Lesson 31 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

Government is a necessary evil; therefore it behooves men who wish to be free to make sure that government stays as small and as weak as possible. T. Jefferson
I’m not sure if this is an actual quote or a paraphrase of Thomas Jefferson, but I am sure that it correctly reflects his sentiments with regard to government. Government is necessary to maintain civil order but the larger the government gets the less responsive it is to the needs of the people.

Indeed for a government to be ‘good’ it must be small, transparent, and essentially dependent on the people in order to carry out its legitimate functions of keeping the peace and guarding the borders.

I’m also fairly certain that all of the founding fathers of the USA would be aghast at giant corporations like GM, Google, GE, et al.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Lesson 30 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. -- Lord Acton.

I’ve been trying to come up with something to add to this and all I can think to say is that it means that the government is no more trust worthy than is Reynolds Tobacco, or Google, or Microsoft for that matter. Each of these organizations has worked to acquire money which translates into power. What is especially worry some though is when a large corporation like Walmart starts cooperating with the government…

© 2011 Vic Jones.

Author Interview

Vic Jones, the author of The Wordwright’s blog at Author Nation http://www.authornation.com/Thewordwright/    and Aethernotes_polyblog was interviewed by Lorelei Bell for http://loreleismuse-lorelei.blogspot.com/ about his life as an author and his upcoming book Castlebound.

The Viper

The Viper


A foolish young miss,

Nurtured a venomous viper,

At her breast,

When one day it did bite,

She exclaimed before she expired,

Why have you treated me so,

Did I not tenderly nourish you,

And protect you,

Indeed did I not hide you in my bosom,

All that is true said the viper,

But to my nature I too must be true,

And away he did slither,

To entice another foolish miss or mister!

© 2011 Vic Jones

Lesson 29 from: The Hard Knocks School of Life

The good man knows that all men are capable of evil and guards himself against evil in his thinking. The evil man doesn’t believe in evil and therefore lays himself open to commit all sorts of evil.

Who have been the monsters of the last century? Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, et al; I’m sure most people would agree on these men. What is the common thread that connects them all?

Is it not that they were all convinced that they were morally superior to all other people. Or that they rejected current common morality and definitions of evil?

All I know is this if I hear that a person believes he can define morality or evil without an outside guide I fear their rise to power.

© 2011 Vic Jones

What is happening

I said some time ago that I would post my poetry here but I am finding that very difficult to do since some of it is formatted in ways that this particular site seems to not support.

However if one of you who reads this can give me some clues to what I've done wrong to cause this site to remove the formatting from items I paste to it I would be greatly obliged.
Vic
1-18-2011

Lesson 28 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

There is a difference between expecting to make a profit on your product or labor and being greedy.
I would define being greedy as trying to keep anyone else from entering into competition with you.

It seems to me that many people who are complaining about others making undue profits are those who have inherited their wealth or who have been taught that money rather than greed is at the root of evil.

No one can or should try to define what is an appropriate profit or income. That type of behavior is what leads to tyranny.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Lesson 27 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

In order to tell a believable lie the first thing you have to do is convince yourself that the lie is true.
Lying to ourselves is one of the worst habits that humanity has. It is this propensity that enables truly huge lies to be believed. The fact that we accept small lies (even demand them at times) leads us to be vulnerable to big lies.

This is the principle that Josef Goebbels recognized when he said that if you tell a lie often enough and loud enough (I’m paraphrasing) that people will eventually believe it.

The question I think we ought to ask today is this: What sorts of loud lies are we believing because we refuse to believe that someone would be so bold as to say such things if they weren’t true?

© 2011 Vic Jones

Lesson 26 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

If good people don’t fight for what is right and good, evil people win!

What more needs to be said about this issue?

I suppose a great deal since there are some people (I think they are evil…) who say that you cannot really know what is right or good. Therefore it behooves us to consider what our definition of right and good is. When you are certain you know what is good then do not let others change your mind. When you do something look at the result, if other people are actually helped or improved by it there is a good probability that you are doing good. Conversely if people are being harmed and not improving because of what you are doing then you are doing wrong and to my mind possibly doing evil.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Lesson 25 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

If someone says he wants to punish the rich because they are greedy you should ask what that person has to gain in the transaction they propose. You also should ask yourself if the person proposing to punish the rich is actually greedy…
People who are earning high incomes are called rich by our current government yet they may or may not have actually accumulated much wealth. Conversely many people who have much wealth (either inherited or accumulated) often have low incomes (or at least low earned incomes) because they have most of their assets stored in government preferred investments whether they be municipal bonds or T-bills or some project the government wants accomplished.

High income earners are the achievers of society and punishing (or taxing them) is like making fun of nerds in school.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Over committed

I'm doing my best to maintian two blogs and write three books. Well actually I have two underway now (not counting any stalled projects) and one in the first edit stage of the game.

So as I haven't been posting much here I imagine you all know which project is sucking hind teat the most.

With that said I do hope to be able to post at least once a week to this blog.

Vic