Jordan Peterson's 12 rules referred to in David's post

1. Stand up straight with your shoulders back
2. Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping
3. Make friends with people who want the best for you
4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today
5. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
6. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world
7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)
8. Tell the truth – or, at least, don't lie
9. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't
10. Be precise in your speech
11. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding
12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street

Can I live it? An explaination to part 1.

I have tried to look through life with the beliefs and convictions I have with a simple question for myself:

Can I live it?

My simple thought on this is, if you can't live what you believe, then what you believe is crap.
What good is my belief if I can't live my life not only in it, but through it?
I can make political decisions that I think may be better for people to live by, but that political decision could end up literally killing someone, through state means.
Can I live that? Should I be able to live that, and have a clear conscience? Does my conscience over ride another humans conscience?

It's easy to make decisions and look at them in the now, or the "Seen", but what if I refine my thoughts to the "Unseen", which forces me to examine myself, before I examine my neighbor?
In a way, taking the log from my eye before I pluck out the speck in yours.

"Be the change you want to see" is the motto, but maybe what we  really need is to be the change we want to BE. And if we are honest, to live what we believe, it's the change we HAVE to be.

As a follower of The Way, can I hate my enemy, and claim to love all men? Can I live that, and live in love and in Truth?

No, I am deceiving myself, and in deceiving myself, I deceive others. How can we live in a harmony of deceit? Even markets to succeed, to be a free market, both in enterprise and ideas, we must live in truth.

My challenge, for myself, is to live what I believe. In my thoughts, in my aspirations, in how I want the world to be.

Am I just a clanging gong?

If I can't live it, I certainly cannot expect, and even less so demand, that the world listen.
 

Jordan Peterson's Biblical Sacrifice and Hans Hoppe's Time Preference: Part 2 - A bargain with the future

Cain and Abel are born into the world of time. Their parents had already been thrown from the timeless paradise of The Garden. As "The first real humans" (the first humans BORN into the world), they develop their understanding of the future beyond that of their parents'.

Peterson describes Cain and Abel's sacrifice as "making a bargain with the future." This builds on the idea of time itself, which Adam discovered when God told him he would now have to work. The only reason to work, to defer enjoyment now, is because you know you have responsibilities later. 'Now' and 'later' must be understood for the concept of work to exist. Hence the fall into time and the burden of work happening in the same moment.

The 'bargain' is a bigger discovery than time itself. It is the idea that the future isn't fixed. That it is negotiable. That it is changeable. You can bargain with it. It is not a rigid trap, it is just another dimension of experience which, when understood, offers tremendous opportunity. This is the basis of agriculture, of civilization, and of saving (money among other things).

Hoppe and Peterson's ideas intermingle here as well. Hoppe uses the phrase "in the long run" as description of bargaining with the future.

Those who realize that the future is just as real as the present can trade with it. They can trade with the future version of themselves by saving. This is low time preference. It is in fact just a simple trade between two parties - present you and future you.

An interesting thing about "the long run" or a "bargain with the future"

is that it only works out in a society that is based on honesty and trust. This trust begins within the individual. It begins with you. If the present and future versions of yourself aren't aligned in values, your present or future self is likely to deceive the other. You are likely to scam yourself over time and become impoverished instead of enriched. This is what dishonest financial institutions facilitate. They allow people to fool themselves into thinking that they can become rich without sacrifice, without work. And they end up collapsing and consuming wealth over time, just as dishonest trades in the present do.

The concepts of saving, of the future, and of time preference are the same. They are all expressions of the concept of trade in the present moment between two parties. Are both parties honest? Do both expect to benefit from the trade? Do both parties understand and intend to fulfil their obligation to the other? Are you living a life that will be good for your future-self? Will your future-self honor the commitments of your present self? Or are you trying to deceive yourself across time? To enrich your present self at the expense of your future-self.

Remember Rule 2 of Peterson's 12 rules for life: Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping. Be honest with your present and future self. Do not pit them against each other or both will lose.

