Should the Majority Rule?

We hear a lot these days about “defending democracy.” What they claim they want to defend it against is tyranny. We must assume here that “democracy” is actually a code word for a system that respects the rights of everyone, and lets everyone – or as many as possible – participate in government. It refers not only to who may be elected to rule, but also to who may participate in the election. The fear – confirmed by history – is that the electors will choose someone who does NOT respect their right to equal participation in the processes of government. In such a wise, a democracy could destroy itself.

What does it mean to rule?

A students’ dictionary tells us: “To have political control or authority over; govern.” Govern: “To control the actions, workings, or behavior of; direct.”

Ruling has a definite political connotation. But more generally, a parent normally rules a family, a Chief Executive normally rules (or directs) a business, and schools are ruled by principals or headmasters.

The ordinary assumption is that a group will have a ruler or a leader.

Traditionally, a ruler or leader holds all three (assuming there are just three) major activities of government: Policy (rule) making, Administration (or execution of policy) and Justice. But that is tyranny. Many leaders attempt to do this, and many populations expect this from their leaders. But there is also a less common tradition of separating these activities under different leaders or leadership groups.

Part of the reason for a governing structure such as the one implemented by our Constitution is to restrain the executive leader from hoarding all of the other functions of government and thus becoming a tyrant. We can also suppose that term limits and some other finer details of our system have been implemented in the hope that they will discourage the rise of tyranny.

What is a majority?

Majority: “a number more than half of a total.”

The modern ideal of “majority” is that the “total” will include every able, honest adult citizen. This was not always the case. For various reasons, groups have agreed – or been coerced to agree – that certain people were fit to choose leaders and others were not.

The ultimate exclusivity is the royal, or monarchical, system. This gives all power of choice rule to just one bloodline. Various failures of that system resulted in pushes to widen the pool of possible rulers and the pool of those who could choose them. It started by including other aristocratic families, then extended to land owners and other businessmen. It was the American ideal to eliminate all traces of royal and aristocratic tradition and replace it, ultimately, with a system where anyone could be qualified to rule the country and anyone could be qualified to vote.

The American ideal never fully materialized. Why not? Was it overly idealistic, or has it been steadfastly resisted by some somewhat hidden elite that has always resented being deprived of its “rightful” place in society and has been fighting to restore its power ever since?

One argument has always been that the voters can be fooled into electing someone who will end their right to vote. That, in essence, they aren’t “smart” enough to choose a ruler.

Who is qualified to choose a ruler?

Beyond various historical facts, the answer to this question is far from clear.

Any system that relies on a democratic process to select rulers would assume (wouldn’t it?) that those people allowed to vote are qualified to choose a good leader. But perhaps this is not the central assumption. Perhaps there was simply no other obvious choice for a workable system of choosing. If you aren’t going to let bloodlines or a small group of insiders pick the next leader, then how else can it be done?

In the corporate world, the Board of Directors normally makes these decisions. That is certainly quite elitist; and only a few corporate entities don’t do it that way. But corporate businesses are one of the strongest sectors of modern society. Could it be that this is a smart way to do things?

In Parliamentary systems, the leader (Prime Minister) is normally chosen from among the parliamentary members. There may be some sort of popular vote associated with this, but usually the Parliament makes this selection itself.

Leaving the choice of a leader to “the people” is in some ways a radical departure from all the more traditional methods. Yet, in its practice, it has similarities to the other systems. These similarities are often not totally appreciated by the voters (or potential voters).

Who is qualified to rule?

In any society that uses leaders, someone must decide who among the various candidates for the various ruling positions are qualified to hold those positions.

If the entire job of choosing a leader consisted of selecting the one who was the most qualified for that job, then that could be one reason businesses do better at this than governments.

In politics (or government), another factor has always entered in, which amounts – in the most simple terms – to ideology.

In the U.S. where only two political parties dominate, there can be only two major ideologies at play in any given race. This tends to result in “binary” political discussions. The most common political binaries are liberal/conservative, Left/Right, and Democrat/Republican. None of these binaries are necessarily equivalent.

In Europe where parliamentary systems are the norm, several different ideologies may be part of the political debate. The European Union currently has seven different political groupings. This “diversity” is also evident in most national parliaments.

There have been many examples in political history of voters choosing leaders by ideology rather than by fitness to serve. This has sometimes resulted in political disaster. We all think of Hitler, but there are others. A candidate – indeed an entire ideology – can be deceptive. And thus voters can be persuaded that their choice will have a certain result, then be surprised when they get a different result. This could be said to be the principal weakness of the popular vote.

Various thinkers and researchers have looked into this problem and attempted to understand it better.

Plato in his Republic argued that a “philosopher-king” would make the best political leader.

