Climate Facts

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." John Adams, 2ndPresident of the United States.



What follows are facts about global-warming/climate change from scientists, or otherwise educated people, who have studied the issue. Climate change or global warming is not the working of one simple gas produced by the modern, industrialized world. The complexities of what effects our climate are myriad.

__________

Greenland has been cooling since 1940. "The Greenland ice sheet and coastal regions are not following the current global warming trends." P. Chylek, et al. 2004, "Global Warming and the Greenland Ice Sheet", Climate Change 63, 201-21. (A factual footnote from Michael Crichton's novel, State of Fear, Harper Collins, 2004.)

__________

"There are a number of causes of climatic change, and until all causes other than carbon dioxide increase are ruled out, we cannot attribute the change to carbon dioxide alone." Reid A. Bryson Ph.D., D.Sc., D.Engr. (Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography and of EnvironmentalStudies. Senior Scientist, Center for Climatic Research, The Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies [Founding Director], the University of Wisconsin, Madison.) http://www.sitewave.net/news/s49p1837.htm

"Water vapor is at least 100 times as effective as carbon dioxide, so small variations in water vapor are more important than large changes in carbon dioxide." (ibid.) (Few, if any computer models of climate change factor in water vapor!)

__________

"The oceans, by virtue of their enormous density and heat storage capacity, are the dominant influence on our climate. It is the heat budget and energy flows into and out of the ocean which largely determines what the global mean temperature of the surface atmosphere will settle to. These flows, especially evaporation, are quite capable of cancelling the slight effect of CO2. This is clearly evident in the tropics where there has been no temperature increase at all in spite of a 50% increase in CO2-equivalent greenhouse gases." John L. Daly, http://www.john-daly.com/deepsea.htm

__________

"Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2)."

"Richard Lindzen[] . . . is an atmospheric physicist and a professor of meteorology at MIT, renowned for his research in dynamic meteorology - especially atmospheric waves. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has held positions at the University of Chicago, Harvard University and MIT. Linzen frequently speaks out against the notion that significant Global Warming is caused by humans."

"As Lindzen said many years ago: 'the consensus was reached before the research had even begun.' Now, any scientist who dares to question the prevailing wisdom is marginalized and called a sceptic, when in fact they are simply being good scientists." Timothy Ball, Ph.D in Climatology, University of London, England, former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg, Canada.

__________

"Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect.

"Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

"Human activites contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate." Monte Hieb

____________

"Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying land plants.



"At 368 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished." Monte Hieb (Different article than above.)

__________



"In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s. . . . 'This trend is important because, if sustained over many decades, it could cause significant climate change.' . . . . 'Solar activity has apparently been going upward for a century or more.'" Robert Roy Britt, Science.com.

Free People or Slaves?

The true nature of liberty entails the inalienable right to make, sell, buy, own, and use property in a way that does not harm or endanger other people or their property without good cause. Good cause would be the defense of self, loved ones, innocent others, or property.

The most basic property is one's own body and mind, to which no one else, including the government, has a claim except by one's knowing and willing word or contract with another party for the use of one's body or mind. This assumes, of course, consenting adults only.

Further, inalienable rights, by their very nature, cannot be voted out of existence, otherwise they are not inalienable. No majority decision of the citizenry and especially no majority vote of any legislative body has the legitimate power to nullify, that is, violate a person's inalienable rights.

To put it another way, if an adult's behavior is done alone or with other, consenting, adults; if said behavior is non-violent, non-coercive, and non-larcenous; if said behavior does not disturb the peace or create a public nuisance, then that behavior is the inalienable right of that person. This is even more true is said behavior is done privately, so as not to be viewed by the public, and done on private property. The essence of an inalienable right is behavior that does not violate the rights of others.

It matters not if others believe that the behavior is immoral or harmful to the person who is doing it. Immorality is a religious concept and we do not have a religious government. And, in the United States, we are supposed to have both religious freedom and freedom from religion. Harm is subjective. There are many behaviors that can cause harm, even death, to the participants such as suba-diving, mountain climbing, smoking tobacco, and drinking alcoholic beverages, among others. Society accepts the fact that adults who participate in those types of behavior can and may be harmed or even die from their actions. We do not allow the government to arrest, and punish those people behaving in those ways, unless their actions harm or directly threaten to harm others or the property of others.

The alternative to the above is that we do not have the right to own property or, at the very least, we do not fully own ourselves; that we merely get privileges granted to us. That would make us slaves. If we don't have inalienable rights--the right to participate in any behavior whether potentially harmful, or whether others find it to be immoral--then who is the privilege master, the slavemaster, the one authority that will dictate what we, as adults, can and cannot do even if our actions do not violate the rights of others?

