If the government fails to enforce one law either by design or by negligence does that not in essence negate all laws?
I’m sure that there are people who believe exactly that and that they are not so very wrong. For when the government fails to enforce even one law that is on the books the net result is an increase in chaos. Now I’m a firm believer that the fewer laws there are the better off we all are, after all simple laws are easier to understand and harder for sneaky lawyers to hide in as if they were a thicket where they can wait for the unwary passerby.
So why do you suppose the Obama administration is selectively not enforcing our immigration laws when we know that people with Farsi tattoos have been captured entering the nation from Mexico?
© 2010 Vic Jones
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Interview with a Zebra
“Hey, what are you running from?”
“I thought I saw a lion.”
“Why would that make you run?”
“Don’t you know anything?”
“Well I’m not from around here so no I don’t know much about what is going on here. So why are you running if you thought you saw a lion?”
“If I don’t run from lions they will eat me!”
“Why don’t you stand and fight them?”
“Do I look like I could fight with something that is nearly the same size as me and has sharp teeth and claws? And that is not the worst, there are almost always several lions when you see or smell one!”
“Still it seems you should maybe negotiate with them.”
“If I don’t run I’m lunch!”
“Well you certainly do run fast…”
“I just wish lions didn’t chase us. I gotta go!”
© 2010 Vic Jones
“I thought I saw a lion.”
“Why would that make you run?”
“Don’t you know anything?”
“Well I’m not from around here so no I don’t know much about what is going on here. So why are you running if you thought you saw a lion?”
“If I don’t run from lions they will eat me!”
“Why don’t you stand and fight them?”
“Do I look like I could fight with something that is nearly the same size as me and has sharp teeth and claws? And that is not the worst, there are almost always several lions when you see or smell one!”
“Still it seems you should maybe negotiate with them.”
“If I don’t run I’m lunch!”
“Well you certainly do run fast…”
“I just wish lions didn’t chase us. I gotta go!”
© 2010 Vic Jones
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Summer
Summer
Oh the sun is beating on my head,
’Til I think I’m mostly dead!
The temperature is 110 in the shade,
And brother, there ain’t no shade!
Not in Redding any way,
Ok there is,
But I was walking across a parking lot,
When it struck me,
That living here in the summer,
Is quite a challenge!
© 2010 Vic Jones
Oh the sun is beating on my head,
’Til I think I’m mostly dead!
The temperature is 110 in the shade,
And brother, there ain’t no shade!
Not in Redding any way,
Ok there is,
But I was walking across a parking lot,
When it struck me,
That living here in the summer,
Is quite a challenge!
© 2010 Vic Jones
Monday, July 19, 2010
California
An experimental poem.
California
The land of fruits and nuts,
As one wag put it,
Sometimes I think,
That everyone imagines,
That California is,
Just the city of lost angels…
Or San Francisco…
By the ocean,
Where the stars of movies play,
Or where the people who never grew up in 1960 still live,
But California is more than that,
It is the place I call home,
A small town,
Lost in the roar of all the other bigger places,
And so not noticed much,
But sometimes I like it that way!
© 2010 Vic Jones
California
The land of fruits and nuts,
As one wag put it,
Sometimes I think,
That everyone imagines,
That California is,
Just the city of lost angels…
Or San Francisco…
By the ocean,
Where the stars of movies play,
Or where the people who never grew up in 1960 still live,
But California is more than that,
It is the place I call home,
A small town,
Lost in the roar of all the other bigger places,
And so not noticed much,
But sometimes I like it that way!
© 2010 Vic Jones
Saturday, July 17, 2010
On government
Government is necessary; therefore taxes are necessary. Some people may ask why government is necessary but if you ask that you have never had someone cut your bicycle loose from where you locked it!
Now since it is obvious that government is necessary the question is: How much government and how much should that government cost?
I’m of the firm opinion that government should be as small as possible and cost the least amount possible and still maintain order. Indeed it may well be that the larger the government gets the more it is apt to foster chaos in order to enlarge itself.
