Just be nice

We've been seeing all the nefarious murders, spying and general trouble making the leaders of Russia and Saudi Arabia have been engaging in. It would seem these dealings aren't cheap and would take a certain mental toll even on guys with no conscience. My wife said it would be a whole lot simpler to just be nice.

Pocketbook influence

People want Pres. Trump to be tough on Saudi Arabia for killing that journalist. But he or any President won't. The Saudi royal family has a Svengali-like hold on world leaders because their perceived need for oil overrides any need for integrity. So it is up the world consumer. I'm 65,  and for the last six years I've ridden my bike 16 miles to work 4 days a week in any weather above 32°F and in afternoon I ride 4 miles to the bus and take that the rest of the way home. We have one car which we mostly use on weekends as my wife walks to work most days. Anyone who lives within 10 miles of work should ride a bicycle. Walk that 4 or 5 blocks to the corner store instead of driving. The only way we're going to reduce the influence of the Middle East is to cut back on using oil. Do your best.

Desperation

People bemoan Chinese business espionage and Russian election meddling. But it's actually a compliment to U.S. freedom and innovation. The Chinese keep such tight control of their people, that they don't have the freedom to innovate and the best they can do is copy our technology. Russia is a 3rd rate commodity based economy run by a mob that shuts down any independent ooperators. So they manufacture overseas adventures to keep people's minds off their incompetent government. These countries are like a Chihuahua nipping at our heels. When they stop doing it, that's when we are in trouble.

Centers

I'm not getting any younger. Right now when I think about dying, I think it's over, you're done. I'm okay with that. That's the way the Universe operates. Things are born, they live a useful life, they die. Galaxies, stars, people. I'm okay passing the torch to my sons and grandchildren.

But if there was an afterlife, I can't see it as it is usually pictured: God, as an all powerful force running everything. That's too much like the way things are run in this life. Seems like if we have to endure the powerful centers in this life, we ought to be able to endure a Mad Max, Han Solo existence in the afterlife.

Centers. If there is a dominant center, there's always the outliers that don't benefit. Like in my town of Albany, downtown is the city's elites baby. They spend millions sprucing up historic buildings and maybe the rest of us in other neighborhoods will get some trickle down effect. But it doesn't fool anyone. Average people cant afford to shop down there because all they have is expensive boutique stores. The mayor is all about upscale. My center is a Dairy Mart and Pizza Now, four blocks away. If I need clothes or food I bike or walk 20 minutes to Target or Grocery Outlet.

Then there's these political and economic capital cities where the political, corporate and religious elites suck the life out of the rest of the country. They say you can't have a country without borders. What they mean is they can't control the people close to the border without a tight border. Border walls aren't meant to keep people out. They are to keep us from interacting with our neighbors on the other side. Washington sucks taxes out of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California and sends next to nothing back to the poor towns along the border.

I nust read this story in the New York Times about how the Mexican League baseball team in Nuevo Laredo plays half their games in Laredo. Even in these tight border times, fans and players flow back and forth. Because down there, there aren't Mexicans and US citizens, they are friends and neighbors and business partners. They have everything in common with the people across the river and nothing with the hacks in Mexico City and Washington, D.C.

Some Native American tribes have creation stories of people coming up out of the ground to people their tribal grounds. This is the way I think it was with God coming into the Universe, bubbling in like spring spreading and sharing energy from the bottom up. The idea of an all powerful God, even if he's helping the oppressed, is a mirror creation of the rich and powerful, starting with the first shamans, to control people. Defused power at the fringes may be messy and chaotic, but at least it is among friends and neighbors and close enemies and not some corporate drones thousands of miles away.

Worth of all persons

Some denominations have a principle: all persons have worth. It doesn't say most people; it doesn't say 99%; it says all. But the same people that profess the worth of all persons, think it only applies to people of their political persuasion. They post pictures of Judge Kavanaugh's law clerk supposedly making a white supremacist sign. As conservative as Kavanaugh is, it still makes no sense that he would hire a white supremacist and from what I read, she is half Hispanic and her grandmother is a Polish Jew. But apparently conservatives have no worth, so they feel they can post disparaging photos without any basis of truth. If all people have worth, even Hitler had worth, at least to Eva  Braun.

That's why people keep God around. Because then they can say, that person has no worth, but in God's eyes, all people have worth. But if you can't say all people have worth, don't put words in God's mouth.

Authoritarian

I saw a post on Facebook by a bunch of church leaders that were pontificating about the right co-opting the name of Jesus and also about the authoritarian trending of the current administration. But I was thinking, they haven't got a leg to stand on, because they are leaders of an authoritarian church. And no matter how liberal their churches are, their theology is still top down.

