Not too far from my place there are wild turkeys strutting around as if no one ever has them for dinner. Just today I watched a gang of 14 cruising the hills. Too bad I didn't have my slingshot handy. I could have fed some people and left a few to continue doing whatever it is they do in the back country. I don't eat them but some people do.
It is a difficult day because the fact that I am still sort of dangling like a leaf caught in a spider web is bothering me. These are self made issues and the way out is the same as the way in--self made. I have a right to choose whatever scheme I can pursue, but the result is not a right.
How did rights ever come to mean anything other than that? I think the twist in thinking has been orchestrated by the tack controls and jobs have taken over the years. Between the culture of highly placed companies in the lobby world, and the culture of over reaction to every hazard of life, one can easily feel shut out and squeezed to the point that enterprise seems useless, and cultivating passions feels like the stuff of lunacy.
That's the trap and probably not one which is worth falling into. That's what I try to tell myself. I don't need to change the world, just manage a little bit of return for some effort which does not feed the monster. Unlike that senator from Louisiana, I refer not to sacrifice values for power and fame.
I was wondering what would happen if the health scam bill goes through since many people do not care to be forced into one of the insurance programs approved by The Secretary. Since it is tied to tax reporting, it could create a subclass of tax rebels and drop outs.
There may be little camps springing up in remote areas comprised of insurance scoff laws living in tents functioning in a cash or barter economy. I kind of hope so. There are those who have no intention of costing society if the get sick. They may choose to pay if they can and refuse care if they can't pay. Certainly millions do not care to deal with a middleman when it comes to medical choices. I guess the word "choices" is used loosely, as it is less and less applicable under present conditions.
What no one is addressing is the fact that under a better tax structure such heavy handed and totalitarian policies would not be so easy to force on the public. There are ways to improve things and most of those go back to undoing the sort of regulations which now limit competition and choice, and enable ridiculous lawsuits. What we are looking at is not what people believe or what those pushing this tangled web of special interest windfalls and favoritism claim.
A species of conformity is not only pushed these days, but it is forced at gunpoint. I'm genetically or organically incapable of keeping up with it or understanding it. I understand how it has come about, but that is so against the flow that people would rather not admit it. It is too dark and stupid. Who wants to really examine the truth of matters which have been painted as holy and wonderful, only to find out they've been scammed? I submit the policies of FDR, and even Teddy R.
No country I can think of has ever been very free for long, but the structure of this one was a landmark in that direction; a government designed to operate within the limits of a document designed to protect the people from abuses, and designed to forever limit the scope of government. Most other countries are formed around an ethnicity and an elite controlling class.
Whatever happened in practice, we do have a country which was designed to remove the privilege of birth by leaving choices to the individual and legally ensuring the right to pursue opportunity and self determination. It is only when the principles of the document have been ignored that difficulties got out of hand. Business-government "partnerships" which have sometimes been touted, have no business existing in a free land. Enforcing protection against force and fraud would have drastically changed the culture of mega corporations that has developed.
Business is not bad, and neither are corporations, just for existing. It is when specialized laws and class envy crumbs come into being which ultimately serve the firms who keep the spineless lawmakers in power. Much of the population appears to have adopted a belief that companies are damned at birth; a sort of commerce version of original sin. It borders on irrational superstition. Just as the belief that all commercial firms are good is naive. Again, without the IRS much of that corruption would be tougher to work. Opportunity, as it was once envisioned, would thrive much more than it does now. It is not that hard to see this truth. There are other ways. The Fair Tax is one such compromise if you have to have something different than the original system, pre-IRS.
I know there is still plenty I should and could be doing. The fear of not having the energy to do it or that I'd fail is amplified by looking at the big picture and the move toward the kind of oppression and corruption I witnessed in Cuba and Latin America many years ago. When you have some security it is easier not to be too alarmed about the remote policy scams because you feel lie you'll still have some cushion regardless of all that. I hope that view is correct.
I do not want to see those who have something good established be inconvenienced by out of control collectivists. Obviously, many already have been, as is evident from the lack of manufacturing and the prevalence of long time businesses closing their doors.
Like any circumstance in which a group of individuals function, some property and activity is best dealt with as common area, with a set of rules and procedures adhered to be all. It works best for people like me when that common realm is minimal and forever limited. You see the point at which it ceases to be of maximum desirability in many condo associations. People start grabbing power in order to serve themselves at the expense of those members in the minority, or just at the expense of anyone of less power.
That thrill of making people do or not do according to your whims even when it does not truly affect you is quite glaring in that venue. Otherwise I'd have kept the Memphis condo and continued to rent it out. Not being in town, and not being able to fight arbitrary rules which kept cropping up, designed to serve a few who owned multiple units, made that plan totally unworkable.
Now I'm in Paradise and trying to maintain some passion and appreciation. It's that feeling of "now what?" and knowing that it is essential to form some definition of it that troubles me. Another obstacle, related to the recurring obstacles in my life, to overcome. I'll bet the good things are right in front of me and I'm so sidetracked, mentally, that I don't see them.
If I ate turkey and worried about feeding myself, I'd know where to go.
