More on civil disobedience chapter 1 part 5 of 5 (the juice)

More on civil disobedience
chapter 1 part 5 of 5 (the juice)

 Sex

(51)

Dependable Reproduction

Sex is a dependable means of reproduction. The burden of human reproduction falls on the female sex. The male role of fertilization can bring great pleasure to people of both sexes. Unfortunately many people are driven by their quest for its pleasure. Among people who are undeveloped in their personality there is a basic lack of interior gratification. Being unable to feel satisfied within they seek it from exterior sources. Sex is the most dependable and immediately gratifying commodity for this purpose. Strangely this fact has made reproduction a mere side effect of sex, and is almost never what we mean when we use the term sex. There is only one way to fertilize the egg. If a man doesn’t insert his penis into a woman’s vagina she cannot conventionally conceive a child.

(52)

Penetrating Reality

Considerable pleasure may be derived from sex without this particular act-taking place. Considering the life altering consequences of pregnancy we would do well to relegate vaginal penetration to reproduction and seek sexual satisfaction in other ways. Our admonitions to chastity to our children are absurd when everything in our culture promotes sex.

(53)

Life Altering Consequences

Careless reproduction in uncommitted relationships is invariably negative for mother, father and child. Practicing individuals will cope with it by hard work and sacrifice. However if one or both parents have unformed personalities, the woman will find herself alone to raise the child. Most who land in this situation will never experience happiness, security or prosperity unless the child can develop, grow up and provide it.

(54)

Unhappy Alternatives

As an alternative to a life of poverty and deprivation many women choose to abort their fetus. Always an unhappy alternative, abortion prevents untold suffering for a woman just as it prevents the joy of having the child she will not deliver. Having decided to abort, a woman creates a mental formation of the forever-unborn child that will haunt her for all of her days. As a practical matter you can never prevent women from having abortions, and political attempts to do so will only make them criminals. Those who campaign against abortions based on the Commandment: Thou shall not kill, should realize that they are breaking the Commandment: Thou shall not steal. To instigate political constraints on a woman’s liberty is thievery, for we own our liberty and our bodies in exactly the same sense that we own our property. So called “Pro-Life” activists would do well to consider more deeply what liberty truly means. In a world where millions of children suffer poverty, deprivation and worse, and where thousands die for want of a few dollars worth of food or medicine, pro life concern and effort can have real effect.

Depravity

 (55)

Of the Moral Shortcomings of Others

It is tempting to become concerned with the moral shortcomings of others, and to feel that the vices of others are the reason the world is in the state it is today. It is common to feel afraid, especially with the terrible random violence that is so present in America. Politicians pretend to have answers to crime, homelessness, unemployment, education and inequality and promise that with more money they can “help them help themselves.” Women, Blacks, Latinos and others struggle for and are denied equality in business, education and politics. All of these are sufferings that infect our society and appear to have no relief. Great effort is expended and complex programs are constructed to solve these problems but their answers are simple really. They lie in each one of us, waiting only for the arrival of understanding.

(56)

Nature of Depravity

Do you understand the nature of depravity? To deprave is to speak ill of. Whether what you say is true or not, to speak badly of another person is to engage in depravity. Depravity simply means moral decay. Very wise indeed was the animated skunk who told us, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say nothing at all.”

(57)

What Are We Saying?

A person’s words and actions are the basis of our understanding them, but they may be a poor illustration of a person’s character. We say and do things to express our thoughts and ideas but no matter how careful we are these expressions deviate from the understanding that inspired them. We forget an element of an argument, we embellish with our emotions, we exaggerate to emphasize our thesis and we stray from the truth.

 

(58)

The Worst Characters

How can it be true that we shouldn’t speak badly of anyone? Some people are bad, even dangerous. If you have some specific truth about a person you may certainly say it without depravity, only consider whether you want to warn your listener or merely deprave your subject? Even the worst characters would like to be different but they do not know how. A person you dislike, and deprave at every opportunity is probably treated similarly by other persons in her life. She may be trapped in a web in which everything she does is affected by her past inappropriate, unethical, criminal or annoying behavior. If she cannot or will not transcend her formation of mind we need not tolerate her, and may even warn others of her character without depravity. But if we hold her up as an example to the world and amuse ourselves with her antics we are ourselves the dictionary definition of depraved.

