If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin. – Charles Darwin (The Voyage of the Beagle, Chapter XXI)
Section 1: Care
11
Suppose someone says they want equity and the government to give the little guy a box to stand on. In another situation, an economist showed a factory that polluted the land and then talked about how the production contributed to civilization. Though the economist understood life has value, the economist thought pollution was a necessary evil. Stories about boxes and factories might not seem related unless the factory assembled boxes for the government. Why can’t the little guy bring his own box? Why should the rest of society serve one little needy bastard? People can make boxes. We do not need the government or the factory.
We could run to the woods to leave civilization, but instead of running away, let us stay and rewild society. I do not recommend autonomous zones. I was at Tompkins Square Park in New York when a bunch of anarchists pushed the police out of the park and started an autonomous zone. This was before Black Lives Matter started their autonomous zones. Back then, weirdos set up autonomous zones. It was a disgusting place, full of rejects, bums, junkies, nuts, and talentless musicians. These social rejects cannot defeat anything. The contributors to civilization must turn against it, or the police will come back to close the park.
After leaving the park, I traveled around and paid attention to the world outside of myself. I met people in the cities who are considered poor and live in tiny boxes, struggling to pay the rent. I also met people living in the backwoods away from the town who seemed rich with life, and some had less money than the poor in cities. Perhaps the problem was not a lack of money. A lack of money does not cause poverty; in the same way, a lack of drugs does not cause drug addiction. You would not give an addict more of their addiction. Poverty happens when people lack what humans need.
A group of socialists in New York discovered I had visited hillbilly country, and they made a bunch of remarks about hillbillies being ignorant, superstitious, and bigoted. These socialists consider themselves enlightened. They never met a hillbilly. Backwoods hillbillies have a strong sense of purpose, living as barbarians who know life the way no one in a city will ever know. These socialists talk about defending the working people against large companies; however, they have no interest in anything the workers say, and instead, these socialists want to decide for the people. Socialists always think the solution to everything is more socialism. This usually means they want to spend your money, and when people disagree, socialists think bad culture persuades people to vote against their own interests.
My poor friends get passed around from one government program to another. Everywhere they go, the government knocks them down. When I told the socialists that the poor already have too much government telling them what to do, they accused me of ignoring the needs of the poor, of being a spoiled rich kid, of having an elitist ideology, of idolizing the successful rich, of seeing the suffering of the poor as necessary, and of not knowing the difference between right or wrong. They did not seem interested in getting to know me.
Journalists, politicians, academics, billionaires, and celebrities significantly influence our culture. This small number of people gets more attention than everyone else. Some of these elites see the workers’ culture as bad and call them a basket of deplorables (Clinton, 2016). Leisurely intellectuals love to sit in their comfy chairs and despise the workers who serve them. It has been going on since ancient Greece. Plato was a leisurely intellectual who thought democracy allowed the common people to create tyranny (Republic, Bk VIII). Plato wanted a few top men to make all the decisions. People who have never worked a day in their life will lead the workers.
While growing up in Brazil, occasionally rich people throw insults at servants. The person throwing the insult does not see themselves as bad and they thought the servant was trying to manipulate the situation maliciously. This is the same argument prison guards use against prisoners. The servant does not have to do anything to get this treatment. Snobbish people think the world is about them and do not respect others. They see other people as the problem, which allows them to translate their disrespect into seeing themselves as moral saviors of the world. Socialists are disgusted by the idea of treating the deplorable with respect.
I’ve heard there are different kinds of socialism, though all of them have the same arrogance that pretends to know better than everyone else. Pretending to care lets them feel superior to those who don’t pretend to care. My socialist friends blame Western culture for exploiting the populations of Africa, India, and Asia. Do those cultures need socialism to fix them? These cultures were stable before Western influence expanded around the world. If the West should leave people alone, these Western socialists should also just leave them alone. Also, some African countries with failing economies have had socialist governments for decades. Socialism fails because these intellectuals have no idea how stuff gets done.