Many researchers, notably Łobaczewski (Political Ponerology) focused more on who definitely should not be allowed to lead: The psychopath and the sociopath. It can be noted that such personalities often wind up leading nations or companies or smaller production groups, to the ultimate dismay of most honest people. Such leaders are characterized first by deceit, or their ability to deceive, and next by violence, or their ability to coerce using threats of violence. Some will characterize such people as “strong” leaders. But in fact such people are cowards and basically insane. They will ruin whatever they attempt to control.

Beyond this, we have traditional measures of personal abilities, such as Intelligence, Production Record, and Education. It is common to consider these abilities when selecting business leaders. But, for better or worse, they are seldom seriously considered in selecting political leaders. Attempts have been made, usually during campaigns, to make these factors more important. But “voters” taken as a group seem more likely to choose based on emotional response.

Here is an example of that argument: “The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies is a 2007 book by the economist Bryan Caplan, in which the author challenges the idea that voters are reasonable people whom society can trust to make laws. Rather, Caplan contends that voters are irrational in the political sphere and have systematically biased ideas concerning economics.”

The Emotional Tone Scale and politics

Hubbard introduced the concept of emotional tone in 1950. It is a method of analyzing a person or group depending on its emotional responses. Done well, it is pretty good at predicting behaviors. But it is not widely known or used, except in a sloppy pop-psychology form.

In his Science of Survival, Hubbard relates Tone Level to political approach (or ideology). By his observation people of highest tone are the most “liberal,” followed by those who are “conservative.” Most other political ideologies fall into the “negative emotion” band, and thus are unsafe. This is where we are living today, and why the saner among us are so concerned about certain alternative political approaches. They see the deceit in an ideology like Communism or Socialism and vehemently warn us against them, without a conceptual framework adequate to explain why.

When the two choices in America (liberal/conservative) were both seen as reflecting a positive emotion, then the debate between them could remain civil. Now that many among us see ideologies we disagree with as reflecting negative emotions, we are more strident in denouncing them, or warning against them.

Today, rational thinkers see the exclusionary messages of “the Right” as reflecting the negative emotion of Anger. They rightly see this as capable of producing political violence, and thus dangerous. Others see the inclusionary messages of “the Left” as based in Fear, rather than in a true liberal cheerfulness. To the extent that this is true, those people could be very dangerous, implementing coercive and anti-democratic measures in the name of “safety of the larger community” or other platitudes. The psychopath can mimic higher-toned people and ideas, and this is the concern of many who warn against the new ideologies described as “Woke” or “Critical Theory.” They argue that these are psychopathic, or criminal, ideologies dressed up to appear rational and “liberal.”

This debate is currently in a stalemate. Some would call it a propaganda (or “cold”) war with the potential to turn into a hot war. We are already dealing with two hot wars related to these clashing ideologies, one in Ukraine and one in Gaza (Israel/Palestine).

In these wars, the “Right” has sent its armies into more “Left” areas, resulting in great destruction and loss of life. However, one “liberal” area (Ukraine) has been accused of being very corrupt, as well as infiltrated by anti-Russian groups created by the CIA. And in Gaza, the “ruling party” was a terrorist group that has been perfectly willing to launch thousands of missiles into Israel and attack and kill Israeli civilians. This is a deceitful and cowardly way to fight a war. Thus we see that war is often the result when both sides slip into the realm of negative emotion.

We do not have many mechanisms for keeping politics – and the governments that result from it – on the positive side of the tone scale. This is our real danger.

Who is qualified to vote?

I restate this question after going through the above discussion.

Can you tell the difference between an honest man and a deceitful man (or woman)? Would you be willing to vote for someone who seemed less than honest just because there was no better choice?

If you answered “no” and then “yes,” I would prefer that you not vote.

However, we have in place in the U.S. and in most of Europe “universal suffrage.” That means that if you are a literate adult, you are “qualified” to vote.

I don’t care that much what your political ideology is. I prefer an honestly “liberal” approach, but an honestly “conservative” approach is also workable.

I would prefer leaders and voters who are intelligent. That might be considered “elitist,” but the fact remains that most people are not really qualified to rule, and possibly not to vote, either. Rulers are by definition an elite (in that we require only a limited number of them), and perhaps voters should be, too.

But I would be happy if all voters at least knew the Tone Scale and could spot people on it. I believe that low-toned people have been our major problem in politics, not this or that ideology. We need honest people in politics, as well as in business and education. Honest people with no major secrets to hide are less likely to start wars or make other disastrous decisions that will harm the lives of millions. If the majority can learn how to select such people, then the majority may rule. If the majority makes too many mistakes, then it will likely lose its power to choose its leaders.

