The Observer and the Observed: Science cannot make the distinction, and thus it is philosophically illegitimate.

March 14, 2023Metaphysics, Objective Relativity, Physics and Metaphysics, scientific determinism, Space, Uncategorizedconsciousness, Metaphysics, Observation, observedArgo

One of my primary metaphysical axioms is the following: The observer cannot be a direct function of what is observed. A rejection of this axiom implies that the observer and the observed are fundamentally one and the same, in which case there is no such thing as either, since no distinction is possible. Nothing is observed, therefore no knowledge is acquired, therefore nothing can be said to exist, either the observer or the observed.

The reason for this axiom stems from my observation that the science, the scientific method, and scientific determinist claims about the nature of reality, all being iterations of empirical, materialist ideas when discussed in philosophical terms (which they should never be, as science is NOT philosophy….meaning that it is decidedly NOT a meta-analysis of reality and existence, and does not possess the tools be such), all presume—that is, prima facia—that such a distinction between the observer and what he observes simply does not exist. The observer is his body, his senses, his brain, and these are all material objects existing empirically and thus whatever scientific knowledge is acquired about those things which the body, brain, and senses observe about reality must also apply to the observer.

This of course is a clear—or at least, it should be clear—contradiction, and only by engaging in the cognitive dissonance ironically seen in mysticism, can science make such an assertion. If the observer is, at his most basic level, just a function of the same materials and forces which comprise what he observes, then there is of course no distinction possible by which the observer may know and understand what he IS versus what he IS NOT, which of course is a clear and obvious prerequisite to actually observing anything in the first place. The materialist assumptions of science when it is asserted as a philosophical discursion render scientific philosophies entirely self-defeating, and thus, to insist that science has anything to say regarding the nature and purpose of reality, is to insist that the “truth” is purely mystical, which means, irrational. As a philosophy, science, the scientific method, and scientific determinism should be rejected out of hand. The very fact that science roots itself it the ability of a scientist to actually observe natural objects and phenomena makes all assertions of scientific determinism/materialism/naturalism with respect to the nature of the observer himself an exercise in irony so profound as to make it perfectly ridiculous.

The predictable “scientific” defense appeals to an illusory consciousness, which is simply another way of describing the inability of science to make a meaningful distinction between the observer and what he observes. This begs the question: If consciousness is an illusion, then an illusion of what, exactly?

You see, the claim of “the illusion of consciousness” really means that consciousness—meaning the conscious frame of reference which is ipso facto necessary in order that any actual observation can occur at all—is in its fundamental nature entirely anathema to existence. In other words, the “illusory consciousness” is just the baseless idea that not only does consciousness not exist, it is completely antithetical to existence and reality at root. That consciousness is necessary to make such a claim in the first place—because someone must be in a position to know, and thus to be aware, and thus to be conscious of the fact, in order that they may communicate it—is seemingly never considered. Truly, when scientists stray into the realm of metaphysics and philosophy on the whole, the limitations of their intellect, or the the lengths to which they will go to ignore it, become obvious and quite startling.

Another claim made in service to the idea that science and its philosophical iterations can make a distinction between the observer and the observed is that space is the distinction. In other words, the space which separates the senses, and thus the brain and body, serves as the distinction between what is observed and the one doing the observing. However, this does not work either, because space, if we look at it fundamentally, removed from it abstract mathematical renderings (abstract mathematical renderings which ironically necessitate consciousness…that is, a distinct, independent, conscious observer) is not actually anything at all. Space, in other words, is not something which exists, it is, in its nature, quite the opposite…it is the absence of existence. Space is void…it is null. It, by definition, is not there. This fact is why I have for years found the concept of “wormholes” amusing and entirely fantastical, at least when described as “holes in space”. My response has been to question just how you can have a hole in space when space, itself, is the hole. For example, how can you have a hole in the hole of a doughnut? How can you have a hole in the hole? How can space occupy space? It’s nonsense on its face.

So, no, space does not suffice to serve as the distinction between the observer and the observed because space IS NOT. Space does not exist in the first place to serve as a distinction or anything else, because space, independently, is meaningless, purposeless, and categorically null.

And here’s the hard part. Unfortunately for all of the empiricists, objectivists, scientific determinists, naturalists, etc., and despite all of the (false claims) of my appealing to the mysticism of Primacy of Consciousness, we are at some point simply going to have to accept the fact that all distinctions between objects, including the brain, body, and senses of the observer and that which he observes, are entirely conceptual. This is going to be a hard pill to swallow, but there is simply no rational, logically consistent way around it. Consciousness is categorically necessary to realty and existence at the most fundamental level. Period. Full stop. The sooner we accept this the sooner we can start to talk real philosophy, and, somewhat ironically, real science for a change.

America: The Perfect Tyranny

March 8, 2023Authority, collectivism, collectivist metaphysics, government, government violence, individualism vs collectivism, Metaphysics, UncategorizedArgo

On its current course, this grand “American Experiment” which is inflicted upon all Americans, willing and unwilling, can only end one way. You see, the purpose of the western Liberal State, the United States being prime example number one—a purpose of which most of us are only obtusely aware, or not at all, because it is only implicit in the premise upon which this nation was built, yet is nevertheless supremely fundamental—is to manifest Chaos…Chaos as an Ideal. It does this, and has done this, by first first blurring, then destroying the line between fantasy and reality, between the empirical and the abstract, until all meaning is erased, and existence is nothing more than a hedonistic wet dream for the ruling class, and a perpetual existential nightmare for the rest of us. The masses will have no means nor impetus to resist or reject this, because all meaning shall be expurgated, then obliterated. Even today, observe the contradiction and cognitive dissonance: There are no sexes, and no genders, but there are races…capitalism is evil, but billionaires own the law and use their wealth to casually assume great swaths of power…words are violence, but wars are justice…lives are sacred in a pandemic, but political and disposable in pregnancy…gas pipelines are oppressive; lithium mines are green. Welcome to the American Ideal of Chaos.

You see what I mean. Chaos. Meaninglessness. Contradiction. Systemic cognitive dissonance, all leading to obedience without thought…meaning that the masses obey without ever realizing that they are obeying because they are no longer capable of knowing the difference between obedience and liberty.

How did we get here? This is not an accident, not a political or societal wrong turn, not the concerted and subversive efforts of non-natives, at least not these things fundamentally. No, this is Constitutional. Meaning, if you read the United State’s Constitution, the zenith of Enlightened liberalism, or rather, read between the lines, you understand that it was always going to go this way. It’s in the premise, and the premise always finds its conclusion.

What do I mean?

The unique point of the American political system was to treat the individual as his own root political entity…as a single, or singular, political unit. Now, indeed this is what he is, but this can only be rationally manifest in a purely voluntary society, where cooperation, not coercion (coercion being the cornerstone of all States and Governments…meaning that without violence, there is no Authority, and thus no government) is the means of all social and political interaction. But the United Sates is not a cooperative society, it is not voluntarist…it is a State. That is, its citizens are governed, meaning that they are ruled. Being ruled means to be under the Authority of the Law…and Government is Law; Law and is Authority; and Authority is Force. That’s the political equation of every Nation and every State and every Tribe on earth since the dawn of humanity. So what do we get when we have a citizen who is his own individual political entity yet who is governed by the State? (By “State” we mean is the ruling class, and by “ruling class” we mean the small group of people who presume the natural right to coerce others into obedience to the law, which finds its purpose and efficacy and meaning entirely in the State. Convenient for the ruling class, isn’t it?)

What we have is an attempt to collectively legislate individuality. In other words, to collectively govern millions of politically distinct individual entities. To centralize individuality. In short, to integrate collectivist metaphysics and individualist metaphysics, which are, of course, mutually exclusive in nature.

Without going into too much tedious detail regarding metaphysics, which I do in many other posts on this blog, by the way, the only possible outcome is the chaos of which I previously spoke. The purely individual man is governed only by himself…and with respect to other men, he cooperates; with respect to men who have rejected his individuality by being murderers, thieves, fraudsters, etcetera, and thus have rejected their own, he defends himself and destroys them when he is morally obliged to do so; and he may and likely will cooperate with other individuals in this endeavor. There is no ruling class who has Authority over him…such things as ruling classes and governments and law and authority are purely functions of collectivist metaphysics, which are entirely antithetical to his individual and individualist nature.

So when we attempt to legislate the politically autonomous individual from a collectivist authority outside of him…that is, we attempt to thrust individuality upon him by the coercive power of the State, we destroy meaning at its root on a holistically societal scale. When we attempt to thrust individuality upon the individual citizen…when we attempt to force his root nature upon him from outside of him, we are attempting to manifest a contradiction….to make a square circle, as the old, but apt, cliche goes. The outcome will be chaos, which at first will look like hedonism for the masses, then it will become the enslavement of the masses to feed the hedonism of the ruling class. The final stage of course is the obvious and inevitable collapse of the State, with the ruling class bitterly fighting amongst and devouring itself before finally sinking into its self-inflicted black hole of contradiction.

Now, about hedonism here.

Hedonism, which is simply is the practical application of moral relativism, will be the only thing that the government, from its purely collectivist roots, can recognize as being that which is actually individualistic. In other words, when the government thinks “individuality”, or in political parlance, “individual rights”, it thinks hedonism. And from its inexorable collectivist metaphysical roots, it can only think hedonism. And by hedonism, I mean “people doing whatever they want without moral consequence”.

“Individuality” according to the collectivist metaphysical assumptions upon which the State is founded, again means “people doing whatever they want without moral consequence”…indeed, this is always the single most oft-cited argument in favor of the establishment of States. Without the government, we are told, people will do whatever they want without consequence, and this inevitably implies a grand orgy of self-indulgent atrocity, and the necessary extinction of the human race. Government, you see, according to its collectivist metaphysics, exists precisely because humanity is by nature, in the iteration of self-aware individuals, insufficient to its own very existence. Government IS humanity, then. Government is you, effectively, for you—it is your ability to be—and therefore it owns you, and this is why all governments, no matter how enlightened they may be, all become tyrannical unless they are conquered or collapse somehow before. Government is not for the people, it owns them, and dispenses with the notion of individuality, because to the collectivist roots of government, individuality is object lie, and individual consciousness is an fraud…an imposter to reality. Without the ruling class making rules and enforcing them by violence and threats of violence, the individual will destroy himself. His existence, on its own, is implied non-existence. The individual then, if ungoverned, is a walking, talking contradiction.

Now, in light of this, consider the utterly ironic and counterintuitive notion of a government “by the people and for the people” where the people are, in the Locke-ian sense, self-contained individual political units. What if we have a government that attempts to deny its own metaphysical roots, and instead of rejecting individuality, like all governments prior, attempts to legislate it…to make individuality a matter of law…of force…of coercion. This government, ironically, attempts to force the individual into freedom. What if there are enough enlightenment philosophers around doing enough work and being persuasive enough to convince a set of wealthy would-be ruling class land-owners to establish a nation based upon the principle that the government’s responsibility is to make individuality the fundamental objective of the collective LAW.

The result would be a disaster of epic proportions. It would be…the perfect tyranny.

The government is going to force you by law to accept the right of people to do whatever they want, where “whatever they want” is, and can only ever be, according to the immutable and inexorable collectivist metaphysics upon which all governments, including this American government, are founded, defined as the right of people to indulge their rank hedonistic desires. Not that it’s sold to the masses that way. It’s sold as freedom, life, liberty, property, natural rights, “all men are created equal”, and other such things. Hell, even the ruling class used to buy it.

What kind of society do you think you’d see as this political ideology evolves? Chaos? Contraction? Doublespeak? Moral relativism? The death of meaning and the death of objectivity?

Naturally.

And what is the inevitable outcome of all of this?

Mass psychosis? A society-wide death cult? Destruction and collapse?

Certainly.