The economist Thomas Piketty wants to eliminate the inequality between the rich and poor by having a global government take money away from the rich (Piketty, 2014 ch. 15). That sounds like a terrible idea. When did governments use money wisely? The government can spend trillions on trash cleanup and not pick up a single piece of trash. Governments can create a centralized pit of bureaucracy that destroys every productive service. Let’s say someone claims the government will make better cookies than private companies, and this someone forbids private cookies. We end up with stale cookies that cost more, and we are all required to buy them. You might even be required to eat them, and you better say you like them, or you will be sent to a reeducation camp.
Politics is just a bunch of opinions. Don’t expect these fairy tales to help you. Politicians live in walled communities, then say that you are wrong to build a wall. Politicians surround themselves with armed guards and then say that other people are wrong for wanting a gun. Politicians let their sons take money from Ukraine, then say that you are wrong for not wanting another war. Only you can see what you need. Instead of letting a globalist Illuminati tell us what to do, we can build a culture without a political agenda. Revolutions go wrong when people try to change too much. Instead of a great reset, slow incremental changes bring about real improvements. You do more good by learning how to make boxes than by trying to reorganize society.
Instead of wasting money on social programs, invite the poor into your home to let them join your family. Don’t just dump them into someone else’s neighborhood the way socialists do. No one should be required to take in people they do not want. Those rich liberals in Martha Vinyard feel virtuous when they dump thousands of immigrants in your neighborhood. Then, when a crazy Florida governor put a few immigrants in Martha Vinyard, the liberals had the National Guard remove the immigrants faster than you can say the word hypocrites.
Section 2: Why I Am Not a Christian
10
If we can not find justice in politics, let us try religion. Christians say we will find moral guidance in the Bible, so let us consider what is in the book. On one page, God tells us to kill, and on another page, God advises against killing.
“Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.” (Joel 3:10)
“And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isaiah 2:4)
With these kinds of contradictions, anyone can easily use Bible quotes to justify any evil or condemn healthy activities. A few centuries ago, people used the Bible to support slavery. Even today, people use the same book to support discrimination against feminine people and homosexuals. The Bible supports a wide variety of immoral behavior.
Genocide, vengeance, and hatred: “And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:” (Deuteronomy 7:2)
Animal sacrifice: “Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat:” (Leviticus 16:15)
Homophobia: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” (Leviticus 18:22)
Superstition: “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.” (Hebrews 9:22)
Sexual discrimination: “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” (1 Timothy 2:12)
Intolerance: “And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.”(Leviticus 24:16)
Rape: “But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.” (Numbers 31:18)
Theft: “But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.” (Deuteronomy 20:14)
Racism: “For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.” (Deuteronomy 7:6)
The sacrifice of people: “And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel,” (Judges 11:39)
You might think that the Bible says, “Thou shall not kill.” It does not use the word kill. It uses a sneaky word that allows the government to kill. The historical books of the Bible contain stories about slaughtering entire towns for God. The prophets talk about enemies being made miserable by a vengeful God. How could a moral person with any sense of right or wrong follow the Bible?
Are we being too literal when we ignore how people find good in the bible? We could be taking these verses out of context. However, The correct context for these verses died over a thousand years ago. So don’t pretend you know a better context. Also, no one knows which interpretation God wants. Fortunately, people do not follow the bible. Instead, people ignore the bad parts and observe whatever they want the book to say, and most Christians think the Bible supports whatever traditions their parents taught them.
Unfortunately, Christianity failed to become what Jesus wanted it to be. George W. Bush claimed to follow Christianity and also claimed that God wanted a war of revenge, contradicting the time Jesus told us to turn the other cheek.
“But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matthew 5:39)
Though Jesus preached compassion, Christianity has done a lot of evil. Catholic priests say the body of Christ lives in the Holy Mother Church of Rome. This church condemned scientists, tortured witches, and made masturbation a sin. Missionaries wanted to save souls by bringing them the Word of God and ended up carrying disease all over the Americas, killing millions of natives (Diamond, 1997 p. 373). Jesus did not guide these missionaries.