© 2010 Vic Jones
Now since it is obvious that government is necessary the question is: How much government and how much should that government cost?
I’m of the firm opinion that government should be as small as possible and cost the least amount possible and still maintain order. Indeed it may well be that the larger the government gets the more it is apt to foster chaos in order to enlarge itself.
© 2010 Vic Jones
Friday, July 16, 2010
What happened to me
Author nation www.authornation.com/ a site run by infinity www.infinitypublishing.com/ (a vanity press) the website where I have blogged the longest and most consistently for most of the last three years is back up and running. I am not going to post as often here as I did while they were down even though this site has the potential to make me money even if I never finish the proverbial novel that like all fictioneers I am writing. Still I have a limited amount of time and chose for reasons that I can’t define to stick with Author nation. Perhaps the best reason I can give is that it is a social networking site and while I think it is possible to do social networking through a blog I believe that my social networking has actually driven traffic here.
Therefore it behooves me to expend some effort there every day and attempt to get something more substantial up here on a weekly basis. I can I think though see a time when this blog will be the place where I spend my greatest effort.
© 2010 Vic Jones
Therefore it behooves me to expend some effort there every day and attempt to get something more substantial up here on a weekly basis. I can I think though see a time when this blog will be the place where I spend my greatest effort.
© 2010 Vic Jones
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Daily Question 12
What is the weakness of telling the truth? One weakness of telling the truth is that it is the truth, not a lie. And because people tend to lie quite freely they disbelieve the truth yet believe lies! Because people who lie don’t care whether or not they tell the truth they can lie about you.
All this may make it seem that I’m advocating becoming a liar but what I really want to learn to do is be as harmless as a dove and as subtle as a serpent as the bible recommends. Why would the bible make a recommendation that we become as subtle as a serpent (often seen as an avatar for evil)?
© 2010 Vic Jones
All this may make it seem that I’m advocating becoming a liar but what I really want to learn to do is be as harmless as a dove and as subtle as a serpent as the bible recommends. Why would the bible make a recommendation that we become as subtle as a serpent (often seen as an avatar for evil)?
© 2010 Vic Jones
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Daily Question 11
What do we worship? Why does it matter what we worship? A simple answer to this is that you worship what you value. Take an inventory of how you spend your life (rather your time) certainly you must spend a certain amount of your time on winning the means of your survival, but if you spend so much time on work that there is no time left to do anything else then are you not worshiping money?
Next there is youth (but not childhood) do we deny that we will get older by every means possible? Do you not visit your aged parents or aunts and uncles? Do you know anyone more than thirty years older than you (if you’re not over seventy)? Why have we not continued to honor the old man or woman whose grey hair tells us that he or she has experienced life and survived it?
© 2010 Vic Jones
Next there is youth (but not childhood) do we deny that we will get older by every means possible? Do you not visit your aged parents or aunts and uncles? Do you know anyone more than thirty years older than you (if you’re not over seventy)? Why have we not continued to honor the old man or woman whose grey hair tells us that he or she has experienced life and survived it?
© 2010 Vic Jones
Monday, July 12, 2010
Daily Question 10
Is the constant bombardment of crises (even the apparent inability to govern) that we see emanating from the Whitehouse intentional? Maybe a better question to ask is this: Who is Saul Alinsky, and what is he to Barak Obama? When you can find the answer to that question then you will have a better idea of how to view the news that is presented by the Whitehouse.
Who did Saul Alinsky dedicate his last book to and what does it bode for us? What can we do about this besides ask one another questions? Or are questions the most effective way of dealing with deception?
© 2010 Vic Jones
Who did Saul Alinsky dedicate his last book to and what does it bode for us? What can we do about this besides ask one another questions? Or are questions the most effective way of dealing with deception?
© 2010 Vic Jones
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Daily Question 9
If you intend to do good but the results of your action is the increase of human suffering (or evil) then can you not see that you have done evil?
