We must build a vessel within a vessel, taking care not to disrupt or get too involved with the self-defeating struggle of the Mother Ship. When She becomes terminal, we must brave Her passing and carry on with our own sturdier vessel; taking great care not to build such a precarious superstructure. Let Us Begin.
Governance
1974 saw Gerald Ford take the baton from Richard Nixon after the biggest sea change in 20th Century American politics. The unbridled hope and pride of Jacquie and John Kennedy’s Camelot had been annihilated. LBJ achieved the Great Society and the seminal tragedy of Viet Nam that destroyed all the hope created by JFK. Then came Nixon the undertaker, with flight from Southeast Asia and Watergate, to bury forever the adolescent dream of American Exceptionalism. For me, anyway. Gerald Rudolph Ford had earned an early reputation at Michigan State as the guy who would fight to the end in a losing cause. He was the perfect successor to Tricky Dick.
In that year of 1974 a 27 year old launched a magazine called Papers, Inc. and a concept called The Ark with the following caveat:
Aboard the Ark
It is ingenuous to think that the people can effectively combat and overcome the massive economic/military/political monopoly that is now the very superstructure of our country. But it would be just as ingenuous to think that these economic, military and political behemoths can survive their own internal power struggle. And we are just as powerless in preventing that.
We must build a vessel within a vessel, taking care not to disrupt or get too involved with the self-defeating struggle of the Mother Ship. When She becomes terminal, we must brave Her passing and carry on with our own sturdier vessel; taking great care not to build such a precarious superstructure. Let Us Begin.
Bubba
Class of ‘68
The first Vote:
Citizens of the Ark
Can not
Infringe upon or curtail
The Life, Liberty or Property
Of any human being
On the Earth.
I would like to board the Ark for a look around. I may have a contribution.
I understand that I may disembark at anytime with no penalty, and that I may return at any time with no obligation other than to obey The Law.
reprinted from Papers, Inc. circa 1972
Bear with me for a few more sentences, please?
Collateral understandings
Existing wisdom to consider
Objectivism
"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
Ayn Rand
The most unique and valuable aspect of what she says is in its simplicity.
No big words, overly long sentences or qualifiers. No arcane syllogisms or high-minded ideals: Just a simple observation of reality that anybody can understand.
#1 Man is heroic - This is good. She believes we are essentially “good”.
I like that. I’m on board.
Heroes usually struggle for Good against odds. To me that means that we struggle for good things against bad things. We certainly all struggle. It’s nice to have somebody say we’re well-meaning. We possess an implicit nobility.
#2 Our own happiness is our goal. Of course it is. If it wasn’t we’d be neurotic.
It’s nice to have somebody acknowledge that it’s okay to struggle to be self-serving. Even Ricky Nelson said so in “Garden Party”. And she says it’s moral. That means it’s a good thing and nothing to be ashamed of.
#3 “Productive achievement” Rand gets to the core of her thesis for which she is most well-known. She believes we all need to work and achieve stuff. That is our true measure. Laziness, idleness-bad bad. Go out there and do something. Produce something. Produce it for yourself. That’s okay. Just “Achieve Something.” Most people embrace this as her blanket endorsement of Capitalism. There is some truth to that, but some of her followers take it to an extreme she would not have embraced. At least that’s what I think.
#4 Reason My favorite and most often forgotten part of her philosophy.
And the most often forgotten part of our lives. We are human beings with the ability to “reason”. To me that means putting two or three ideas together and coming to a “logical” conclusion. It’s the opposite of what’s so often referred to as “lazy thinking”, which is not “thinking” at all. It’s just repeating whatever Rush Limbaugh or Oprah says, or being a slave to ‘political correctness’.
Ayn Rand wasn’t so bad, not until I saw her on a few Youtubes, revealing a bitter jaded brilliant lady. Her bitterness was understandable, even forgivable, given her childhood upbringing. It shouldn’t be much of an impediment to appreciating her brilliance. Her philosophy just needs a bit of leavening. It’s our job to provide the yeast.
EZ Fixes
Not so EZ Fixes
Institute mandated 3 years of paid government service for 18-year olds/high school graduates, whichever comes first.