While watching TV today, a Protestant preacher said everyone must accept Jesus into their heart or live a life of sin. Does the pastor not know people do good without Jesus? Pagans tend to love green places on Earth and then work to preserve the environment. Secular humanists contribute all kinds of benefits to society by supporting basic rights. Most atheists read books and develop informed arguments. Meanwhile, some Christians support cruel authoritarian institutions while ignoring what Jesus said about forgiveness. People choose their behavior for various reasons, and no magic makes you do right just because you believe.
Giant churches make preachers rich, contradicting the time Jesus told us to give away our possessions.
“Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. “(Matthew 19:21)
Jesus might not have been nice. Christians equate Christianity with family values, ignoring the way Jesus wanted followers to hate their family and love only Jesus.
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26).
People do not find greater universal love by hating those in their families. Paul believed this nonsense and claimed all of us need salvation from sin and then told us Jesus died for our sins.
“Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” (Romans 5:9)
Jesus told people the kingdom of God would happen during their lifetime.
“Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:28).
Jesus said that two thousand years ago, it never happened, and most of the people who knew Jesus are dead by now. We need to consider our future instead of waiting for the world to end. The Bible says little about environmental issues. In Genesis, God gave us dominion over creation, which could tell us to take care of the world, or it could say God gave us the world to exploit. The bronze age people who wrote Genesis never saw the extensive environmental damage of the modern world, and they did not realize how critical ecological issues would become.
Section 3: War is never holy
(Conjecture) 11 e1
In the Qur’an, Allah tells objects to be, and so objects were.
“To Him is due the primal origin of the heavens and the earth: When He decreeth a matter, He saith to it: “Be,” and it is. “(Qur’an 2:117)
Exactly how Allah talked to an object before it existed was a mystery the Islamic philosophers tried to solve by making up new meanings for words they learned from Aristotle. For instance, Ibn Sina wrote about essence (Mahiat) and existence (Wujud) in the book “Al-Shifa.” Theologians write long books using similar words, though no one knows if these words are relevant to God. Also, most people have no desire to worship a god made out of overworked logic. The Qur’an tells people how to live so they do not have to waste time with useless philosophy. Muslims recite every line in the Qur’an in a state of solemn ecstasy. So, let us see what their book says.
There is a lot of cruelty in The Qur’an. The Qur’an allows little girls to be enslaved and allows men to rape them.
“Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess: Thus hath Allah ordained (Prohibitions) against you: Except for these, all others are lawful, provided ye seek (them in marriage) with gifts from your property,- desiring chastity, not lust, seeing that ye derive benefit from them, give them their dowers (at least) as prescribed; but if, after a dower is prescribed, agree Mutually (to vary it), there is no blame on you, and Allah is All-knowing, All-wise.” (Qur’an 4:24).
The writers of the Qur’an sure love to chop off body parts.
“The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter;” (Qur’an 5:33)
These men also love to beat their wives.
“Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband’s) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means (of annoyance): For Allah is Most High, great (above you all).” (Qur’an 4:34)
Page after page in the Qur’an teaches believers to condemn nonbelievers, and Muslims demand everyone respect Islam. They do not respect other religions. Few people understand the broad range of books clerics use to interpret the Qur’an. One such book, “Reliance of the Traveler,” a Sunni interpretation of Sharia law, promotes cruelty against people who break the rules. Such books provide instruction for those who want to make people feel terror. Condemning the idols of others, claiming to submit to the one true God, and teaching aggression against others, Islam spread through conquest.
Under Islamic law, Christians must pay extortion money and feel like inferiors.
“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” (Qur’an 9:29)
Even calling Jesus the son of God in your own home will be considered an attack against Islam, and millions of Christians have been murdered. The only way to not offend Islam is to become a Muslim. I refuse to accept such a law; people do not need permission to exist. Muhammad resembles Paul, who also wanted to see violators of the laws get punished in flames. Both Muhammad and Paul condemn anyone with a different image of God. In pagan religions, God had more than one face because pagans had more than one way of knowing God, which Joseph Campbell called the Masks of God. I refuse to believe the face behind the mask resembles the hateful God of Paul or Muhammad. Fortunately, most Muslims do not imitate the crueler verses in the Qur’an and tend to be nice people with a good moral compass.