In a society that values individual liberty and styles itself as the land of the free, the government can have no more power than an individual has. The government gets its legitimate power from the people. (See the Declaration of Independence and the 10th Amendment to the U.S. constitution.)

If a citizen cannot legitimately force his or her personal moral or religious beliefs upon any other person, then the government also lacks the legitimate power to do so, even if all the legislators vote for it. If it is wrong for an individual citizen to resort to force in an attempt to make another person moral, where the person being so force has not violated the rights of others, then it is wrong for the government to do so, whether by itself or in the name of a majority of the citizens. Actually, it is more than wrong. It is criminal, in that it would be violating the rights of the person being forced to adhere to other people's personal or religious moral code.

The government of the United States (all three branches) in the attempt to impose a specific moral code upon all adult citizens regarding behavior considered by many to be immoral and wrong, but which, in and of itself, does not violate the rights of others, may and, quite often, does resort to the use of force to impress its will upon the people. I am specificially talking about consensual adult drug behavior, although other types of consensual adult behavior also apply.

All tyrannies have behaved in this manner. And a democratic government that violates the inalienable rights of some citizens by a majority vote is no less a tyranny. This nation was not set up as a pure democracy. (For example, think of two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner.) The Founding Fathers believe strongly in the principle of inalienable rights. They also knew that some people would destroy themselves if left to their own devices. Sad, certainly. Tragic, maybe. But as long as those people did not violate the rights of others, then they had an inalienable right to do what they wanted with themselves.

So, who will put a stop to the present tyranny in the United States? Who will punish the government for overreaching its legitimate constitutional powers? There are literally millions of honest, peaceful adult citizens who do not believe in nor adhere to the specific moral code that the government is trying to force upon them when it comes to what we, as adults, can do with our most personal property, our bodies and our minds.

How has it come about that once strong and independant United States citizens now depend upon the government to tell them what to do and to allow their civil servants to become their civil masters? If a person's behavior does not violate the rights of others, or if that behavior is not a direct and immediate threat to the rights of others, then that person's fellow citizens have no legitimate power or right to interfere with that person's life. More importantly, neither does the government. We must re-establish this principle of inalienable rights if we, as a nation, truly want personal liberty and a strong, free society.

Producing Workers and the Tax Pool

In my political pamphlet, "The Myth of Inalienable Rights" (http://dowehaverights.blogspot.com/) I coined a term for those people who support themselves, as well as everyone else. I call them "producing workers."

A producing worker is someone who is integral in the production of tangible goods, which is what true wealth is. You can't eat money and you can't build a house out of money nor can you wear it as clothing. Money is merely a way of keeping track of your wealth. Even if you are not fabulously wealthy, you still have wealth if you have possessions.

So who is a producing worker? A producing worker is a person with the idea for making something that other people want to possess. Or it is a person with the capital to get that idea made into a tangible object. Or it is a person who provides the labor to make the object. Or one person could fill all three positions. One person could have an idea, have the capital to buy the necessary materials, and provide the labor to make it.

The taxes that the producing workers pay support everyone else, with one minor exception. Service providing businesses such as restaurants, hotels, and airlines get paid directly by producing workers, or indirectly by people who have shared in the taxes that the producing workers have paid. Then, the service providers pay taxes on the money that came directly or indirectly from the producing workers.

Let me try and create a mental image. Imagine a large pool of water with the water representing the collected taxes from all taxable income. There is a very large inlet pipe which is coming from the producing workers. Off to one side of the large inlet pipe and before the tax pool outfall is a smaller pipe leading to the service workers and then from them an even smaller inlet pipe pouring into the tax pool.

On the other end of the pool are three siphons: federal, state, and local governments. Any money that is disbursed by these governments, whether for paying wages to government workers, farm subsidies, corporate subsidies, personal subsidies (welfare), social security, medicare, the military, road construction--anything paid for from and by these governments--comes from the taxes paid by the producing workers.

Of course, anyone getting an income from the government has to pay taxes, so there is another inlet pipe collecting that "tax water" and putting it back into the tax pool from the government side of the tax pool. However, that does not raise the level of the tax pool. It is only a small percentage of the water that was taken out previously by the governments. (And, one wonders, why government workers don't have a tax adjusted income so they don't have to pay taxes, thereby reducing the cost incurred by them filing their taxes and having their tax claims processed by more government workers.)