-David Giessel

Jordan Peterson's Biblical Sacrifice and Hans Hoppe's Time Preference: Part 1 - That which you value most

Jordan Peterson draws immense meaning out of the short story of Cain and
Abel in Genesis. One of the main concepts in this story is the idea of
sacrificing that which you value most, embodied by Abel's sacrifice of
his best animals.  Cain, on the other hand, sacrifices a pile of vegetables.

While both brothers offer sacrifices, God only finds favor with Abel's
sacrifice. It is a bigger (actual?) sacrifice, and it is sincere. Abel
is "all in" when it comes to foregoing present enjoyment for future (or
spiritual) enjoyment. Cain, on the other hand, isn't offering his best,
so can he be said to be truly sacrificing anything?

What struck me the first time I heard Peterson articulate the
evolutionary significance of humans learning to practice sacrifice (stay
tuned for Part 2) is that it is exactly Hans Hoppe's description of Time
Preference.

Hoppe notes that the basis of savings (and all of civilization) is the
willingness to sacrifice present enjoyment for future enjoyment. Even
better, in a honest system, this sacrifice results in MORE future
enjoyment than what is sacrificed in the present. Exactly as the story
of Cain and Abel describes.

Peterson could shorten his description of "sacrificing that which you
value most" by using Hoppe's simpler phrase of "the present moment" or
"present enjoyment". Perhaps the phrase "present pleasure" would be even
stronger.

Cain wasn't really sacrificing enjoyment by burning some plants, but
Abel was burning a delicious fatted calf that I'm sure was making he and
his brother's mouths water. Cain was sacrificing the present SUFFERING
of choking down plants, but Abel was sacrificing the present ENJOYMENT
of marbled steak.

There can only be one type of sacrifice - sacrifice of what you value
MOST, right NOW. Both parts are necessary or it isn't sacrifice. When
you have plenty of money, saving doesn't feel like a sacrifice, and it
isn't. You reap a reward measured in small percentages. But the reward
you get from taking the first step in saving the FIRST dollar, the act
of forming the habit, is the ENTIRE VALUE of the savings, not just the
interest.

-David Giessel

A study on life. Format addition coming to Patriots Lament

My good friend, the brilliant David Giessel, has proposed a series of studies for us to do here, and I think it’s a great idea.
So we will be posting a couple articles a week, focusing on different subjects, in a series format.
We hope to achieve some actionable thoughts on actual living.
Feel free to comment, and let’s keep moving forward advancing Freedom.

The topics will be these, for now:

Biblical sacrifice and Time preference

Part 1 - That which you value most

Part 2 - A bargain with the future
Part 3 - God's Blessing

Can I Live It? (series by JB)
Part 1 - Psycho Joe isn't Livable
Part 2 - Romans 13

Free Will series
Immigration series

Which Libyan "model" is Bolton talking about?

John Bolton, has declared that he thinks North Korea should follow the Libyan model for De-nuclearization, but this leaves us to wonder what part of the model he is talking about?
Does he mean strictly de-weaponizing, or does he refer to the attack on Libya following Libya's disarming by the French, British, and Americans?
If I was Kim Sung Un, leader of North Korea, I would have to really take these things into consideration, before I gave up any of my weapons. Qaddafi bowed to the pressure of the United States to end his nuclear program, and he was rewarded with being brutally murdered, and his country has been in chaos ever since.
Was Qaddafi a tyrant? Yep.
But do we think that the North Korean leadership didn't watch that whole episode in Libya and learn a few lesson on U.S. negotiations?
Surely they are watching the goings on in Iran, with the President of the U.S. threatening weekly, if not more, to tear up the agreement the U.S. signed with Iran. Even with several key allies of the U.S. wanting the agreement to hold.
The U.S., along with its vassal states, the UK and France, attacked Syria just a few weeks ago, but it was muted by the fact that the Russians had defense systems in place to keep the U.S. and it's allies in check.

I am of course hopeful with the process that is happening in Kora right now, and to have 25 million slaves be freed is an amazing thought, especially if this can happen without the shedding the blood of millions of lives. Let's hope and pray that cooler heads will prevail, and that the Korean war can finally end.

