But government is the one that can apply force. You can refrain from patronizing a megacorp or observing a religion, and neither may coerce you into compliance. You're 50% of the way there. Say it with me: government exists to protect your rights.
note: The author of this post works for one of the largest government job programs, whose primary goal is the refinement of the US ability to project power and authority over the planet. (but it's different because that's really for the good of the people)
That is absolutely not true across most of human history. Where it is true, it's because governments keep other groups from doing so. Because the government stops them. Governments absolutely do not exist to protect your rights. In most of the world it's simply an exchange of security for freedom. And that's the way it's been for most of human history. In rare cases even now, some governments make social contracts with their populace, and thus derive their power in theory from the people. We've seen a range of successes with this, and certainly some democracies are far better at living up to that ideal than our own. But as long as there is an avenue to legitimate power exercised for the betterment of our society, we should protect and defend that construct. It's a precious thing that very few have ever had the chance to live under. Which makes your support for a demogogue who attempted to overthrow it even more disgusting. Trump tried to overturn the election of the people. You don't get to lecture about government protecting rights.
In our context, government has a monopoly on force. A megacorp or a religion cannot legitimately apply force. But what stops the government? That's the historical model: strong man protects you---i.e., generously allows you to live---if you swear fealty to him. That is not the U.S. Constitutional model, and I don't care how anyone else does it. Yes, and ours is an explicitly written Constitution...that protects our rights. As the Framers put it, "to secure the blessings of liberty." That's an opinion, and others don't see it that way. "Legitimate power" must be defined. "Betterment of society" is a nebulous goal. I saw no attempt to overthrow it. Oh, but I do. You're free to not listen.
So … more power in fewer hands. That sounds like a good thing. It’s not about how large or how small a government is, rather whether or not the government employees are punished for crimes committed against the people - i.e. corruption.
I reserve the right to consider the cost to me personally, as well as the exact nature and likelihood of this "betterment of society." I will not be guilted into unconditional compliance based on a vague marketing slogan that promises nothing new.
Ask the Pinkertons about that one. There are private security forces throughout the US that enforce corporate dictates. Hopefully the rule of law. But most importantly putting good people in there that take their oaths seriously. As opposed to the jackasses that tell police to rough people up or their followers to do so and they'll pay their legal bills. Then you should specify democracies. Yes, there is indeed a difference. They also put in the peaceful transfer of power. So again, hypocrite, who gives a fuck what fascists think about the Constitution? They've already rejected it en toto. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Others live longer and have more liberty. And while happiness is certainly subjective, that's yet another indicator that the US trails behind other democracies in. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1225047/ranking-of-happiest-countries-worldwide-by-score/ Society isn't particularly nebulous. We live in a borderline oligarchy and you'd prefer to hand it over and call yourself a free thinker. And when the first strongman comes along and promises you security you shit all over yourself in eagerness to kowtow to him. You'd trade legitimate power for authoritarianism as long as the strong man and his courts enforced your will on others. Your man was recorded attempting to illegally find votes to turn the election. A congressman said he asked him to support rejecting the outcome of the election. So did the man's own vice president, who refused. His Secretary of Defense stated that he was a threat to the Constitution three months before this happened. His attorney general is on record saying he resigned because of this. And the Republican party in many states sent other electoral ballots against their own state Constitutions and their own secretary of states certifications. And when that failed there was a conspiracy to send an angry mob headed by far right extremists to overturn the electoral college in the hopes they could manufacture a crisis to either declare martial law or send it to the House. You are either the stupidest mother fucker who ever lived, or a complete and utter hypocrite to your own supposed ideals. Good luck with that.
Newly-Released Documents Shed Light on Government-Funded Research Into Worm Holes, Anti-Gravity and Invisibility Cloaks
I think some scientists are milking research money from the government by writing science fiction. Hey, I hope there's some breakthrough technology here, but I seriously doubt it.
Have you heard of the book/film The Men Who Stare at Goats? A guy by the name of Ed Dames was involved in (or suckered the government into) a project that was trying to weaponize psychic powers. People killing goats with their minds was one of them. In the early 90s (after the military killed the program because it was fucking stupid), Dames was a frequent guest on Art Bell's radio show, claiming that he (and his team) were able to do Remote Viewing. One of the things that he did was to claim that there was going to be some kind of "kill shot" from the sun, that would wipe out most of humanity around 1995. Dames announced on Art Bell's show that he was going to pack up and move to a tropical island, because it was one of the few places on Earth safe from the kill shot, and that we all had only a few months to live. (He was promptly sued by a number of people who were in his employ because he failed to pay them before he left.) Obviously, we're still here, but that hasn't stopped Dames from continuing to profit off of Remote Viewing, even though it absolutely doesn't work.
I like to think it's harder than throwing together a grant request filled with terms like "space-time curvature tensor" and "quantum entanglement" and promising "revolutionary strategic advances" to get money from the government. Alas, I fear it is not. At a previous job, I was once in a meeting with the Air Force (our customer) where our chief scientist, explaining a problem that was occurring with a device, was going on in a very deep scientific way about a material's work function and I noticed there were a lot of blank stares, but no one was asking the question. I spoke up and said "The work function is a measure of how easy it is to knock electrons off the metal." And several of our guests went "ah." Not saying they were dumb--far from it--but sometimes people don't want to admit they don't know something by asking the question. And often others are in the same boat! So you get a group of people who heard, but who didn't understand.
I'd be willing to bet that they didn't have a greater understanding, just that words they were more familiar with were used. And even though it's satire, this clip from Better Off Ted pretty much nails how you can bullshit people into thinking you have a product, when all you have is a name.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say these will yield as much information as the Benghazi hearings did. (Basically, nothing that we didn't already know.)
I haven’t watched the whole report, but I did see some of the “highlights.” I don’t think they know what the tic-tax craft is or how it operates. They also can’t seem to explain how they go under water and seem to be trans medium. They also were concerned because apparently these craft are either controlled by radio frequencies that are not under our control or they can interfere with radio frequencies that we control.
yeah... religion forcing observance is kind of what it's designed to do. if not in the rituals, then in the secualr world around it. as for not patronizing mega corps, well, YMMV
For all consumer goods, a megacorp is probably going to be involved, because they can realize economies of scale. My point was that you could choose which megacorp to patronize, and even that gives you some strength. If megacorp A engages in some behavior you don't like, then patronize megacorp B (or vice versa). If they both engage in behavior you don't like, boycott one until it changes, then patronize it.
yes, they're inescapable when they control everything from source to end distributor. Not shown for instance, is Pepsi's ownership of Yum brand foods. Go to KFC, Pizza Hut, or Taco Bell. get yourself a Coke...
I still think a lot of the stranger, less easily explained UFO/UAP sightings are likely some kind of geologic thing, like piezoelectric discharges from large quartz formations and stuff like that.
Possible Orin of the infamous Wow signal. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...pc=U531&cvid=163db52c15c94e44b8d6e9963d108897
You know that the Sun is a sleazeball tabloid from the UK that’s slightly more credible than the Weekly World News, right?