The scary thing is that you will likely never even notice the perfect tyranny because it is the tyranny that tells you that you get to do whatever you want, and that feels so damn good and so damn free and so damn right. And if they can keep you fat and lazy and stupid enough for long enough, then you won’t realize until it’s too late that when people are governed in order that they may “do whatever they want” in the hedonistic sense, someone is going to want to commit murder, and therefore someone is going to be the victim…and the State, being obligated to do so, will start to look around for a politically convenient someone to be that victim, and eventually, somewhere after the babies and the school children and the elderly are throw upon Moloch’s alter, that someone will be you, and worse, that someone will be someone you love.

END

Why the Is-Ought Problem, or “Hume’s Law”, is a Fallacy: Hume’s Law presumes passive observation, and ignores the “shall”

July 12, 2022Ethics, morality, Uncategorizedepistemology, Ethics, fallacy, Hume’s guillotine, Hume’s law, is, ought, shallArgo

Hume’s law says, in short, that one cannot derive an “ought” (a prescriptive claim) from an “is” (a descriptive claim). In other words, there is no such thing as objective morality because volitional behavior (the engagement of will being how we classify behavior as moral, immoral, or amoral) is always predicated upon purely subjective “if” premises. See the following:

The moral formula presumed by Hume’s Law is: “Because A is this or that (descriptive), you ought do behavior B (prescriptive)”. Now, implicit in this formula is an “if” upon which the subjectivity of volitional action is predicated—“You ought do B if you desire outcome C”. For example, “Because God is the wisest and most powerful being in the universe, you ought obey his commands”, with the implied “if” being—“If you wish to honor Him” or “If you wish not to be punished by Him”, etcetera. The “ought”, you see, is purely subjective because it is dependent upon a subjective valuing of the objective description. The fact that God is the wisest and most powerful being in the Universe cannot objectively demand that one choose to value that fact to this or that degree and then act upon it in this or that way. Only if they happen to value it ought they act this or that way. Yet whether or not they value the fact, to whatever degree, and whether or not they act according to that value, doesn’t change objective reality…it doesn’t change the objective description. “God is the wisest and most powerful being in the universe” is the description…the fact…the objective reality…the “is”. Whether that ought compel one to choose this or that action is utterly dependent upon the degree to which one decides that fact matters to them. What one ought do with a given truth claim always depends on the degree to which a they value it. If they value it, then they ought do this or that. That’s why morality, what one ought (or ought not) do, is only ever subjective. Morality (prescriptive) is purely an “if”, where reality (descriptive) is an “is”.

Here is my response to the assertion that objective morality is impossible, due to the ethical is-ought dichotomy:

That there is no such thing as objective morality—that there cannot exist objectively good and bad volitional actions—is an assertion which contains many rational errors, and all of them rooted in the following presumptive premise, implicit to Hume’s Law: that observation is at root passive, meaning that truth, and therefore by extension, knowledge, is in essence purely a description of reality which is entirely dictated to the observer from outside himself.

This is the premise, I submit, which has ushered in the demise of every argument heretofore attempting to debunk Hume’s Law, because virtually everyone either explicitly or implicitly accepts it on its face. Consciousness is passive; reality dictates its description wholesale to the observer who simply regurgitates it in some manner. In other words, there are no objective acts of will because will is a function of consciousness, and consciousness is merely an illusion of reality, or at best an epiphenomenal mirror which reflects it, but is not real, itself. Human behavior is merely the regurgitation of objective reality back onto itself. Human action is thus determined; consciousness, if it exists in any sense at all, is merely a bystander, an epiphenomenon, and thus fundamentally irrelevant to objective reality. Even Christian doctrine, the place where some of the most ardent defense of objective morality stems, ultimately concedes that truth, and thus knowledge, and thus the volitional application of knowledge, is strictly the purview of God; and that even if it were possible for man to commit moral acts, they must ineluctably be infinitely inferior in morality to God’s acts, rendering them only relatively moral, meaning only subjectively moral, and thus not truly moral at all. Yet I submit that, according to prevailing Christian dogma, even God’s morality is utterly relative to Himself, because He alone is the moral standard, making anything he chooses to do moral, thereby making objective morality a direct function of God’s subjective whim, which again means that morality is only purely subjective.

All of this makes every Christian argument affirming the existence of objective morality an exercise in rank hypocrisy. Indeed, Christian doctrine professes that Christ is the only one who can keep the Law of Moses perfectly—He is God; men are mere mortals, fallen, and immutably wicked in their root nature. Even after salvation (and why anyone gets saved at all is an object mystery, because men cannot earn it, as their very nature is evil, and thus there can be no reason anyone should be saved in the first place) morality isn’t theirs, but the “work of the Holy Spirit through them”. Jesus is the only man who can truly act morally, and thus the only one who can keep the Law. This is because He is God, and only God is capable of keeping his own moral standards. However, what is meant by “standards” is “whatever He feels like doing”, because he is God. This of course isn’t “standards” at all, but pure whim; and “objective whim” is a contradiction in terms.

At any rate…

Since the premise of Hume’s Law is virtually always conceded a priori, all criticism ultimately fails. In other words, if one builds his argument against Hume’s Law upon the very same epistemological premise that Hume presumes, then one must necessarily fail. One doesn’t win a debate by agreeing with his opponent before the debate even begins.

Let us consider a different premise, then.

I submit that observation is not passive, but active; that truth is not dictated to the observer but is, in fact, a function of observation, and thus a function of the observer. It is not reality which describes itself to the observer, it is the observer who describes reality for himself; and it is the observer who describes what is true, from himself, in order that he may promote himself truthfully in his environment.

Yet this is not relativistic or subjective truth. Truth finds articulation and meaning in language, and language is purely a function of the ability of the observer to conceptualize what he observes. What is extremely important to understand, and critical to objective morality, is that language implies communication, and communication implies that there are other observers with whom a given observer shall communicate, which means that truth is shared…it is not relativistic or solipsistic. In order that truth be objectively shared (that truth be shared truthfully, so to speak), it must be shared consistently. Truth is not “relative truth” or “subjective truth”—these are contradictions—but objective truth. This means truth is a matter of conceptual consistency, and conceptualization itself is the foundation of language. Thus, conceptual consistency is the only way truth, and thus actual, objective knowledge, can be shared. I cannot declare to you that I have created a square circle (and no, I don’t mean a bunch of squares set up in a circular fashion…as cheeky as that may be) because that is an entirely meaningless claim, containing a synthesis of concepts, “square” and “circle” which in such a relationship are contradictory…that is, conceptually inconsistent. You have no frame of reference for “square circle” because you simply cannot have one, because the very ability to conceptualize, which is the root of your consciousness, and that from which we form language, precludes it; and since language is necessarily shared because it ineluctably implies communication, and is, again, rooted in conceptualization, conceptualization must be consistent among all observers. If you have no conceptual frame of reference for contradiction then neither do I, and thus you know objectively that I am not speaking the truth. It may not be that I am necessarily lying—it could be that I am deluded or mistaken—but I am certainly not speaking the truth. It is an object falsity to claim that there is any such thing as a square circle, because this claim is conceptually inconsistent, and thus violates truth, meaning it violates a consistent conceptual description of reality; and it is impossible for the observer observe reality this way; and further, impossible for him to share it as truth.

The idea that observation is fundamentally passive means that the observer’s knowledge about that which he observes can only ever be of that which is utterly outside himself, meaning outside of his consciousness, meaning outside of his conscious frame of reference as the observer. Therefore the observer can never truly posses knowledge in and of himself because the sum and substance of reality has absolutely nothing to do with him qua him at all, making observation entirely moot. This makes it impossible that there is actual observation occurring, since an observer who possesses no real conscious knowledge, because he is entirely irrelevant to the “objective reality” he observes, is an observer who is entirely obsolete, and therefore so is observation. Meaning that as far as reality is concerned, it is not actually being observed.

Without an observer, there is no observation, by definition. I submit that it follows then that a reality which is unobserved cannot be said to exist at all, let alone objectively, since there is no means and no frame of reference by which it can be defined…that is, described…in the first place. It is, absent an active, conscious observer, entirely meaningless, entirely purposeless, and therefor entirely irrelevant, all of which renders its existence null, since the question “What objectively exists?” or “What is objectively real?” can have no answer. With no observer, there is nothing to say—to describe—what it is or is not, which means that there can be no it in the first place.

Without an observer, reality cannot be described, and therefore it can have no description, and therefore there can be no descriptive claim, no “is” from which the observer can derive his “ought”. Objective reality, you see, cannot describe itself to itself…this is a redundancy which makes description null. With no active observer and thus no one and nothing to derive any knowledge of or meaning, purpose, and relevance from reality, that is, to describe reality to form knowledge and thus establish the actual truth of reality, reality remains necessarily undefinable, meaningless, purposeless, and irrelevant, and thus can never be described as being anything at all, and thus cannot be said to be a thing which actually exists and is real in the first place. The corollary relationship between the observer and the observed is simply ineluctable.

Further, the implicit (or even explicit) assumption that observation is fundamentally passive (and it is a fundamental assumption, dealing with the nature of observation at its metaphysical root) is false because that which is fundamentally passive is by definition not doing anything, including observing, and thus “passive observation” is the antithesis of observation. “Passive observation”, in other words, means “not observing”. An observer to whom reality dictates itself—or “describes” itself—is a passive observer, meaning an unconscious observer, and is thus not actually observing,

The problem with the implicit-to-Hume’s Law assumption of passive observation and dictated description is that it is simply an impossibility.

Dictated truth—dictated description about what actually is real—to the observer by reality is impossible because this suggests observation without any objective meaning nor any objective use to the one doing the actual observing. In which case, observation itself is utterly pointless and irrelevant. The observer is not real, you see. He is outside of reality, or it is outside of him, in which case “observation” is nothing more than reality simply dictating its own description of itself to itself. Which is just another way of saying that there is no observation at all, and therefore no observer. The sum total of knowledge then is purely a meaningless, pointless description of that which has nothing whatsoever to do with the one who supposedly knows—the observer.

As far as reality is concerned, the observer doesn’t exist. You qua YOU, conscious you, have no true existence, only subjective, relative existence. Whether you live or die, objective reality remains fully objective reality. Indeed, this is the root of all “empirical” and “rational” philosophies: Even if you did not exist or never existed, objective reality is always objective reality. There is an infinite and eternal ontological chasm between the transient, fleeting observer—his consciousness blipping in and out of existence at random with birth and death, possessing no real meaning nor effect—and eternal, immutable reality. There is no corollary relationship between the observer and the observed except that of mutual exclusivity…which of course is no relationship at all.

If we accept that such a claim like “the sky is blue” is objectively true because it is an accurate and consistent description of reality, then we must accept that the observer who observes this possesses objective observation, and by declaring it—by describing reality in language—possesses objective knowledge. Knowledge, I submit, implies meaning and purpose, and thus must be something the observer can apply to such purpose. Which means that there is in fact an objectively correct way to apply knowledge and an objectively incorrect way—there are objectively right behaviors, and objectively wrong behaviors. In other words, that there is such a thing as volitional action which can be objectively valued, which means there is such a thing as objective morality.

The observer is active, meaning he is conscious. He is aware of the the distinction between himself qua himself, the Conscious Self—he, himself, being not merely a body, but an observational constant, so to speak—and that which he is observing—that is, his environment—and understands that the distinction is corollary, not mutually exclusive. Observation is thus relevant, meaningful, and purposeful, which means that observation is knowledge which the conscious, active observer thus applies in order to orient, manifest, and promote himself in the environment. In short, objective reality is objectively observed by an objective observer who possesses objective knowledge by which he makes objective decisions about how to objectively act in order to objectively promote himself in the environment.

Or, we could say it this way:

He who observes objective reality is by definition an objective observer (he, himself qua himself, is objectively real), and he is fully capable therefore of observing objectively and thus acquiring objective knowledge, which is called truth. This objective knowledge he then uses to make objective decisions about how he shall objectively manifest and promote his existence in the environment. In doing so, he acts in accordance with objective truth and thereby acts objectively good, or, morally.