Also, when anyone receiving an income from the government eats in a restaurant, stays in a hotel, flies on an airplane, they are paying the service workers with the money paid in taxes by the producing workers.

When a producing worker buys anything, whether it is an automobile or a pencil, he or she is paying for it with the wealth--translated into dollars--that he or she has made by producing things that people want. When anyone receiving an income from the government buys anything, they are paying for it from the wealth created by the producing worker.

If producing workers are taxed too much it destroys incentive and, perhaps, makes some of them want to try and get in on the "free" government money. Heavy taxes also makes many of the financiers of production look for cheap labor overseas.

And, as to government largess (with other people's money), the more people receiving government money, for whatever reason, the fewer producing workers there will be to keep the tax pool at a sustainable level. If the tax pool level gets too low, the national economy will fail.

We should never forget that the whole of our economy is supported completely by the producing worker. Also, there is no such thing as a free lunch (TINSTAAFL to those who understand), regardless of what the progressives and socialists would have you believe. Fewer people on the government payroll or dole would mean more money in the pockets of those who actually support us all. That would mean more spending by those people, which would create more demand for goods, which would create more jobs and more producing workers . . . and a healthier economy.

Victimless Crime: A Contradiction in Terms

The word victim comes from the Latin word victima, which meant a person or animal that was to be killed to honor the gods. Animals aside, it is my guess that there were very few people who willingly gave themselves up to be killed in a religious ceremony.

They were victims because an outside agency--in this case, other people--caused them physical harm to the point of death. And that is a good definition of victimhood, being harmed--physically or financially--by an agency outside of one's self, whether it be by other people or by nature, and whether or not it causes one's death.

It is my contention that you, yourself, cannot be a victim of your own knowing and willing actions. You may be stupid, or ignorant, or careless, but if you harm yourself by your unforced or uncoerced actions you are not a victim.

A crime, in today's convoluted legal world, is defined as a violation of the law. But there was a time in which a crime was defined as the violation of the rights of others.

One of my favorite 19th Century authors, Lysander Spooner, in his essay Vices are not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty, stated that "[i]t is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another."

I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Spooner. How can there be a crime if there is no victim, no person who has been physically or financially harmed by some other person? Therefore, there can be no "victimless crime." Either a person has been so harmed or he or she has not. If such harm has been done then a crime has been committed.

However, a person behaving in a way that may, or may not, harm himself or herself, either phyically or financially, is not violating the rights of others and is, therefore, not committing a crime. Neither would he or she be a victim, because that person, not some outside agency, is the actor.

The biggest cause for the use of the term "victimless crime" is the use of the presently illegal drugs. The laws making it criminal to make, sell, buy, or use those substances are based solely on religious or personal moral beliefs.

I agree that an adult (not a minor) who knowingly and willingly uses one or more of the presently illegal drugs and comes to some kind of harm is not a victim. But I disagree that such drug behavior is a crime. The mere use a drug does not violate the rights of others. People who drink alcoholic beverages (alcohol being a true narcotic drug) are not arrested unless their behavior harms or threatens to harm the rights of others.

Another area where the term "victimless crime" is use is in the so-called sex industry, mainly in prostitution. If an adult women knowingly and willingly rents her body for sexual use to a knowing and willing adult, there is no victim. And, since the behavior is consensual and no rights are being violated, there is no crime.

As another 19th Century author, John Stuart Mill, stated, "[t]he only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant."

Unfortunately, society believes that the government has the legitimate power to dictate proper moral conduct and to criminalize conduct that is considered immoral by a certain percentage of the population. That flies directly in the face of the concept of inalienable rights as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Also, there doesn't seem to be a legitimate enumerated Constitutional clause allowing the government this power.

Crimes harm other people. Victims are harmed by other people. There is no such thing as a victimless crime because if there is no victim then there can be no crime. That is logical, but then, the morality laws are based on religious and personal moral beliefs which are rooted in the emotionally controlled part of our minds.

E pur si muove, and other contradictions

“As most of you have heard many times, the consensus of climate scientists believes in global warming. . . . [T]he work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Science . . . requires only one investigator who happens to be right. . . . The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.” (Michael Crichton speech before the National Press Club, January 25, 2005.)

The “consensus” of theologians, philosophers, and scientists in 1663 was that the Sun, not the Earth, moved. In that year Galileo Galilei was forced to recant his theory that the Earth moved around the Sun. (“E pur si muove!” And yet it moves, he supposedly said afterwards.)