(59)

Love Your Enemy

 

We must have compassion for all people. We needn’t like or associate with people we disapprove of, but if they are family or relations or co-workers compassion is problematic. Fortunately, although we strive to uphold our principals, we are not perfect. Deviation from specifications is to be expected in the labors of human beings. But when we see our enemy with compassion we may become the instrument for her redemption in at least some small area.

(60)

Crime

In considering crime, criminals and criminal acts we further explore depravity. A crime is something you do or don’t do because the government says you can’t or must do, for which you may be tried and punished. Criminals commit criminal acts. We commonly consider crime to be homogenous but each criminal and each criminal act is individual. Recording criminal acts and incarcerating criminals has done nothing to reduce crime in America and has caused a great deal of fear and suffering in law-abiding citizens.

(61)

Relieve Suffering

Criminals are human beings, most often with unformed personalities and unelevated minds. They are victims of their own bad luck and bad judgement in our society that demands something they don’t have. Driven to commit acts of design, opportunity or desperation against people, places or things. Whether a mother steals a loaf of bread or a desperate man blows up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, recording the crime and incarcerating or executing the criminal does nothing to relieve suffering. Only understanding and forgiveness may ease the suffering and only compassion can bring that about.

(62)

Misery Theory

Ironically, instead of solving the problems of criminals who may be effectively helped to form their personalities we incarcerate them together so that they will be made more miserable in each others company in prison than they were outside. The theory being that they will go straight to avoid returning to such misery. Unfortunately, although they suffer plenty in prison, many with unformed personalities can at least understand prison society and fit into it with less mental and emotional discomfort than in society.

 

(63)

Buddhists in Prison

I suggest that practicing Buddhists in America band together to establish and operate a private prison system. One that would treat inmates with compassion, teach them right livelihood, educate them and promote a work ethic by fairly compensating them on release for labor performed while they are incarcerated, so that on release they may have capital to start to rebuild their lives. Such an institution is entirely possible and could operate at a profit to transform incarcerating our criminals from a costly fiasco into a profitable enterprise.

(64)

War

Beyond crime is war. War is a political crime. War’s legacy has been horror and suffering throughout history. It was the European males’ mastery of war that brought him to dominate the world with his armies and his culture. To the victor go the spoils, but the circumstances of war build fortunes even on the losing side. Ill gotten war booty finds its way to individuals, institutions of commerce, Art and learning and to hospitals and churches.

(65)

They Can’t Think Why Not

War galvanizes industry and patronizes commerce. It employs people and offers them opportunity for advancement. On its face war seems a fine thing, and we may consider starting a little one to spark an economic boon for our friends and to enforce our beliefs or our politics or our economic enslavement of our enemy.

 (66)

Nothing To Fight About

We might start a war if we didn’t understand that “war kills children and other living things.” Politicians however have no such scruples. Consider that in a world where everyone has happiness, security, employment and prosperity, in whatever small degree, who will fight in politicians’ tantrums? What would they have to fight about?

(67)

Money

War always leads to money, and this book is no exception. We are ruled by money. We use it every day for everything we do, but not one person in a thousand of us really understands it. As a tool we use it as a store of value. As a gauge of value we use price. At our present state of human development money is essential for the functional uses for which it is traded at every level of human activity. Unfortunately its power has made money a broader concept than the utilitarian tool it began as. Money comes between us and the things we buy, and separates us from their origins. The only consideration for our consumption is cost. But what of the origins of the products we consume, and the destination of the dollars we labor for and are free to spend or not as we choose? These are oblique considerations for most of us but we are all equal in our participation in the flow of the money stream. Our failure to grasp this concept and steer our economic activity towards business’ that operate ethically and cleanly creates oppressed workers, low wages and exploitation of people and the environment around the world and in your neighborhood.

(68)

Founding Fathers

All the money a person earns should be her personal property, completely protected by the government. This is basic to liberty. People who control all of their money will use it to assure their own security and then may choose to use their surplus in aid of the causes that concern them. This is the means envisioned by our Founding Parents in the construction of the Constitution for solving society’s problems of poverty, ignorance and want. Our government was not constituted to respond to these problems and its undertaking of such responsibilities is doomed to failure. Only the sum total of all individuals making their own economic decisions can bring universal prosperity, and each enlightened consumer is a step in the right direction.

