Special Whorehouse (parable)

This whorehouse is special for many reasons, but the most striking consistency is its never-ending stream of loyal visitors. They like to be called Taxpayers. Taxpayers are a special group of people and they are also the best kind of customers for this particular whorehouse. When Taxpayers come to the whorehouse, they work themselves into a frenzy over the establishment’s fine tricksters, and it makes sense, because these are the finest tricksters money can buy. The Taxpayers are characterized by a constant struggle to position themselves on top. In fact, they actually prefer to be on top, so all of the tricksters at the whorehouse just lay around on the furniture to maximize the pleasure for the Taxpayers. Its what they call a ‘win-win’ situation. Taxpayers also like doing all the work, sweating and grunting and pumping themselves to ecstasy. Taxpayers never complain about waiting their turn, and they make certain to pay their fair share everyday, even when they don’t get a chance to swing by the whorehouse because of other distractions. Taxpayers never complain about catching diseases or getting sick from the food, water, and activities available at the whorehouse. Like I said, they are a loyal group and defend their whorehouse access rights to the death. Once in a while, you will get a lazy Taxpayer who wants the trickster to be on top or who refuses to pay. In this case, the whorehouse will graciously give them service and then politely ask them to leave and will not allow them to return without demonstrating a serious change of attitude.
The proprietors of the whorehouse are special too. These people have a different lifestyle from the Taxpayers, but are none-the-less committed to the non-stop operation of the whorehouse. They like to be called the Owners. The Owners have fiercely loyal protégés who keep the tricksters looking nice, the premises clean, the booze flowing, the biscuits fresh and the whorehouse safe from harm. The Owners have full access to the whorehouse and take advantage of that access to their great pleasure. If an owner takes a rare interest in one of the Taxpayers, it is seen as a once in a lifetime opportunity for the Taxpayer to become a trickster. Much to the Taxpayers’ collective confusion, the Owners don’t typically waste much of their time at the whorehouse, though, and tend to spend their well-deserved profits on other endeavors. Many favorite pastimes of the Owners involve high-stakes death-match style competitive sports. There are many versions of these events, too numerous to go into here in a story about the whorehouse. The other curious addiction of the Owners is the accumulation of things and pets. This particular pursuit is (amazingly) of widespread fascination to the Taxpayers and provides endless distraction to both groups.
This special whorehouse also enjoys rigorous inherent protections that stem from its widespread acceptance in society. It has been proven that even when an entity poses a legitimate threat to the whorehouse, it only serves to remind society how much the whorehouse needs to be protected. There are many in the culture who have been disenfranchised by the whorehouse. Some of these will continue try to threaten the whorehouse, but such threats are just distractions. Distractions of enormous magnitude can, temporarily, shut down the whorehouse and are often referred to as ‘Once-In-A-Lifetime” events. As such, they are easily recognized. The only true threat to the whorehouse and its fine tricksters is the threat from lack of interest, which is, understandably, not possible.

Liberty & Security

Both of these abstract concepts are important and emotional. We spend a good deal of time debating the strength of different public policies, using the ideas of liberty & security as 'yardsticks' to measure the projected success of those policies. These concepts are highly subjective, though, and i suggest we beware of anyone who tries to use either security or liberty (or both) to promote an opinion. We can all agree that a successful society has a 'healthy' balance between the two concepts, yet we can never agree what that balance ought to be. Politicians use this fact against us to gain votes, sway the public discussion, and increase their control of the cultural reins. Unfortunatley, so does the media. We have to stop believing anyone who tends to bend every discussion towards these highly emotional and subjective concepts. It is rare to find anyone who completely agrees with you on both subjects, so it follows that it is more important that we preserve the right to disagree on these concepts.
America has always been a place where disagreement is allowed and respected and I hope this will continue to be the case. If you have an opinion on something, from gay marriage to the color of my drapes, please do not invoke freedom or 'the enemy' in expressing it. Let me give you a simple fable which I hope will help illustrate my thinking:

There are two cows walking together in a pasture, Liberty and Security. Upon reaching the fence line, they notice that there is an opening between two posts. Liberty continues to wander on, crossing the fence line, and Security turns back towards the rest of the herd. The next morning, the rancher rounds up all the cows for transport and notices Liberty is missing. With the folks down at the slaughterhouse waiting for his delivery, the rancher decides to finish loading up Security and the herd. The ride to the slaughterhouse is always a rough one, and this one is especially tough because on the way, they pass Liberty's mutilated carcass on the trail.