Inductees will have access to same healthcare plan as current US Congressmen.
First year of service will focus on:
Second two years will embrace job-training apprenticeships in Public Works, selecting from
After completion, college is optional without tuition.
Get on with your life.
The Hidden Solution that will make it all work
Woolloomooloo lunch
I enjoyed a nice lunch with a seventy-five-year-old neurologist from South Africa named Ron Joffe. It occurred on the Wooloomooloo Wharf in Sydney Harbor. You know,it’s where Nicole Kidman has her place at the very tip. Ron is a South African who raised his family, learned that he couldn’t tolerate or trust apartheid, so he left. First to London in the ’60s (lived on Abbey Road!), then back to South Africa for a few years, then finally to Australia in 1974.
Today we were enjoying a generous luncheon at the well- known China Doll restaurant. Asian gourmet on the palate, politics on the tongue: American politics. He is a great believer in American Exceptionalism. I expressed my candid disillusionment in what I was taught America was supposed to be about in the high schools of the 1960s. He pointed out the obvious and then the not so obvious.
The first thing he said was that regardless of the reality of my complaints, America was still the best place there was for freedom and opportunity. The best by a long shot. You could literally do anything in America. If some chose to do things that weren’t to my liking, then so be it. My job was to learn tolerance. I’d be a better person for it. He wasn’t the first to share this thought with me. Then what he pointed out surprised me.
“America is by far the most charitable country in the world. You never see giving of that scale and by so many anywhere else in the world,” He said. “I’ve spent so many trips to America walking around the hospitals and universities, and every building seems to have somebody’s name on it. Americans give untold fortunes to charitable causes. And it’s not just those who’ve made their millions, but it goes through your whole country. Even the poor give to the poorer. You just don’t see that anywhere else in the world, and I’ve been to many places.”
I thought that was worth repeating. I take him at his word. He didn’t seem a person to make provocative statements just for their entertainment value. That luncheon was the high point of my trip, and remained so when we boarded the 17-hour flight home. Most everyone talks about ‘the Bridge Climb’ or the “Opera House” as the most memorable experience in Sydney.
I met Dr. Ron Joffe. And got a different view of America.
In that year of 1974 a 27 year old launched a magazine called Papers, Inc. and a concept called The Ark with the following caveat:
Aboard the Ark
It is ingenuous to think that the people can effectively combat and overcome the massive economic/military/political monopoly that is now the very superstructure of our country. But it would be just as ingenuous to think that these economic, military and political behemoths can survive their own internal power struggle. And we are just as powerless in preventing that.
We must build a vessel within a vessel, taking care not to disrupt or get too involved with the self-defeating struggle of the Mother Ship. When She becomes terminal, we must brave Her passing and carry on with our own sturdier vessel; taking great care not to build such a precarious superstructure. Let Us Begin.
Bubba
Class of ‘68
The first Vote:
Citizens of the Ark
Can not
Infringe upon or curtail
The Life, Liberty or Property
Of any human being
On the Earth.
I would like to board the Ark for a look around. I may have a contribution.
I understand that I may disembark at anytime with no penalty, and that I may return at any time with no obligation other than to obey The Law.
reprinted from Papers, Inc. circa 1972
Bear with me for a few more sentences, please?
Collateral understandings
- Nobody messes with your stuff. You don’t mess with the stuff of others.
- Nobody tells you what you must do. You don’t tell others what they must do.
- Truth doesn’t require explanation. Opinion does.
Existing wisdom to consider
Objectivism
"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
Ayn Rand
The most unique and valuable aspect of what she says is in its simplicity.
No big words, overly long sentences or qualifiers. No arcane syllogisms or high-minded ideals: Just a simple observation of reality that anybody can understand.
#1 Man is heroic - This is good. She believes we are essentially “good”.
I like that. I’m on board.
Heroes usually struggle for Good against odds. To me that means that we struggle for good things against bad things. We certainly all struggle. It’s nice to have somebody say we’re well-meaning. We possess an implicit nobility.
#2 Our own happiness is our goal. Of course it is. If it wasn’t we’d be neurotic.
