Feelings ... Nothing More Than Feelings

I am still learning to confront my emotions. Fear. Rage. I get disproportionately angry with stupidity. A friend told me to "Just stop it," as if the emotions are coming from a faucet and I can just shut it off like that.

But, they are right. We really do control (or decide NOT to control) our feelings ... or at least, our responses to our feelings. I can get angry and cuss and wave the Main Finger at someone ... or I can get angry, decide the anger does me no good, and then decide not to freak out. Yes, I did get angry, but I decided not to ride my "right" to express and vent my anger, and in a moment the anger has smoldered out, rather than flaring up when I added a splash of gasoline to it. I did not repress my anger ... I expressed it by deciding not to go ballistic. I recognized the feeling, then decided what to do about it. (I'm working on it. It is a HABIT of many years, and will take some time to "break.")

The same is true with fear.

It is normal to experience some fear. No one is a "freak" for feeling fear. But everyone ... EVERYONE ... can decide how to deal with the feeling. I have faced a lot of fears over the last few years (no rhyme intended, so don't get all bended), and have found some ways to respond without freezing up and other bad reactions.

Don't try to not feel fear ... that's psychotic! Just decide that the feeling "is not the boss of me", make a decision, and tell fear to watch you go through with the rational decision you make, and learn that it does no good to scream and shout at you.

Choosing a Political Party, and Redefining Libertarianism?

Libertarianism, as I have perceived it, flies on two wings: individual liberty, and individual accountability/responsibility.

So-called "Progressive Libertarianism" is one-winged: individual liberty.

The general form of contemporary libertarianism I observe says that individuals have the right to do as they please, so long as they do not harm others (individual liberty, or "social liberalism"), but they also are responsible for their own actions, including successes, and failures, in providing for themselves (individual responsibility, or "fiscal conservatism"). If it pleases a neighbor to help someone in need, that helpful person has the right to intervene as they see fit with their own property, time and resources.

A "progressive" libertarian sees some socialist right of failing individuals (albeit temporary "failings," such as the devastation of a hurricane) to lay claims to strangers for sustenance and reparations. A central government must confiscate the property of "free individuals" to help storm-ravaged "neighbors," even if the confiscation diminishes the ability of the person so pillaged in achieving their own success and self-support.

Contemporary libertarians would address the plight of storm-ravaged Floridians like this: if you wish to rebuild in Florida, be our guest, but you must pay for aid we provide you because WE are not responsible for your plight ... or, if it brings us individual joy to do so, we may certainly donate support at no charge. But, if you want to stay in the path of the occasional freight train, don't come whining to us that we OWE it to you to enable your bizarre decisions.

I cannot be a "progressive" libertarian because I do not believe in imposing an agenda on an individual. Requiring a person to support something like the NEA is moral equivalent to a military draft. Pay taxes to fund questionable art, or go to prison ... enter into the military to support questionable foreign policies, or go to prison.

There is a fine quiz at www.lp.org using a sort of baseball diamond political locator which does not assign you to a party as much as to lower-case ideologies. It asks 10 questions about social liberty and 10 about fiscal liberty. I scored 100% libertarian on this quiz and feel well-located.

I do not support the Party. It is part of a hopelessly corrupt system and I will send not even one red cent to perpetuate a useless system. I am not a member of the Libertarian Party. Party politics has usurped the place of democratic function (and responsibility.) Party politics is "representative government without representation," and I continue to look for the Tea Party....

Should All Presidents Be Military Veterans?

Read Robert Heinlein's speculative fiction novel "Starship Troopers" (after you have had the abominable movie hypnotically barricaded away from your memory. It postulates a world where only former military could vote. It does NOT advocate this system ... it is merely a "what if" scenario. (The film had so little to do with it I can't imagine why Virginia Heinlein didn't sue the bastards who made it for libel or something.)

The idea of a Commander in Chief being a civilian took a while for me to comprehend, but then the light bulb went on: If the President is a military person, the military is running the military ... and the nation. That is why the system is set up as it is. This is civilian rule, instead of military rule, and I'm quite comfortable with that.

When it comes to qualifications, there are quite a few. Imagine an illiterate President unable to read more than signs and controls on his/her TV remote! Imagine a President who cannot speak English.

Some qualifications seem "obvious." Every President since at least Eisenhower except one was a veteran, and that one was Citizen Clinton. He is not my idea of a shining example of presidential mettle. And his lack of military experience did not stop him from allowing some military sorties and send "kids" into harm's way. We also had Nixon, who was a vet (Navy, if I recall), and he is the poster child for crappy Presidents.

Being a veteran does not guarantee a president will be good at his civilian post, or that he will be bad at it.

Americans' feelings about the loss of our "kids" make perfect sense to me. I want accountability in public office that we are unlikely to ever see. And when I heard on the radio while driving that Bush the First launched Desert Storm, I thought of the "kids" and cried like a baby. (Silly, middle-aged veteran, proud of having served, and weeping because the best kids America breeds are going into danger to become casualties and killers, all to promote political agendas.)

If I were to use the "Benjamin Franklin T" method of deciding on a president, In the Pro column I would mark "veteran" twice to lend it more clout. Having served can make a world of difference in a man in ANY position. But Nixon's "T" form would still (in hindsight, anyway) come up short on the Pro's.

Requiring military background for a president? No.

But the president should be the man who hands the folded flag on bended knee to every survivor at the graveside.

Libertarianism vs. Radical Islam

The classic libertarian response to terrorism is to dis-inspire terrorists with incentives to "love" us. They (the terrorist peoples) are welcome to come here and work to build their own coffers and our nation, and we will not send troops to their lands (except, perhaps, for humanitarian efforts), and when they get here they can worship as they please (and even smoke pot, play poker or visit prostitutes if they like). Bottom line: we are only enemies to those who attack us, and never to foreign business or immigration.

Sadly, the mindset of terrorists is that they only are "people" and we are not. It seems insane to our presuppositions to not only jeopardize children, but to actually laugh about shooting them in the back as they flee a fire. But they are only insane by our moral perspective. To their way of thinking from cultural immersion in bitter religious extremism, we are not "people" and it pleases their deity to "weed the garden" of our polluting existence.

I am not trying to be insulting to Islam as a whole, especially mainstream Islam that does not support terrorism and the slaughter of innocents. I am recognizing that, by their own lights, WE are insane ... and enemies to their perverse theology.

We can reason with Catholics and Jews and Protestants relatively easily because all three religions accept that "Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder." And each of these faiths believes that every human made by the Creator is a "person" not to be murdered. But we cannot reason with ideological extremists because we do not have a common "language" of world view.

So, not being able to reason with the terrorists, what option is left?

Libertarianism is not about "peace at any cost." The use of violence to defend against violence is not only acceptable, but is required in a "moral" society. So, even as a libertarian, I am forced, reluctantly, to recognize that negotiations with sharks being ineffective, killing the sharks is the only defensive recourse.

It is impossible to kill everyone who has an ideological hatred. It IS possible, though, to kill as many of the violent as possible ... and to work on the other end of the issue by teaching the violent culture that we are NOT aggressors, invaders, usurpers and conquerors.

That's tough to teach, however, if it isn't strictly true....