Target Liberty: How NEOCONS plan to derail Korean peace

Ron Paul Liberty Report: Will Bolton kill Korean Peace deal?

Both of these articles have good video referring to these points, and of course, you should watch the Ron Paul Liberty report daily.

   

North and South Korea agree to formulate peace plan

This could be the greatest news and event in current history, if it follows through.

The North seems to want to reconcile, and the South has the leader to buck the U.S. to go through with it.
Let’s hope the U.S. doesn’t figure out a way to derail it.

After almost 70 years, the Korean war could come to an end.

And some 20 million + people may have a chance to live a life with some sort of peace, and hopefully, some prosperity. It won’t happen over night , but the fact that it’s this far along, when under a year ago I thought there would be a recurrence of fighting, I have to say there is great hope.

North and South Korean peace?

Seriously

Paul Craig Roberts “ We are in the last days before all hell breaks loose”.

Last days of Pompey?  I was just there last week and I saw the future, not the past. To anyone watching the UN Security Council “debate” last night it is crystal clear we are in the last days before all hell breaks out. So, here we are at Judgment Day, and there surely will not be one soul out on Pennsylvania Avenue to raise an anti-war placard. The tattered remains of the American peace movement is rotten to the core. — Gilbert Doctorow

Gilbert Doctorow, a knowledgeable and cautious observer of Russia, who, unlike the US National Security Council, Western think thanks and universities, actually understands Russia, appears to have joined The Saker and me in our pessimistic evaluation of the likely outcome of Washington’s insane treatment of Russia, loading false accusation after false accusation on the Russian government.

Here is Doctorow’s assessment:

What follows here will surely surprise my loyal readers, who expect detailed argumentation and are not put off by 3,000 or even 5,000 words to get to a conclusion. For the same reason, detractors who complain of my long-winded style may take heart.

However that may be, I do not offer a bed-time story today but a shock to the system.

The overriding issue of war or peace, survival of mankind or its utter destruction, is now being decided in Washington and NYC without so much as a ‘by your leave’ for the rest of us. 

Will Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dunford prevail in warning Trump against any action that will bring a kinetic response from the world’s other nuclear super power. Or will ‘Mad Dog’ Secretary of Defense Matthis win out in pressing Donald Trump to test the Russians’ bluff on their red lines in Syria?  Will the US launch missiles against Damascus or against Iran, as I suggested yesterday as an alternative scenario?  Or will it support Poroshenko in launching a massive attack on Donetsk, as the Russians appear to expect judging by their just putting their entire military on war alert?

Donald Trump has announced very clearly that he will be authorizing some kind of retribution to the CIA-faked chemical attack in Douma, Eastern Goutha in the coming 24 to 48 hours. 

So, here we are at Judgment Day, and there surely will not be one soul out on Pennsylvania Avenue to raise an anti-war placard. The tattered remains of the American peace movement is rotten to the core.  Even Daniel Ellsberg has been suckered into joining the buffoon Noam Chomsky in a cake-walk demo in NYC under the sponsorship of the American Friends Service Committee, once the paragon of pacificism and today just another social action group promoting racial equality.  Uncle Joe Gerson sent out invitations to participate in that theater of the absurd last night.

The anti-war movement was a Leftist movement, and we all know where the Left is today, along with the Progressives.  In denial and Russia-bashing.

To anyone watching the UN Security Council “debate” last night it is crystal clear we are in the last days before all hell breaks out. The wall of mutual contempt between Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya and US Ambassador Nikki Haley was on full display. Nebenzya took to pieces the entire argumentation of the US side regarding Douma and the ‘chemical attack.’

He detailed the rebel caches of chemical weapons and equipment for their manufacture that Russian troops have found in recently liberated territory of Eastern Ghouta and elsewhere. He spoke about the past provocations of faked chemical attacks including the one used to justify the US cruise missile launches on the Syrian air base at Sheirat a year ago. He linked the US training and support for terrorists in fabrication of chemical arms to the faked nerve agent attack on the Skripals in the UK, which he described as a vaudeville act. He heaped scorn on Haley for her denying Russia the status of “friend,”  saying that the US has no friends, only sycophants, whereas Russia has genuine friends, and seeks nothing more in relations with the United States than civilized discourse. 

