Metaphysics, Isn't

Metaphysics, isn’t.

There is nothing physical about metaphysics.  Do not be fooled by the name – it is not, nor has it ever been, any kind of science,

Metaphysics is merely imagination and opinion.  At its best, it is wishful thinking, but at its worst, it is prejudice masked as reason or divine decree.

Anything described as ‘metaphysical’ cannot be sensed.  You cannot see metaphysical sights nor hear metaphysical sounds.  Nothing that is categorized as metaphysical can be grasped or even touched.  You cannot smell or taste metaphysical objects.  Nothing that is metaphysical can be measured, it cannot be tested, it is – in its entirety – a construct of the delusional ramblings of unhinged minds.

Everything that is real can be measured.  There are real things in this universe that we have not yet been able to directly observe or measure, and more things than we have imagined or can even imagine that will be measurable.  There are real limitations on space and time that inhibit our ability to discern these things, but in time we shall detect and measure them and when we do they will become science – a part of the body of human knowledge.

There are no special humans who have special access to special emanations from the universe.  There is no special intelligence out there in space and time that metes out special information to a special cadre of humanity in order to safely shepherd other humans through the mental and physical minefields of life.

This does not mean the things we imagine are not important.  Our imagination allows us to make certain assumptions about future possibilities.  Our creativity allows humans to solve human problems, because nothing is coming to save us – not Angels from Heaven or Aliens from Planet G.  It is only our ability to recognize patterns and order our thinking that helps us to make sense of what has already happened and share this awareness of history and our anticipation of future events with others.

Unfortunately, our minds are also delusion generators.  Honed by eons of evolution, we jump when the wind rustles the grass and then try to explain to others our jumping at nothing by reporting that we thought we saw a snake move the grass.  In truth, our eyes and attention focused elsewhere, our minds received data that the grass had moved and prompted a reaction without any coherent thought or conscious act of will because sometimes there are snakes in the grass.  We are the evolutionary products of those who jumped believing in imaginary snakes because others who did not jump when there was a snake did not survive to have nonjumping offspring.

And there are snakes in the grass, and they will prey upon your imagination and your fear of what isn’t real so that they can make you jump.  And once you become a jumper at phantom fears you become their thrall.  Whether you are a meek underachiever blaming the banks and the corporations for the ecological ruin of Earth and the economic manipulation of billions of humans, or some sad believer in metaphysical beings who randomly and infrequently intervene in human affairs for reasons that would only make sense to a psychopath, you are still their thrall.

The universe is a real place occupied by real people with real problems and metaphysical imaginings accomplish nothing.  Deposit your unfulfilled prayers in one hand today and pile the filth you would otherwise flush down the commode in the other and see which one fills up first.  There’s your metaphysics.

North Carolina Republicans Raise Taxes

NC Republicans Raise Taxes

Speaker of the NC House of Representatives is Thom Tillis, Senate President Pro Tem is Phil Berger.  Both are Republicans, both lead Republican majorities – including a nearly 2-to-1 majority in the Senate, and both voted to raise taxes in North Carolina in 2013.  Think the Republicans are the party of less interference in your life – you’re wrong.  Think the Republicans are the party of more freedom for Americans – you’re wrong.  Think the Republicans are the party of fewer, smaller, and fairer taxation – you’re wrong again.  Three strikes, baby.

One of the first orders of business for the new Republican Congress back in January of 2013 was to limit people’s freedom of speech while they are assembled to seek redress of grievances – by making it an illegal form of protest for women to bare their breasts when chastening government idiocy.  Does this sound to you like greater freedom?  Does this sound like less interference in our lives?

This Republican led legislature – very old fashioned and no doubt devout – also raised taxes.  The sales tax for a new manufactured or modular home more than doubled and the tax-caps in place were repealed.  The taxes on electricity and natural gas went up significantly, essentially doubling as well.  Sales taxes were expanded to include the cost of going to a movie, or to call a plumber to the house.  There is now a 50% tax on the sales of newspapers sold through coin-op paper box.  This does nothing to increase readership or encourage the proper dissemination of information.   The GOP repealed the sales tax holiday for school supplies, which really didn't dent the retailers since everybody who cares about their child’s education still had to buy that stuff anyway.  The Raleigh Republicans increased the taxes on farmers’ sales of agricultural products and purchases of the tools of their trade.  On the other hand, they did keep in place special tax incentives for their friends in NASCAR and Hollywood.