If there's anything I've learned in my 65 years, from reading Tom Paine, Ethan Allen, and recent libertarian writings, is that things always work out better if they go from the bottom up. Things would go a lot better if the people on the bottom, right and left, would stick together and let all the leaders know in no uncertain terms which side their bread is buttered on.

People can say companies are top down. But the best companies, if an employee is doing their best to serve their internal and external customers, give their employees a lot of latitude. And even in the military, especially during war, if you are moving toward the objective with initiative and common sense, you can move the conversation past just following orders.

I don't consider myself a Christian. The older I get, I don't believe in the atonement, eternal life or an all-powerful God. I don't think Jesus meant to set up an authoritarian church. The church was fomented by St. Paul and the Emperor Constantine and we've been stuck with that structure ever since. I'm not really a Jesus follower either, as libertarians don't follow very well. I consider myself a Jesus Reader. He had some good things to say, and some are worth putting into practice. The basis for most of what he taught, I think, was Micah 6:8, be just, be kind, be humble; I fail miserably at all three, but I try.

Historically, if the people on the bottom are not listened to, things don't turn out well for those at the top. And if that sounds kind of irreverent towards God; I've ways thought that the God power in the universe was always bottom up. And leaders in politics, religion and business try to co-opt that power into top down at their peril.

Glass houses

People are criticizing Trump about meeting with Putin especially after the indictment of Russian operatives for hacking our election. But they seem to forget that Carter buddied up with the dictatorial Shah of Iran and all Presidents meet with the Prime Ministers of Israel, and they influence U.S. politics more than everyone else combined.

Clean-up

Let's see. Thw immigrants aren't taking people's jobs. The people losing manufacturing jobs in the Midwest aren't flocking to the West to pick produce, work in food processing or work as construction workers to build the houses that are desperately needed. And 99% of immigrants aren't on the dole, because it's easier to get a job than to stand in line for handouts. So the only people immigrants are bothering are the people who live along the border when the immigrants traipse across their land and leave trash. So you just take a few thousand immigrants and and give them a job picking up trash, fixing fences and sprucing up the border.

Cosmic job board

A lot of people think the Universe started with the Big Bang and some people equate this with God's creation moment: Let there be light!

But I think it's more of a continual process. Energy is spewed into space in an ongoing basis. Maybe that's what dark energy is. Maybe that's what causes the red shift. A constant influx of energy that pushes apart galaxies and then forms into new ones.

And I don't think God is all powerful and someday will transform things into perfection. It's all about free will and it's always the imperfections that drive forward continual improvement.

I look at God as kind of a cosmic job board where you go in and there is an infinite number of jobs to choose from and also and infinite number of tools and resources to help you do the best job you can. Dark energy is dark in name only.

Economics

The scenes of families being separated on the border are heart-wrenching and definitely should be protested, but the immigration issue needs to be studied on a deeper level. The people supporting increased border security think that it will preserve more jobs for Americans.

But right now we don't have enough people to fill jobs. Soon the cost of food will go up because we don't have enough people to pick crops and work in processing plants. And the the cost of housing is sky high, because even if contractors have permits to build more housing they don't have the people to build it.

In Japan and Russia, their birthrates are getting to the point where their populations will start decreasing. Their economies are already showing signs of long-term stagnation because they don't have enough newI workers coming in.

The same thing will start to happen here. The people supporting increased border security, are really shooting themselves in the foot, because when our economy stagnates because of the lack of workers, we will all be hurting.

John Collet's Bible

John Collet’s Bible

Introduction

  When I think about it, I've always needed my own Bible. Jefferson had one, why not me? But Jefferson just cut and pasted from the Christian Bible. I think I need a Bible, mostly original, that reflects my life.

The writings of Christianity, Judaism,

Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other religions seem to flow from a hierarchical worldview.

There are three things I can't relate to in main religions. First, I don't believe in atonement: the idea that a just God demands a sacrifice. Second, I don't believe in eternal life. I think the Universe has and will go on forever, but our individual concentrations of energy need to be returned to the system and re-purposed. Third, I don't believe in an all-powerful, hierarchical God. I believe in horizontal flows of energy between entities, and not the concentrations of power and resources commonly found in religions, corporations and governments. Of course, the Universe itself, with stars, galaxies, galactic clusters, and super-massive black holes, appears to be a hierarchical model, but I don't think it has to be that way. I subscribe more to the blockchain model, which currently is used mostly with crypto-currencies,

but could be used to in other societal interactions.