In 1964, Sayyid Qutb equated the West with greed and called for a return to Islamic fundamentalism. Muslims have told me that the decadent West needs Sharia law. They ignored how vices that happen in the West also occur in cultures under Sharia law. Few nations outside the West accurately report problems in their own neighborhood; therefore, people see the West as decadent due to the West being more honest.
According to the social critic Noam Chomsky, people in the Middle East have good reasons to complain about how the West treated them. Powerful governments have been manipulating other governments (Chomsky, 2014). Now, we have enemies worldwide that do not need to be our enemies, and people in those countries don’t trust democracy. Also, when our diplomats make treaties with Muslim countries, they talk to political organizations, and huge amounts of money go to those organizations. The sons of people connected with these organizations live in wealth while children in other parts of the Middle East are dying. We should be talking directly to the people. However, the simple truth is that policymakers do not respect ordinary people enough to bother talking to them like they were people.
The West is not the only one to blame: the worst parts of the Qur’an can be used to promote an institution of perpetual terrorism. Warlords create a holy war with everyone that never ends. These warlords have mastered the art of pretending to be victims while losing battles, allowing generations to suffer. These politicians use children as pawns in war and then blame their enemies when these children die. The people in Western countries feel compassion for the victims and convince Western politicians to sign peace treaties and send aid to Islamic countries. This gives the terrorists time and money to rebuild their forces. They come back screaming Allahu Akbar while they kill more people. That is why Islam is a religion which is wrong.
The news can ignore millions of dying people in Africa and Asia. So, lots of people in the West don’t know about the genocides committed by Muslims. A friend who watches the Cable News Network accuses Israel of genocide. Israel is a tiny country fighting against billions of people who want to murder them. The Jews have been pushed around for thousands of years. They are not going to back down. Muslims have plenty of land and will not share a tiny piece, and for decades, Muslims have been attacking Israel. Every time the Muslims have attacked Israel, thousands of Muslims die. Muslims will continue to lose because the Qur’an’s followers will not admit to being wrong.
The CNN viewer calls me ignorant and Islamophobic. This person thinks my words are the opinions of Western imperialism, and the viewer claims that Western values do not fit Islamic countries. Before you reject Western culture, consider the improvements Western culture has made. Modern Science, rights for individuals, and democracy are not just for sinful Westerners; any society will benefit from them. Let us discuss the good in Western values and invite good Islamic people to join us.
Maajid Nawaz made an inspirational Ted Talk about the value of democracy (Nawaz, 2011). Nawaz had been to countries where subjects living under dictators never experienced the potential of democracy. The CNN watcher claims Nawaz supports the language of the oppressors. My friend has never been out of the United States. Just visit a country that has oppression, and you will understand how much we need Western democracy. The American Constitution protects the right to complain about our government. Consequently, the ability of the West to doubt itself is why our democracy works; disagreement makes people want to make choices.
Liberals feel righteous when they think you are wrong. Some of them think you are morally wrong if you say anything bad about Islam. Most of them will never read the Qur’an or learn about what is actually in the book and would rather believe people who claim all religions have an ethos of compassion. Hopefully, a good version of Islam will one day develop because Islam is going to be the largest religion in the world, and it will have a lot of influence over us. Unfortunately, Islam might never change because the Qur’an directs suffering against people who have not been born yet.
Section 4: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
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By complaining about religious people, we portrayed them as stereotypes. For example, Christians are called hypocrites. How many Christians do you know who fit this stereotype? Few of them do. Stereotypes do not exist. So remember, most Christians and Muslims are not villains. However, all religions have an ugly side.