Now I did not know most of that either until I went digging for information about something I was curious about.  I’ll bet you didn't know this either.  I went to a fast food restaurant recently with one of my kids.  The bill came to an even $10.00, and the tax came to $0.68.  The tax rate in Gaston County is 6.75%.  The question I find myself asking is this – where does the extra half-penny go?  The tax should have been $0.675, but of course, you can’t charge somebody half a penny tax. 

On the one hand, maybe the business keeps it as a little kickback for processing the taxes they send up to the state.  Maybe they make a hundred bucks in sales, send $6.75 to Raleigh and keep a nickel for themselves.  Maybe they make ten-thousand dollars in sales, send $675 to Raleigh and pad their profits five bucks.  In a year that wouldn't total two grand, but two grand is more than one-fiftieth of a chocolate treat to me.  I sure wouldn't balk at the extra cash and I can’t imagine any businessman would neglect that money either.

On the other hand, maybe the businesses have to send every penny they collect to the state.  I could uncover no answers to my query (hence this letter).  I also cannot pin this one on the elephant, because this tax rate was drawn up by donkeys.  This means that the state is collecting revenue above and beyond mere tens and twenties a business might get – Raleigh is raking in reams of extra revenue, and we aren't getting any better representation!  They do all this while cutting programs for the people who could use the help simultaneously giving cash away to those who don’t.

Now, if that doesn't stick in your craw, consider this – if you and a friend go out to eat and both of you pay a bill of ten dollars separately, then you both paid an extra half-penny to somebody.  Maybe you paid the business and maybe you paid the State, who knows.  If you disapprove of tax favoritism, where some people win and others lose (and the government gets to decide who), keep that penny in your own pocket and pay together.  Additionally, increase the rate at which you hassle the government goons to do something about that stupid fractional tax rate, because somebody who doesn't deserve your money is getting it.

We All Pay For Healthcare

We All Pay For Healthcare

Idiot has a different meaning today than it did to ancient Greeks.  Then it meant selfish, but among those who would prefer to not participate in society-wide healthcare, terminology both modern and ancient applies.

When you are healthy and when concerns of injury or illness are minimal in both occurrence and expense, it can be easy to say, “I’m not going to pay for the healthcare of people who would not get it on their own.”  But when the chips are down, and morbidity and mortality loom threateningly, the one thing every organism on this planet will fight for – tooth and claw, with extreme prejudice – is its own survival.  People who would elect to not pay for regular health service will none the less seek aid when they desperately need it.  People who did not have the income to pay a monthly insurance premium most likely did not save money for the eventual likelihood of some medical emergency, but they will still go to the hospital when their future existence is under assault.   The affordability of health services remains a huge question mark.  If they couldn’t – or wouldn’t – pay for healthcare up front, who do you suppose ends up paying for it when the situation becomes dire? 

Who is going to be so noble as to suffer silently in sickness, accepting the responsibility for their poor choice to not enroll in a healthcare and otherwise save money while they were healthy?  Who is going to be so philosophical as to allow their child to die of unforeseen and unanticipated but treatable circumstances instead of seeking medical attention and then allow the system to absorb the cost of care?  Those costs must be paid for by somebody.  The for-profit enterprises that exist are not going to simply allow one family’s crisis to eat into their cashflow – they will raise prices elsewhere to make up for that. 

Everybody who seeks medical attention at a doctor’s office, walk-in-care-clinic, or a major medical center pays for more than just their own care, they also pay for the care of people who have been treated there and could not – or would not – pay their bills.  Even if the medical center writes off the cost of your care, those nickels and dimes get added to the care of other, more responsible patients.  Even if you get charity from your church, somebody else is paying for it.  Every time a person who can’t afford care gets taken care of, it gets paid for somewhere.  Everybody who already has healthcare is already part of a socialized system – albeit one that is somewhat elective in that you go and enroll on your own or through your employer – but your premium still pays for the healthcare of everybody who is a part of your system.

The problem lies mostly within the hundreds of different health insurance providers, for-profit companies, who must protect their profits at the cost of care.  Bypass that with a system of fully socialized medicine and you do away with the biggest part of the problem.  But the problem also lies partly with idiots who won’t become part of the system while they are hale and hearty and can help humanity, but then go begging for exceptional consideration when it’s their turn to suffer.  Their costs add to your costs, their bankruptcies encumber the economy, their selfish and stupid indifference is part of the problem and not part of the solution.  You can’t just pass it off and say, “Well, I’m not sick now, and I would really rather use my money to buy a big new (INSERT PRODUCT).”  If you are not going get healthcare of your own, why should anybody else pay for it?