Hume’s Law erroneously presumes that morality is fundamentally about something that one “ought” do. This is incorrect.

Hume’s Law presumes that “oughts” are purely subjective, and depend upon explicit or implicit “ifs”. This is correct, and would be relevant if morality were fundamentally about “oughts”, which it is not.

The logical extension of the assumption that morality is purely a function “oughts”, which are subjective, is that objective morality then must be devoid of things one ought do and instead contain things one must do. Of course if they are things one must do then they are not choices, in which case there is no volition involved, and thus we are no longer talking about morality. If one must perform certain acts then they are not volitional…they are not acts of will, and therefore these choices and behaviors cannot be said to possess any moral value.

So you see, If one does not get a choice, because there is no volition involved, because it’s about what one must do, then it’s not morality. Yet if one does get a choice, and thus does engage the will, then one does not have to make a specific choice, for this is the nature of choice—whether they do or not has no bearing on, nor anything to do with, objective reality. The “is” descriptive premise is neither obligated to nor dependent upon the “ought” prescriptive premise—and thus the behavior can only ever be subjectively moral. In short, you either have subjective morality or no morality at all.

Hence the reason why Hume’s Law is often informally rendered “Hume’s Guillotine”, the metaphor being that of a blade which decapitates any argument in favor of objective morality. Any appeal to objective morality necessarily terminates in a self-nullifying contradiction.

However I submit that this is not so, because the implicit premise of Hume’s Law—that morality is entirely predicated on what one “ought” do (a premise upon which the validity of Hume’s Law entirely rests)—is completely false, and fails to consider the more obvious ethical root of morality, which is not “ought” but rather “shall”.

“Shall”, in terms of moral ethics, is simply this: What one shall do are those actions which rationally and therefore necessarily follow from the epistemological premise, in this case, that truth exists as a function of the conscious observer and is rooted in his description of objective reality. In other words, what one Shall do is that behavior which is implied by the Truth.

“Shall” should not be confused with “will” or “must” which are entirely different concepts, ethically speaking. Objective morality is certainly a matter of volition, but this volition is a function of what the observer, as his metaphysical root implies. shall do because he is what he is. That is, what he shall do in the capacity of actually being that which he is: the observer. His choices and behavior shall be rationally consistent with himself, and to do not what he shall do is a fundamental denial and rejection of himself, which renders his volition a lie, because it denies the very source of volition—himself qua himself. In other words he cannot by his will deny that he has will. He cannot by his existence deny his existence.

Morality is not at root about what one ought or ought not do—not about making good or bad choices—it is about engaging the will in a manner consistent with the truth…the truth which exists in the first place because it is a function of the the observer; and that for one to attempt to act in manner inconsistent with the truth is a denial of one’s own self and is a contradiction. One cannot deny that he IS by an act of his will.

Morality is simply man acting out the truth that he objectively exists as himself qua himself. It is about valuing choices and actions according to how they validate man’s objective existence at his metaphysical root, and it’s about valuing consequences of actions according to the degree to which they validate him.

An immoral act is an act of self-rejection at the very metaphysical root, and the result is chaos, and, inevitably, suffering for the perpetrator, his victims, and those who choose to indulge him and his lies. The consequences for immoral actions are not “punishment”—this is a term and concept relevant only to legal ethics, not moral ethics (and, yes, they are mutually exclusive)—but the response of reality and truth to a metaphysical aberration. A man who attempts to murder another man has fundamentally presumed to own that other man’s life, which, this idea being wholly irrational and a lie, becomes in fact a rejection by the murderer of his own life. The intended victim is entirely justified then in using deadly force to defend himself. He is not obligated to respect the life of the murderer who refuses to rationally acknowledge his own, and will act out his lie by attempting to murder his fellow man instead of affirming him.

The correct way to render the ethical “shall” premise is this way: You are, therefore you shall. Meaning that to attempt to do what you shall not do is a fundamental denial of you—“You shall do X if you want to deny yourself”, is an obvious error. The denial of you of course means that you couldn’t possibly do or have done X in the first place. Thus, to attempt to reduce “shall” to some form of ethical subjectivity results in a meaningless, contradictory assertion.

Knowledge must be consciously applied, which means purposefully, which means volitionally, which means that volitional action is a fundamental function of the possessor of knowledge…that is, the observer. If what is observed is objective, then observation must also be objective, because the “purely subjective observation of objective reality” makes observation and reality mutually exclusive. So if observation is objective then knowledge thus is likewise objective, and thus there must be an objective way to apply that knowledge. This objective application is objective morality—what one shall objectively do because one objectively is. To attempt to do other than what one shall do is an attempt to consciously deny oneself—that is, consciously deny one’s own consciousness; willfully deny will; choose to deny choice. This is meaningless and null.

If the observer observes objective reality, then observation itself is necessarily objective. Subjective observation of objective reality is a contradiction in terms when we are speaking in fundamental terms. The observer, in order to be in a position to observe objective reality, must himself be objectively real. Both the observer and his observation, which is at root his consciousness, possess equal ontological value to that which is observed. The observer and his consciousness—the means by which he actively observes—are as objectively real as objective reality.

Observation necessarily spawns knowledge of and about that which is observed; knowledge is necessarily meaningful to the observer; and meaning implies relevance; and relevance implies purpose. Knowledge therefore is practical, and its practicality is manifest and realized through application.

Application of knowledge must be volitional…it must be an act of the will. Non-volitional application of knowledge is impossible—if what is known cannot be willfully applied, then knowledge is irrelevant, and therefore meaningless. “Meaningless knowledge” is a contradiction and is thus null. Knowledge which is not willfully applied is not consciously applied, and therefore it cannot truly be called knowledge. Without knowledge there is no observation; without observation there is no observer. If there is no observer of reality, then there is no one to define what reality actually is. Reality which cannot be defined cannot exist, “What is real? or “What exists?” or “What is?” are impossible questions because they can have no answer. That which cannot be defined cannot be declared to be anything, and thus cannot actually be anything at all. If objective reality is not true to that which can conceptualize it, and translate its existence into something with purpose, meaning, relevance, and value, then it is existentially redundant. Without an observer, what something is is entirely irrelevant; and irrelevancy at the root metaphysical level means that there is no difference between a thing existing and not existing. It is fundamentally irrelevant…whatever it does, including exist, amounts to the very same degree of meaning and value as if it did not. It’s existence—its place in reality—is of the same root metaphysical value as non-existence. It exists as though it did not. This is a contradiction to reality and thus is null.

The truth is that not only is there no existential mutual exclusivity between the observer and the observed, they are inexorably corollary. One always implies the other. This would seem obvious—transparently axiomatic based upon the overt terms—“observer” and “observed”; “consciousness” and “that which consciousness is conscious of”. Yet Hume’s Law, as I have illustrated in this missive, implicitly and fundamentally bifurcates them to the point where not only does one not imply the other, but “objectively reality” implies that there, in fact, can be no such thing as an observer at all, because consciousness is nothing more than reality projecting itself back onto itself. This is a contradiction and is thus null.

Thus: No volitional observer, no conscious observer, no observation, nothing observed, nothing defined, nothing meaningful, nothing relevant, nothing at all. No will, no observer, no reality. Or, put most succinctly: No morality = no reality.

To summarize:

If what is observed is objective, then observation is, in fact, observation of the objective, which means that observation is not exclusive of objective reality and thus is likewise objective. This means that knowledge of the observed objective reality is also objective. Knowledge must be applicable to be meaningful and relevant, and application means volition, which makes the observer a volitional observer, which means he is a conscious observer (is naturally aware of the distinction between that which he is and that which he observers). Thus knowledge, being objective and implying willful application, implies that there must be an objective way to apply knowledge. There must be an objectively correct way to apply knowledge and therefore an objectively incorrect way; an objectively good way and an objectively bad way; an objectively moral way and an objectively immoral way; objectively moral actions and objectively immoral actions.

Objective Reality = Objective Observation = Objective Knowledge = Objective Application = Objective Morality

Reality = Observation = Knowledge = Application = Morality

Metaphysics (Observed, Observer) = Epistemology (Knowledge) = Ethics (Application of Knowledge)

Metaphysics = Epistemology = Ethics

It seems that the truth of objective morality has been staring us in the face for several millennia now. Who would have thought?

The purpose of this post was not to elaborate upon which specific behaviors are moral or immoral, it was simply to prove that objective morality is both possible and necessary, and that Hume’s law rests upon false presumptions concerning the nature of the the observer and observation, the nature of reality, and the nature of morality. These false assumptions are a.) That observation is fundamentally passive, and b.) That volitional action is a purely subjective matter of what one “ought” do based upon information entirely dictated to the observer by an objective reality which exists utterly outside (meaning, entirely exclusive of) his conscious frame of reference. A further flaw of Hume’s Law is its failure to recognize that the assumption that knowledge is objective but the application of knowledge is subjective is in fact a contradiction and is therefore null.

END

The Metaphysics of the State: Why Biden’s Supreme Court pick, based primarily on race and sex, was completely rational

June 10, 2022Authority, collectivism, collectivist metaphysics, government, individualism vs collectivism, Uncategorizedgovernment, philosophy, racial politics, supreme court justice nomineeArgo

I have heard heard conservative and libertarian media pundits, academics, journalists, and intellectuals complain about Joe Biden’s recent U.S. Supreme Court pick of Ketanji Brown Jackson. Biden’s criteria was simple and straightforward—his nominee was to be, first and foremost, a black female. This was in keeping with his campaign promise to nominate a justice upon such criteria should he get the chance. He did, and here we are.

The problem, were are told, is that we should not be choosing those who shall serve on the highest legal court in the land, for life, according to immutable characteristics such as race and sex, but rather on “individual merit”.

I just have to laugh, here. I mean no disrespect, but seriously, the government wouldn’t exist if it acknowledged that individual merit was actually a thing. My goodness…I’m incredulous every time I think about just how unaware conservative and libertarian thinkers really are.

Anyway…

This assertion that Supreme Court nominees should be assessed on “individual merit” is of course rooted in what is ultimately a metaphysical premise regarding the nature of human beings. To declare that people must not be judged as members of a collective, exhibiting the proper, yet spurious, group-identity marker, or markers, such as race and sex, is to declare that what really makes a human being a human being is their individuality.

Well, what does that mean?

One’s singular, conscious frame of reference—that’s what it means to be an individual. What makes you uniquely YOU, is that you observe, interpret, and manifest your existence from a single existential frame of reference. This frame of reference is, functionally, the distinction between YOU and OTHER, where OTHER is other persons (other individuals), and the environment (the material context for the practical manifestation of Self-ness).

The distinction between Self and Other is the inexorable distinction between all human beings, and is why every one of us is morally equal to everyone else. No one person is any better than any other person, because “better” would mean possessing greater existential value. This of course is impossible since each individual is a function of an absolute and singular conscious frame of reference. In other words, each one of us is, at root, absolutely ourselves, and thus each one of us equally exists as Self. No one person has more or less existence than any other—to assert otherwise is obviously ludicrous. Thus, one cannot make an existential value distinction between individuals. Everyone, by dint existing as a singular Self, is morally equal. They have equal value and relevance to Reality,

The argument which naturally follows is this: Does this mean that the murderer and the thief, for example, are as “good” as anyone else? If all of us are morally equal at root because we all equally exist, what difference then does it make what a person does with his existence? How can we judge the murderer and the thief as evil if the plumb line for moral value is simply existing.

Here is the answer: The murderer and the thief have, by their choices and actions, utterly rejected themselves…that is, they have rejected their own existence as Self. In doing this, they no longer have meaning nor purpose, and thus can have no value.

Let me try to explain.