In the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna wants to avoid killing a bunch of family members, and then the God Krishna gets Arjuna to kill them by telling a bunch of religious nonsense. So many feel the need to invent bloodthirsty religions. Can’t these people think of a better way? What if the text mixes the good and bad because people need both? The Bhagavad Gita is part of a much larger book called the Mahabharata. The war in the book provides a framework for stories about doing your duty. However, lawful people can be cruel. While enslaved, Frederick Douglass experienced the cruelty of lawful religious people.
“For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others.” (Douglass, 18)
The mask of religion allows people to pretend to be better than they are, and this mask attracts those who want to be worse than they need to be. So why would anyone search religion for ethics? Aquinas thought God’s essential Nature was goodness (Summa I. Q. 6, Art. 3). You could just assume God equals good and then claim God does no wrong while ignoring the way the hateful God of the Old Testament sounds like an evil dictator.
In the Smalcald Articles, Martin Luther thought faith was more important than what people do (first and chief article, 1537). Luther got the idea from Paul, who made faith in Jesus sound like a priority.
“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” (Romans 3:28)
Paul thought the world would end soon and looked towards superstition instead of looking at consequences. Paul never met Jesus and only knew an imaginary Jesus. Apostles who knew Jesus, such as James and Peter, preferred good deeds over faith. There are good parts to the teaching of Jesus.
“For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.” (Matthew 25:35-36)
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40)
Unfortunately, Some Christians assume we must believe in eternal punishment, or people would have no reason to do good. These religions try to scare people into obeying laws, yet fear does not make the laws right. Tyrants invented the moral codes, which the employees of inquisitions and concentration camps enforced. This kind of lawful evil has been a problem throughout the history of civilization. Progressives want to fix these problems by inventing better laws. Let us consider another solution. Our sense of right or wrong never comes from a moral code. The good comes from our social behavior. Kindness, charity, and love all come from our biology. What if people could eliminate moral codes and still be moral?
When religious people scream and wave their arms around, insisting their way is better, ask to see the evidence of this better way. Ask such questions, and do not dull your mind by bowing the way Muslims do or singing the way Christians do. Instead of following ancient superstition, try to make the best of the life you’re living right now and find better places for answers than the Bible or Qur’an. The insecure need a God who agrees with them, but putting words in God’s mouth does not make the word right. The good in the world exists, even if God considers it wrong. Just look around to find reasons to choose to do good.
The ends justify the means only in hypothetical situations. In reality, no end is the end of the story. The bad stuff you did could hurt you or someone else. Life is a learning experience. Though cultural traditions and biological instincts guide us, we develop a sense of right or wrong from interacting with each other, and good people learn by getting along with those around them. Good ethics require the art of knowing what to give or what to take. The choice is dictated by necessity, and no one moral code fits all situations. Though we decide without knowing what will happen, we minimize evil with fairness, honesty, and respect for boundaries. You do not need God to appreciate these standards. Just imagine times when people did not apply these standards. Were the standards needed? Sometimes, perhaps. Also, the consequences are not the only criteria to follow. We can do good just to do good.
Even if we need a God to tell right from wrong, no such God exists. Instead, people have to figure it out. Ethics comes from searching for values, in the same way people discovered mathematics by doing math. Or morals become true when we need them. For example, we need the statement Black Lives Matter when the police have forgotten black lives matter. This truth would not need to be asserted in times when all lives matter.
Good people stay away from organizations that murder. They stay away from organizations that domesticate our sisters. They stay away from organizations that try to control the world. They stay away from organizations that torture. If you belong to a murderous government, fix it. If you belong to a brutal religion, find a better religion. You are not the good guys if you are not doing good.
People might claim following the religion’s requirements is their own choice. Try not to follow the requirements, and you will see you are being pressured by people who do not want you to have a choice. Unfortunately, these people are relatives. The need for love makes us lie to ourselves, and we make choices that are not ours. Leaving a religion will be extremely difficult if your family condemns you for quitting.
Hopefully, all religions could one day get better. The Jews long ago followed cruel laws. As times changed, the Jews had to adapt and rethink their laws. In rabbinical literature, they discussed and searched their religion until they found new ways to live their faith. The Catholic Church also underwent significant reforms in the twentieth century. Right now, the Baptists in the United States are producing a significant amount of literature. Don’t be surprised if the next great philosopher is a Baptist.