No Easy Answers, Especially When One Side Is So Damn Unreasonable

The Arizona State Legislature is like a pus-filled, blistering, oozing chancre on the face of America.  The outrageous gall displayed by this domineering gang of goons marks a low point in the downward spiral of religious conservatism in the United States.  As the vitriol inherent in the belief structures of fundamentalists isolates them further away from contemporary society, they grow more desperate to cast their oppressive control over a nation that is slowly but surely escaping their negative influence. 

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act is clearly nothing more than state-sanctioned bigotry.  Lawmakers in Arizona clearly do not understand that your religious freedom ends when you begin to deal with the citizens of the Republic in business arrangements.  Religious freedom – as defended by the Constitution – allows you to practice your faith only up to the point where it does not have a negative effect on other people.  You are free to be whatever manner of closed-minded beast you desire to be, but if you want to sell cupcakes in America, you have to sell to all customers equally and may not legally deny any product or service to any customer based on your religion or on theirs.

The exalted positions of power and privilege enjoyed by these politicians remove them from the real world.  Without the humbling experience of reality, it is easy to impose the delusions of their fantasy upon others without ever realizing that there would be serious consequences for actual human beings.  One legislator even cried that, “we should not have to sacrifice our freedoms to work…or do business…” and yet the combined knowledge of all workers and business owners recognize that this statement – while somewhat hopeful – is woefully untrue. 

Every worker knows that they have to hang up their rights when they go to work, this is especially true in a state like North Carolina that practices the “Right to Work” – which means an employer can fire you for any reason and never have to explain their rationale.  They can even fire you on the basis of their own religious prejudice – although they do expose themselves to a potential lawsuit if you can prove that is why they did it, as opposed to some made-up excuse like not taking your hat off when you came into the building.  

The very idea that they are restoring a religious freedom is ludicrous – nobody ever had such a freedom, and even in the past when such bigotry was openly practiced, it was still recognized as wrong and then corrected in more recent times to create a more inclusive America.

And that, of course, is what the Arizona State Legislature and most of the old-south conservative and overly prayerful states are so upset about.  America continues its slow laborious slog toward inclusion of all peoples of all types (a very democratic idea), and conservatives hate this.  The fundamentalist whack-jobs particularly hate this, because they neither want to be included nor do they wish to include others.  More inclusion means more independent thinking, less group-think.  More inclusion means more divergence among family make-ups.  More inclusion means greater freedom and justice and peace – and even profitability – and less control, fewer unfair life events, and less fear.  More inclusion also means it gets harder to take unified action – it is rather like herding cats, but at least action taken benefits many instead of an elite few. 

Inclusion also means including people who worship in different ways – as there are clearly people of faith on the democratic side opposing the state-sanctioned bigotry of the unruly mob in Phoenix – and more believers could be included in the future of America if they would simply release their grip on hateful beliefs and harmful practices and join the nation in celebrating a rebirth of freedom.

Answers for Hard-To-Answer Questions

When faced with really tough questions, and especially questions of a critical nature, honesty is always the best policy.

"I don't know." is a perfectly acceptable answer.  This particular response is, of course, of great importance when you really do not know much about the topic within the question.  I consider ambiguity to be a sound response to queries for information, but on those rare occasions when people seek my opinion, I typically reserve the right to ask questions of my own.

"Why do you want to know?"  This will allow me, provided my interrogator is being honest them self, to structure my response in an appropriate manner.  If the opinion needs to have any bearing in fact whatsoever, then I need to impart actual knowledge into my response - which may lead me right back to my original choice of words.  If the opinion is of no great import, and the conversation is light and the context is loose, then I might not worry too much about fact and allow myself to divulge in a degree of bullshit.  If my questioner is clearly seeking to offend me, or they themselves are worthy of offense, then I will consider which opinion to be most likely to yield the greatest shock - or opposition to their own position on the topic.

But opinion questions I find have little merit, except in those situations where the discussion is more about building rapport with another human being, and I really like to talk about bigger ideas, bolder questions, and more challenging data than small-talk typically leaves room for.  Such times do not lend themselves easily to flights of fantasy, and the questions (and the answers, more importantly) may be very challenging.  In short, I do not really expect to come up with any world-changing discoveries on my own, or even in a single conversation.  Complex problems usually require quite a lot of thought.  It is not a simple matter of deciding which pieces to move on the chessboard, because life is not a game, and questions and answers have real implications for real people in a real world.

Problems will not sort themselves out if left alone.  Instead, they will probably compound into complex problems.  We must consider and apply answers, and we must be prepared to reverse our course of action and try a new approach if we discover one method is causing more harm than the trouble it was meant to sort out.  I hope I can find the right kind of people to help find the right kind of answers.

JWilFrick2014