth entering the
279	public domain will be preserved by someone for at least his life. A
280	person who has creative works in his posession is often attached to
281	them and will keep the ones he likes the most for as long as possible
282	(e.g. my music collection is backed up in flac so that I will be able
283	to listen to my music forever). After he dies there is a large
284	increase in the chance that the works will perish unless he by chance
285	made special arrangements to have them preserved.</p>
286
287	<p>A generation then seems to be a reasonable term; how many things are
288	really commercially viable after thirty years? Some works may be
289	relevant to the children of the generation who created them; it seems
290	reasonable then that if a work is still commercially viable after a
291	generation then the creator deserves to retain copyright for a second
292	generation. It is questionable whether more terms would be good
293	(issues of supression of information, right to profit, etc. come into
294	play), but they can't quite be ruled out. A renewal system with a span
295	of roughly thirty years ensures that a work will be out of publication
296	for at most a generation's time. This appears to be a good balance
297	between the right of the creator and the desire to keep knowledge from
298	dying (from my eyes).</p>
299
300	<p>The works of the current generation, their parents, their
301	grandparents, and their great-grandparents are still copyrighted in
302	the US. Works created in the present will be copyrighted for the
303	lifetime of the author and seventy years after; a span of roughly six
304	generations.</p>
305
306
4863a6da	307	<h3><a name="sec8" id="sec8"></a>
2aff8b5c	308	Fewer Laws Are Better</h3>
2aff8b5c	309
4863a6da	310	<h4><a name="sec9" id="sec9"></a>
2aff8b5c	311	Individuals should not have their actions regulated</h4>
	312
	313
4863a6da	314	<h4><a name="sec10" id="sec10"></a>
2aff8b5c	315	Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated</h4>
	316
	317	<p class="first">Corporate power disrupts the functioning of a free society. If the
	318	power wielded by a corporation were merely the sum of the individuals
	319	that composed it there would be little issue; the fundamental problem
	320	is that the benefits of gaining access to mass production facilities
	321	and a huge workforce that can be forced to cooperate on certain goals
9dcdb59d	322	gives a large corporation much more than this.</p>
2aff8b5c	323
	324	<h5>Corporate Personhood should be revoked</h5>
	325
	326
	327	<h5>Corporations should not be allowed to influence politics</h5>
	328
	329
	330
	331
	332
4863a6da	333	<h2><a name="sec11" id="sec11"></a>
2aff8b5c	334	Social Ills</h2>
2aff8b5c	335
4863a6da	336	<h3><a name="sec12" id="sec12"></a>
2aff8b5c	337	Mass Culture</h3>
	338
	339	<p class="first">American culture in the early 1900s began to homogenize, and now there
	340	is a single massive culture that almost all three hundred million
	341	people in the country share. This presents problems to those who do
	342	not fit in; in the days of the self sufficient village one could move
	343	to another location to find people similar to him, but now there is
	344	nowhere to go. Everywhere a <em>social deviant</em> goes he will feel alienated
	345	and have his social options severely limited.</p>
	346
	347	<p>A monoculture reduces the rate of idea formation, and ours is actively
	348	hostile toward anything not falling in line with the
	349	mainstream. People are trained to act as a mass instead of as
	350	individuals; this results in far less creative people. Critical
	351	thinking is not encouraged; no, it is far worse! Critical thinking is
	352	discouraged, and those of us who wish to argue our points with logic
	353	are met with the undefeatable enemy of a closed mind that has been
	354	exposed to propaganda from birth.</p>
	355
4863a6da	356	<h4><a name="sec13" id="sec13"></a>
4863a6da	357	The Talking Heads</h4>
2aff8b5c	358
4863a6da	359	<p class="first">Poison the well. Burn a strawman.</p>
	360
	361	<p>This is real argument. Real thought.</p>
	362
	363
	364
	365	<h3><a name="sec14" id="sec14"></a>
2aff8b5c	366	The Automobile</h3>
	367
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4863a6da	393	<h3><a name="sec15" id="sec15"></a>
2aff8b5c	394	Learned Ignorance and Weakness</h3>
	395
	396	<p><a href="Old%20Viewpoints.html">obsolete</a></p>
	397
	398	<p><a href="TRUTH.html">TRUTH</a></p>
	399
	400
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	427
11f9bd69	428	<p class="cke-footer">Mike: I WAS NOT MICROWAVED.
2aff8b5c	429	</p>
2aff8b5c	430	<p class="cke-timestamp">Last Modified:
f6d19803	431	January 21, 2013</p>
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2aff8b5c	433	</html>