(69)

Politics

Money is the root of politics. Correctly understood politics is simply the means by which the government takes your money and gives it to someone else. The present deplorable state of American politics is the result of the pacification of the American people, their consuming attention to their own affairs and their fundamental misunderstanding of the steady diminution of their liberty.

(70)

Proper Terminology

In an attempt to make clear the present state of the American federal government I present a new terminology calculated to increase your understanding of today’s political reality. The Presiwhore of the United States heads the executive function of government. Two bodies fill the legislative function of passing laws and setting the budget. To the Senate, we elect Senatwhores, and of course the House of Representawhores. The Supreme Court is composed of eight Justices who, although appointed by the Presiwhore and having political agendas of their own, are at least above politics and prevent much injustice and encroachment on our liberty.

(71)

Who Should Serve

These political offices should be honorary, offer little power and much responsibility, and should pay only pocket money, perhaps $100. a week. The myth that inflated salaries for officeholders allow ordinary people to enter public office is a lie. Only money and lots of it will get you elected to office, and if you somehow arrive in office with some integrity and ethics they will be perverted by the event of your re-election. If you attempt to work within the system to somehow improve it you will find yourself compromised in everything that you do and that even your triumphs are petty, obscure and ineffective. If a person has not had sufficient success in life to put her career on hold, serve a term of office and then return to private life, she has no business in public office. Those individuals who seek government as a career are misguided and politicians who seek perpetual re-election are criminals by the effects of their labors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

(72)

The Only Solution

The only workable, ethical, moral and fair scheme of correcting the injustices in our society by the operation of the government is for all of us to embrace one simple concept: No one gets anything from the government. This simple agreement among the citizens of the United States would dispense immediately with the need for the income tax and the bureaucracy of government programs. Government assets and liabilities could be assessed. Social Security accounts privatized to actual private accounts that people can trust. Government property and services could be sold to private concerns that in most cases can make them profitable. Constitutional functions of maintaining security and continuity of law and civil protection will continue paid for by Constitutional excise taxes and corporate taxes and fees. More than a trillion dollars a year will trickle down on us in a torrent without the sediment of today’s government, and we would have it all tax-free if we would all agree to this. Do you agree?

(73)

Sexual Perversion

The next remaining depravity is sexual perversion. Something perverse means literally to turn the wrong way. In a society that is unenlightened as ours is, sexual politics are fundamental to its existence. With the subjugation of women came the myth of feminine delicacy, stupidity and inefficiency. Women have been objectified and dismissed in education, commerce and industry, and in their homes, schools and churches. I urge all men to consider what their situation in life would feel like if they were considered and treated as inferior, and part of an entirely inferior sex, without a possibility of transcending your sex. This was the hard case for women 100% at the turn of the last century. Perhaps it was only 50% true after the emancipation of women voters but it is still substantially true today.

(74)

They All Do It

 The oppression that women have endured for millennia is insidious and is the cause of tremendous suffering to even the most wealthy and privileged individuals. Oppression, whose legacy is felt by every woman and girl on this planet. Although emancipation has largely freed the women of America, much of the world still maintains harsh oppression of women, and the pain and indignity of it effects the personality of every woman I have ever met. This is sexual perversion.

(75)

We Think as We Speak

Many individuals engage in sexual harassment by their objectification of people. Regarding one another as servants, cash cows or sexual toys, men and women pursue one another as much for exploitation as anything else, whatever they believe of themselves. Women’s suffering from mental formations left by past and recent subjugation can be transcended with awareness and effort, but they run very deep and are constantly aggravated by their unequal treatment. The subjugation of women is even incorporated within the English language. Terms like Mankind, Man made, the accomplishments of Man and the use of masculine pronouns as inclusive of women are embedded in our language and by this means become a part of our psyche. By making these terms gender neutral, or feminine in the case of pronouns, we may affect our psyche and gain new understanding.

(76)

Mind Yer Beeswax

One’s opinions of another’s sexual practice lead to the description of various acts, pleasures or even thoughts as being deviate or perverse or obscene. They are understood generally as sexual perversions, but are merely the means by which individuals deal with the suffering they experience. These things are mainly unimportant and indicative of liberty. If perversion becomes obsession it may be demonstrated or inflicted upon others. This may cause harm, as in the case of predators, or discomfort and fear as in the case of homosexuals. Individual beliefs, activities and actions are free for each person to decide. We must have compassion for one another and at least be polite and not shove our obsessions in another person’s face (and especially in the faces of her children).

