I need to read more CS Lewis

This seems to be very true:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

People need to leave each other alone so that we can all be free.

Intellectual Dark Web

The NYTimes article on the Intellectual Dark Web has made the rounds of various blogs that I visit. It touches on a topic that is one of the reasons for this blog, censorship.

Censorship is control, whether it is imposed from without or from within. We all censor ourselves through self control every day. Functional society requires it of us all. Our life experiences lead us to self-censor to varying degrees on various topics.

Ostracism and other aggressive tactics are used to force us into self censorship. We watch the world around us and see how an aggressive vocal minority are able to bring punishment from a mob on people for various thought crimes and forbidden opinions.

Attempts to force others to deny reality is a trait of tyranny. PC speech codes are tyranny. At its forefront is an attempt to shutdown speech, but at its core it is an attempt to shutdown freedom of thought.

Free association with people/thoughts has been under attack. Free expression is under attack. Mob action is leading to tyranny.

Coin a new term - CRAPP

The SJW mob loves to take scalps. This action is not spontaneous. This reaction to events by SJWs should be resisted.

As we learn from them, we use their methods against them. Ridicule is extremely effective.

One of the methods used within the legal system to shut up critics is what is known as a SLAPP suit. This is a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. Many states now have laws on the books that protect 1st amendment rights of speakers when attacked using SLAPP suits.

I propose that a new term be coined that will both define the action that is being taken by the mob and injects the deserved ridicule of their ultimate goal of shutting up those they disagree with.

The action that we view with these SJW lynch mobs is actual Coordinated Rage Against Public Participation. They are CRAPPers!

These CRAPP mobs are CRAPPing in the forum. All well intentioned citizens need to flush these CRAPP mobs down the drain and do not participate in the CRAPP they are dumping.

ETC......

Compelled VS Coercion

What is the difference between compelling someone to do something, versus coercing them to do something?

I looked up the usage and definitions in order to better get a handle on my own thoughts and how they need to be expressed.

An action that is compelled seems to be done in response to outside factors, but mostly done on a voluntary basis. Duty Compels.... etc.

Coercion on the other hand is use of force to compel actions.

Is it tyranny to force an individual to provide their skill, labor, goods, and/or services?

No defense against trolls

Judicial Activism at its worst.

Apparently free association is no longer allowed within the United States.

You must invite trolls, and are not free to defend yourself against bad faith actors.

Twitter is a cesspool.

UK Censorship

This story is one of the reasons that I am pursuing this project.

A man reporting on events in the UK has been arrested and thrown in prison in just a matter of a few hours for reporting on a criminal trial.

This is a very dangerous aspect of not defending those basic principles that keep people free.
Courts covering up the failings of those we entrust to protect and defend our society seems to be the cause of his arrest and imprisonment.

This encroachment is noted and publicized, but it still stands. It is an erosion of freedom.

Good Faith

One of the things that has driven me to start my own platform is that I have curtailed myself in commenting on other blogs or news sites. This is self censorship that I have imposed upon myself because I have become frustrated with the level of bad faith from a segment of people who comment.

In order to have a society that will do the most good for the largest amount of people you need to have a critical mass of individuals who will interact with Good Faith.

 Is it worth even having discussions with a person who will continually shift their positions? Is it worth attempting to change the mind of a person who appears more concerned about scoring points?

The hard question becomes how do you know when to disengage and move on? How do you find those willing to be civil and work with them?

Time left to us

An article called The Tail End  at Wait But Why has recently caught my attention. It showcases a different perspective of viewing life and our remaining time that I found interesting.

This perspective was not entirely novel to me, but I had not been able to pull the various threads together as well as they have done here.

In May of last year (2017), Chris Cornell committed suicide. I had always been a fan of his and was saddened to learn of his passing. He had always been on my bucket list to see live as a performer in any incarnation, but that is now impossible. There are a few musical acts that are now in this category for me and nothing that can be done about it.

Several days after his untimely death my wife and I had an occasion to have a night free of children and no prior plans scheduled. As we were perusing the local events calendars to find our evenings entertainment I saw that the group Diamondhead was playing at RIBCO. This of course became a must do item for those reasons outlined in this post. Diamondhead has been around longer than I have been an adult. They have also been a major musical influence on not just certain acts, but an entire musical genre that has been a part of my life. While this post is not about them in particular they did rock the house in front of a small crowd in small venue. It was inspiring.

They next morning I purchased tickets to an upcoming Metallica concert. This was a concert that had been recently added to their schedule as a charity event so we were able to get GA tickets to the 'floor'. Given it was an outdoor show that is not as hard as it sounds. As you would expect from a group that has defined a genre and been around for well over 30 years, the show was excellent.

Anyway, this is also not about a specific Metallica show.

What I am trying to spell out in my own rambling way and is shown very well to the linked post is that we have only so many experiences left to us in life. Some of those have larger meaning for us than others, and those that are larger come about less frequently.

One of the things that is emergent from looking at time remaining is that we need to spend the time and money that we have on memories for ourselves as well as those we choose to spend the time with rather than spend time and money on objects that do not provide the same experiential foundations.

Comment Sections

I have been an avid reader of online news and blogs for nearly 20 years. One thing that I used to participate in was the comments sections of other blogs. That practice ceased a number of years ago as I found the instances of extreme polarization at one end and the echo chamber at the other had become off putting. This did not stop me from having opinions, as any normal person does, but it did cease to provide an outlet for those opinions. What had previously been noted on other sites will now be noted here.

My comment policy here has not been written down formally as of yet, it will be done so in the near future.

Initial Goals:

The main purpose of this blog is going to be exploration of principles which I believe are essential as a foundation of a society.
I am not going to try to break new ground, nor claim that I am exploring territory that has not been well covered in political philosophy over a great many years, but I am going to be putting my understanding in writing.
It has become apparent to me that having this all laid out in my own thoughts is no longer enough, my views have to be put forward into the public arena, if not that arena will not take my views into account.

More to come...

First Principles: First Post

This is an initial placeholder post which will likely be archived in the future. This is for configuration exploration purposes only.