By violating the life and property of their fellow human beings they have forfeited all of their existential value by declaring, implicitly or explicitly, that such value is a lie. In other words, he who commits murder and theft rejects, first and foremost, their own individuality, and by this, their own fundamental worth. Having utterly devalued themselves, and so stripped themselves of any rational meaning and purpose to anyone or anything else, the criminal forces others to deal with him as a rank existential aberration—an object threat to individuality, not an expression of it. In other words, once the criminal rejects his own existence by engaging in theft or murder, he can be of no meaning, purpose, or value to others, and thus others have a moral right (and a moral obligation) to restrain him, and if needs must, eliminate him. To boil it down to a simplistic metaphor: If the glass refuses to hold water, then it has become nothing to me, an I shall throw it away.

There is much more to be said about this, but I will move on to the main point of this article.

The argument is that we should be selecting Supreme Court candidates based on their individual characteristics—how they think, how they interpret the law, their personal philosophies and morals, their individual experience in this or that school, this or that post, etcetera, etcetera—and not on collective, superficial, identity markers such as race and sex.

The problem, however, and one which our conservative and libertarian friends never seem to quite grasp for reasons that escape me, is that government is a collectivist institution, not an individualist one. In other words, the State simply cannot judge anyone according to their individual merit because the State does not and cannot recognize that individuality actually exists.

When I say that government is a collectivist institution, I mean that its very establishment is rooted in collectivist metaphysics, not individualist metaphysics, and these are mutually exclusive. The government exists to govern, and to govern means, fundamentally, to coerce behavior by violence and threats of violence. There is no such thing as government outside of this. None. There is no other real purpose for government besides coercing human behavior in order to serve the interest of a given Collective ideal.

In the case of the United States, the government claims in its founding documents to act on behalf of what it calls “The People”. However, one should not take this to mean “the persons”…even if the Founding Fathers intended it to mean this, because, given the nature of government, it can’t. No, no…these are completely different categories, rooted in completely different metaphysics. “Persons” are a group of individuals. “People” are a a sociopolitical entity to which individuals are inexorability fused. Put simply, the individual is a function of the People, not the other way around.

Government is Authority and Authority is Force. The government cannot consider one’s individual merit because as far as government is concerned, there is no such thing as the individual. It cannot consider one’s individual experience, because individual experience is by definition a function of one’s individual existence, which the collectivist metaphysics of government do not recognize.

Government does not and cannot and never will act in the interest of the individual, but only in the interest of the Collective Ideal it represents. This makes sense even on a the most rudimentary of logical basis. I mean, think about it. Think about the nature of your individual existence—what makes you YOU—and the complexity of it, and then see how stupid and ludicrous is the idea that somehow all which makes you individually you can be compelled/coerced by some third party Authority outside of you, which you most likely have never met and will never meet, and which knows nothing about you as a person. Think about the thousands of choices you make per day; your fleeting whims; your changing opinions; your capricious tastes; the fundamentally unpredictable nature of your environment from moment to moment; your fluid schedule, daily, weekly, monthly, or at the very least yearly. Even the most organized and regimented among us is faced with a thousand options per day and a mind that is constantly analyzing and assessing, evaluating and critiquing; and though it may seem like many of us simply operate on rote in some meta existential context, I can assure that this is not the case. Existence is contextualized to the individual…you observe and manifest your life from a singular conscious frame of reference. You are, at root, an “I”, not a “We”, and you know this in your heart. There can be no such thing as a fundamentally plural existential frame of reference. The relative relationship between environment and observer, which is a necessary prerequisite for Reality, Itself, can only work if the observer is singular. A “plurality of root observation”, or, simplified, a “plural observer”,” is a contradiction in terms. Sometimes you hear it called a “collective consciousness”. It’s complete nonsense.

For the government to presume that it can control the individual without denying individuality is a lie; and until we all understand this, government will continue to reduce humanity to corpses and chaos, just as it has always done and will always do, because that is all its nature can allow.

All this being said, it is a farce to think that the government can ever fundamentally judge a person based on their “individual merit”, as though the State is able to acknowledge that such a thing exists, let alone care about it. For the government to acknowledge individual merit—to acknowledge that the indiviudal is capable of any meaningful manifestation of his or her existence without the presumption and intrusion of the State—is for the government to deny its own legitimacy and thus its own existence.

The government will always and forever collectivize humanity…and, again, this is entirely unavoidable because it is a function of government’s nature at root. If the government is not collectivizing humanity, then it is not the government. The government will never consider one’s “individual merit”, for the simple reason that it doesn’t accept “the individual” as a legitimate existential concept. The government will judge, vet, review, examine, and consider every single of one us, be it a Supreme Court nominee or the guy selling oranges on the street near the quarry, only according to whatever Collective Ideal it decides it is manifesting and expressing at any given moment—in modern U.S. terms, Social Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The government will value each and every one of us based upon the degree to which we serve and affirm this Collective Ideal, and this means that it will not judge us according to the complexity of individual characteristics, but the superficiality of group identity—that is, whether we are black or not. and female or not, with respect to the case of Biden’s Supreme Court nomination.

The government will never consider a Supreme Court nominee, nor anyone else, for a position on the basis of “individual merit”, and it has never really done so. Just because the Collective Ideal which makes one valuable to the State happens to be more ham-fisted, less nuanced, today (i.e. skin color and genitalia) than perhaps in the past doesn’t mean that the government is any more tolerant of the individual.

Biden simply did what was, in fact, the most rational thing he could do in picking a Supreme Court nominee: Promote the interests of the State over those of human beings.

What else is new?

END

The Genocidal Implications of “Diversity”

May 30, 2022Diversity, genocide, government, individualism vs collectivismDiversity, genocideArgo

Once we begin to think about diversity as something which must be broadly applied to society and the state via the vanguard of public institutions then it is no longer a mere adjective (e.g. “the restaurant had a diverse selection of entrees; the army filled its ranks from diverse age groups”), it is an ideology. That is, it seeks to fundamentally organize and value humanity according to an Idealized vision…the manifestation of the Ideal of Diversity. Diversity the Ideal is the transcendent ontological absolute, which dictates and spawns all things. Diversity” is “God”, so to speak—the transcendent, perfect, absolute IS; and the Idealization of Diversity is the way in which society (and all else for that matter) shall properly reflect and promote this “God”.

Diversity, I submit, is entirely a product of collectivist metaphysics, making it a Collective Ideal. Individuals are thus compelled and propagandized to reject their own existential frame of reference—their individual Self—and are placed into a collective identity. Their existence is utterly managed by a central Authority; this Authority is the practical incarnation of the transcendent “God” of Diversity, in service to manufacturing a society which perfectly reflects the Diversity Ideal. In short, Diversity is “God”; the ruling class—the state/the government—is its power on earth to bring society and the world into submission to it; idealization is the blueprint for how this shall happen and what it shall look like.

Knowing this then, it is not too far a stretch to imagine just how taking “Diversity” to its logical conclusion must mean genocide. And as long as Diversity is that which the state is committed to pursuing, that logical conclusion is inevitable.

The question which is thus begged is this: What is it about current society which demands the need for Diversity? That is, what is observed by the collectivist ideologues that leads them decide that there is a problem and that Diversity is the solution?

Well…I submit that the answer is about as obvious as any answer can be, not in the least because their are only very specific locations in the world where “Diversity” is the solution to what is considered an acute existential threat, and that place is the West, and most especially that which is broadly described as the “Anglo-sphere”. In other words, the problem is white people…as far as I am aware, there are no calls for “Diversity” in places where white people are either absent or represent no political significance.

Now, I know that some might boil “Diversity” down to the simple need to reduce the influence of white people in any given context, and this translates into the mere reduction of white people in number relative to non-whites. This is true, to some extent. In some sense, yes—according to the ideology, the degree to which Diversity is successfully manifest is inversely related to the number of white people around. In other words, the fewer the white people relative to non-white, the greater the degree of Diversity. However, it goes deeper than that, unfortunately.

Taking that Diversity means a reduction of whites relative to non-whites, let’s think about this.

It is quite sobering, especially if you happen to be white, to realize that the implementation of Diversity means as much the absence of white people as it does the presence of non-white people. This tells us that Diversity is specifically and fundamentally opposed to white people because the ideology can be satisfied as much by removing white people as by adding non-whites. Now, we could make the argument that it is the mere preponderance of white people which necessitates Diversity, but this implies that the reduction of the number of white people to zero fully satisfies it. And why shouldn’t it? There are too many white people, that’s the problem. By definition, therefore, entirely eliminating white people fixes the problem. There is no longer a preponderance of white people if white people don’t exist.

Some may argue that that position is much too extreme and that I’m overreacting. They will say that were we to eliminate white people entirely then there would no longer be Diversity. Diversity, they say, is inclusive by definition, not exclusive.

They may truly believe this, but it is nevertheless a misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Diversity. The very existence of whites is why Diversity must be implemented in the first place. The existence of whites is the problem, period. To say that it is fundamentally about the number of whites and not the existence of whites obscures the issue. The number of whites is a direct function of the existence of whites, not the other way around. If you eliminate whites entirely then there is no longer a problem that Diversity needs to correct, which is why you do not see the ideology of Diversity being pushed in areas, nations, communities, etc. where whites are either absent entirely or so few in number as to be completely sociopolitically insignificant. Therefore, to say that Diversity shall be satisfied by simply reducing the number of whites to some given point is a lie…Diversity is an ideology, not a mathematical formula. It isn’t about numbers, it’s about manifesting the Ideal. Ideology is a zero sum context…it is all or nothing; you cannot compromise with ideology. Ideology demands a perfect manifestation of the root metaphysical primary, in this case Diversity. Diversity is needed because there are too many white people, and the number of white people is a direct function of the existence of white people. A perfect solution to the problem of whites, then, and thus a perfect satisfying of the Diversity Ideal, is to end the existence of whites.

Furthermore, if one makes the argument that the problem is the number of whites relative to the number of non-whites, then one must ask the obvious question: what number of whites is acceptable? If one were to answer something to the effect of: whites should not be represented in any given context—politics, media, entertainment, employment, education, etc.—beyond that of their overall population percentage, well, this begs a further question. Let’s say that whites represent one hundred percent of the population, and therefore shall represent one hundred percent of any given context. Is there still a need for Diversity?

The answer to this question is certainly!

First of all, if whites represent one hundred percent of the population then by definition that society is not diverse, and so Diversity is demanded. Next, if one answers “no”, then whites can represent one hundred percent of of the population without the need for Diversity—if this is the case, then there is no reason why Diversity is needed in a population where whites are a merely a preponderance. Finally, If one answers “no”, then it implies that the existence of whites is not a reason for Diversity, which means that there can be no particular number of whites which implies a need for Diversity, since, again any number of whites is a direct function of the existence of whites. Again, the need for Diversity is not at root a function of the number of whites but the presence of whites. The most complete way then to deal with the problem of the number of whites is to eliminate the existence of whites. If whites represent zero percent of the population then by definition the problem of the number of whites in the population is automatically resolved, and resolved most completely.

Now, not to go too far into the weeds here, but lets say one makes the argument that any race comprising one hundred percent of the population demands the need for Diversity, or even just a preponderance of any race, not just white people. And let’s say that the solution then is to mix all races together so that there is always a perfectly diverse number of races relative to other races. This equal admixture of distinct races inevitably and ironically gives way to offspring which over time create an utterly homogenous population—the diverse racial genetics merging and producing individuals who share no significant genetic differences with respect to race. In this racially homogenous population, no racial diversity can exist, obviously, thus contradicting Diversity. And this is (in part) why Diversity must be very specific about which race or races pose a threat. It cannot say all races pose a threat to it because the only solution then is either the elimination of all races, leaving no race and thus no Diversity, or a new homogenous race which comprises one hundred percent of the population, which thus also contradicts Diversity. At some point we must face it: Diversity targets specific races for elimination, and in this case that target is white people.

The Diversity Ideal will only be satisfied by the complete eradication of white people from society…I like to think that I have made that clear. And make no mistake, this is exactly what will happen as long as the need for “Diversity” continues to be a premise by those in power. The first and most important law of philosophy and logic, I submit, in is that the premise will find its conclusion as long as it remans the premise. As sure as the sun rises in the east, the conclusion will come to pass. The sun will not rise from the east, and the conclusion will not be reached, only when the perspective of the observer completely changes.