All of the above notwithstanding, I have gained lot of perspective from the Christian Bible, and parsed some wisdom from the Navajo through the writings of Tony Hillerman. But I think everyone needs to synthesize their own beliefs.

Most people seem to have no problem with a hierarchical concentrated system as can be seen from people's veneration of the British royal family and the current fad of authoritarian leaders.

But most of my life, I've had a libertarian bent, and have felt a disaffection with leaders and power and the like.

Chapter 1

Infinity

Infinitely in time and space, the great fabric of the Universe extended in all directions. Quarks pop into existence like drops of oil in a four dimensional frying pan. The Quarkpopper could have made order out of the chaos, but free will is free will and to give one must give totally and unconditionally.

As time goes on, infinitely in all directions, the quarks swirled. As they come close to each other, they spin closer and form objects of greater mass. And then stars, planets, comets, black holes and other objects form. And life forms based on the environment that develops.

Most people believe that life is created by a Creator. But if there is free will, life has to develop on its own, based on the conditions.

Chapter 2

Harmony

As life develops, certain rules are developed, to help that life survive, be it hundreds or thousands or millions of years.

My favorite saying out of all the religious texts I've read comes from Micah 6:8 in the Hebrew Scriptures: to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly. I like to shorten this to: Harmony, Kindness, Humility.

I like to replace Justice with Harmony. Justice seems to be a concept of industrial society. When life revolves around money and property rights and time is a commodity, it's easier just to slap people with a penalty or lock them up.

Harmony is a pre-industrial concept that takes more time. This was a survival concept, because if someone was out of sorts with the community or in a dispute with another member, it could result in a blood feud that would wipe out the whole community. The Elders had to figure out a way to get people back in harmony with one another. There's something of this concept in trying rehabilitate prisoners into jobs when they get out, but rehabilitation usually stops short of getting the wronger and the wrongee back in harmony, especially if a death or abuse was involved.

And I have to interject here, that the concept of Harmony runs into a brick wall when dealing with serial killers or sexual predators in whom there appears to be no concept of community. Maybe in time, we'll figure that out.

Kindness can mean just not being mean to people. When someone cuts you off on the road, just take a deep breath and ease up on the accelerator.

And it can go up to include as Jesus said in the Christian New Testament: Greater love has no one than to lay down their life for a friend. Here's where the concept of God looking out for you ( I know, very non-libertarian) gives you the freedom to use your resources to help others.

Humility can be misunderstood. It doesn't necessarily mean to be meek and be a wallflower. But to be self-confident in your abilities, that you can let others take the limelight, just so long the community benefits.

Chapter 3

Words To Live By

In Matthew 11:30 of the Christian New Testament, Jesus says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I like to extend this out to the concept that if you have enough people working together no one is overburdened.

Sometimes in a church, city or corporation, 20% of the people are doing 80% of the work. And if people try to help, they are told, you are doing it the wrong way. And sometimes in government, people feel like, I'm doing all the work, I can take a little extra for myself. Then you have a corruption problem.

But if you get enough people involved and you can let them do stuff, even if it isn't exactly the way you would do it, then no one is overworked and everyone enjoys helping.

In Luke 3:11-14 of the Christian New Testament, people ask John the Baptist how to live. He says: Whoever has two coats, give one to someone who has none. And whoever has food, do likewise. He says to the tax collectors or it could be anyone in business(paraphrased): Charge a fair price. He said to the soldiers and it could apply to anyone: Do violence to no one, neither accuse falsely; and be content with your wages.

And this last one, I've gleaned from reading a lot of things: Never think of anyone else as the other. If you are sandbagging your house against a flood, if someone offers to help, you aren't going to turn them down because of their color, creed, or nationality.

Chapter 4

Inspiring Words

In Isaiah 2:4 of the Hebrew Scriptures: They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore……..my hope for the future.

Isaiah 41:31 says:  But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint……….”the Lord" isn't a libertarian concept, but it is still an inspiring saying.

Chapter 5

.The Future

In the introduction, I said I had an aversion to the hierarchical view of the Universe, but when you look at it, that's the way it's set up. There are concentrations of power be it CEOs of large corporations or super-massive black holes at the center of galaxies. But black holes are slowly leaking energy and progressive CEOs delegate their power to employees.

Scientists say what the mass we can see in the Universe is only about 10% of the mass in the Universe. The rest is dark matter and dark energy, which can be detected and measured but can't be seen and no one is quite sure what they are.

But maybe, sometime in the future, (or maybe some life somewhere in the Universe has already figured it out) people will figure out how to tap into this dark energy directly, without having to rely on energy from a star.