The only time that you (or I) can be certain that we have done good is when the results of our actions matches the intention of our hearts. In fact the disconnect between our intentions and the result of our action is something we must always examine. If the end result of our action does not match our intention then when will we become honest and change our actions until the results we desire are met?
© 2010 Vic Jones
The only time that you (or I) can be certain that we have done good is when the results of our actions matches the intention of our hearts. In fact the disconnect between our intentions and the result of our action is something we must always examine. If the end result of our action does not match our intention then when will we become honest and change our actions until the results we desire are met?
© 2010 Vic Jones
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Daily Question 8
What sets a successful person apart from an unsuccessful person? Is it money? That seems to be one measure of success but is it a true measure of success? Perhaps a better measure of success would be whether or not a person could maintain relationships with other people.
Certainly in my opinion people are more important than things, yet we must have the necessities of life and in order to get them we must have money which means that for the most part we must spend our time earning money. Therefore it is easy to come to the conclusion that having more money or the ability to earn more money than other people is a measure of success. After all the only question that defines success in the end is: do you have what you need to survive?
© 2010 Vic Jones
Certainly in my opinion people are more important than things, yet we must have the necessities of life and in order to get them we must have money which means that for the most part we must spend our time earning money. Therefore it is easy to come to the conclusion that having more money or the ability to earn more money than other people is a measure of success. After all the only question that defines success in the end is: do you have what you need to survive?
© 2010 Vic Jones
Friday, July 09, 2010
Daily Question 7
Is a lottery fair or unfair? As I view a state or national lottery as a voluntary tax on people who are either stupid or bad at math I tend to think that a lottery is very fair. It also has the justice (if you want to call it that) of being blind, everyone who buys a chance in the lottery has an equal chance of winning. Indeed even buying multiple chances doesn’t really enhance the odds of winning in your favor. Yet as with all of life the moment the numbers fall there is a single winner (Unless more than one person chose the winning numbers to wager on) and all other players are losers. So then if a lottery is an example of fairness that results in unequal outcomes how come some people still insist that for life to be fair we ought to have equal outcomes?
© 2010 Vic Jones
© 2010 Vic Jones
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Daily Question 6
Do you want the world to become a better fairer place? Then why do you accept that some people don’t have to follow the rules?
When we are speaking of fairness among people then the first issue seems to me to be that everyone has to follow the same set of rules. Of course that does leave the question of who will enforce the rules. And how do we be sure that the person or group enforcing the rules doesn’t favor one person, or group over another?
Fairness is difficult because no matter how hard we try to achieve it we cannot be perfectly fair. But if we wait for perfection or try to achieve perfection by destroying the current system that will certainly result in much more unfairness.
© 2010 Vic Jones
When we are speaking of fairness among people then the first issue seems to me to be that everyone has to follow the same set of rules. Of course that does leave the question of who will enforce the rules. And how do we be sure that the person or group enforcing the rules doesn’t favor one person, or group over another?
Fairness is difficult because no matter how hard we try to achieve it we cannot be perfectly fair. But if we wait for perfection or try to achieve perfection by destroying the current system that will certainly result in much more unfairness.
© 2010 Vic Jones
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Question 5
What is the purpose of keeping and studying history?
I hate to answer this question but I shall give my view of the purpose of keeping a history. The first reason that a history is kept is to know who is related to whom. But there is a great deal more that can and is passed down in history. If you know history you can for example recognize a tyrant when he emerges. It is always easier to keep a tyrant from gaining power than to depose him after he has gained power.
There is also the fact that as craftsmen keep history they can more easily pass their techniques to their children or apprentices. So why don’t we pay more attention to history? Could it be because those who would be tyrants have set out to make us believe that the study of history is unimportant?