It’s nice to have somebody acknowledge that it’s okay to struggle to be self-serving. Even Ricky Nelson said so in “Garden Party”. And she says it’s moral. That means it’s a good thing and nothing to be ashamed of.
#3 “Productive achievement” Rand gets to the core of her thesis for which she is most well-known. She believes we all need to work and achieve stuff. That is our true measure. Laziness, idleness-bad bad. Go out there and do something. Produce something. Produce it for yourself. That’s okay. Just “Achieve Something.” Most people embrace this as her blanket endorsement of Capitalism. There is some truth to that, but some of her followers take it to an extreme she would not have embraced. At least that’s what I think.
#4 Reason My favorite and most often forgotten part of her philosophy.
And the most often forgotten part of our lives. We are human beings with the ability to “reason”. To me that means putting two or three ideas together and coming to a “logical” conclusion. It’s the opposite of what’s so often referred to as “lazy thinking”, which is not “thinking” at all. It’s just repeating whatever Rush Limbaugh or Oprah says, or being a slave to ‘political correctness’.
Ayn Rand wasn’t so bad, not until I saw her on a few Youtubes, revealing a bitter jaded brilliant lady. Her bitterness was understandable, even forgivable, given her childhood upbringing. It shouldn’t be much of an impediment to appreciating her brilliance. Her philosophy just needs a bit of leavening. It’s our job to provide the yeast.
EZ Fixes
- Decriminalize substances.
- Turn prisons into educational/emotional rehabilitation centers with special focus on those that manifest violence.
Not so EZ Fixes
- Figure out a strategy to reintroduce the meaning of the words “a well-regulated militia” in the 2nd Amendment.
- Restructure the IRS to a National Sales Tax collection organization rather than in Income Tax collector. Abolish taxes on Income. Being productive and prosperous is a good thing.
- Develop a secure modern day voting procedure/mechanism that is not technology based. Accept human errors rather than the potential for massive hacking.
- Replace the VA Medical benefits & system with the same plan that National Congressmen have. Sell current VA medical facilities to the private sector and run as normal medical facilities.
- Place a 25 year Sunset Clause on all National laws, to be reviewed every quarter century for revision, renewal or automatic removal.
- Hold a long-term Constitutional Convention with elected delegates with no government experience.
- Adopt Plato’s rule for selecting people in Governance.
Institute mandated 3 years of paid government service for 18-year olds/high school graduates, whichever comes first.
Inductees will have access to same healthcare plan as current US Congressmen.
First year of service will focus on:
- Achieving basic competence in formal education of language (reading & writing) and mathematics at an enhanced GED level.
- Achieve competence at personal finance/budgeting.
- Participate and achieve basic skills in First Aid and then go on to experience annual EMT training.
- Participate in a minimal physical fitness regimen focused on eliminating obesity and healthy eating.
- Introduction to music appreciation.
Second two years will embrace job-training apprenticeships in Public Works, selecting from
- Medical training,
- Construction/Trades training
- Clerical Administrative jobs.
- Join a branch of the existing conventional Armed Services.
After completion, college is optional without tuition.
Get on with your life.
The Hidden Solution that will make it all work
Woolloomooloo lunch
I enjoyed a nice lunch with a seventy-five-year-old neurologist from South Africa named Ron Joffe. It occurred on the Wooloomooloo Wharf in Sydney Harbor. You know,it’s where Nicole Kidman has her place at the very tip. Ron is a South African who raised his family, learned that he couldn’t tolerate or trust apartheid, so he left. First to London in the ’60s (lived on Abbey Road!), then back to South Africa for a few years, then finally to Australia in 1974.
Today we were enjoying a generous luncheon at the well- known China Doll restaurant. Asian gourmet on the palate, politics on the tongue: American politics. He is a great believer in American Exceptionalism. I expressed my candid disillusionment in what I was taught America was supposed to be about in the high schools of the 1960s. He pointed out the obvious and then the not so obvious.
The first thing he said was that regardless of the reality of my complaints, America was still the best place there was for freedom and opportunity. The best by a long shot. You could literally do anything in America. If some chose to do things that weren’t to my liking, then so be it. My job was to learn tolerance. I’d be a better person for it. He wasn’t the first to share this thought with me. Then what he pointed out surprised me.