Ole Doc Methuselah

Hubbard wrote the “Ole Doc Methuselah” stories in 1947, after recovering from a kind of blindness caused by gun flash. During his recovery (at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in the Oakland hills) he studied medicine at the library there, focusing on endocrinology and the immune response system. He also tried out his early ideas in psychotherapy on sick soldiers there. During part of his association with Oak Knoll, he maintained a residence in Kensington, a community in the Berkeley hills where I lived with my parents and siblings between 1960 and 1963.

The Ole Doc stories were science fiction, set hundreds of years in the future. They include space travel, blasters, evil villains and pretty girls, characteristic of all of Hubbard’s adventure stories.

In 1992, these seven stories were compiled into a collection which I have read. Each story dealt with a potential future medical issue: psychological “warfare” and the potential poisoning of water supplies; biologies based on different elements (carbon, silicon, etc.); mass allergic reactions; biowarfare; use of sound as a weapon; animal and human cloning.

The hero of these stories is one Stephen Thomas Methridge, who graduated medical school at Johns Hopkins University in 1946. Methridge was a founding member of the Universal Medical Society. He was one of four who had managed to defeat an attempted takeover of the universe by doctors in the “late 2200s.” They succeeded to disarm the revolting doctors and by monopolizing the most potent and dangerous medical technologies, restored some amount of order and safety. UMS membership was by invitation only and was limited to 700 individuals. They stood above all governments and armies, becoming known as “Soldiers of Light.”. They alone controlled a technology of life extension which they used to gain superior intellectual control over the many peoples of the universe.

I find the stories delightful and creative. They reflect, however, Hubbard’s deep concern for the future of Earth. In his work at Oak Knoll, he developed psychological interventions that helped several soldiers recover. These recoveries, however, were considered “flukes” by the research doctors there, and not worthy of further investigation.

Hubbard went on to develop a psychotherapy based on a theory which he called Dianetics. His work was thoroughly rejected by the medical community. This gave him the distinct impression that they were not actually in the business of promoting the personal health of their patients, but were more likely interested in promoting their own personal financial health and group political power. He considered this attitude – when seen in practitioners of the healing arts – frankly insane. And so do I.

The Ole Doc Methuselah stories give us some idea of what anyone who wants true human thriving in this universe is up against. Ole Doc must exhibit extraordinary skill in the use of conventional weaponry, space travel, and deception of evil personalities to stay alive and accomplish things. He is, in short, a superhero. This is almost too much to expect from any real human being, yet it seems to be what Hubbard thought would be necessary to maintain some degree of spirit, freedom and happiness in this universe. His subsequent work has only served to convince me that he was right.

Groundhog Day

We recently watched the 1993 movie Groundhog Day. I had some thoughts.

The Story

The story starts with the hero falling in love with a woman who thinks he’s a jerk.

His problem, then, is how to get her to fall in love with him.

In this story, he gets his chance by being forced to relive the same day over and over again until he gets it “perfect.” After an unknown number of tries, he finally makes it. He not only handles the woman he is in love with perfectly, he also handles everyone else he runs across in a totally exemplary fashion. When the woman finally falls in love with him, the “spell is broken” and they get to move on with their lives.

In the process of his learning experience, the hero nonviolently robs an armored truck, so that he can purchase anything he wants. He also wrecks several vehicles, kills himself several times, learns to play piano, learns to sculpt, learns (I believe) a second language and becomes incredibly well-read, saves a few lives and accomplishes a variety of small and not-so-small good deeds.

The Message

At first glance this story seems utterly preposterous. It violates several rules of ordinary human experience in order to do…what, exactly?

As far as I can tell, the movie uses this outrageous plot device of repeating the same day over and over in order to answer this question: How can a man (or Man, mankind) perfect himself? Are there any conditions under which this might be possible?

And these conditions seem to be:

1. A consistent, predictable social environment.
2. The ability to remember details perfectly.
3. The ability to learn from every mistake you make.
4. The ability to survive even the worst mistake you can make – death.

Is This Possible?

Under current conditions, it seems highly unlikely that a single person, much less a whole planet full of people, could ever perfect themselves. In “real life,” none of these conditions are possible, are they? But let’s look at each one a little more closely:

1. In recent times, the social / political / economic environment seems to be changing very quickly. However, in the past it changed much more slowly, perhaps taking hundreds of years to change much at all. Today it is considered “conservative” to not want change. But we can see that there might be some benefit to a slower pace of change. We do, however, have an overall pattern that has remained reasonably consistent: We are born, most of us are raised in families, we go to school, we get a job, we get married, we raise our own family, we grow old and we pass away. This basic pattern has been with us for a very long time, and is likely to continue.
2. While human memory is considered notoriously poor, it can be improved. Some people have very good memories, and perhaps with practice, more could.
3. The ability to learn from mistakes could be said to be the essence of intelligence. Some people think that intelligence is fixed once you leave childhood. But others have shown that it can be changed at any point in life. Perhaps we could all learn how to improve our ability to learn from mistakes.
4. It has recently been shown using several different scientific methods that reincarnation is real and that we do indeed survive body death. Unfortunately, death also seems to be accompanied by a near-total loss of memory. But perhaps this problem could be somehow overcome.