The consensus of scientists, we are told, is that humans are causing global warming by putting too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. However, the greatest “greenhouse” gas is water vapor. It makes up 95% of the greenhouse gases. [1] Carbon dioxide, with water vapor factored into the equation, only makes up 0.28% of greenhouse gasses and mankind’s contribution to that small percentage is miniscule. [1]

Dr. Wallace Broecker, a geochemist at Columbia University, in a speech before the American Geophysical Union’s meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, in May of 1996, stated: “I can only see one element of the climate system capable of generating these fast, global changes, that is, changes in the tropical atmosphere leading to changes in the inventory of the earth's most powerful greenhouse gas-- water vapor.”

And how about the planet Neptune? Scientists know that it has been warming since the 1980’s. [2] This can’t be caused by human activity. It is caused by the Sun, the same Sun that warms the Earth—and causes water vapor to evaporate and increase the greenhouse warming trend.

No matter how “green” we go—you, me, all of humanity—we will not be able to stop or control this natural process. According to Jane E. Francis, Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Leeds, England, “[w]hat we are seeing really is just another interglacial phase within our big icehouse climate." [3] That is, it is well established that the Earth has gone through long ice ages with, relatively short (ten to twenty thousand year) warm periods over the last three million years, or so. We seem to be at the end of such a warming period. We should hope for all the warm greenhouse effect we can get, because it won’t last. The next ice age will come and the first generation of survivors will fondly remember the warm times.

Of course, there is taxpayers' money to be distributed to those scientists who scare the people the most and scientists need money to keep in business, so to speak. "Scientists who want to attract attention to themselves, who want to attract great funding to themselves, have to [find a] way to scare the public . . . and this you can achieve only by making things bigger and more dangerous than they really are." [4] (Dr. Petr Chylek, Professor of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.)

All of the above notwithstanding, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take care of the planet upon which we live. It just makes sense to not mess up where you live and to try and clean up what you have already messed up. I like clean air, clean water, and healthy wild lands as much as anyone. But we needn’t beat ourselves up about producing a minute amount of a lesser greenhouse gas—CO2—when the greatest greenhouse gas—water vapor—is beyond our control. The cycles within cycles that cause the climate on our planet to become cold, then warm, then cold again, will continue no matter what we do.


Sources:

[1] Global Warming: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html. Also see, Global Warming: A Chilling Perspective at http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html#anchor2108263 and “click” on “A Matter of Opinion”.)

[2] http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/05/08/neptune-news/

[3] Global Warming: A Chilling Perspective, above, at bottom of article under “Stopping Climate Change".

[4] Global Warming: A Chilling Perspective, above, sixth quote after “Fun Facts about Carbon Dioxide.”

Mexicans, why are they here?

I think its pretty bad that we have so many Mexicans in the good old U.S. of A. What's up with that? I mean, we took Texas, California, Arizona, and parts of Nevada, Utah, and Colorado away from them more than 150 years ago. Can't they ever get over it?

Just because many of them have family ties on both sides of the border, or that NAFTA did a lot to put subsistence farmers in Mexico out of business...and they can't get jobs down there...is no reason for them to expect to come here and wash our dishes, clean our toilets, mow our lawns, pick our fruit and vegetables, and all those other jobs that they are taking away from us hard-working Americans.

Besides, the Germans and Irish and Italians and Polish, as well as the Chinese had to come here on boats. They had to go through a controlled access point and a proper admittance procedure. They didn't have 2,000 miles of border that they could walk, swim, or drive across. We need to build a 30 foot high fence with guard towers, search lights, and a razor-wire and white gravel "killing zone" in front of it, from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico. And it shouldn't even have any gates or opening. (And while we're at it we should rename that body of water to the Gulf of America. Hell, it touches more of our shoreline than Mexico's.)

No sir, let them Mexicans get on boats like the rest of our ancestors did and come through proper controlled access ports and a proper admittance procedure. Hell, those Mexicans supposedly give a lot of money to those so-called "coyotes" to lead them across the border. Let them use that money to buy a boat ticket, like all honest, god-fearing immigrants do.

And while we're at it, what about Canada? I mean, those socialists are out to wreck our pharmaceutical industry, what with all the cheap online medicines that you can buy. And those Canadians can just come into the U.S. anytime they want. What's up with that? And they aren't nearly so harsh with their drug law sentencing and they have nearly legalized pot!

What we need is another 30 foot fence on our Northern border...from sea to shining sea. Let's get serious about making America safe from all those sneaky, cheap-working, cheap medicine selling, pot-smoking, possible terrorist foreigners. And let's get serious about keeping America American.