© 2010 Vic Jones
I hate to answer this question but I shall give my view of the purpose of keeping a history. The first reason that a history is kept is to know who is related to whom. But there is a great deal more that can and is passed down in history. If you know history you can for example recognize a tyrant when he emerges. It is always easier to keep a tyrant from gaining power than to depose him after he has gained power.
There is also the fact that as craftsmen keep history they can more easily pass their techniques to their children or apprentices. So why don’t we pay more attention to history? Could it be because those who would be tyrants have set out to make us believe that the study of history is unimportant?
© 2010 Vic Jones
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Question 4
Is the praise (almost, indeed truly worship) that is given to actors and some politicians unhealthy?
Of course we can see that it is unhealthy after all if the divorce rate is 50% in the populace at large the divorce rate in Hollywood is nearly 100% and could be said to actually be higher than that if you count the number of actors and actresses who seem to have a spouse a month or more.
A greater question though is how negative is it to the people who are giving the worship?
There the effects are a bit more subtle: Yet is there any doubt that the things that those we hold in high esteem do influence us? Of course not!
© 2010 Vic Jones
Of course we can see that it is unhealthy after all if the divorce rate is 50% in the populace at large the divorce rate in Hollywood is nearly 100% and could be said to actually be higher than that if you count the number of actors and actresses who seem to have a spouse a month or more.
A greater question though is how negative is it to the people who are giving the worship?
There the effects are a bit more subtle: Yet is there any doubt that the things that those we hold in high esteem do influence us? Of course not!
© 2010 Vic Jones
Monday, July 05, 2010
Question 3
If the world is unfair, and I think it is, what can I do about it?
I know that the application of force to coerce ‘fairness’ results in more unfairness if that is possible. So what can I personally do about the unfairness of the world? Not much after all I am a small person. Yet there is one thing I can do that will help. I will treat others as fairly as I know how. I will not cheat; indeed I will make sure that even when someone makes a mistake in my favor that I not allow it to stand.
The question for the rest of the world is this: what are you going to do to make the world a more fair place?
© 2010 Vic Jones
I know that the application of force to coerce ‘fairness’ results in more unfairness if that is possible. So what can I personally do about the unfairness of the world? Not much after all I am a small person. Yet there is one thing I can do that will help. I will treat others as fairly as I know how. I will not cheat; indeed I will make sure that even when someone makes a mistake in my favor that I not allow it to stand.
The question for the rest of the world is this: what are you going to do to make the world a more fair place?
© 2010 Vic Jones
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Question 2
Why is it I wonder that many people consider the truth to be offensive? There are gentle ways and not so gentle ways to tell the truth, this I know but in the end if we are not willing to tell and hear the truth what does it say about us? That we prefer lies? Are not lies the currency of tyrants?
I’m committing myself to asking questions that may be uncomfortable in order to learn the truth and then to the defense of the truth since it seems to me that when lies abound from the highest places in the world to the lowest places in the world it is high time that people stood and said this is the truth and I will not be moved from telling it even at the cost of my life.
© 2010 Vic Jones
I’m committing myself to asking questions that may be uncomfortable in order to learn the truth and then to the defense of the truth since it seems to me that when lies abound from the highest places in the world to the lowest places in the world it is high time that people stood and said this is the truth and I will not be moved from telling it even at the cost of my life.
© 2010 Vic Jones
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Today's questions
In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Today’s question is this: are we living in a time of universal deceit? And if we are living in a time of universal deceit what can we as individuals do about it?
Perhaps the single most transformative thing we can do is concentrate on telling as much of the truth as possible. But let us remember that at any time to be a revolutionary for the truth carries extreme consequences. Are we willing to face those consequences?
© 2010 Vic Jones
Today’s question is this: are we living in a time of universal deceit? And if we are living in a time of universal deceit what can we as individuals do about it?
Perhaps the single most transformative thing we can do is concentrate on telling as much of the truth as possible. But let us remember that at any time to be a revolutionary for the truth carries extreme consequences. Are we willing to face those consequences?
© 2010 Vic Jones
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