Thus, I see some slim hope that these basic conditions could be satisfied and that a man, if not all of Mankind, could eventually perfect himself.

The Backstory

A man named Danny Rubin wrote this story. It was his own idea, not one he was asked to come up with. The director Harold Ramis thought it was a funny story, and was willing to go ahead with it as a comedy. The lead actor Bill Murray really like the ideas behind the story, and wanted them to become more prominent than the comic aspects of it.

According to Wikipedia, “Buddhist, Christian, and Jewish scholars have analyzed the film as a religious allegory.” At the time, most people thought it was just a funny idea. But as time has moved on, more people have been taking it more seriously.

Rubin had originally been inspired by an Anne Rice vampire story he had been reading. He didn’t necessarily believe in our immortality, but wondered what could happen to someone who was immortal (like a vampire).

According to Wikipedia, “By portraying eternity as a repeating cycle instead of a straight line through history, he eliminated the production cost of constantly changing settings. He believed that the repetition also offered him more dramatic and comedic possibilities.^“

It might be noted that more recent films – Cloud Atlas in particular – have attempted to portray spiritual development under somewhat more lifelike circumstances. In other words, by taking reincarnation into account.

There is much more in the article about how Danny Rubin came to write the story in this particular way. In the hands of the director, it became more comedic. But the deeper philosophic elements of the story are inescapable. “The pair discussed the core ideas in the script, raising parallels between it and the concepts of Buddhism and reincarnation.”

The Wikipedia article about the film is quite long. In the end, the film generated considerable thought and conversation. It should be noted that the director was actually familiar with Buddhist principles, while the writer, we can guess, is Jewish. He was born in San Francisco in 1957, just three years after I was born. This film, it would appear, was his crowning achievement. From what I can gather from Wikipedia, writing the story did indeed involve a considerable amount of thought. And adapting it to a movie (and later a musical) involved much further work.

I am happy that I got a chance to see this story told.

My Reality Checklist

This has been on my mind for some time, so I thought I should write it down.

I thought that if I ever got into a serious conversation (something that hardly ever happens these days except on a few podcast shows) I would use this list as a starting point to test how different our basic assumptions were about that is real (or true) and what isn’t.

All these statements are styled as something you could either agree or disagree with. However, there may be some points you aren’t sure about or have no opinion on. That’s OK.

If you want to know my answers, ask in the comments. But if you have read much of this blog, then you should already know.

The List

1. Recent history: One or more ET spaceships crashed in New Mexico in 1947.
2. JKF was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald.
3. MLK was shot by James Earl Ray.
4. The Twin Towers were taken down by having Arab terrorists crash airliners into them. (And Building 7 doesn’t matter.)
5. Ancient history: Biology was invented by intelligent beings.
6. The dinosaurs were wiped out by a natural event.
7. Atlantis and Lemuria are folk legends.
8. The Giza pyramids were built by humans with no external help.
9. Religion: Reincarnation is a folk legend, even though it is taught in the Vedas.
10. Jesus of Nazareth was killed by the Romans and later left his grave, resurrected.

Operating on different assumptions

I don’t think most people consider how they might see things differently if they started out with different assumptions about what is true and what isn’t.

Whole systems of thought have been built up on mechanistic and materialistic assumptions about life and the world that have been developed by “modern science.” But the fact remains that the basic assumptions are unproven and in certain areas – like the social sciences – they have been working rather poorly.

To the extent that basic assumptions can’t be totally proven – such as the Axioms in Plane Geometry (that I learned in high school) – the truth of a basic assumption can only be tested by how well it works. If you notice any areas of life that aren’t working very well, you might want to check the underlying assumptions being used and see if others might work better.

Mediocrity versus Exceptionalism

Per a graphic published by the World Economic Forum, 18% of U.S. households earn less than $25,000 a year, 18% earn more than $150,000 a year, and the rest fall in between.

This is as reported about a year ago. A couple of years earlier, Pew Research put it a different way: 19% of U.S. adults are “upper income,” 52% are “middle income” and 29% are “lower income.”

For some reason, IQ is plotted on a “bell curve.” I assume this is based on measurements, but it may not be. Per one rendition of this curve, 68% of people score between 85 and 115, with 16% higher and 16% lower. If you take IQs from 90 to 110, you get closer to 50% of the population.