Ludwig von Mises on Prohibition

"Opium and morphine are certainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs. But once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual from his own foolishness, no serious objections can be raised against further encroachments. A good case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the government's benevolent providence to the protection of the individual's body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious, both for the individual and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs.

"These fears are not merely imaginary specters, terrifying secluded doctrinaires.It is a fact that no paternal government, whether ancient or modern, ever shrank from regimenting its subjects' minds, beliefs, and opinions. If one abolishes man's freedom to determine his own consumption, one takes all freedoms away. The naive advocates of government interference with consumption delude themselves when they neglect what they disdainfully call the philosophical aspect of the problem. They unwittingly support the cause of censorship, inquisition, intolerance, and the persecution of dissenters."

(Luwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, 3d. rev.ed. [Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1966], pp. 733-34) (Emphasis added.) (The original copyright date of Human Action is 1949.)

Incurious Attitudes

"It is interesting to observe that in the year 1935 the average individual’s incurious attitude towards the phenomenon of the State is precisely what his attitude was towards the phenomenon of the Church in the year, say, 1500."
Albert J. Nock

In 2008, the “incurious attitude” of the people towards the “phenomenon of the State,” if anything, is even stronger than in 1935. Few citizens question from where or from whom the government gets its legitimate power, or why the government should be allowed to control personal aspects of the lives of its citizens even when those aspects do not violate the rights of others. The average citizens merely accepts that phenomenon. That is, the power of the government is a given, just as they believed that the power of the Church in 1500 was a given.

The government passes laws (as did the Church) which it then enforces upon pain of fines, imprisonment, or, if you should resist too strongly, death (as did the Church). It would be wise to never forget that you cannot equate law and justice. Law does not always equal that which is right or just…the protection of our inalienable rights. At one time, in the United States of America, it was legal to own people. The United States Supreme Court upheld the laws that allowed slavery. Those laws were neither right nor just. They were perverse and hideous. So was the Supreme Court for upholding those laws.

Quite often the decisions of the Supreme Court are merely reflections of what either the powerful or a majority of the people, at a particular time, believes to be correct behavior and have nothing to do with absolute truths and justice. When laws violate the inalienable rights of citizens there can be no justice. Citizens do not have a duty or obligation to obey such laws. Indeed, good citizens have a duty and obligation to see that such laws are struck down and removed from the books and that those who have participated in making and upholding those laws are removed from office, as those people are perverse and direct threats to the inalienable rights of all citizens.

News Flash: The Globe is Warming!

Yes, there is hard evidence of global warming . . . and even harder evidence that it is not related to humans. Hard to believe? Not really. Read on.

On May 8, 2007, World Climate Report (“the Web’s longest-Running Climate Change Blog") filed an article about global warming . . . on the planet Neptune!

It seems that “Neptune has been getting brighter since around 1980; furthermore, infrared measurements of the planet since 1980 show that the planet has been warming steadily from 1980 to 2004.”

Total solar irradiance (the amount of light—and, therefore, energy—produced by the sun) has been going up since 1920. If there is a direct correlation between greater solar irradiance and the warming of Neptune, couldn’t the Sun’s output also be a factor in the global warming on Earth? And one other thing the article mentioned—“The news from Neptune [came] to us just weeks after an article was published showing that Mars has warmed recently as well.” (Emphasis added.)

If you are interested in reading the full article, go to: http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/05/08/neptune-news/.

Another site that might interest a serious student of the cause of global warming is The Deep Blue Sea, by John Daly, at: http://www.john-daly.com/deepsea.htm.

Crime Versus Sin: The Lesson for Today

Crimes fall into the secular realm of social behavior. Sins are purely religious in origin. However, some sins are crimes also.

Generally speaking, sins that are not crimes are behaviors that some people find to be immoral and wrong, but which do not violate the rights of others, nor do they immediately and directly threaten the rights of others. Crimes, from a purely secular point of view, are those behaviors that violate or threaten to violate the rights of others. While some crimes are also considered to be sins by the religious among us--murder, rape, child molesting, stealing, etc.--they fall squarely into the secular sphere of social responsibility since they are rights-violating behaviors.

Making rights-violating behavior unlawful is a social good in a truly free and liberty-loving society. Making sins unlawful (and we have many such sin-laws) is, in itself, criminal in nature and a social harm in a society that purports to uphold individual liberty and inalienable rights. Such sin-laws, or morality laws, violate the rights of otherwise honest, peaceful, adults. And I do stress adults here. Minors, even those close to adulthood, do not have full adult rights to the use and control of their own bodies and minds. This has been true throughout all of time from the most primitive to the most sophisticated of societies.