In response to this unprecedented denunciation of the USA and its policies of global hegemony, we heard from Nikki Haley the familiar story of how the UN Security Council could now either adopt a US resolution condemning the Assad regime, in effect, or  admit its total irrelevance while the US continued on its own unilateral path to resolving the Syrian question.

So, ladies and gents, open the champagne.  Last days of Pompey?  I was just there last week and I saw the future, not the past. 

When Doctorow becomes pessimistic I really get worried as he is a level-headed person.

It is difficult not be be pessimistic when we learn that the Washington Insane Asylum has sent a Carrier Strike Group accompanied by seven missile ships to join the one missile ship already offshore the Russian base in Syria. Whether any of these sittling ducks survive or are permitted to launch a single missile or the carrier to launch a single fighter is entirely up to the Russians. 

The Russians know that they can, at will within a few minutes, sink the entire US fleet, destroy every US airplane and ship in the Middle East and within range of the Middle East, completely destroy all of Israel’s military capability and wipe out the military of the two-bit punk state of Saudi Arabia. All the sitting ducks have been set up for Russia by the arrogant and stupid Americans. Just a few minutes of Russian attack and all ability to conduct war would be stripped from the Middle East. This would be a good thing.,

All Russia has to do to insure that the US has no choice but to accept instant defeat is to put Russian nuclear forces on red alert. Any resort by the idiots in Washington of a nuclear nature would mean the end of the United States and all of Western Europe along with the UK. It would mean the total end of the West for all time, an event the rest of the world would consider to be a good thing. Hopefully the US military, the last and constantly besieged source of honor in the US, understands this and would not comply with a suicidal order from an insane war cabinet.

In my opinion the Russians will not go so far and will deny themselves a decisive victory, because they do not comprehend the total evil that is concentrated in Washington and Israel. There are enough naive Atlanticist Integrationists left in the Russian government to argue that Russia must give Washington and Europe one more chance to come to their senses. One more chance is what Russia and the world cannot afford.

There is scant possibility that Washington and Israel will ever come to any sense other than hegemony. If Washington had any sense, Washington would not be sending warships to attack Syria, or Iran in order to evade the Russian prohibition on attacking Syria.

Russia cannot allow Iran to be destabilized any more than it can allow that fate for Syria. It was the Russian government’s decision not to include Iran in the prohibition, and this could prove to be another Russian mistake in its dealings with Washington.

Washington thinks that whereas the lone USS Donald Cook missile destroyer standing offshore of Syria could be suby Russia without too much of an incident resulting—Israel destroyed the USS Liberty with massive US Navy casualties without any incident resulting— for Russia to sink 9 US ships including an aircraft carrier, is more than the Russians have stomach for.

It will be about 10 days before the US ships, sitting ducks all, reach the point where they can be easily disposed of. This gives the US Joint Chiefs of Staff 10 days to overrule Trump’s insane war cabinet and put the US military’s halt to Armageddon. It would help their decision to overrule Trump’s insane war cabinet if Russia goes ahead and sinks the USS Donald Cook and shoots down every Israeli aircraft in flight even those overflying Israel. What will sober up Washington is Russia coming off the defensive and taking the initiative instead of being always reactive to Washington’s initiative.

Pray that the Christian God, not the blood-thirsty Jewish one, prevails over the Joint Chiefs’ deliberations and struggle with Trump’s insane war cabinet.

In my opinion, with Israel’s servant, John Bolton, as Trump’s trusted national security adviser, war with Russia is inevitable.

Taking Doctorow’s advice, I am opening the chapagne, by which Doctorow does not mean to celebrate but to enjoy the last moments of life.

It remains to be seen whether the conflict set in motion by Israel and its demented puppet in Washington can be avoided. As Washington is lost in its arrogance, only decisive and firm Russian slaps across Washington’s idiot face can save life on earth.

Because of the deluded and stupid Russian Atlanticist Integrationists, Russia might not be up to the task.