Real skill or survival ability is difficult to measure. IQ is a theoretical measure, and income is a material measure, and they don’t necessarily correlate, though some studies indicate that in the aggregate IQ and “well-being” correlate rather well. In individuals, maybe not so much.

My point in reviewing the above numbers is that the majority of people, by many measures, are “in the middle.” They are better off than the worst of us, but nowhere near where they wish they were. Thus, in a democracy where the majority rules, you would expect “mediocrity” to also rule. This is not, however, what a company, a country or any group of people need to survive well. They need to be exceptional to survive well, or at least choose leaders who are exceptional. But how can you expect “average” people to pick “exceptional” leaders?

This is a very old problem that was raised by people like Plato, long before they had the Bureau of the Census, Pew Research, or other groups working to compile hard data on these questions.

Sam Bankman-Fried, per most measures, was an exceptional person. So were his parents, both professors and Stanford University. Yet he allowed his company to go bankrupt by, reportedly, making very stupid ethical and financial decisions regarding how to use his investors’ money. Was SBF really an exceptional criminal? Or maybe really just a bit of a dullard, like most of us?

I was lying down contemplating how I would be judged by my peers, members of my church. While I have been with them since 1982 and have done some very good work, by other measures I barely have made it out of the starting gate. My position on “The Bridge” is much lower than others with my longevity, and so is my economic status. I have not shown that much ambition, not that much willingness to be exceptional, even though some measurements would suggest that I would be capable of it.

Though I consider myself to be quite exceptional in my own way, by many social measures I am not. Everyone has a right to consider themselves special. But society favors whose who play by its norms, and I did not. I was interested in “average” people. How did they live? How did they think? What might be their fate?

My teacher (L. Ron Hubbard) tried his best to impress on his students that you do your best by helping others to do their best. He did not recognize any ultimate ceiling to what people could accomplish. But he did recognize that they would require leaders to show them the way.

Mediocrity in the name of equality?

It has become fashionable on the Left, for a long time now, to resent the income and power positions of the “elite” classes. All the personal income made in one year in the U.S., in recent years, has been roughly 18 trillion dollars. If that was spread evenly across a population of 300 million, that would equal $60,000 per person. The “median household income” in recent years was $75,000. Would life be better for everyone if these figures applied to everyone? Or would we all just drive Teslas to work and watch TV all weekend?

If a brilliant man or woman were not provided with the resources to manifest their brilliance in real-world creations, would life today be as “good” as it is for most of us? Would Amazon exist even if Bezos has not been allowed to keep most of his earnings? Would the internet exist, or smart phones, or men on the moon?

I have read the work of many people (like Hubbard, Edward Bellamy, and Henry George) who thought personal wealth could be decoupled from personal excellence, and a society could still achieve greatness and longevity. They thought that the exceptional among us would be willing to “compete” for non-monetary rewards that would motivate them just as much as our current system does. They uniformly also believed that such a society could not exist unless a spiritual awakening occurred that would bring it into being. That is also my fond hope.

Economics

Tom Woods recently helped create a video posted on ASG.stream (Advocates for Self-Government) called “The Housing Bubble.” This is a libertarian-leaning group and film. But this film is also an attempt to educate us about how personal and societal economics develop in a “natural” and positive manner. I won’t try to duplicate the entire theory here. But the film gives a series of steps that you would expect an individual or society to go through as it “grows up” and becomes more productive.

Here is my graphic of these steps:

Now I will go through these steps:

Learn a Skill

The film assumes it is talking to educated adults who are already working. So I added this step to be more complete. There are so many ways to learn a valuable skill! Most of us start by going to school.

Make Money

Finding work can be quite difficult, regardless of how well trained you might be. If you face societal barriers based on how you look or what your name sounds like, it’s even worse. And making enough money to live can be a problem, too. Societies that “can’t afford” to pay a living wage are setting themselves up for failure. Of course, some work pays better depending on many many factors. On top of that, you may prefer to start your own business and get paid by your customers instead of an employer.

There is also an ethical component to making money. If your only skill is pickpocket or burglar, you are not really participating in the society, but helping to destroy it. A society that makes it difficult to find ethical employment is, again, setting itself up for bad times.

Control Spending

If you buy more stuff than you can afford, you won’t survive well. The film makes this point in terms of lending practices, and mortgage lending in particular. An ethical lender wants to make loans to qualified borrowers. And one indication that you are a good borrower is that you aren’t already in debt and can control your spending. One obvious indicator is that you have savings in the form of cash or other liquid assets.

Save Money

The film makes the point that to get a “normal” mortgage, the borrower must be able to make part of the purchase. This normally means that the borrower has a substantial sum saved up.