If you find a person's behavior to be immoral and wrong, but it does not violate or threaten to violate the rights of others, that behavior is sinful, but it is not a crime. It should be the right of that adult to so behave if we actually do have inalienable rights.

To support the morality laws that violate the rights of otherwise honest and peaceful citizens is to be part of a great criminal conspiracy that is only justified by the evil associated with a purist's notion of democracy. As Thomas Jefferson said, "[a] democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." An example of a pure democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

The Founding Fathers of this once great nation gave us a limited democratic republic. We have managed to destroy it and now have a multitude of local, state, and national laws that actually violate rights rather than protect them. This has been done in the name of protecting the moral standards of the citizens. However, that is rather like making all people subject to the religious laws of a particular church, even though many of those forced to obey those laws do not belong to that church nor support its dogma. That seems, logically, to be a violation of the "establishment" clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

No one forces a person to gamble, to surf the "web" for porn, to drink, or to use some other mind altering substances, among other things. Of course, you should expect the arrest and punishment of anyone who targets your minor children for those behaviors. However, once your minor children are no longer minors, once they are adults, they have the right, just like you, to decide for themselves, whether for good or bad, what behaviors they will accept and participate in. If that is not true then there is no such thing as true personal liberty and inalienable rights.

If you were a good parent, one who taught by example how to live a proper moral life, then even if your young adult children stray for a while they will, more likely than not, return to the beliefs you instilled in them when they were young. Besides, all the religious beliefs made into secular laws, to be enforced by the secular government, will not and does not stop people from behaving in ways that others believe to be immoral. Further, it is not the secular government's legitimate job, by passing and enforcing the sin laws, to force the religious and personal moral beliefs of some people on the "non-believing" population.

There is also the issue of hypocrisy. I will give you one cogent example of what I am talking about. Smoking marijuana is considered by some to be a sin. The mere use of marijuana--by an adult--violates no one's rights. Many religious people and groups condemn the use of marijuana by adults and condone the laws prohibiting this substance thereby making criminals of those who grow, sell, and use it. Smoking marijuana has been made a crime by proclamation: We believe marijuana use is immoral, therefore we have made it illegal. There is almost no real criminal behavior associated with the use of marijuana. What real criminal behavior that is associated with marijuana has been caused by the religious laws prohibiting its use. At the same time, many religious people condone the use of alcohol, yet the mere use of alcohol is associated with the majority of all violent crimes. That is not just my opinion. It has been proven in study after study.

Therefore, we have the obscene hypocrisy of religious people condemning the rights of honest, non-violent pot smokers while condoning the use of the known violence-causing drug alcohol. If these people—and among them are preachers, politicians, policemen, presidents, prosecutors, and judges—want to stop being hypocritical they need to pass laws prohibiting the use of alcohol. But of course that was tried once and was a disaster (as is the present war on drugs). Another alternative to ending their hypocrisy would be to repeal the religious-based laws that have nothing to do with real, rights-violating, criminal behavior. That would be the right and logical thing to do but not likely to happen, I admit.

The way the laws are now my neighbor believes that he or she has the right to dictate my personal moral behavior where such behavior does not harm, or immediately and directly threaten to harm, the persons or property of others. If my neighbor knows or suspects that I am growing or using marijuana, or using any  of the other presently illegal drugs, all she or he has to do it pick up the phone and call the police. In today's anti-rightist environment, I would soon join the growing number of felons and ex-felons, estimated to be in the millions today, yet I would have violated no one's rights. How can that be legal under a secular government?

Let the churches preach against religiously immoral behavior if they want to, but let God punish the transgressors in God's own time. Let the secular authorities only punish people for any purely secular, rights-violating behavior that they may be guilty of. The meaning of to govern is to control. How much control by the secular authorities does a person need if his or her behavior is non-violent, non-coercive, non-larcenous, done alone or with other consenting adults; that does not physically harm other people or their property or is not a direct and immediate threat to other people or their property; that does not disturb the peace or create a public nuisance? Such behavior is truly the essence of our inalienable rights under a truly secular government.

"Heaven" and drug rehab

Today, Sunday, I had all my household chores done and nothing really to do. I had just finished a good book and had not started another. So, there I was "clicking" through the channels for worthwhile movie to watch. I had the "preview" window on so that I could check out actors and actresses (yes, I am old-fashioned: men are actors, women are actresses) and to try and get an inkling of what the movies might be about.

I came across a movie titled "Heaven." The "blurb" said it was about an Italian policeman who falls in love with a widow (played by Kate Blanchett) and tries to help her kill a drug dealer. Okay, I gave it a try.