Section 5: Lawful Evil
(Conjecture) 11
Jesus told us to forgive, “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:” (Luke 6:37)
Though Jesus wants people to be friendly to others, plenty of law lovers think society will fall apart if evildoers are allowed to go unpunished. They ignore the verses where only God should judge.
“There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?” (James 4:12)
Governments like to play God and restore justice in the world. So, they build court systems to punish and rehabilitate people. You might assume the courts make fair decisions after you watch fictional trials on TV, where actors play judges who make honest decisions. Go to any courthouse in the United States to see what happens. Courts seldom search for the truth. Instead, lawyers gamble and bluff while courts take away pieces of freedom as if our rights were poker chips. The accused has to win these chips back. The police and the prosecutors carefully manipulated facts and avoided telling any truth, which could help the accused (Alexander, 2013). The courts do not prosecute people for crimes. People get prosecuted for technicalities. These technicalities only exist in the language that lawyers use, and I am not going to discuss the law in legal jargon. Legal jargon should be illegal because the jargon is designed so anything you do can and will be used against you.
My first encounter with the courts happened after paying a friend’s bail. My friend was not released. Instead, the jail used the money to pay for jail fees. I told them to return the money since they did not provide what had been paid for. The clerk just walked away from the window. Bail bond agents would not allow the courts to keep the money. This state eliminated bond dealers, so now the courts get away with theft, and the jail system will steal from anyone in a desperate situation. Eliminating the bail agent was supposed to help people with low incomes. Instead, the state increased the time waiting for a trial, raised the bail price, and increased the ways courts keep the money.
A drunk was attacking people, and my friend thought calling the police was the right thing to do, and then the caller got arrested for making false statements. The person was telling the truth and assumed this misunderstanding would resolve quickly after talking to a judge. Instead, it took over four years of going to court to get the legal system to drop the charges. Anyone going through a similar experience will learn what police can do or what police will do. They also learned what the courts can do or will do. The usual day in court would consist of waiting hours for a clerk to move a piece of paper around a desk while the accused goes through years without a chance to present evidence. The paper on the desk has all the control.
Television shows portray police investigating crimes. In reality, most arrests happen after a single officer makes a quick decision, and no one will ever investigate the accusations; the courts treat the police as a reliable source of information. One bad police officer, with the intelligence of Homer Simpson and the ethics of Eric Cartman, will ruin the lives of multiple people. Imagine how many innocent people were prosecuted before video cameras. We need a lawyer and a video camera with us at all times to protect ourselves from the opinion of a single officer.
“However, enough officers—at all ranks—have internalized this message that a culture of reflexive enforcement action, unconcerned with whether the police action actually promotes public safety, and unconcerned with the impact the decision has on individual lives or community trust as a whole, has taken hold within FPD. ” (Ferguson, 2015 findings p. 12)
When I was paying my friend’s bail In the jail’s waiting room, people talked about getting caught up in the system for years while the courts kept scheduling more stuff for them to do. That day, I learned that in the United States, you have the right to a fair trial and the right to a speedy trial, but you will not get both. The number of people being prosecuted increased until the legal system could no longer afford to give everyone a trial. The courts could stop prosecuting so many; instead, the courts invented methods of finding people guilty without a fair trial. A large percentage of prosecutions result from plea bargaining (Langbein, 1978).
“Our investigation has uncovered substantial evidence that the court’s procedures are constitutionally deficient and function to impede a person’s ability to challenge or resolve a municipal charge, resulting in unnecessarily prolonged cases and an increased likelihood of running afoul of court requirements.” (Ferguson, 2015 findings p. 42)
I was raised to believe that the justice system has improved because it no longer imposes cruel penalties. A better process will not fix the situation when tyrants use the process as a penalty. Bureaucrats are very effective at delaying the process and rescheduling trials for years. After an arrest, a person may lose their job and have trouble finding a new job with the arrest on their record. Eventually, the accused find themselves alone, abandoned by friends and family, and ending up financially and emotionally bankrupt with no one to help them. Being forced to wait while emotionally stressed is worse than the penalty. To make it stop, people plead guilty and get locked behind bars without ever presenting any defense.