“America is by far the most charitable country in the world. You never see giving of that scale and by so many anywhere else in the world,” He said. “I’ve spent so many trips to America walking around the hospitals and universities, and every building seems to have somebody’s name on it. Americans give untold fortunes to charitable causes. And it’s not just those who’ve made their millions, but it goes through your whole country. Even the poor give to the poorer. You just don’t see that anywhere else in the world, and I’ve been to many places.”
I thought that was worth repeating. I take him at his word. He didn’t seem a person to make provocative statements just for their entertainment value. That luncheon was the high point of my trip, and remained so when we boarded the 17-hour flight home. Most everyone talks about ‘the Bridge Climb’ or the “Opera House” as the most memorable experience in Sydney.
I met Dr. Ron Joffe. And got a different view of America.
With so many things about America resolving into myth and schoolboy fable of what we’re supposed to be and just aren’t, you need an honest glimpse of what we might rely on when it all comes tumbling down. There is a charitable nature amongst Americans that is unique. It’s not our Capitalism or Democratic Republic. It’s not our great natural resources that helped turn the tide in two World Wars. We have our corrupted egomaniacal politicians. Are there other kinds? But we have our generosity of spirit and societal compassion. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is just the biggest and shiniest. There are hundreds more, thousands more. Then there are the individuals. As Ron so accurately observed, the poor give to the poorer.
While we wrestle with a failing governance, we can have a very real sense of Hope if only because American Exceptionalism is not at all what the politicians claim. It’s what Ron Joffe observed. In the end, we are a compassionate people. And it may take us till the end to recognize and embrace it. And at that end, there will be a beginning, with all respect given to T.S.Eliot in Little Giddings.
While we wrestle with a failing governance, we can have a very real sense of Hope if only because American Exceptionalism is not at all what the politicians claim. It’s what Ron Joffe observed. In the end, we are a compassionate people. And it may take us till the end to recognize and embrace it. And at that end, there will be a beginning, with all respect given to T.S.Eliot in Little Giddings.
We need to keep it simple.
The single most important facet of our existence is that existence itself: Life.
Every action we take, every plan we make, and every thought we germinate must embrace the idea that we will be here to appreciate, enjoy or at least survive it.
We may well embrace the idea of multi-dimensional planes of existence, but for right now, right here, let's just focus on what's in front of us. We need to survive. We can't be threatening anybody else's existence or curtailing our own. Taking your own life is a separate paragraph.
If government is to have any kind of limited role in our existence, it must embrace the idea that preserving our lives is the first task that just can't be compromised. I'm not going much further on this other than to say that supporting universal healthcare for all of us without discrimination is a Given. We live in a world dominated by Capitalism. It just can't creep into the sphere of healthcare. The success of healthcare is not measured in dollars but in personal outcomes. In the nascent stages of Obamacare, Barack went to Big Pharm to get their support because he was realistic enough to know that the half-a-loaf he was going to struggle to achieve could not be realized without the tacit approval of the existing capitalistic powers. He made a measurable start. Barely... Whatever it evolves into is unpredictable, but between you and I, any government's Job #1 is to help preserve our lives and the quality of our health. If tax dollars are to be spent, that's where they start. We'll figure out what to do with what remains, as long as we remain.
The cost of medicine is a hurdle we're not now in a position to overcome. Don't poke the bear. Let's just get the doctors, nurses and hospitals headed in the right direction. Our biggest achievable task is to extricate the insurance companies/financial institutions from the mix. They played a minor role in the 1950s. It wasn't that long ago. We can figure it out. Let's find another area for them to feed on. How about the world of Energy? Lots of potential there. No, I haven't a clue how to do it. We just need to distract them with something lucrative. Maybe 'Uncontrolling Substances"? Decriminalize, then turn all those drugs over to Merck and Pfizer. Let them deal with El Chapo. Glad to listen to suggestions in the next strategy meeting.