The movie was in progress and I heard the heroine states something to the effect that she knew of 13-year-old children who had been through drug rehab.

My immediate thought was that if the "drugs" were legal to adults there would probably be a whole lot fewer 13-year-old who had access to them. "Drugs", of course, being any of the presently illegal ones.

My second thought was how many 13-year-olds, and teenagers in general, have been through rehab for the narcotic drug, alcohol?

At "Focus Adolescent Services"
I found out that, in the U.S.A. there are at least three million teens who are "out-and-out alcoholics"; that there are 5,000 deaths per year of people under 21 that are alcohol related; and that for people, age 15-24, the leading causes of death are alcohol-related auto accidents, homicides, and suicides.

I didn't finish watching the movie. I didn't find out if, somewhere in the movie, the protagonists imbibed in one alcoholic beverage or another...although they probably did. How many people do you know that don't drink alcoholic beverages? I wonder if the writer of the movie thought about alcohol and 13-year-olds and drug rehab, or if the writer just thought of the presently illegal drugs?

I don't believe in prohibition...of any drug. I believe that adults should be able to make up their own minds about drug use, including alcohol and tobacco (tobacco being the number one preventable death-causing substance). The so-called war on drugs wastes money, wastes lives, causes more problems that it solves, and violates the rights of otherwise honest adults from the free use of their bodies and their minds where such use does not violate the rights of others. (Most rights-violating behavior surrounding the presently illegal drugs is caused by the prohbition, not the mere use of the drugs.)

Having said that, I must say that I do believe that, due to the nature of the adolescent brain--both physically and emotionally--all addictive drugs, nicotine and alcohol included, should be prohibited to adolescents and that strong punishments should be provided for adults who provide those drugs to them.

Teenagers need to let their (basically) scrambled brains--striving to change from childhood to adulthood--to settle down and straighten out before they start scrambling their brains with drugs.

Drug rehab and 13-year-olds. Three million out-and-out teen alcoholics. When I went to a web site for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) for teens--Students & Young Adults--there were "click-on" articles for all of the presently illegal drugs, but none for alcohol.

Alcohol is a socially acceptable drug. Presidents, politicians, prosecutors, policemen, and millions of people everywhere drink this dangerous and (to some) addictive drug. It's endemic in our society. Still, it is a drug...a narcotic drug. And it causes so much more harm than all the illegal ones as to boggle the mind. But mostly, we ignore that and focus, as did the movie, "Heaven", on illegal drugs. Why?

As I said above--and I am as sure of what I am saying as I am sure that I am alive right now--if we legalized the presently illegal drugs to adults, then it would be harder for minors to get them. Why? Why not as easy as alcohol?

First, it's easier today for minors to get illegal drugs than alcohol. Age is not a factor in buying an illegal product, only money is. Do your research. Second, all of the presently illegal drugs, except, possibly, marijuana, are not socially acceptable drugs in the general sense as is alcohol. Therefore, if those drugs could only be bought by adults showing valid ID, and the punishment for selling or providing those drugs to minors were severe, then it would be harder for minors to get them.

As Americans, generally speaking, we are hysterical about drugs. And yet not hysterical enough about alcohol, which many see as a rite of passage, but which the statistics show as an initiation into lifelong problems for millions of teenagers. We need to stop being hysterical, that is, emotional, and become more logical about the realities of drug use.

Thoughts on California's Proposition 8

Proposition 8 is an attempt to change the California Constitution so that marriage would be defined as between a man and a woman only. That would invalidate an earlier California Supreme Court ruling allowing marriage between same sex couples.

The people who want Proposition 8 to pass are, basically, people who call themselves Christians. They see marriage from a (limited) Biblical point of view as only between a man and a woman. (I discuss why Christianity and homosexuality are incompatible in my article, "Diametrically Opposed," two posts below.)

Contrary to the generally held Christian viewpoint, that homosexuality is a choice, I believe, due to the literature that I have read on the subject and from talking to homosexuals that I have known, that homosexuality is not a choice. And, from the historical record going back at least two or three thousand years, homosexuality is not new.

But what is the purpose of marriage? Why must it be sanctioned by the "state"? And, will allowing homosexual marriages to be legally binding negatively affect people who are opposed to it, for whatever reason?

Taking that last question first, I would have to say that the answer is, more likely than not, yes. There are always unseen consequences to actions and laws. If a church or private school, among other scenarios, will not teach or recognize same sex marriages, they could be sued for civil rights violations.