“Convictions are guaranteed by a plea bargain.” (Hessick, 2002).
Now, the United States government puts a ridiculous number of us in cages (Glaze, 2013). Some states allow pretrial conditions (Mahoney, 2001), to punish the innocent before a trial. Pretrial conditions consist of frequent drug tests, frequent body searches, having to check in on random days, and repeated interrogations while constantly being threatened with more penalties. Eventually, everyone will stop fighting and accept the charges. Prosecutors want to score another victory, even against an innocent person.
“The municipal court does not act as a neutral arbiter of the law or a check on unlawful police conduct. Instead, the court primarily uses its judicial authority as the means to compel the payment of fines and fees that advance the City’s financial interests.” (Ferguson, 2015 findings p. 3).
Some courts skip the unnecessary formalities and have a rocket docket (Johnson, 1997), where a person is automatically found guilty. Sometimes, the accused are pressured into naming someone else. The next person will be pressured in the same way. It goes on forever, and they won’t let go. An old lady in Ferguson started with a parking ticket, which the justice system escalated into jail time with huge fines. This happens way too often (Brennan, 2016). People get trapped in the legal system, spending years being passed from judge to judge, lawyer to lawyer, and jail cell to jail cell. They want it to stop, but no one listens.
“The truth is that government officials have deliberately engineered the system to assure that the jury trial system established by the Constitution is seldom used,” (Lynch, 2003)
Even if you did get a trial, the story about getting a fair trial from a jury of your peers is fiction. In many cases, a jury is not deciding whether something happened. You could have a case that should never have been brought to court, and all the jury hears are legal words that even graduate students barely understand. The jury has ordinary people who are required to decide whether the judge’s legal jargon fits legal jargon. Judges can play with definitions to steer juries’ decisions. I have seen judges, police, and prosecutors talking to each other like best friends for life. They decide the verdict before the trial.
The Halls of Justice lost justice when each prosecution became a statistic on the books, which politicians will use to justify the growth of the courts. Now, every civilized city has a courthouse where people get humiliated. Society is the target of this scam. Trials appear in cultures that want to pretend to be good while they do evil to people. For example, people were given trials before they were sent to gulags. Trials do not happen in cultures that are not pretending. Even a person who wins a case ends up broken. After years of trial, the system stole a life that never got a chance to achieve any goals or objectives. The person who could have been was prevented.
“And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.” (1 Samuel 8:18)
Section 6: The War on Drugs
(Conjecture) 11
I know people who think the government is respectable and trying to protect us. Governments have failed to be respectable in many ways. No one tested to see if the war on drugs would produce good results before they forced it on the whole world. The war on drugs targeted black men, and this has devasted black neighborhoods. Just look at all the tortures and killings going on in Mexico. Due to drug laws, secretive gangsters took over distribution. Police blame the gangsters for the increase in murder and then recommend more law enforcement. The increased police presence coincided with more gang activity (Carpenter, 1990). Now, politicians spend huge amounts of money to keep this war going, violating our right to free choice while claiming to do good for us. We need better ways to deal with drug use.
The war on drugs turns the innocent into suspects and gives the civilized authorities the ability to search your house and probe your body. Law enforcement encourages people to spy and snitch on family and friends. Millions of people have been sent to prison for minor offenses. (Gupta, 2011). The children of prisoners have trouble fitting into society, creating a class of outcasts and future criminals. Large sections of society become ghettos when those in control knock people down and prevent them from improving themselves. All this happened after the government interfered in society.
Though drugs are a waste of time, The government should never have the right to send people to drug addiction treatment. No one has a right to force treatment. Freedom involves an element of risk; we have a right to make mistakes. We have the right to choose the way we wish to correct these mistakes. Also, whether any treatment works is questionable, especially the methods developed by Alcoholics Anonymous (Glaser, 2015). Such treatment wastes money and people’s time.