Tucker is pretty good here on a potential war

Can We Have A Civil Discussion About Gun Control? Absolutely Not!

By: Michael Anderson for Patriot's Lament

 

With the new calls for gun control and gun bans and gun seizures, we should ask: Is there a civil discourse that can be had over gun control? Let's answer that question here. Those who follow along without much thought of causation, erroneously believe that reducing or eliminating gun ownership will reduce violence in a society. Of course, this is disproved everywhere it is tried, including Australia. In Australia, they experienced a peak right after their gun ban and then a drop back to pre-ban levels, with a rise in homicide rates in 2017, both by gun and knife attacks. Third world populations who have been disarmed end up being genocided, such as China, Russia, Ukraine, Cambodia and Armenia. In the third world, confiscation prevents them from saving themselves or fighting back, while farmland and existing industry is stolen. 

 

In first world countries, such as the US, Australia, England and the rest of Europe, disarmament gives them a false sense of security and a greater willingness to call upon their masters for greater "protection", while unquestioningly paying higher and higher taxes for nothing. They are trained to acquiesce and accept their master's conditions and definition of freedom. In the first world, resources are devoted to propaganda to convince the population to disarm itself, because as low as their homicide rate might be, it could be even lower, if they just disarmed themselves. This conclusion is baseless, since there actually is no correlation between murder rates and gun ownership. As shown in the chart, below.

 

This can be summarized by stating that in third world countries, where economies are poor or undeveloped, power must be expressed through raw killing and theft, while, in first world countries, power is expressed by manipulative expropriation of the subject's productive capacity. In the first world country, it makes more sense to keep them alive and producing, while fooling them into thinking they are free, rather than killing off half their family and forcing them to operate purely out of debilitating fear, which would cause an economic catastrophe and destroy the tax base. It's more profitable to steal their minds, than their bodies.

 

Gun Ownership Rates compared to Homicide Rates [McKaken, 2015]

https://mises.org/wire/theres-no-correlation-between-gun-ownership-mass-shootings-and-murder-rates

 

 

Clearly murder rates have nothing to do with gun ownership, as we are led to believe by first world propaganda efforts. In fact, the correlation for gun ownership rates vs. homicide rates is less that 0.1 (no correlation). As a side note, it turns out that population density does not correlate with murder rates, either. One last point to be made is that although some like to make claims about high rates of gun deaths in the US, 63% of those cases are suicides. 

 

With all of that in mind, the argument is not even really about guns. It is about individuals being able to posses a weapon of any kind. While tyrants and the mentally handicapped in America call for the banning of guns, their counterparts in England are actually calling for a ban on kitchen knives. Their brain dead chant goes like this: "Save lives, surrender your knives". In fact it is illegal to defend one's self, at all, in London. In France, three soldiers are now being prosecuted for chasing down a purse thief, beating the hell out of him and returning the stolen purse to the owner. In another example, from the 19th century Japan, Martial Arts were discouraged and outlawed in 1871 when power was restored to the emperor and the importance of the individual gave way to the power of the state. In fact, the only reason we still have the art of Jujitsu, is because of a few brave Japanese who continued to practice and teach it in underground schools. The Americans also banned martial arts in japan, during the occupation. In every situation, governments engage in weapons bans for the purpose of subjugating the population. There is no exception. They are either turned into cowards who have lost the will and ability to defend themselves, or they are just turned into dead bodies. Any government that attempts to ban or seize your weapon is telling you that you are disposable trash as far as it is concerned.

 

A common theme among gun control advocates is the line "you don't need that type of gun to defend yourself". Such a statement embodies exactly what they are. Before any dictator publicly decided on what food or what farm or what business or what belief system a subject didn't need, they always decided upon what weapon they they didn't need, first. In fact a good definition of a tyrant is "Any entity that takes it upon himself/herself/itself to decide what others do not need and enforces that opinion". Any person who attempts to base an argument on their decision of what you don't need has already lost the argument and can be placed in the same intellectual category as Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot.