The only answer to the question “What is the needed number of whites relative to non-whites before society is sufficiently Diverse?” is zero. That is, there can be zero white people. This has not only to do with the logical contradictions involved when one tries to give a number other than zero, but, even more importantly and profoundly, it has to do with the fact that Diversity is a collectivist metaphysical premise. It is an Ideal. Diversity informs humanity, not the other way around. Diversity is the Reality to which all things and all people shall conform, and, indeed, are obliged by the Authority to do so.

Diversity is perhaps better labeled “Diversity-ness”…this is more conceptually precise, I submit. Diversity is a Collective Ideal, which makes it a metaphysical primary, meaning it is the plenary ontological category which should, and shall by the power of the ruling class, represent all of what Is—of Reality, both in the material and in the abstract; all of what humanity observers; and indeed, all of what humanity is. All is Diversity. This primary position is the frame of reference from which Diversity informs Reality. It is absolute; it is Diversity-ness.

It is not white people then, specifically, which is the root threat to Diversity, it is Whiteness. Therefore, when speaking of white people we must capitalize the W, because white people are merely the manifestation of the absolute Antithesis of Diversity, or Diversity-ness.

Diversity as a collectivist metaphysic does not recognize the existence of white people, meaning of any specific white person and thus any collection of white persons. In other words, it does not recognize the existence of the individual. Now, I should add here that collectivist metaphysics can recognize the Collective Ideal which many governments often refer to as “the People’…that is, “people” as a political category to describe “the masses” which shall fall under the jurisdiction of a governmental Authority. However, “people”, or better said, “ persons”, as opposed to “the People”, are individuals, and thus utterly antithetical to any Collective Ideal, including Diversity.

There is no such thing as “white people” as far as Diversity is concerned, only “White-ness”. From this it is very important to remember that white people, whether one or a billion, are an utter incarnation of Whiteness, and therefore an utter offense to Diversity; Whiteness is the Absolute Evil which cannot be suffered nor tolerated by the Absolute Good of Diversity. Whiteness represents the collective antithesis of Diversity. It is the Anti-Ideal. The full incarnation of the Whiteness thus is represented in each and every white person. There is no such thing as a white individual, only Whiteness categorically manifest, be it in the form of One or of Many. This is another reason, and the primary one, I submit, that a mere reduction in the number of white people in a given context does not satisfy Diversity. To satisfy Diversity is to destroy all white people, regardless of number. Number is a completely meaningless concept to Diversity….Diversity deals in absolutes; it is Diversity-ness or Whiteness, period. Those are the only two options. One or the Other. If there is even one white person left in the whole world then there is absolutely no Diversity, period. Full stop.

Diversity, like all Collectivist Ideals, is necessarily and by nature genocidal. You’ve been warned.

Authoritarians are as Suicidal as They are Homicidal

May 25, 2022Authority, collectivist metaphysics, government, individualism vs collectivism, Uncategorizedauthoritarianism is suicidal, suicidal ideologyArgo

The tyrants cannot win for the simple reason that the goal they set for themselves does not exist.

Imagine you are on a road to Reno, and you are well aware that it only goes to Reno, yet you simultaneously expect that it shall also take you to Las Vegas and not to Reno. When it doesn’t take you to Vegas, but to Reno, you check your map and see that, indeed, the road you are on only goes to Reno.

Well, obviously the map is lying, you decide. You insist that the map should somehow show that the road leads to Reno and also leads to Vegas, not Reno. So you throw it away and buy a new map. But that map also says that the road you are on only leads to Reno, so of course that map must be lying, too. In fact, all the maps must be lying, so you attempt draw your own map where the road both leads to Reno and not to Reno, but to Vegas. This proves impossible so you blame it on faulty pen and paper. You try different pen and different paper, but you still can’t manage to draw the map, so you decide that all pens and all paper are bad. You try again to go to Reno and not Reno at the same time, but fail. You think that maybe your car is the problem, so you sell it and get a new car. But that car also takes you only to Reno. You take a bus, but again you end up in Reno. You walk, but you end up in Reno. At this point your money runs out so you beg and then steal and yet nothing works. Over and over again you wind up in Reno. Finally, starving, exhausted, hopeless, penniless, and crippled, you are left with only one conclusion: Reality, itself, is the problem. Reality is a fraud. Only by finding a “new Reality”, a “true Reality”, will you find Las Vegas on the road which only takes you to Reno. The solution to your problem is thus what it always was: death. You must evacuate existence to find your way. You can’t find Vegas by way of the road you are on in this life, but perhaps you can in the next.

What do you think happens in the next life?

Nothing. That’s what. No satisfaction. Because in the next life Vegas still isn’t where it is supposed to be because the problem still hasn’t been addressed…and the problem is of course your assumption that a road which cannot take you to place where it does not go simultaneously can take you to a place where it does not go. The real problem is that you cannot functionally apply your contradiction to any reality, and have any reality actually affirm it by manifesting an actual thing. And in the process of attempting to tangibly create the square circle, so to speak, you destroy yourself. You trade the truth for a lie…a lie which makes your very conscious frame of reference impossible. It is the lie which says that what IS simultaneously IS NOT; that A is also NOT A; that the presence of A implies the absence of A. You will pursue this lie for all eternity, because that’s the only possible way to properly manifest your “existence”, you have decided. In other words, by your existence, you will relentlessly pursue the absence of your existence. What will follow is eternal death—a painful damnation where you pursue a goal for all eternity which does not exist. Endless misery without relief, because the relief that would have come is a function of a rational premise that you rejected long ago. This rational premise is thus: that what is true must be conceptually consistent; that A is not simultaneously NOT A; that the road which only leads to Reno cannot simultaneously lead to Vegas (or to NOT Reno).

You might be tempted to be unconcerned, or only mildly concerned, at this kind of damnation. For, after all, you say to yourself, you have free will, right? You have choice. At any moment you can simply decide that your premise is incorrect—that you can and likely will, eventually, wake up and realize that the way out of hell is to accept the simple truth that the road which only leads to Reno cannot also lead to Vegas.

But will you?

Of course you won’t. If you could, you would have done it already, If there was nothing in the first life which could change your mind, then there will be nothing in the second, or the third, or the fourth…and so on. You have sent yourself to hell, and it is you who will keep you there. You sent yourself to hell by murdering your own consciousness at the alter of Contradiction.

Don’t pretend that there is hope in hell. Hell, by its very nature, is hopelessness. You have chosen a “reality” where you clearly observe that the road you are on cannot take you to Vegas yet you insist that it also must take you to Vegas. You are willing to die (and thus kill) for the contradiction, and you do. In that “reality” what choice do you really have? In what sense are you not eternally trapped? Reason is dead to you and you are dead to it. You wanted an existence where contradiction is reality, and you got it.

Authoritarians are collectivists; collectivists are ideologues; ideologues are merely peddlers of Contradiction-as-Truth. Authoritarians presume that they are the incarnation of a Divine, Determinist Force—that to which I refer as the Collective Ideal. As I have explained many times on this blog, the Ideal can be virtually anything—-the Workers, Diversity, Social Justice, Climate Justice, god or the gods, the Nation, the Church, the Tribe, the Race, We the People, the Culture, Evolution, Natural Law, Mathematical Processes, etcetera, etcetera. It can even simply be the Authoritarian, himself…any old widget can be the One from which springs All That Is.

The metaphysical crux of collectivism is the fundamental denial of the Individual. Consciousness of one’s Self is ultimately an illusion; Truth and Reality are fundamentally exclusive of individual consciousness. Truth and Reality are (somehow) dictated to the Individual from the “objective reality outside” himself. To assert that one’s own Self—one’s own conscious frame of reference—is actually that by which reality is given meaning and thus defined in the first place is considered merely an exercise in pure solipsism and moral relativism.

This is a lie for reasons which I will not go into here, but suffice to say, the rejection of individual consciousness is at the heart of all collectivist ideologies, and thus is at the heart of all governments, because government is utterly a product of collectivist metaphysics. Thus the rejection of individual consciousness is at the heart of all authoritarians; authoritarianism is the logical conclusion of government, period. There is no such thing as a tyrant who is not also an explicit or implicit expression of government.

The authoritarian contradiction then is the idea that man must be systematically forced, tyrannized, out of Himself, his absolute existential frame of reference, into truth and reality, because his consciousness—the very fact that he observes reality from a frame of reference of his own Self—is his Original Sin; it is the lie which is his root nature. Authoritarians then proceed to mold man’s “false” reality into the “truth” of the Collective Ideal. They force individuals into the Collective by violence, threats of violence, propaganda, and outright fraud, because this is the individual’s “proper place” so the ideology tells them.

Naturally this never works, because collectivist metaphysics are utterly contradictory, and so Authoritarians, never ones to forsake their stupidity and madness, merely dig deeper into the ideology and forge ahead, the bodies piling ever higher and higher until their own is eventually thrown upon the heap.

At first it’s relatively easy. A convenient and perhaps even somewhat (ostensibly) plausible “other” is identified, targeted, scapegoated, exploited, rounded up and, at first, deported (if possible or plausible), then imprisoned, and eventually murdered, which was the plan all along. (This move is easier if the masses are intellectually somnolent and emotionally stunted, which, welcome to Anywhere, U.S.A., 2022.)

When this doesn’t “fix” things and usher in the Collectivist Utopia—which it can’t because there is no such thing, because it is rooted in a metaphysical contradiction, and one cannot actually build and apply a “square circle”, so to speak—then what happens? Do we think that the Authoritarians take a long look in the mirror, thoughtfully ponder the situation, and begin to reevaluate their ideas, daring to consider that the problem may actually lie with them?

Sorry. Didn’t mean to make you laugh. What can I say? I’m a funny guy.

No, of course they don’t do any of that…these people are political ideologues, and it is not in their interest or nature to presume anything other than that the Collective Ideal is perfect, and therefore they, being the practical incarnation of the Ideal on earth, are likewise perfect, and therefore the fault must necessarily be with someone else. Once the convenient “others” have been eliminated—the (ostensibly) obvious “outsiders”—then the Authoritarians turn their bloody gaze closer to home. There must be other others lurking around somewhere, most certainly within in their own ranks, they decide. Naturally they find these traitors, fill up the mass graves yet again, and sit back and wait for utopia to materialize.

This of course doesn’t happen, because again it can’t—the square is as far from also being a circle as it always was, so what happens?

You see where this is going.

The Authority simply cannibalizes itself. With each purge it finds itself as far away from Perfect Utopia as ever—utopia always just around the corner from the next genocide. More and more are purged, sacrificed for the great Ideal, but the reward never comes. There is always one more rebel or traitor to gas or shoot, one more expression of individualism to crush, one more industry to smash, one more war to wage, one more book to burn, one more government program to inflict, one more day to hope and change, until finally all that is left is for the Authoritarians to realize that, just like the one who cannot get to Las Vegas by the road which only leads to Reno, the problem must be Reality itself. If Reality is going to be this damn stubborn, then so be it. Reality must be a fraud. With nothing left to do, the Authoritarians “escape” to death, find themselves in hell, and live out their irreconcilable madness, and the consequent torment which it breeds, for all eternity.

END

Questions Which Can Have No Answer…Why benevolent government is impossible (Finale)

May 15, 2022collectivist metaphysics, forced compliance, government, government violence, law, Man's Ability, Metaphysics, Uncategorizedgovernment tyrannical by natureArgo

To be honest, this series is getting more long-winded than I intended, and you pretty much get the idea at this point, so this article is going to be the conclusion to the series and then I will move on to other things…there’s lots of stuff in the brain-hopper that I’d like to get to.

Like I said, you get the idea: “benevolent government” is a giant contradiction in terms, and it therefore can’t work and will never work.

