Why I Don't Travel

It's Thanksgiving weekend and I have many things to be thankful for. Millions of Americans will be traveling to visit families on this holiday. They have to travel to be with family because we have become such a mobile, fragmented, and divorced society.

I don't travel anymore, especially on airlines. There are many reasons for this but the main reason is when I travel on an airline I feel like I have no rights. When I step on an airport I am stepping on government property and I seem to lose some of my rights guaranteed in the constitution specifically Amendments II and IV. The minute I step on the airport the cacophony of commands coming from the government public address systems never stop.

Later when I board the airline's airplane I feel like I am a prisoner of the airline employees, and the public address commands continue; turn that off, get that seat back upright, etc. If I refuse to follow orders from the in-flight prison guards I will be charged with violating a federal law, interfering with the duties of a crewmember, even though what the crewmember told me to do has nothing to do with crewmembers' duties.

Most people go along with the prison system because it makes them feel safe. Safety is the next strongest need of humans after food and other biological needs are met.

We live in an overregulated society. As late as 1950 in many parts of the country one could build a house without paying a commission and getting approval from the government mafia. Now, even putting in a handrail on your front steps requires approval of the government mob in most cities.

In 1948 I lived on a farm with an outhouse. There were no codes and no code enforcers around. As a 15 year old I carried a pocket knife to school. I drove around in my Dad's pickup with my shotgun beside me.

In 1950 there was no EPA. There was no Civil Rights Commission. There was no department of; Health and Human Services, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Veterans Affairs, and the most odious of all departments, Homeland Security.

We have become what all tribes become, centrally controlled by the tribal chiefs, priests, and warrior class. Some day a child will be born who will ask, Mom what was freedom in the United States like?

Charles Tolleson

Another Veterans Day

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarreled with him? Blaise Pascal

Another Veterans Day just passed, another day of genuflecting and paying homage to those who said they fought to protect me and America. They say they sacrificed and risked their lives for my freedom.

When someone tells you they did something for you, and not for themselves, then you can be certain they want something in return.

The Veterans Day celebration is all about saying thank you, thank you, thank you, to the veterans. They want their parades, monuments, emoluments, pensions, and free/reduced health care called Tri/Care. And now the government, the same government that the military bureaucracy enables, wants to reward them even more by giving companies incentives to hire veterans, FIRST, over someone who did the right thing and did not join the War Corps. That smacks of discrimination. They should give tax incentives to employers who hire members of the Peace Corp instead of members of the War Corps. How will the world ever live in peace if tribes keep rewarding men and women for killing strangers in another country.

At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion. -Edwin Hubbel Chapin, minister and orator (1814-1880)

They did not go into some small foreign country and kill another person, a complete stranger, who had done nothing to the veteran, nor to me, in order to protect me. They did it for their own self interest. They did it for the money and glory.

The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature. - Edward Gibbon

Why do these people who claim to be so virtuous and noble constantly need praise. If they did it for noble reasons they would just keep quiet and stop trying to put a guilt trip on the rest of America.

"All men are enamored of decorations...they positively hunger for them." Napoleon

The merchants can't help but exploit this tribal fever. The merchants offer discounts to the veterans. The merchants all see this as a market they want to capture.

And the politicians keep praising the veterans because they want their votes. The politicians also want the support of the military bureaucracy in case there is social unrest. The politicians and military bureaucracy claim they are fighting a war in Iraq and Afghanistan when in fact they are just occupying two other small countries to justify the huge funding for the military bureaucracy. Read this by another blogger about war.
http://blog.independent.org/2011/11/11/armistice-day/

"Army Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs has been sentenced to life in military prison with eligibility for parole in 10 years.

A military court-martial Thursday found Gibbs guilty of murdering three Afghan civilians, illegally cutting off pieces of their corpses to keep as "souvenirs" and planting weapons to make the men appear as if they were Taliban fighters killed in legitimate firefights."

Charles Tolleson

The Peace Corp and The War Corp

The economic crisis in Greece, a country of only 10 million people, seems like a crisis that will affect a few lazy, acquired helpless syndrome, dependent Greeks, and a few greedy investors who thought governments would always be able to pay back the money they borrowed.

Why would people have such religious beliefs in the State. What is the State? Too many people believe the State is an omnipotent God, or, the Tooth Fairy.

These believers believe there is nothing the god State cannot do. For their own delusions they refuse to accept reality. They refuse to believe they have to be self reliant and produce something to live. They think their god State will provide for them.

They also believe they have a right to the production of others. It is in our genes to plunder. We have been doing it for thousands of years. This plunder is why packs formed, to protect what the pack grew or killed. When the pack was strong enough it plundered. We now use the ballot box to plunder.

The United States will go the way of Greek and other socialists/communal societies if it does not get its finances in order. It cannot continue to spend money on unnecessary wars to justify the military bureaucracy. The U.S. will have to get over it self infatuation believing everything the U.S. does is noble and virtuous.

The U.S. should stop being hypocritical by saying they are for a peaceful world filled with democracies. They should increase funding for the Peace Corp and reduce funding for the War Corp. Currently the funding for the War Corp is about 3000 times more than it is for the Peace Corp. Americans must prefer war over peace.

Charles Tolleson