(77)

Bigotry

Particular mental formations, as formed from the repression suffered by women, are also experienced by “minority” individuals to similar effect. It is a thing in the mind that must be overcome with effort in addition to living one’s life. While understanding about the cultures of other peoples certainly helps in understanding them as people, making judgements about an individual based on racial or other stereotypes is reckless and a very poor foundation for any sort of truth. Intellectual potential is equal among all races of people. “Always there will be greater and lessor persons than ourselves.” If you are using race as a factor in your equations it is only serving to hamper your reckoning and reduce your opportunities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(78)

Immigration

Examination of our reasons for excluding aliens from America reveals only fear, bigotry, misplaced nationalism and a fundamental misunderstanding of the strengths of America and the goals of many aliens who come here. When considering only that we cannot support everyone in the world who may want to come here to live and work in freedom we ignore the fact that most people would prefer to live in their native lands. Working in the United States for a period of a few years allows many aliens to return home with enough capital to begin a prosperous life where they came from.

(79)

In Demand

The fear that illegal aliens will steal our jobs is obviously false as our severe lack of candidates for the lowest level and many of the highest skilled jobs in our economy demonstrates. In an economy freed of government interference and personal income taxes any influx of workers would be offset by their own consumption so that any number of immigrants could be easily absorbed.

(80)

Welcome Revenues

Further, allowing free immigration would end the depraved industry of human smuggling. The institution of a tax on aliens collected by the states in which they live and work, could be used to support social services that are properly delivered on a state level. Additionally the open markets of the United States would be a Mecca to hardworking, liberty loving people the world over who would come here for the opportunity to create capital which is much more significant at home than here. This is the ideal form of foreign aid because it costs us nothing while we benefit from new worker/consumers who will in turn export the American ideal of liberty.

The Payoff

(81)

Our Mask

 

We all wear a mask. It cloaks our personality and separates us from the world. Within it we are alone with ourselves in the sweetest privacy of thought. Actually it is a series of masks we adopt and discard as experience dictates. Each contains various filters installed consciously or sub-consciously to screen us from what comes in or what we permit to come out. We filter our feelings and or speech to protect ourselves, for each of us has her deepest thoughts that she would not like anyone else to read.

(82)

Mental Formations

Examine your mask. What is the nature of its construction? What do your filters screen out and what do they keep inside you unexpressed? Thought is constructed of many mental formations. For instance your interest and participation in baseball in youth may manifest itself as a continued interest in the sport later in life. This is a favorable mental formation that comes into play when baseball comes up in various contexts and we respond to them with interest. Suppose you had a close friend in youth that you played ball with and who died. Another mental formation may be formed so that the occasional baseball references are still pleasant, but tinged with regret for this lost friend. An infinite number of such inter-connected mental formations make up our thoughts; big ones and little ones, with varying effects upon the whole of our mental process.

(83)

Cut Yourself Some Slack

To feel compassion for others we must first have it for ourselves. As you examine your mental formations, question how they relate to you. Scrutinize every little thing that makes you feel ashamed, embarrassed, afraid or inadequate. Consider each thing deeply and understand why you feel these emotions. As you recognize and assess these mental formations with compassion for yourself they will change in character. As you recognize steps you can take to remedy them, your negative emotions will recede and it will become easier to have compassion for others.

(84)

Degrees of Compassion

Feeling compassion need not mean that you take action at every sad and sorry event you encounter. Practice compassion from a distance. See the causes of suffering that are all around you. Recognize the common causes of these sufferings, beneath their external symptoms. Do not believe that because they are so prevalent in society that they are the natural state of personkind.

(85)

You’re One Too

In fact there are hundreds of millions of people living everywhere who are enlightened and who function much as I have prescribed. They work and produce and dream. You are one of them, with whatever success you have achieved. What we are lacking is a substantial and specific body of agreement upon the nature of human personality and the means to its improvement. The very idea sounds incredible, even stupid. But the sum of my experience allows me to write these few pages of suggestions and offer them to you as certain to please if you will only practice.

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End of chapter one. Contents copyright 2000 by Don Rex, all rights reserved.

Intellectual property, take only as necessary.

Published here under creative commons license.