There are a lot of reasons to own some cash (liquid assets). But when interest rates are rather high, you can actually earn money on a savings account. Thus, you would expect higher interest rates to stimulate saving, or send a signal to save money. Of course, the only reason your savings can make money is because your bank uses it to loan to other people (charging interest) and pays you part of what it makes.

Get a Loan

Thus, to get a loan, particularly a mortgage, from an ethical lender, you have to have your spending under control and probably have some money saved.

But if interest rates are too high, you won’t be able to afford the payments on your loan, particularly if it is a long term loan (15 or 30 years), as most mortgages are. So high interest rates tend to discourage borrowing, while low rates will stimulate borrowing.

Own an Asset

An asset that most people buy with a loan is a car. Though the car loses sales value quickly after you buy it, it is enormously helpful to most people in making a living. Of course, you do have to know how to drive!

The movie was all about owning a house. A good house gives one shelter and a place of privacy and calm. These are important factors is keeping yourself healthy and able to work and earn money. But housing, currently, is retaining its resale value, with prices usually going up and up. Thus, some people “invest” in a house like it is gold or a piece of art, really only hoping that they can sell it for a profit.

Meanwhile, housing for most of us is a service that costs money, and doesn’t make money, particularly if we are renters. If you are a landlord, you might be able to make money by renting housing to others.

Most assets that can make their owners money are productive assets. They are tools or equipment that can produce things that can be sold for a profit, or those products, made by others, that can be resold for a profit. This is the domain of businesses, large and small. All of the important material things that we use to help each other and keep ourselves alive are, in our culture, created by a human activity call “business.” The immaterial things that we rely on are another matter. However, entertainment has been almost totally taken over by business.

What could go wrong?

The film focuses mostly on one important failure mode, though there are many possible reasons why individuals or society end in poverty (scarcity) instead of prosperity (abundance).

When it becomes too easy to borrow money (or spend money you don’t have) then individuals never learn to control their spending, and no savings occur. With no cash reserves, there is no cash to lend unless someone just “creates” it (“prints” it). In recent years – and at times in the past – the economy has been “expanded” by just creating money. This is made worse when the money is then loaned out at very low rates, which further encourages borrowing while discouraging saving.

The above is the mechanism that creates “bubbles.” It allows prices to rise unnaturally and money to enter the economy without any production to back it up. When it happens to a person, it comes in the form of no longer being able to pay on one’s loans, resulting in one losing one’s car or house, or credit card.

Crime and other disasters

Various forms of crime can result in an individual or society losing their ability to work, or losing their housing or possessions to damage or destruction. In my opinion, the primary responsibility of government is to protect its people from crime.

Wildfires, earthquakes and bad weather can do much more damage than a few criminals. We all play a role in protecting ourselves from such disasters. In modern societies, the usual way to do this is by saving money, often through the mechanism of insurance. This does, however, substitute business for charity. The only way for an individual or a society to afford charity is for it to produce more than it consumes, so that it has a surplus that can be used in the event of bad times.

I might also mention the problem of education (or training). If this activity is neglected in a family or a society, and children grow into adults with no valuable skills that they can use to make a good living. That family or society has failed in one of its most important functions. Many modern schools are not doing a good job in this regard. Difficult times are ahead if this does not get corrected very soon.

All the functions and skills mentioned above – including even ethical behavior – depends on a working system of education. This system seems broken all around the planet and urgently needs not only repair but an entire reimagining.

Alien Attack

(dream)

It started on a viewing platform or in an eating establishment when all sorts of strange ships started appearing over the water (river?). They were colorful, and all sorts of shapes. Some like towers, others like giant party balloons. One further ahead started to fold oddly, making it look like it was inflated instead of made of metal. I took some pictures on my smart phone.

Then fast ships started zooming in from behind. They seemed rather large and dark. Debris started to fall down from above. I ran back towards the parking garage of my apartment building. I got on an elevator but was distracted by a cute woman propositioning me, and got off on the wrong floor (13?).

I got out and started going down on the “stairway” to get to my floor (6). These stairways were shaped like spiral slides at children’s playgrounds. There was a spring-loaded dust cover over the entrance. To go down, I had to turn cranks mounted on the walls.

The dream ended as I was descending.

I had this dream in the morning after seeing Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (a Marvel Comics movie).

Processing

Three unconventional uses of this word that are common today:

1) “Processing is a flexible software sketchbook and a language for learning how to code.”

2) Psychology, technical: “…processing an issue in therapy may mean working to place it inside a coherent life narrative.”

“Second, processing an issue in therapy often means bringing past events or habits into present consciousness and analyzing them using our current tools and knowledge, resulting in fresh insight.”

3) Scientology, technical: An alternative term for auditing. “Auditing works by freeing people from those factors that cause them to introvert, or be upset or fixated, bringing about a spiritual release and resurgence.”