Exhibit A: the United States of America, arguable the freest and most enlightened nation in history is now, in under 250 years, a violent, corrupt, broke, lying, third-rate, pseudo-communist fantasyland; and this is not in spite of the Constitution, it is because of it…and I am genuinely sorry to have to say that. I struggle to accept it, myself, and don’t confess it gleefully. Nevertheless, the simple fact is this: of all the documents to attempt to reconcile the mutually exclusive ideas of freedom and government, the Constitution arguably does the best job, yet we must understand and remember that two plus two can never equal five, and therefore even that which comes closest to making two plus two equal five still has an infinite distance to go. In other words, that which comes the closest to making two plus two equal five is still just as far away as anything else is or was.

The Constitution affirms government, and that’s why it was doomed to failure (in reconciling freedom and government) even before the ink dried. The Constitution affirms government, and as such, even despite all of the best intentions of the Founding Fathers, it necessarily affirms tyranny. It’s a sad, hard, cold truth. We don’t want to hear it; we don’t want to accept it. I get it, and I understand. But the sooner we accept this truth and move on the better. Nothing good can come from persisting in folly.

As explained in previous installments of this series, the State is founded upon the metaphysical principle of human existential insufficiency. In other words, the very reason why we must have government (for example, dismantling the government is never the solution to any social, economic, political, etcetera, problem…in fact, more government is almost always in some way recommended) is because if left to himself, the individual will inexorably succumb to his depraved root nature. Without the State, it is asserted, anyone can “just do whatever they want”. This is a common argument…intellectually barren, of course, but common. Naturally we can’t have people running around doing whatever they want (Oh, the horror!) because “do whatever they want” always translates to: “give rise to the selfish, violent, murderous, rapacious, exploitative, profane, sexually deviant, criminal reprobates that form core of their very root being, and which is only restrained, like with animals, by punishment and pain, and the threat thereof”.

The “punishment and pain” is a consequence of “breaking the law”, which really means “disobeying the will of the ruling class”, because the ruling class, in all practical actuality, is the law. Without the ruling class the law is entirely irrelevant. The ruling class knows this, at least implicitly—and often, explicitly—which is precisely why they are never subject to the law to the same extent (or to any extent) as the masses.

Which brings me to this business of “no one being above the law in a free, representative, democracy”. This is complete nonsense, and I think, buried beneath the many layers of denial and cognitive dissonance, most of us know it. It sounds good, but it’s a lie. Someone has to be above the law simply because the law, itself, is entirely abstract…it’s a concept, not an object. Without an Authority to enforce law, law is meaningless, which means it’s irrelevant; which means it doesn’t really exist. The Authority is the meaning, relevance, and efficacy of the Law. Authority then cannot be under the Law because without authority, there is no Law. The Authority then can never be questioned, held to account, nor considered in any way illegal (i.e. unethical). The Authority cannot break the law because this means that the law can somehow break itself, which is obviously impossible:

Those of us who are under the law can offer no relevant nor meaningful complaint to the ruling class, because our ideas and opinions are a function of value judgment; and this is something our nature precludes. If we possessed any real ability to make value judgments to any truly (objective) ethical end, then we wouldn’t need Law and Authority in the first place.

Do you see?

The very existence of the Law and Authority is rooted in premise which says that man’s own ethical ability is corrupt and insufficient as a function of our very nature—the fact that were were born at all is why we cannot be in a position to question the Authority and the Law. For us to question, let alone criticize or condemn, the ruling class and its laws, implies that we are somehow able to make proper value judgments on our own. An ability we lack, because, again, if we could, we would not be under the Law and its Authority. Our only proper response to the ruling class is obedience, then….we obey, period, or we are disabled and/or destroyed, There is no discussion; no compromise; no vote…there is the ruler and the ruled, the philosopher kings and the unwashed masses, the gnostic enlightened and the barbarians, the Good and the Evil, the Master and the Slave. We can bring the best minds to the State, the most benevolent of politicians, the most well-meaning of souls…we can attempt to inject compromise and cooperation into this arrangement, we can try to make the square also simultaneously a circle, the cancer also simultaneously the cure, but there will only ever be one conclusion:

Totalitarianism.

And from this, death.

The premise will always find its conclusion. Always. If you want a different conclusion, you must find a new premise. If you want to avoid evil, despotic rule, you must reject entirely the concept of “ruling”. If you want a benevolent government, you must reject entirely the very concept of “government”. It’s truly all or nothing.

And no, government is not merely one way man chooses to organize himself socially and politically, and this is because government, as I have explained in previous installments of this series, is not cooperative. Government—that is, the sociopolitical dichotomy of Ruler and Ruled—implies that it is necessarily the only way that man can be organized; and this is because neither the ruling class nor those it rules over really have any choice at all. The metaphysics of the State demand that there is no such thing as “choice”—at least, none which is fundamentally relevant to human existence—because the ability of humanity, as a function of its very birth; very existence, to make any rational, objective value judgments is entirely insufficient, and thus moot. Man’s actions, which are rooted in his inability to actually and efficaciously apply ethics, and this as a function of his inability to make value judgments, and this rooted in his inability to actually know anything (i.e. to know Truth), and this rooted in his inability to actually be himself—that is, to be a rational and efficacious existential frame of reference—can only ever be fundamentally anti-existence. Left to his own “choice”—which of course and again is a lie, man will only ever act in service to the destruction of himself and others.

So, no, government is not a choice, either by the ruler or the ruled. Both the ruler and the ruled suffer from their existential insufficiency. This being the case, the ruled do not choose to rule but are “called” to rule by the Transcendent Divine, in whatever specific or non-specific way it is defined,, be it “God”, or “the Gods”, or “Mathematical Processes”, or “Evolution” or some unnamed Divine Determinist Agent or Agency (e.g. an “Unknown God”, Acts 17:23). They are the Philosopher Kings, put there because God or the gods simply declared it thus. They are as much a function of the Transcendent Divine as those who are ruled.

The ruled, of course, are not “called” to rule, but to be ruled. This is how it goes, end of story. It’s all about obedience and submission for the unwashed masses.

This is the way it is, period. There is no meaning, no explanation, no understanding, and no purpose beyond “it is because it is”. At the end of it all, that’s the whole explanation.

The fruit of the State is the Psychopathic Trinity: Chaos, Misery, Death.

END

When Mathematicians and Physicists Become Our Philosophers and Priests…

May 8, 2022Metaphysics, morality, scientific determinism, Uncategorizedroger penrose, science as religion, scientific determinismArgo

When mathematicians and physicists become our philosophers and priests we are all f**king dead.

https://iai.tv/articles/consciousness-is-the-collapse-of-the-wave-function-auid-2120

Penrose here is saying that consciousness, which is a frame of reference, and inexorably so (all arguments to deny this frame of reference must necessarily contradict, since they must be made from a place of consciousness), is a direct function of something outside of it. Which is as nonsensical as it is impossible. He is saying that the conscious observer is a function of what he observes. Spot the contradiction…it shouldn’t be too hard. It’s about as subtle as a hand grenade.

This is why these people shouldn’t be allowed within a thousand miles of metaphysics. A. They are absolutely horrible at it. And B. Their ideas can only have one ethical outcome: mass murder.

From Penrose’s claims we can only conclude that consciousness is not actually conscious; the observer is utterly irrelevant because he does not actually perceive anything…that is, he does not actually think. Which means that you are not really you; I am not really me. All human existence and conscious experience is merely the manifestation of a mathematical (wave function) process which can have no beginning and no end; no premise and no conclusion; no purpose and no outcome, because the process itself is all that actually exists. The Process is Reality because it is the Process; Reality is the Process because it is Reality. Tautology is the rationale of Scientific Determinism, and this religion is poison.

No one actually exists, as such, is what we must ironically understand about the nature of our existence, according to Penrose. Thus, there is no victim; there is no murderer. It’s all just process. Ethics are zero sum, and all politics therefore can only ever be expressions of power…which is also zero sum, because power is simply the infinite Mathematical Process expressing itself…the “wave” collapsing into “reality”; “reality” returning to the “wave”, and on and on and so on and so forth.

Welcome to hell.

Questions Which Can Have No Answer…:Why benevolent government is impossible (part three)

May 1, 2022Authority, collectivist metaphysics, forced compliance, government, Uncategorizedanarchy, taxation, theft, VoluntarismArgo

Question two is thus:

How shall we rob them to protect their private property?

I know it’s a a bit cliche, but that doesn’t make it untrue:

Taxation is theft.

Most of us reject this assertion as merely the screed of crazy anarchists. It’s just them barking. Everyone knows that we must have taxes…even the most hardened libertarians, and certainly conservatives, have zero problem with taxation in principle. Heck, we are reminded that even Jesus didn’t outright condemn Caesar’s tax (however, he did not pay it out of his labor, but out of a fish…who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?). If God doesn’t have a problem with taxation, then surely it must be reasonable, and more than that, entirely moral.

Well, I’m not convinced that God ever actually affirms taxation anymore than he ever actually affirms slavery, or war, or a host of other various state institutions in the Old and/or New Testaments, but that’s a different discussion.

At any rate, here is why taxation is theft…and it is the thing which is most downplayed by defenders and apologists:

When it coms to paying your taxes, you have no choice.

This alone is proof of theft. If someone claims a right to your property whether you want to give it to them or not, then this person is a thief, period. Give it any euphemistic title you want; couch it within the auspices of as many grand and ancient institutions as you like; puff it up with non sequiturs like “representation” and “constitutional rights” and “free elections” until the cows come home, it doesn’t change the fact that taking your property regardless of your will is theft.

Unfortunately, Volunteerism/Anarchism is simply a non-starter when it comes to the vast majority of political options. The fetishization of natural (metaphysical) human insufficiency has become, over millennia, a casual acceptance of some mystical yet axiomatic existential need of the masses to be enslaved and controlled by other, much smaller numbers of human beings. This means that government is axiomatic, even a-priori, to human existence; and this, of course, means taxation. In other words, the reason taxation is given a moral pass where other flavors of theft are not is because taxation is inexorably connected to the perceived basic existential need of man to be governed. That is, without the ruling class, humanity must necessarily go extinct, because the nature of man is such that he is fundamentally incapable of governing himself as an individual.

The very insufficient nature of man to execute and promote his own existence means that he must be governed—that is, coerced, fundamentally, by a governing Authority. How it is that man, being insufficient to his own existence, can decide which other existentially insufficient men shall rule over him…well, all such rulers are always in some sense “divinely” appointed, hence the completely mystical roots of all governments. At any rate, as far as the metaphysics go then, we must have some version of the State, and therefore we must have some version of taxation, because there must be some way for the state to acquire the funds with which to execute its duties, and therefore we are told that taxation simply cannot be theft because without the state to rule over men, men wouldn’t, or couldn’t, exist in the first place. However, the claim that the government is needed so that man can exist in the first place is really to claim the that the government must be man for man. Or rather more precisely put, the state doesn’t affirm man, it seeks to possess him and thus it nullifies him. Man must inevitably function as a direct and absolute extension of the state…and this ends up making the government-citizen relationship merely that of slave-master.

From these metaphysical roots of government we can see that though one may claim theft is immoral, the argument against this will take some form of: morality only exists in the first place because the government makes human life possible. The government cannot be acting against that which is, in short, a direct function of itself. In other words, your very life is a direct function of the state…without the state, you cannot exist. Ergo, the state is you, for you. Taxation cannot be theft because the state cannot steal from itself.

Sound crazy? It should, because it is…nevertheless these ideas are at the root of government, and therefore taxation. You are merely an extension of the state. The government utterly owns you, because your existence at root is in actuality its existence; and again, the government cannot steal from what it already owns. Alakazaam, poof! as my friend John Immel says, taxation is moral.