American Prisoners

Estimate: 2,299,116 prisoners were held in federal or state prisons or in local jails as of June 30, 2007.
Estimate: US population as of Dec 2007 is 301,621,157 residents.

This means that about 1 out of every 132 residents in the US last year resided in a prison or a jail. The average prison sentence is about 3 years. If you live in anything other than a rural area, you pass many residents on your way to work every morning. At least one of the people you pass everyday has likely been incarcerated. These numbers seem severe, but what does this really mean? It means that there is a concentrated effort in our society to capture, and hold people in detention facilities. It also means that this capture program is successful. Extremely successful.

I refuse to believe that one out of every 132 US residents deserves to lose their freedom. There is no way to claim we have a responsible society if that many people need to be removed in order for it to function. This is a symptom of a greater, complicated cultural defect in our society. We want 'bad' people to disappear. This makes us feel safe. The out-of-sight/out-of-mind tactics might work when dealing with appetite control, but it is wholly unrealistic with regards to criminal justice. This is the equivalent of the 'time-out' strategy of child punishment. At some point we are going to have to admit to ourselves that incarcerated people don't actually disappear. When we don't or won't have a conversation about obvious problems in our society, we foster the culture of denial. This massive, concentrated effort to capture and hold citizens is, unfortunately, part and parcel of our culture of denial.
What we are tacitly approving is the idea that freedom from capture & detention is a priviledge to be earned and protected through administration of the criminal justice codes. This is a disturbing reality in our culture. The criminal justice codes are contained in multiple books. In fact, we have multiple books for each jusridiction. A person lives under the laws written in the federal criminal justice codes, under more laws written in their state's criminal justice codes, and at the very least under more laws written in their county's criminal justice codes. Most of the population also lives under a group of laws that is written in their city or town's criminal justice codes. It would be difficult (likely impossible) to read all the laws that govern a person's life in the span of a single lifetime.
It is assanine to assume that any of us knows all the laws we are beholden to. These unknown (and often changing) laws, however, can be used against us to take away the most precious thing any individual has - their freedom. I have been asking myself how this system exists for a long time and I still have no answer. I have heard many arguments for pieces and parts of this system, but taken as a whole the system is fatally flawed. We write millions of pages of statutes, then we expect each person to live explicitly by each and every word of each and every page of each and every statute. This is an impossible and untenable expectation to live up to!

Criminal justice & statute reform has to become part of our national conversation. We cannot continue this absurd practice of capturing and holding each other in detention facilities without cause. It is truly disgraceful, and, more importantly, is a symptom of our culture of denial that we have to come to grips with. I am sure there are more fertile minds out there who have decades of experience with criminals who have great ideas about how to reform the system. I hope to see them coming forward in the very near future to help us shape the conversation and enact real reform.

Camp Grenada Remake

Hello Mother
Hello Father,
Greetings from the
Oval Office.
I'm the chief here,
'tis the season,
I eavesdropped on your cell phone calls...
But its not treason!

-GW

I Learned A New Word Today

klep·toc·ra·cy

Pronunciation:

\klep-ˈtä-krə-sē\

Function:

noun

: government by those who seek chiefly status and personal gain at the expense of the governed

Slaves & Zombies

I am starting to perceive a simple division between the majority of American voters and there are two main factions. For purposes of this thought, I will call them the zombies and the slaves. Neither group is in any especially good position, and they are both easily manipulated by fear and greed. The factions, en masse, have the power to do many things, but they are pitifully unaware of this. The main 2 things that represent common ground between the two factions are the ease of manipulation and the suffering they are party to. The main distinctions between zombies & slaves shows up in their philosophy or world view:

The zombies believe that America is moving in the direction of the all powerful military, economic, & democratic global reorganization. Zombies believe this movement is the greatest single force for liberation and freedom in the history of the human race. The zombies want to believe that our country exists as it is portrayed in the movies. Zombies tend to believe anything that they repeatedly hear and this is the message we have been getting for about 20 years from our culture. The zombies typically fantasize about the future and are therefore intrinsically in denial of the current situation. This is a rampant symptom of the post modern malaise. Zombies want to be omnipotent, fearless, & they always win.