News and Views

In the past few weeks, several significant discussions have occurred online. Let’s see if I can remember the highlights:

• On June 11, Dave Grusch was interviewed by Ross Coulthart. The information he presented was almost universally ignored.
• On June 15, Joe Rogan interviewed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
• On July 4, the Sound of Freedom film about child trafficking was released.
• On July 6, Russell Brand interviewed Tucker Carlson.
• On July 11, Dave Rubin interviewed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
• Also on 11 July, Tucker Carlson interviewed Andrew Tate.
• Today July 13th, Joe Rogan interviewed Stephen Meyer.

Government Secrets

The Grusch interview was about one of the longest-held government secrets that I am aware of, the UFO coverup. Grusch was employed in a research group that learned of this coverup. He went through all proper channels before coming out publicly. Someone predictably, no one else but Coulthart (an old fan of this topic) and the people he worked with on this reported Grusch’s information release.

RFK Jr. mentions the CIA involvement in JFK’s murder all the time. This is another huge coverup. Almost everyone who has bothered to look knows about this.

Of course, RFK Jr. is also interested in what happened with COVID, as well as what is going on with vaccines, and Big Pharma more generally.

He also advocates for peace in Ukraine through direct negotiation with Russia.

The Sound of Freedom film reportedly outperformed the latest Indiana Jones movie at its opening. Though the validity of Tim Ballard’s stories have been questioned, everyone knows there is a human trafficking problem in the United States. It seems, though, that some objections to talking about it exist.

Tucker Carlson, Dave Rubin, Russell Brand and Andrew Tate all have stories to tell about being censored by governments, employers, etc. They are depicted by the corporate media as being seriously flawed individuals. As if corporate media were not also full of flawed individuals. Accusations of sexual improprieties have been flying all over the place in recent weeks.

Intelligent Design

“Intelligent Design” is the theory that there had to be an intelligence behind the development of biology as we know it, or that development would have been impossible. Biological systems are too intricate and fine-tuned to have happened by accident.

Stephen Meyer believes this points clearly to the hand of God. That is officially known as Creationism. However, that is not the only possible explanation. Hubbard discovered a different story beginning in the 1950s. As he remembered more about his own distant past, this story expanded. The most interesting rendition of this version of intelligent design is presented in the book Alien Interview. Another version has been presented by Raël, then known as Claude Vorilhon, in one of his interviews with “Jehovah.”

Rogan, who is basically an agnostic, and Dr. Meyers talked for over three hours. Rogan isn’t sure about God (understandably in my opinion) and Meyers isn’t sure about the other versions of ID out there that he knows of, the chief one being “panspermia.” Meyers is unaware of Hubbard’s work, as are most academics. Hubbard offers a much more straightforward explanation, though much more difficult to believe for those who aren’t willing to accept his research methods.

The Big Secrets

The big secrets of this planet are not, strictly speaking, government secrets. They are truths so impossible to believe, that they retain their status as secrets through their sheer incredulity.

1. We are immortal non-physical and creative beings. This truth has been demonstrated by Ian Stevenson’s work with children who can remember their previous life. All psychic researchers have also demonstrated this truth to one extent or another. Hubbard’s work in this area is, I consider, the most profound.
2. We are separable from our bodies. This has been demonstrated in numerous recorded Near Death Experiences. It is also a common occurrence in Scientology. Ian Stevenson’s group – now headed by Jim Tucker – also works with NDEs.
3. We can recall our pasts. This is widely overlooked by academic researchers. Any research method that depends on memory is considered inferior to direct observation. Yet psychic methods of direct observation have been used to corroborate recalls of past incidents.
4. Beings like us created this physical universe and everything in it. This was determined by the use of Hubbard’s recall methods, which may be the only way to do so. It is only corroborated by religious lore. It is the most true origin story that we have on Earth, and if taken seriously would change the fields of physics, cosmology and biology forever.
5. Earth is a spiritual prison for nonconformists and other “unmanageable” individuals from around the universe. This is Hubbard’s discovery, though is said to have been taught by the Gnostics. It is unclear from what area of this universe these beings have been collected. The majority are likely from this galaxy. This has been corroborated by Courtney Brown’s remote viewers. The principle aspect of this prison is forced reincarnation.
6. Beings of Earth, and possibly from many other places as well, are “programmed” to believe that they are animals and not spiritual beings and that they have no inherent freedom and indeed no right to be free. This programming is done mostly in the Between Lives Areas of Earth, but may be more broadly implemented than that. This accounts for certain convictions of many beings on Earth that all the above truths could not be true. Even people like Rogan and Meyer have trouble with this information. In fact, the idea of spiritual freedom, and its many benefits, is actively fought on Earth, both by our “keepers” and by their human minions.