We're not even in the top ten of countries with health care excellence, but we are unquestionably #1 in incarceration, the curtailment of Liberty. That's got to change. Capitalism has again had a major impact on this remarkable growth, but that's almost secondary. They haven't achieved a stranglehold just yet. The proximate problem is simple. The problem with race prejudice still pervades our society in the form of "The War on Drugs" and that monster called Immigration Law. If we had no drug laws and no immigration laws to enforce, what would we do with the $74 billion the government spends on incarceration? Consider that California spends more than $47,000 a year for each of its inmates.
This problem directly intersects with our first responsibility to Life. 40% of the prison population are documented sufferers of mental illness. They should be in the health care system with appropriate security measures. Leave the prison system to handle the murderers and thieves. Let the churches handle the Vice issues, but not the pedophiles and sexual abusers.
Curtail the Liberty of only those who infringe on the Liberty of the rest of us. Give them their own environment to live in where they can find their own solution to living together. Kind of like the Brits did with Australia? It may seem a bit heartless and unsympathetic, but our goal is to create a civilization that works. If you're not interested in working with the very few rules we have, then you can enjoy Life elsewhere with whateverLiberty you can manage amongst others with the same orientation. You'll be fine.
Property? What about it?
The single most important facet of our existence is that existence itself: Life.
Every action we take, every plan we make, and every thought we germinate must embrace the idea that we will be here to appreciate, enjoy or at least survive it.
We may well embrace the idea of multi-dimensional planes of existence, but for right now, right here, let's just focus on what's in front of us. We need to survive. We can't be threatening anybody else's existence or curtailing our own. Taking your own life is a separate paragraph.
If government is to have any kind of limited role in our existence, it must embrace the idea that preserving our lives is the first task that just can't be compromised. I'm not going much further on this other than to say that supporting universal healthcare for all of us without discrimination is a Given. We live in a world dominated by Capitalism. It just can't creep into the sphere of healthcare. The success of healthcare is not measured in dollars but in personal outcomes. In the nascent stages of Obamacare, Barack went to Big Pharm to get their support because he was realistic enough to know that the half-a-loaf he was going to struggle to achieve could not be realized without the tacit approval of the existing capitalistic powers. He made a measurable start. Barely... Whatever it evolves into is unpredictable, but between you and I, any government's Job #1 is to help preserve our lives and the quality of our health. If tax dollars are to be spent, that's where they start. We'll figure out what to do with what remains, as long as we remain.
The cost of medicine is a hurdle we're not now in a position to overcome. Don't poke the bear. Let's just get the doctors, nurses and hospitals headed in the right direction. Our biggest achievable task is to extricate the insurance companies/financial institutions from the mix. They played a minor role in the 1950s. It wasn't that long ago. We can figure it out. Let's find another area for them to feed on. How about the world of Energy? Lots of potential there. No, I haven't a clue how to do it. We just need to distract them with something lucrative. Maybe 'Uncontrolling Substances"? Decriminalize, then turn all those drugs over to Merck and Pfizer. Let them deal with El Chapo. Glad to listen to suggestions in the next strategy meeting.
We're not even in the top ten of countries with health care excellence, but we are unquestionably #1 in incarceration, the curtailment of Liberty. That's got to change. Capitalism has again had a major impact on this remarkable growth, but that's almost secondary. They haven't achieved a stranglehold just yet. The proximate problem is simple. The problem with race prejudice still pervades our society in the form of "The War on Drugs" and that monster called Immigration Law. If we had no drug laws and no immigration laws to enforce, what would we do with the $74 billion the government spends on incarceration? Consider that California spends more than $47,000 a year for each of its inmates.
This problem directly intersects with our first responsibility to Life. 40% of the prison population are documented sufferers of mental illness. They should be in the health care system with appropriate security measures. Leave the prison system to handle the murderers and thieves. Let the churches handle the Vice issues, but not the pedophiles and sexual abusers.
Curtail the Liberty of only those who infringe on the Liberty of the rest of us. Give them their own environment to live in where they can find their own solution to living together. Kind of like the Brits did with Australia? It may seem a bit heartless and unsympathetic, but our goal is to create a civilization that works. If you're not interested in working with the very few rules we have, then you can enjoy Life elsewhere with whateverLiberty you can manage amongst others with the same orientation. You'll be fine.
Property? What about it?