The slaves believe that America is misusing its vast wealth and military power chasing rainbows. Slave mentality wants to know why they are being asked to save the world when they see what they they think is suffering here at home. Slaves are always looking for dual meanings in everything that the government does and often believe in conspiracy theories. Slaves have no choice but to make the distinction between hollywood and reality, because they don't know anyone who lives one of the hollywood lifestyles. Slaves recognize their own suffering, project it out onto all situations (magnifying it) and it makes them bitter. This, too, is a rampant symptom of the post modern malaise. Slaves spend a lot of time gambling, trying to game the system, and hoping for a better future. Slaves want something for nothing, to be treated like a god, & they always end up with their hands dirty.

I'm not making a judgment as to which faction is better, just trying to analyze the two so I can try to see through the deceptions of those who might want to take advantage of us. When a politician says, "I'm gonna help you by helping America," they are playing to the zombie crowd. When a politician says, "I'm gonna help America by helping you," they are playing to the slave crowd. Its a dicey time right now, because both factions are pissed (and rightfully so). There is a slim chance that the factions could unite and that makes this particular campaign cycle even more exciting!

The main point I want to make is that you might fall into one of these categories or you might at least lean towards one of these factions (I certainly do). If you are a slave, then you need to make a concentrated effort to ask yourself - am I making decisions based on my sardonic bitterness, or on an attempt at an objective evaluation of the situation? If you are a zombie, then you need to make a concentrated effort to ask yourself - am I making decisions based on my fantastical vision of the future, or on an attempt at an objective evaluation of the situation?

Different Perspective

i like the idea of combining environmental factors and predisposition into one theory - very smooth. I have always thought of those ideas as polar opposites and i can see how, in a larger context, they could be bedmates.
There is some contradiction in wanting to then think about how could we positively affect the outcome of our civilization. I don't think that it would be possible for us to affect the future under this model because the premise is already set that we are predisposed to do our thing within this giant biological machine.
Mentally, i definitely have trouble with the whole concept because i believe in consequences. Based on my life experience and observing others i have seen positive and negative consequences that are undeniable to me. Within this model we are talking about, there is no morality, no positive and negative, no consequences, no rewards, etc. I really believe that human beings are bound by their actions. I also believe (again based on my experience) that the reactions of others and the condition of our environment are at the very least indirectly related to what we do.
The other interesting thing that occurs to me, just suspending my beliefs for a second and thinking about the possibilities, is that there must then be a purpose for our civilization. This is an intriguing idea that we could be part of a whole that is creating something wonderful and we have no concept of it because of our perspective. Similar to the life of a butterfly where they flit around from flower to flower sucking up the sweet sugary juices (all the while pollenating the plant and making sure the life cycle of the flower is intact). Many butterfly's life cycles are less than a month, so because of their perspective, they would never be able to understand the plant's cycle of the flower closing up, the seed pod forming and dropping to the ground, the seasons changing, the seed waking up and germinating, the oxygen that the plant gives to the atmosphere, etc. The individual butterfly has no idea !
Ok, so back to the point that we must have some purpose. Figuring out that purpose would then be a goal of our race and i definitely agree that we have to have some education and common communication methods in order to keep the information moving on to the next generation, since we have to assume that it might take thousands of years for our purpose to actually come to fruition. Also, i am a believer that education and communication don't get very far without decent nutrition, shelter, and at least rudimentary creature comforts (in that order).
There is another point that i also believe in, which is that we need to be able to provide a wide majority of people with this basic living standard in order to accelerate our civilization and our race.