The struggle to understand

For all the people I have listed in the above set of interviews, it is a real struggle to understand what is going on here on Earth. Their ignorance of our spiritual situation, along with their programmed resistance to accept it as a possibility, hinders this struggle.

Many of them think of the problem as political. Well, it is in a sense. But it is not particularly the politics of Earth that is to blame here. It is the politics of this universe.

The UFO secret is a key missing link, as validating the psychic finding that we are being visited would be big news. The full story of what ETs have done here is much more vast than this, however. It even explains the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Also, the finding that we are the creators in this universe would revolutionize the fields of human psychology, as well as many other sciences. We desperately need workable tools to improve our mental health. Without these basic understandings, these tools remain unavailable to most people. Hubbard felt that mental health was the key to our problems on Earth, and I agree with him. All the people listed struggle, in particular, to understand this piece of the puzzle. It helps to answer why Andrew Tate is having such problems just by advocating that biological men should work harder on developing their masculinity. And it helps to answer why freedom lovers and truth seekers have so many problems today in getting their voices heard. I hope more of these people will come to terms with these truths while they still have time to do so.

A Recent Epiphany (After a Long Hiatus)

“Threats to Democracy”

Recently I have been hearing a lot about “threats to Democracy.” I knew there was something wrong with this whole campaign, but I couldn’t quite pin it down.

This narrative is being pushed by the corporate media, which is currently identified with the “Left” and the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile the “Right,” sometimes identified with the Republican Party, is warning us that the Left is turning anti-American and threatening our founding principles. As the Left is currently allied with Corporate, and Corporate is notorious for criminal schemes to make more money (or whatever they are trying to do), I tend to give the Right some credence in this regard.

Democracy in Theory and Practice

Per current theory (as expressed in Wikipedia and elsewhere) Democracy means “rule by the people.” This is in contrast to Monarchy, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Autocracy and various other types of rule where “the people” are not consulted by the ruling class.

This meaning is taken directly from the Greek. To further quote the mysterious writers of Wikipedia: “Prevalent day-to-day decision making of democracies is the majority rule, though other decision making approaches like supermajority and consensus have also been integral to democracies.”

Thus, it is generally accepted that in a Democracy, all the most important decisions require a majority – or greater number – to agree to them. At the popular level, this would be a majority of voters.

The Paradox

The Left has traditionally worked to protect the “rights” of blue collar workers and minorities, creating a working coalition that elected representatives who would work for better treatment of the “lower” classes. That basic agenda, apparently, hasn’t changed since after the Jim Crow era (when Democrats in the South were segregationists).

What has changed is the introduction of Critical Race Theory into the mix, and its insistence on the undesirable characteristics of “Whiteness.” Whiteness is the supposed bane of the entire Earth and of all its indigenous people and people of color.

Thus, the Left seems intent, with the help of Critical Race Theory, of taking power away from “Whites” forever.

However, in 2020, 62%-to-71% of Americans were “white.” Thus, if Democracy were to be properly protected from “threats,” “whites” would remain in power, until such time as they are no longer in the majority. So why would the Left be so concerned about “threats to Democracy?”

Other Arguments

The typical retort from the Right to the “threats to Democracy” narrative is that we don’t have a Democracy in the United States, we have a Democratic Republic. The Constitution establishes various limits on “majority rule” to protect the rights of minority voices and people. It also limits the power of the central (federal) government in order to protect the population from mob rule or some new form of totalitarianism.

What the Left typically works for is minority rights. This does not protect our “Democracy” as much as it protects society from political uprisings.

Thus, I am persuaded that this current campaign to “protect our Democracy” is a cynical way to forward a secret agenda of control through shaming. I say that partly because it has involved the advocacy of censorship of protected speech. As despicable as it may be, lying and foul language is not illegal. It may betray the immaturity of the person speaking such things. But who told us on national TV that the “unvaccinated” did not deserve medical care? That was a TV host identifying with the Left.

So let’s get back to what is really happening in this world. We are experiencing what amounts to a corporate takeover. The World Economic Forum (one major mouthpiece for the corporate world) has declared that we will “own nothing and be happy” (an exact quote).

Someone has to own the material objects of the world. If it isn’t us “ordinary people,” then it must be the ruling class – Corporate.

Further, we have seen in recent years various content platforms (corporations) cooperating with the government to censor certain speech, such as that questioning the efficacy of the “vaccines.” They have actually been doing such things for decades. A newspaper campaign was run against my church which resulted in Parliamentary Inquiries (1960s) in some countries. Only when the investigations could turn up no wrong doing did that campaign subside.

These tactics are nothing new, but the internet is, and this rather bizarre approach to politics known as Critical Race Theory is also a more recent development. Get sucked into it at your own risk. It shows no sign of having honest intentions.