stop voting, start acting

Would you play the lottery just to win money you already own?

How would you like to live under a dictatorship? Sounds awful! I hate the idea of being forced to conform to someone else's ill-conceived morals. Yuck.

Well, what if you got to be the dictator? You could run the whole society however you like! Then would you live in a dictatorship?

When I was a child, I'd have said yes. I thought humanity was spiraling out of control. I thought they needed my firm guidance. Now I say that's bullshit.

I would not rule those who do not agree to be ruled. That is not my right. Nor is it anyone else's.

an alternative to dictatorship

Let's make things more fair. Imagine we split the dictatorial power. We'll give equal power to every citizen over the age of eighteen. Unfortunately, it might be time-consuming for everyone to decide what everyone else in the nation can and cannot do. Can we streamline this system?

What if you could only wield the dictatorial power if you got a majority of the other citizens to bestow it on you? Hell, let's make it even more complicated. We'll elect lots of people and give them different slices of the dictator pie. We'll give one group the dictator's power to create laws. Another group will have the dictator's power to control the military and police force. And we'll give the dictator's power of interpreting laws to yet a third group.

Does any of this sound familiar?

What we've cobbled together is nothing more than a slow-acting, internally conflicted, irrational dictator. It doesn't matter how many people wield the power. Even if you give the general populace a tiny slice of power, a vote, they're still subjects. They're still forced to obey their addle-minded dictator.

Why do you keep doing this to yourself, America? The powers of the government are just a throwback to the age of monarchy. Everyone used to think you needed a king to run a society. Now we know better. But most people still think you need a government, a thousand-faced monarch, to run a society.

A government is just people. There's no service they can provide that can't instead be provided by people without dictatorial power.

You're just putting your freedom on the line for an outdated tradition. In the best case, democracy is dictatorship under the majority. In the real case, it's dictatorship under the dollar.

Stop playing Russian Roulette with your freedom. Voting only reinforces the false belief that we can control our destinies by putting them in the hands of politicians. If you want to control your destiny, don't just hand it over to someone else.

Here's something that won't surprise you: I never signed the Constitution. That is, I never agreed to it. I never handed over my human rights. Any action against me by the United States' government is a crime against human liberty. Whether it's taxation, imprisonment, or invasion of privacy, without my consent, it's criminal.

Stop being an inactivist! Stop voting and do something that matters with the other 1460 days every four years. Don't ask a politician to live your life for you!

how about that novel you've been working on?

Coming this November: Let the creative juice flow with some wild authorial action!

Have a great idea for a book? How about a bad one? Well, would you at least like to have one?

If you want to develop the writing habit, have I got the jump-start for you! Come join the National Novel-Writing Month this November. The goal is to write fifty-thousand (50 000 (50k)) words of fiction in thirty days. Nobody cares if you churn out a steaming pile by the end of the month. As long as it's 50k or more, you win! Quantity over quality, just write, write, write!

I've had one hell of a plot in mind for several years, but without any benchmarks, I was turning out a piddling page count each year. And thanks to my own hyper-criticism, I ended up trashing every bit of it. Since NaNoWriMo has given me a goal and pushed criticism from my mind, it's the perfect tool to focus me on my fiction-writing habit.

May the prose be with you.

free speech and offense

Is regulation the best response to offensive speech? No. Well-planned counter-argument is.

One of the few mainstream notions to which I subscribe: I hate hate. Hate speech sickens me. It's disgusting, abhorrent filth that I wish never to hear spewed forth again.

But I will defend to the death your right to say it.

My reason is simple. It is not my right, nor anyone else's, to decide which ideas are worthy of the monicker, "Ultimate Truth."

the trouble with Ultimate Truth

People will lie to you. Your own eyes, ears, and brain will mislead you. And in pursuit of Ultimate Truth, you will learn that truth is neither grand nor absolute. As Ben Kenobi once said, "many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." Truth is impure. Truth is unstable. But best of all, truth is free. Logic can only tell us which truths may stand together. Reason can only tell us which truths may fulfill our goals. But nothing in logic or reason can tell us which truths to start with.

Nothing in logic or reason can give us an iota of Ultimate Truth.

No one has privileged knowledge. No one's knowledge is better than everyone else's. Maybe there's some knowledge that works well for everybody, but I haven't published it yet.

As much as this precludes silencing others, it does not preclude speaking louder still. I drool over the concept of counter-speech. When you hear something you hate, say so! Honesty feels great! Counter haters' free speech with free speech of your own. Anonymously if you have to. Counter-speech is the almighty god of wiser discourse. What more can I say?

Fight speech with speech, fire with fire, and never, ever escalate!

Non-violence must never be punished with violence.

That means never arresting, hitting, slapping, pinching, or biting people because of what they say. Am I wrong? Let me know it in the comments!