 

In studies of battles from WWII, it was discovered that firing rates of soldiers dropped 80% when a commander was not present It was only when a commanding officer was present, threatening them if they did not kill their assigned enemy, that they would carry out the bidding of the state and kill. It turns out that the human psyche is very much averse to killing or even harming others, with the exception of a small minority with strong sociopathic tendencies. But the great fallacy of the human condition is its unfortunate habit of obedience to "authority", which always presents itself in fancier and fancier dress, depending on the level of "authority". The fancy dress, and shiny things  hanging from it bypass rational thought, while also appealing to a person's primitive sense of fear (the reptilian brain, or R-complex). The truth is, most people have no desire to harm anyone else, even for personal gain, despite what the state tries to convince you of. The few who do, don't care what laws there are and will seek out whatever weapon they can to carry out the act, whether it's a gun, knife, club, hammer, rock, acid, etc. The real limiting factor to those few psychopaths who would carry out such an act is fear of death, by the person they choose to attack. This is all redundant and  should be quite obvious.

 

So, let's look into the issue a bit deeper. What is a gun? To those who do care about others- those who are not  sociopaths, it is simply a means of repelling an attack. At most, only about 4% of the population is sociopathic, and of those, only about a quarter of them (1% of society) reach the levels of psychopath and many of those are or have been in prison. We do not need to worry about the normal people. In a society that had no state and thus, no gun control, the normal people would outnumber the potential killers by 24 times, in a worst case scenario. The psychos would be weeded out pretty quickly if they didn't watch themselves. Unfortunately we have a system that claims to protect us, by housing, feeding and protecting the sociopaths, while allowing them to interact and influence the normal people who have been jailed, often for political crimes, like marijuana possession.

 

So, now let's get down to the question we originally asked. I cannot imagine that anyone would actually believe that protecting one's self or family is not the most sacred of responsibilities or "rights". Is it wrong to fight back against a rapist? What feminist would argue that? Is it wrong to fight off a kidnapper? How about a killer? The right to defend one's self is as sacred as one's own body is. It must be, because if defense of one's own mind, body or property is not important, than one's mind, body or property is not important, either. I include "mind" in this list, because the mind is severely affected by criminal acts such as robbery or rape. It leaves the victim feeling vulnerable, fearful and devoid of value. 

 

Anyone who claims that you should not have a gun and, especially, anyone who advocates "seizure" of your weapon of choice, is also stating that your right to self defense shall be dictated by them and therefore, the sanctity, value and ownership of yourself, shall be dictated by them. By interfering with your ability to defend yourself, they commit an aggressive act against you, which leaves you in a defenseless state against someone who would further harm you. Their act of attempting to remove your chosen ability to defend yourself from the few natural predators in society, classes them as the protector of the predator, and thus, a predator, themselves. 

 

Of all the inanimate possessions that you have in your home, your weapon is the most important, because it is your means of defending your most important possession of all- yourself. A gun control advocate is, therefore, no better than a rapist or a thief, and, in fact, is his friend and comrade. Any person, be it a politician, a sheriff, an activist or some dumb-ass down the street, who advocates your disarmament, in any way, is no different than the rapist or murderer, as he/she has no regard for your chosen means of defense from the rapist or murderer. Therefore, it is quite imperative that they be outed as such. It is not something that should be a "civil" political discussion. If someone discussed raping your wife, would you have a civil discussion about it, or rip them apart and let them know that if they ever come to your property with their stated intent, that you will blow their brains out? Civil discussion has no place when such a threat of personal harm is being advocated. 

 

What is the appropriate response to actual gun control and attempted seizure of weapons. I think it is quite obvious. When the colonists at Lexington and Concord shot the British troops to stop them from taking their armory, they clearly understood that the means of defense is equally as important as that which is to be defended. The colonists did not want war. They spent decades putting up with abuses from their own government, refusing to fight them, because they were not foreign invaders to the colonists. The soldiers were their misguided English brothers from across the pond. But  the colonists knew that to take their defense was to take their bodies and their minds and they had to, finally, break that bond. None of this has changed. The only appropriate response to active seizure of your weapons is precisely the same as your response to someone trying to rape your wife.