Maybe this is why we haven't detected life on other planets. The life there has already figured out how to tap into this unlimited energy.

Maybe somewhere, the Han Solos of the Universe, are out doing their own thing. If the Universe is infinite, there is infinite energy out there. Go for it!

Free Trade

I saw a headline that Pres. Trump said to the G-7 that if they'd drop all tariffs, the US would, too. It's hard to believe he's serious about this, as some of his foreign businesses probably benefit from other countries' tariffs and a lot of businesses in this country benefit from our tariffs, like the Louisiana sugar barons.

But it would be nice to get rid of tariffs. But you'd also have to get rid of all the special tax breaks that corporations enjoy. Because with the tax breaks, corporations grow large and without tariffs they can afford to flood other countries with cheap goods and run the smaller local companies out of business. Same thing with large government controlled companies, like in China, that cause the same problem.

When most politicians talk free trade, they mean free for themselves and their cronies. The only way to have really free trade is to have no tariffs and a flat tax with no exemptions for anyone.

No center

My wife had shared a post on Facebook that said churches shouldn't get bogged down in theology but should just focus on Jesus at the center. But why do you need a center? Jesus had a lot of nice words of wisdom, but some people with libertarian leanings don't go in for the worship thing, or any form of concentrated power. Because whether it's religious, corporate or governmental, concentrated power always leaves someone out.

And whenever you have concentrated power, when it's gone, there's always a power vacuum. This year is the 50th anniversary of Robert Kennedy's assassination. He had great charisma and ideas, but when he was gone his movement was gone, and we got stuck with Richard Nixon.

My idea of a blueprint for organization is the Winchester House in San Jose, CA. It is just a bunch of rooms cobbled together, with no center or plan. It had some damage in the 1906 earthquake, but survived for the most part intact. And even after Sarah Winchester died, a foundation took over that keeps the building going and it's open to everyone.

We need religious, corporate and governmental organizations that can survive the rough spots, include everyone and have no concentrated center of power.

Plimsoll line

A Plimsoll line is the line on a ship's hull that shows how deep a ship can be loaded so that it is safe from foundering in heavy seas. This line became law in England in the late 1800s through the efforts of Samuel Plimsoll. Before the line's implementation there was much loss of life at sea due to overloading of ships to eke out that last little bit of profit. When ships were old and rotten, some ship owners would overinsure the ships and overload them and send them to sea, knowing they were going to sink, just to get that last big payoff from the insurance. And there were laws that said sailors couldn't refuse to sail on these coffin ships. Some sailors would jump off the ship as it was leaving the harbor, preferring jail time to certain death. What an evil system.

The whole story is in the book, The Plimsoll Sensation by Nicolette Jones.

Harmony

My wife had a bad day the other day. And right before her worst spot, I was thinking about something I wanted to talk to her about which might lead to an argument. What, can't have arguments? That's what I thought before I started thinking about this post. Hey, if you want peace in the world, it takes effort and it might as well start with the family. No reason you can't just have a discussion. And you should never go into a discussion thinking you're right and your going to convince someone to your way of thinking. Harmony doesn't mean everyone thinks alike. Harmony is two notes that blend together to make a beautiful sound. Well, she hit and killed a dog with the car. Came out of nowhere, nothing she could do. What, your thoughts are responsible for the dog? Like I said, peace is hard work and you have to be connected on more than one level.

People say it's too much pressure, hand it all over to God. But God doesn't handle it. There's still too many very rough spots especially those going through war, famine, and crime. People say, God's there, helping you through the rough spots. But if we really want less rough spots, it's up to us. This centralized power and leadership paradigm is on the way out and God's always been about free will. There's too many leaders in corporations, government and religion that have a vested interest in keeping the average, everyday people divided and at each other's throats. Maybe there's not much one person can do if a majority wants to go to war, but before and after, do all you can to harmonize with other countries' people. And in the meantime, try to work toward harmony in your family, neighborhood, city, state and country. No reason to treat anyone in your country as the other. If we want peace, it's got to come from the ground up.

Divide and conquer

It seems like the current political climate causes tension between friends and family. It's always been like that. Families have always been a mixture of Democrats and Republicans and sometimes people are married to a person of the opposite party. But it seems like social media makes it worse. People re-post writings of their favorite commentator and it is always more extreme than if they posted their own thoughts or were talking to people face to face. And as people post and share, the search engines feed associated posts that keep getting a little more extreme as time goes on.