According to information from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, only a tiny percentage of drug users ever become addicts (NSDUH, 2008). The government made the drug problem a bigger problem than it was by targeting occasional drug use. Would drug use increase without law enforcement against drugs? Portugal reduced prosecution for drugs, and according to Time magazine, drug use decreased in Portugal (Szalavitz, 2009). Unfortunately, after ten years, the drug problem returned to Portugal.
Cities such as Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco have become full of junkies because they provide services that encourage drug use. Even though I think drugs should be legal, governments or charitable institutions should not be passing out needles or pipes. These actions are compassion gone wrong when they make the problem grow. You do not need to allow Junkies to set up camp near where your kids play. You have a right to tell them to go away.
Some of you might think that punishing users would help them. That might not work. Publications by the National Bureau of Economic Research show that kids come out of jail worse than they go in (Aizer, 2013). If law enforcement does not work, legalization does not work, treatment does not work, and compassion does not work, what do we do about the drug problem? The source of the problem for the addict isn’t always the drugs if conditions in life lead a person to become an addict. Research by Bruce K. Alexander shows rats living with other rats are less likely to use drugs than rats kept in cages alone (Alexander, 1981). We also need an extended family for good psychological health. In the modern world, we see a growing number of troubled kids being raised by single parents. Government programs are not fixing the problem and may be making the problem worse. Perhaps we will not be able to build large families in civilized societies. The only solution would be a return to a tribal way of life.
Unfortunately, the war on drugs makes us addicted to more government. Now, institutions make every choice for us and watch everything we do. We must choose our destiny without interference, but lawmakers want to be the guardians of morality to fix you; you are not broken. People can work together, and people share when they are confident in themselves. Civilization fears confident people, so they destroy our confidence, telling us we are bad. The insecure will destroy freedom rather than let anyone have it. Our insecure authority figures do not know the right way. No one has it all figured. The government should leave us alone, yet authorities can’t, and laws are a symptom of their hatred. Civilization is organized hatred against us.
Civilization has spent thousands of years punishing people. Many people think the government is authorized to control us. They think God gave the government the right to rule. Let’s try something different. Choose not to punish people. So what if the bad getting away seems unfair? Just let the bad go. Governments do not have the right to rule over us. God did not give them the right to rule. The masses do not have authority over the minority.
A senior police officer told me that I should be ashamed of not respecting the government. This guy looked like an overgrown Boy Scout with all the merit badges. This representative of the law goes around all day long, expecting respect. This was not a small town where the local sheriff did good deeds. This was a big city, and this cop was a bureaucrat. Those merit badges were earned by pushing buttons. These are the people who think they can tell us what to do. The government has no right to tell anyone what to think. We need to stop prosecuting people.
Suppose an innocent person is presumed guilty. A fair trial might help that person. A proper court would have fair and clearly defined rules. Unfortunately, a civilization built on a psychotic need to punish allows Governments to set up prisons, issue fines, and outsource protection to the police to make people feel safe. We have become weaklings who depend on unnecessary services to protect us. This allows the Government to use the courts to keep us under control. Some of you think this control is necessary, and you might point out how cities like San Francisco limited the prosecuting of crime, and looters began robbing stores. Perhaps the problem is that humans are not made to live in such large numbers. We need to stop building cities that create crime.
I asked a senior police officer, “What if the laws made problems worse, and people could find solutions if the police got out of our way?” The officer accused me of being immature. I know I am immature. The question is still not answered. I make a lot of assumptions, and they all could be wrong, but I am not using my assumptions as reasons to lock people up. We should be questioning the law. I went to a spot outside the city and noticed that no one had visited that place for a long time. In a city of over twenty million people, why was I the only one who had come to the spot outside the city? People don’t consider me to be a person worth believing, so I could never convince anyone else to go to the spot, which is a shame because it is an amazing place.
Next Page Chapter 12
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