Now, you’d think that with all of the copious amounts of evidence of the object failure of governments—the wars, famines, exploitations, holocausts, slavery, mass murder, pervasive corruption—it would be a bit easier to convince people that this “logic” to which they have been subjected for thousands and thousands of years is a lie, but alas, it is near impossible. People are committed almost immovably to the idea that government is inexorability and inalienably tied to their own life in sum and substance. It is a hill they will die on…and millions, if not billions, have.

So, yes, because we simply must have the state, we must have taxation, so we believe.

Now, many times people are not without conceding to some extent that taxation is not particularly pleasant, nor convenient, and that taxes are too high and could and should be lower. They might even concede that the proclivity of taxation to rapidly become overbearing, inefficient, and outright wasteful might make it in some sense evil. However, they would prefer to call it a “necessary evil”.

Yeah, about that.

The difference,between too much tax and just the right about amount of tax…the difference between the morality of taxation and the immortality of taxation…the difference between the “necessary evil” of taxation and the actually evil evil of taxation is simply the irrational and meaningless question of “how much?” But this is not how morality works, of course. Morality is not a sliding scale. Something is either evil or it is not. Something is either up or down, left or right, this or that, yes or no…to make opposites a function of some sliding scale means that at the point along the continuum where they meet they become “both” and “neither”. In other words, where good and evil meet they contradict each other, which actually nullifies the entire scale. So, no, taxation, like anything else labeled as such, is not a “necessary evil”. It is either evil or it is good.

If it’s good, then so must any government commandeering of any or all your private property, because what you own, you own. You do not own some of your property and not own the rest of it…this is a contradiction. So if the state can claim a right to own any and all of what you earned, this of course means that there is no such thing as private property at all. The government owns everything, and thus the government owns you. If you do not own the product of your own labor then that which you use to do that labor, your body and your mind, is likewise by logical extension not your own. Again, the metaphysics of government mean that you don’t really exist. Which is why you have no property, not even yourself. The government owns everything; and it is thus the only thing that owns anything. Ironically this means that the government doesn’t actually tax anyone since there is no one else as far as it is concerned, and therefore there is no private property, but that’s by the by.

If taxation is evil then the state is not legitimate and thus, for all efficacious and practical purposes, it does not exist. The purpose of the state is to own everything and therefore to become everyone and everything. Which means that there can be no real distinction between that which the state is and that which it is not, in which case it cannot be defined, and therefore cannot be said to be anything at all.

Either way, taxation is an utterly irrational, impossible, futile ideal and institution. It can neither promote nor affirm the individual and can achieve no outcome except that of chaos and destruction. Taxation is a square circle…try as we might, no such thing can really be produced. The codification and institution of “legalized theft” is a meaningless endeavor which can never achieve anything except the obliteration of anyone or anything which attempts to implement it.

Taxation is a blank check the ruling class writes to itself. Taking a cursory look back at the history of mankind, does that seem like a recipe for success?

Still, there are many, many true believers out there, left, right, and center of the political continuum. Taxation can work, they insist,…we just need to find the right amount. If we can just answer the question of how much theft is “good” theft and how much is bad, then we could have an effective and moral tax system. How much theft is not really theft, and how much is actually theft…answering that is the key. The fact that such a stupid and illogical question can have no answer because it’s not a real question seems to be beside the pint.

Yes, this IS literally the question with which they wrestle, though they may not, or may not be able, to put it in so many words.

Let me ask: At what point do we decide that one owns his property but also does not own it?

This is a question that cannot be answered, because it is absurd. It is either your property or it is not, period. To put taxation on a sliding moral scale is nonsensical, because it is to claim that there is some point where your property can be considered also not your property., and thus subject to government commandeering, To put taxation in the category of “necessary evil”, is to claim that at some point taxation becomes theft where it wasn’t before. But how do you divide that baby, so to speak? At what point can your private property that you earned become to some degree or percentage that which you did not in fact earn…and further, who gets to decide?

You?

That’s funny, because if you could decide for yourself how much it should reasonably and morally cost for you to be controlled then you wouldn’t need to be controlled and thus there would be no need for government in the first place; and therefore you wouldn’t need taxing and thus the question is entirely moot.

Allow me to beat the dead horse of “necessary evil” a bit longer. As one who despises logical fallacy and therefore despises contradiction (I submit that all logical fallacies are simply contradictions at root) I feel I must exhaustively emphasize the logical failure of this aphorism.

I’ve heard, as I’m sure you have, “necessary evil” a million times to excuse all manner of moral atrocity, from war to taxation to public school, to government itself, and I am positively apoplectic at how such a nonsensical assertion passes for reason so often with so many people. It is an indication of how far humanity has lost itself to the lie that up can also be down, one can be zero, the square can be the circle.

Look, you simply cannot practically or meaningfully apply contradiction. That which is contradictory to reality is impossible. You cannot have a “necessary evil” because all this is is the assertion that what is evil is simultaneously what is good.

This is a lie. If it’s good, then by definition it’s not evil, and vice versa. If it’s necessary to a good end, then it is a good thing, not an evil thing. It cannot be both. Period. You cannot have a square circle, an up which is down, a black which is white, a yes which is no, a trinity which is a singularity (a three which is one)…and you cannot have a good which is evil…and do you know what else you cannot have? Cooperative theft, which is what we are claiming when we say that taxation is simply the necessary action of a benevolent state working for the good of the individual. Once the state decides that it has a right to your property, then it becomes a thief, period. If the government possesses the authority to take your property against your will, which is precisely what taxation is, then it is not a benevolent state simply cooperating with the people to achieve a free society, it is a rapacious ruling class expanding its own power and wealth at the expense of the masses.

A contradiction is the fundamental assertion, in its most basic form, that what IS also and simultaneously IS NOT. Whenever I mention contradiction as something like saying that up cannot be down, or left cannot be right, I know that someone is thinking ‘left can be right or up can be down depending on the frame of reference, so, yes, in fact left can also be right and up can also be down. A left turn to me will look like a right turn for someone looking from the opposite frame of reference.’

This is not what I’m talking about; this is not contradiction. What a contradiction is is the assertion that something IS and also IS NOT simultaneously. That is, from all conceptual (abstract), and/or observational frames of reference, at all times. In other words, it is the idea that you can observe, from your singular conscious frame of reference, at all times, that X is also Y; A is also B. Of course, no such thing is possible…if I gave you a thousand years you could not possibly, in picture or word, imagine such a thing. It is utterly impossible for you to imagine that something both is and is not, simultaneously, from the singular frame of reference of your mind’s eye.

Do you know why this is…why no one, anywhere, of any intelligence, can do such a thing? It is because contradiction is the antithesis of consciousness. The ability to conceptualize, simultaneously, IS and IS NOT contradicts conceptualization…which is the root of consciousness. The ability to conceptualize perception into language demands that concepts are not mutually exclusive. Rather, conceptual consistency is that which must necessarily flow from conceptualization. Conceptual consistency is how ideas are formed and successfully communicated. Should concepts contradict, ideas are utterly impossible. Without conceptual consistency, there can be no ideas, and thus no meaning and thus no truth. Which makes consciousness—the being aware of you and that which is around you, and thus the distinction between what is you and what is your environment, and conceptually what is you and what is NOT you, and thus how to manifest yourself within that environment by naming and valuing You and NOT You, such as “you” as opposed to your “environment”—fundamentally irrelevant. If consciousness exists, and conceptualization is real, then contradiction must be purely ideological at best. It’s never a real thing, so to speak..

In short, if contradiction is real then your consciousness is nullified, in which case, you simply wouldn’t exist to notice that contradiction is real.

I know this is all quite long-winded, but it is important that we tease these things out so that we can understand why something like “necessary evil” is not merely a cute little saying but rather a philosophical rationale which leads to all kinds of moral and practical horrors like the ability of the state to take money from its citizens by what is, at root, fraud and violence, and to at least implicitly, but often explicitly, claim that it has some divine, transcendent authority to do so—and this is because the state is a contradiction, and only by appealing to the “divine” can the cognitive dissonance pass for “truth”, even if the divine Ideal is simply “the People”, or “We the people”.

Taxation is the state taking your property from you without your consent. That’s what it is; and taking your property without your consent is theft.

“But, Argo”, you might protest. “I don’t mind the government taxing me. I am happy to do my part and pay my taxes…since I willingly pay, it cannot be theft, right?”

If you don’t mind, then you are right, it is not theft…but it’s also not taxation. It’s cooperation. Cooperation and government are by definition mutually exclusive. People who cooperate are not governed. Cooperation is exclusive of force, and therefore exclusive of authority, and therefore exclusive of government, and therefore exclusive of taxation. To attempt to square the circle by claiming that taxation is not theft because you don’t mind, or even enjoy, paying your taxes doesn’t really work. Because it’s not up to you anyway. That is, your statement that you don’t mind being taxed is a complete non-sequitur. The state doesn’t care whether you mind or not…that’s the point. Because to the state, what is the difference? Whether you care or not, what you want or not, what you think or don’t think about taxation is completely irrelevant. They are going to take your property. The thief doesn’t spend any amount of time giving a shit whether or not you care if they take your stuff, and neither, ultimately, does the state. The ruling class may sedate you with the bromide of “representative government’ or “free elections” or “constitutional rights”, but this isn’t because they care what you think, it’s all about making it easier for themselves. Sorry if that sounds so awfully cynical…it’s not actually cynicism, it’s realism. Because it doesn’t matter how kind or noble or altruistic or benevolent any given politician might be, the fundamental nature of the state is utterly antagonistic to individual life, liberty, and property. It is entirely metaphysical. No politician thus has any choice in the matter…that is, ultimately they shall treat you like a slave to be exploited…a means to their own end. The government can only, by its very root nature, work in service its own limitless self-expansion and insatiable appetite for power at the expense of everything and everyone else, period. No master, no matter how benevolent and kind, can truly cooperate with his slaves, because that is simply not the nature of the institution.

On that note, let’s talk about “free elections” for a moment, as often you will hear people say something like, “we can always change the system (including taxation) by voting for different people.”

To say that in a benevolent governmental system you “freely elect” the your leaders is, again, the smuggling of contradiction into the argument. You cannot freely elect one who is to be in authority over you, in the same way a slave cannot freely elect his master…and even if he could, he’d still be a slave. The idea that having a different master makes you less of a slave is laughably ridiculous.

This relates to taxation this way…that is, the minarchist argument is something like: if we only have to pay X amount of tax if we elect authority A, then taxation is fine. We will pay only a small amount, covering just the basic government functions.

LOL…as if you get to decide what your authority’s functions are. As if the slave dictates terms to his master. Moreover, this is like stating that if a thief only takes your lawn mower but not your car then he is not really a thief. I submit that the thief who realizes he can take your lawnmower without any repercussions will soon realize that he can also take your car…and where will you draw the line? By what logic? You own both of them, but to say that to take the lawn mower against your will is fine but not the car is is to split the idea of “ownership”. You own the car, but the lawnmower you only sort of own….you own it but you don’t. X is also Y. IS is also IS NOT. Nonsense.

The truth is that you either own both or you own neither. If the thief can take one by some “rationale” that he has concocted in his little criminal mind then he can also take the other, and he will.

If you say you don’t mind if the thief takes the lawn mower and/or the car, and you strike some kind of accord with him, well then, he’s not actually a thief. He’s not taking anything by force…you are volunteering to give it to him…you are cooperating. He is no longer presuming some ineffable, inexplicable, mystical, divine “right” to take your mower whether you like it or not. He doesn’t pretend to be in some kind ot authority . This is voluntary value exchange, not some kind of fantastical admixture of theft and cooperation.

We play these games with taxation. We say we don’t mind, but if we don’t mind then its not taxation. There need to be no tax laws. It’s just good old fashioned cooepration. The very fact that there are tax laws and that if you don’t pay your taxes you get punished should be all the evidence you need to see that there is nothing moral nor rational about taxation. It’s theft. Period. Full stop. Cliche or not.

The benevolent government steals from us in order to protect, promote, perpetuate, and preserve our right to private property.

How’s that been working out for us?