It is my belief that everday people who have opposing political views have more in common with each other than with the political commentators that they listen to. Average everday people are the only ones that have a vested interest in pulling the country together. The politicians and media of both parties make their living by keeping the country divided.
 A moderate, mellow politician like John Kasich doesn't have a chance as the parties and media try to trip the moderates up early, so they have the most divisive candidates facing each other at the end.

The only chance we have is if the people of all types, stick together and foil the media and parties' plan to keep us separated. Someday Trump supporters and immigrants will realize they have more power together than separately. As Ben Franklin said," Either we all hang together or we all hang separately."

Freedom

Everyone should have the right of self government. But everyone within any political entity should have the same rights. When the southern states seceded in the Civil War they said they were fighting for their rights. But they weren't fighting for the rights of all the black people in their states. I think this is a big reason why they lost the war. If you're making a half-baked effort for your freedom, but could care less about your neighbor's freedom, you are going to lose big time.

These days different areas are talking about seceding. Some people in California want to secede and Catalonia in Spain wants to secede. But there are also a sizable amount of people in these areas who like being part of the bigger country, also. It is important in these situations, that the national government doesn't have an overbearing tax and police presence in the region or state, so the governing majorities don't feel threatened by the national government. And the region or state government should make a concerted effort to include all peoples in governmental conversations, so that minorities don't have to look to the national government for protection.

Lawful orders

In regards to the person who was tazed a few weeks ago by the Milwaukee, Wisc. Police, some people say if he had complied with the police officer's orders everything would have been fine. Thats crazy talk. Even if the person was parked in a handicapped zone, it was 2 o'clock in the morning and it seems like the police should have better things to do than harass taxpayers.

Seems like unless they are witnessing an active crime, police should leave people alone. Seems like the only time they should shoot at someone is if they have fired a shot at the police. If a suspect is fleeing in a car, they can get the license plate number and pick the person up later. The police are supposed to protect and serve, not harass and write tickets to people so the city has a lucrative revenue stream.

Branding

The NFL owners passed a rule that players can't kneel during the National Anthem purportedly because that would be disrespectful of the flag and military. But this is a ludicrous reason. The players can't disrespect the military or flag because they are all taxpayers and are paying for them.

The only reason for this rule is to protect the NFL's All-American brand. They care nothing about the flag or the military.

If any sports league or team gets any state, federal or city money by playing in a government funded stadium or any other funding such as infrastructure around the stadium or police providing traffic control, they shouldn't be allowed to trademark anything. If any taxpayer wants to print and sell anything with a pro or college logo, they should be able to.

Tesla

Elon Musk has been having trouble building Model 3 electric cars. Also, he can't understand why his employees want to join a union. Seems like he's out of touch. The tech industry is supposed to be progressive and on the cutting edge. But the industry treats minorities and women badly and CEOs like Musk are in their own ivory tower and run their companies on statistics and their own controlling egos. If Musk wants to know how to build cars efficiently, he ought to get down on the factory floor and talk to his workers.

Housing

Cost of housing going through the roof, especially in the Bay Area and Portland and Seattle. Lots of ideas from affordable housing projects, auxiliary dwelling units, tiny houses and rent control. The tech industry is over-heated and thousands of high-paid young professionals are competing for limited housing, driving the price up. And getting new housing built takes awhile because it's a long process to get permits and there is a shortage of people to build the housing which drives up the cost of labor.

Bottom line is, restaurant workers, janitors, plumbers, etc., can't afford to live in the area. But those workers are still needed. So maybe when new companies build their plants, offices, hotels, etc., housing for the service workers will have to be included on site, and the cost of the housing will be picked up by the service companies or the companies contracting with the service companies.

Nazareth

For 33 years, Jesus of Nazareth did good. He helped alot of people and said alot of great things that are still helping people today. He could have hung out in the countryside helping people. But he got into that messianic fervor and got involved with the Temple politics and things got messy.

When people talk about Jesus of Nazareth, they concentrate on Jesus. But it would be neat to do a study on Nazareth, because the environment in Nazareth had to have a big effect on making him who he was.

De-centralized education

The board of directors of Marylhurst College, a small liberal arts college near Portland OR, voted to shut it down. The faculty said wait a minute. Lets explore all options, but board said no. Now's the time before the creditors come calling. The professors should just go it on their own. Just rent and office somewhere and put their shingle out. They could get together with other profs and students once a week at the meeting room of a pizza parlor. These big educational institutions are history. Schools from kindergarten on up. It would take away the targets for these wacko shooters. Everything needs to be de-centralized. Lean and efficient. Most things can be learned on line. The reason it hasn't happened yet is that the institutions want to keep their hand in the pie.