END

Questions Which Can Have No Answer…:Why benevolent government is impossible (part two)

April 26, 2022forced compliance, government, individualism vs collectivism, law, morality, Uncategorizedgovernment, legality, moralityArgo

Explaining how the inherent contradictions of the questions I listed in part one relate specifically to government is the purpose of the remainder of the posts in this series. Today’s post will examine question one.

1. How shall we enslave them to set them free?

A wise man with whom I used to regularly associate, John Immel, once said that government is authority and authority is force—his point being that coercion is not merely a characteristic of the State, but is in fact the state’s most fundamental characteristic, and likely the only truly relevant one. Absent force there is literally nothing about the State which has any meaning whatsoever. I agree with this completely, and the only thing I would add to John’s aphorism concerns the Law. I might put it this way: The Law is government, and government is authority, and authority is force. Meaning that once Law is declared or implied as the guiding societal principle then government is established to compel obedience…because law absent forced compliance is not law, but suggestion. Government is the physical incarnation of the Law’s right, or Authority, to compel obedience. No citizen gets decide for himself whether he shall obey or not, for if this were the case then the law would, again, not actually be law, but suggestion.

This goes to the heart of why I have for the last several years assiduously asserted that legality is a fundamentally distinct ethic than that of morality, and that, in fact, the two are mutually exclusive. To build a society rooted in the ethic of legality—that men’s behaviors shall be bound and constrained by law—is to ensure that that society is not and never shall be a moral one.

Morality is an ethic that necessitates that men must will and choose; legality is an ethic which declares that choice and will are fundamentally irrelevant…men will do what the law demands or they will be disabled or destroyed. Period. Legality deals in punishment; morality in consequence…and the difference between them is not in the least bit subtle. Consequence is earned; punishment is meted out. You cannot earn a punishment; you cannot be dictated a consequence. The law cannot acknowledge that you earned your punishment precisely because it does not acknowledge the legitimacy of your will and choice. You will obey or else; what you want, what you will, and thus to what end you shall exercise your choice, is utterly meaningless to the law. The law dictates your behavior, and you will act. You have no choice in the matter. Law is not cooperative. “Cooperative law” is a contradiction in terms. You don’t earn. You act, or you are in some sense or literally erased from society. You act as the law demands or you don’t exist. There is nothing for you to earn. The law IS, you act. That’s all. There is no “consequence”, nothing is earned; nothing is given to you or happens to you because you don’t have any real individual autonomy under law.

The law says how you must or must not behave, period. Further, any behaviors not specified by the law are still obliged to it, for the entire context of all behavior is framed by the law. If the law can demand your compliance in one behavior, it can demand it in all of your behaviors. At the root of all your relevant actions is your volitional Self, and this Self is utterly singular. Thus, to claim to own just one of your behaviors is a claim to the ownership of all of YOU, entirely. The law implies that at any point it may demand any behavior from you, full stop. The law is the basis for the authority over the race of men by those who are called, elected, installed, etc. to enforce it.

Let’s look at the following example:

Person A attempts to rob person B; person B shoots person A as person be B defends his property.

Now, both Morality and Legality will value the act of robbery and the act of self defense according to a given standard, and the standard is simply that which the action can be said to ultimately serve. This is where the two ethical systems diverge, never to be reconciled—where their utter incompatibility is illustrated. With morality, the standard is the individual, and thus is likewise that which must be preserved in order that the individual may have actual, rational, objective, meaningful existence. In other words, the moral standard is that which must be preserved in order for the very existence of the individual to be possible on both the physical and metaphysical levels. The moral standard then is Self, and, by extension, that by which the Self is made manifest in reality: life (being alive in the world), liberty (being consciously and willfully active in the world), and property (the means by which being alive and being active can efficaciously occur). In short, the individual is the moral standard, which necessarily makes choice an integral component of ethics, as choice and will are ineluctably integral to the individual. We can therefore value the action of defending one’s property as being a moral action because it is in service to the individual; and the consequence of being shot in the attempt to rob another person as being a moral consequence.

Legality offers us a different interpretation of the scenario entirely. The Law, as I have explained, rejects choice and will as having any ethical meaning whatsoever. The law is about obedience, and obedience is by definition the rejection of choice. “Choose to obey” is a contradiction in terms, as one cannot choose to have no choice. One can choose to cooperate, but not choose to obey. Slaves obey, free men cooperate. And no sane person would ever equate slavery and choice, because “freedom” and “slavery” are opposites. To say one is the other is, to put it mildly, complete nonsense.

So what is the ethical standard according to legality? Well, the ethical, or legal. standard is not the law, precisely, it is fundamentally the Collective Ideal, incarnate via the government (Ruling Class) and which forms the metaphysical basis for legal ethics, but for any truly meaningful purposes we can presume that the Law itself is the standard. We really don’t need to get bogged down in metaphysics to make the point here.

What is the point, then, you ask?

The point is that the action of defending one’s property and the action of getting shot whilst attempted to rob that person of their property are going to be valued according to the degree to which they are in compliance with the Law. The law is the legal standard. If this seems circular, or redundant, well, that’s because it is. The law is, I submit, a wholly irrational ethic…untenable because it’s at root perfectly senseless.

At any rate the law is the legal standard, meaning that if the law says that one must not rob, then the act of robbery shall be unethical…”illegal” is to legal ethics as “immoral” is to moral ethics. Similarly if the law says that one may, or must, shoot someone trying to rob them then the act of shooting the robber shall be deemed ethical. The act of getting shot whilst trying to rob another is thus likewise deemed ethical.

Notice that I did not make getting shot a consequence of the attempted robbery…there is the act of shooting and the act of getting shot. Legally speaking, there is no such thing as consequence. No two actions are necessarily ethically connected in this regard. There is no action-reaction, or choice-consequence, only action-action. There is no necessary ethical value which can be logically drawn from any given behavior to any reciprocal behavior.

Let me try to clarify this point.

The law may declare it unethical (illegal) to rob someone, and likewise declare that one may not defend his property. The law may declare that the act of defending private property (there is no such thing under law, by the way, but that’s besides the point) is the sole purview of the State, for example…the police we could say, and that while it is illegal to rob it is also illegal to defend one’s property. There is no contradiction here…the law demands what you shall do in service to the law, and if the law decides that it is in service to the law for you to both not be robbed and also to not defend your property then that’s what shall be demanded of you. The law defines the context for your behavior and thus your existence, and whatever it declares you must do you will do. If those things seem contradictory or incongruent to you…well, what is that to the law? The law doesn’t care what you want, it doesn’t give you a choice, and thus it doesn’t care what you think. It rejects your consciousness as having any legitimacy at all, so what things seem to you with respect to the law is utterly beside the point.

On the other hand, morality is not like this at all. In morality, it not only is possible but necessary that there be ethical value shared in actions which are reciprocal to other actions. Morality accepts as axiomatic cause and effect, choice and consequence, action and reaction, and this is because morality implies will and choice as necessary to human existence, and thus it understands that there are natural outcomes of behavior which are driven by choice, and that those outcomes are thus necessarily tied in value to one’s behavior. If it is considered to be of value that a man shall own property then it must, morally speaking, be of value that man shall defend his property from theft, which means that if a man must shoot the robber in order to defend his property then getting shot is a moral consequence of attempting robbery.

Now, I certainly understand the moral question of whether or not one should use deadly force in the prevention of the theft of some inexpensive thing, like a pencil or marble, for example…but that actually furthers to illustrate my point. The reason we can have ethical conversations like this is because of morality; such questions are not a remonstrance of it. It is because morality fundamentally values the individual that we can ask questions about things like whether it is a good thing or not to shoot a person who is trying to steal a pencil. With the law, the answers to such questions are simply dictated to you and I. If the law declares that yes, you must shoot, or are allowed to shoot, one who is attempting to rob you of your pencil, then that’s settled. The law says it, you obey. It’s not for you to ask questions…and don’t think. It’s not for you to think.

What has all of this to do with the question, “How shall we enslave them to set them free”?

Well, it may not be entirely intuitive, but it’s not complicated to see the error implicit in the idea of the “benevolent State” as it applies to the rule of law…and I submit that law is implicit, if not explicit, in a slave-mater relationship. The master declares what behavior the slave must perform…this is the law for the slave. The slave obeys. It’s no more complicated than that…the only real difference is that in the state-citizen relationship, with our “free” and “democratic”, and “representative” government, with the smokescreens of “elections” and “constitutional rights”—the U.S. Constitution being the prototypical blueprint for the “benevolent state”—there are many masters and many millions of slaves.

Within the “benevolent state”, like every other state, there are rulers and there are the ruled, and this authority-submission dynamic is the very essence of the most basic forms of slavery. The benevolent state is nothing more, unfortunately, than a master who demands compliance from his chattel. The relationship is rooted in law…behavior is dictated, and obedience, not choice, is the only value the citizen brings to his government.

I understand that this is not a popular idea anywhere, not even in politically conservative or even libertarian circles, which stop short of declaring the state entirely bereft of morality and legitimacy. My perspective that it is entirely bereft of morality and legitimacy is said to be naive, oversimplified, myopic, purely ideological. I wish that were true…honestly I do. Unfortunately, a cursory look around the turgid nation where I reside, the U.S.A., reveals the objective reality, which is this: that what was once arguably the free-est nation on earth, the rights of the individual codified in its most fundamental of governing documents and heavily informed by individual-empowering enlightenment philosophy, has dissolved into nothing more than a pseudo-tyrannical, bloated, perpetually indebted, foolhardy, war-mongering peddler and exporter of neo-Marxist racist dogma which has decided that the apogee of virtue and virtue’s only meaningful objective is “social justice”, and that “social justice” is nothing more than at best doing to innocent white people the very same thing which was done to innocent black and brown people, which is about as lazy and stupid and hypocritical as is possible, and is literally less effective at creating a just society than doing absolutely nothing at all. Yet here we are. We fought a revolution over stamps and tea, but 30 trillion in debt, exploding inflation, World War Three, disintegrated borders, state-compelled “vaccinations” with experimental drugs, perpetually subsidized unemployment, government-sanctioned riots, and abortion rates of up to 70% in certain communities…well, hey, nothing one more election can’t fix. Give Trump four more we’ll be positively drunk on freedom.

The idea of the benevolent state and the rule of law is the idea that no one is above the law. Sounds good. We all cooperate together under law for freedom’s sake. No slave; no master. The government is a mere steward of that law which is established to enfranchise men to act out their natural rights. Law protects and promotes freedom…without it we are at the mercy of the whims of evil men.

Sounds good. However, it’s all just platitude. The hard, gun-shaped truth is that law is nothing without an authority to enforce it. That authority is the government, and the government which must enforce the law in order that the law can have any relevance and meaning whatsoever cannot simultaneously be obligated to that law. It is simply a contradiction and cannot work…which is precisely why it doesn’t. The reason the United States has dissolved into a black hole of corruption, greed, cognitive dissonance, and totalitarian fantasy is because of the fundamental philosophical premises which underwrite it, not because we simply don’t have the ‘“right people” in power. “If the slaves just had a different master they’d no longer be slaves” is a ridiculous claim, yet we continue to think that if we just elect the right men and women to political office we can turn the ship around and return to the halcyon days of beautiful individual freedom. No we cannot, because freedom does not and cannot proceed from the foundational documents which inform this nation. At root these documents speak to only two truly relevant things, and only one if we consider them mutually inclusive of one another: A government shall be established, and there shall be law. This demands, inevitably, that no matter how benevolent the intentions of the Founding Fathers, the nation will inevitably find its way to totalitarianism and collapse, just as we have seen time and time again in virtually all nations and all governments throughout history in all the world.

You cannot and will not free men by enslaving them…and government means slavery. Period. Benevolent or not. Benevolent government may be a benevolent master, which is preferable to a hateful master, surely, but a benevolent master is still a master, nonetheless; and you are still a slave; and just you wait and see how long your master remains benevolent once you decide that you no longer want to be a slave.

END

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