America, if nothing else, is a sue-happy nation. We have 5% of the world's population and 75% of the lawyers . . . who will quite happily attempt to prove a legal wrong has taken place in order to take money from one person's pocket and line their own.

What is the purpose of marriage? Originally, it was to unite familes and strengthen bonds between clans, tribes, or nations; to produce bloodlines for inheritance purposes; and to tell the community and the world at large that a certain man was the owner and protector of both his wife and children, as well as being responsible for them and their actions. (Well, that's the short and practical version. It's really a bit more complicated than that.) Homosexuality had nothing to do with it as no children could be born out of a same sex marriage, and children were crucial to the original purposes of marriage.

As for marriages being "legalized" by the "state", that only came into being in the late modern times. Now with social security, insurance benefits, and others modern complications to our financial lives, marriage licenses are needed to prove eligibility for various financial benefits and rewards.

Therefore, I can only surmise that the only reason that the homosexual community wants to have their marriages legally recognized is for financial purposes. If that isn't the case, then there is no reason why a same sex couple couldn't have a private marriage ceremony, with friends and family in attendance to witness their vows and intentions.

The proponents of Proposition 8 say that same sex couples have the option of civil unions that would protect them in the areas I mentioned above. I haven't researched that but, if true, then I am on the side of the Proposition 8 proponents, because the law of unintended consequences will cause many prolems for them in the future.

If that is not true, if civil unions don't give the same or equal benefits to same sex couples, then that should be remedied, legally. A homosexual couple can love each other just as much and be devoted to each other just as much as a hetrosexual couple. They are, after all, humans too.

EARLY MORNING REFLECTIONS OF YOU

(This is a variation of my "Beginning Day" poem)



Early morning sunlight streams up
Pink and rosy to paint the bottoms
Of torn and ragged bits of clouds.
Old man crow is winging slowly overhead.
He croaks his harsh and guttural
Greeting to the new-come day.
The wind lightly sweeps through the trees
As the gathering light silently
Pushes back the soft darkness.
I hear the sounds of birds awakening.
I see the colors and textures of the world
Emerging slowly all about me.
I think of you, my love, and I am filled
As a cup that is filled to overflowing.

Diametrically Opposed: Why Christianity and Homosexuality Can't Mix

Can religion and logical thinking exist together? Obviously not...for many reasons. Here is but one.

I was watching a news program a while back in which a homosexual man was being interviewed. (I am not opposed to homosexuality. I do not believe that it is unnatural or that it makes a person bad or, as the U.S. military believes, that being a homosexual makes a person unfit or unreliable. Myself, I am heterosexual.) The man being interviewed, as the narrator said, studied his Bible and prayed to (the Christian) God on a regular basis because he was homosexual... without a doubt. He prayed for years that God would intervene and make him a heterosexual. It didn't happen. Then the man had his own little epiphany: Jesus loves him anyway and he could still be a Christian.

What's wrong with that man's thinking? It is anything but logical. As science and medicine has discovered, being homosexual, at least for the vast majority of men and women who are, is not a choice. They are born that way. That, of course, has not been proven. But many studies, with both humans and animals, show a physiological difference in brain structure or chemistry between heterosexuals and homosexuals. See, for instance the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality.

Let me put this another way: Extremely few, if any, homosexuals were adult or near-adult heterosexuals then, one day, decided to become homosexuals. Therefore, by genetics, in the uterus, or in early childhood development--beyond the control of the child--some people become homosexuals. This seems to be a natural process, again, beyond the control of the person.

The Christians' creator-god quite clearly condemns homosexual activity in the Bible. Jesus Christ is the supposed human-born son of that creator-god and nowhere did Jesus say that he came to change the old laws of the Hebrews. In fact, he even stated that no biblical law would be changed. (Matthew 5:18.) Therefore, the Old Testament law banning homosexual activity (among many other behaviors common today), upon pain of death, is a Christian principle. It's the same God, Jesus is the son of that God (as well as being that God, too), and the law was not changed.

Based on these "Christian facts", a homosexual is a sinner and cannot, without repenting and giving up his or her sinful ways, go to Heaven. But, based on science, it is more likely than not that homosexuals do not have a choice in being homosexual. Then, by logical extension of the creator-god beliefs, we can see that God made homosexuals the way they are by allowing them to be born as homosexuals; knowing that they were going to be homosexuals, as well as knowing that no matter how hard they prayed to "HIM" to be "normal", they would remain homosexuals. Therefore, we have the irrational situation that a creator-god creates a world where it knows that homosexuals will be born...and condemns them to death and everlasting perdition. Yeah, I like that...a world created by an all-powerful, all-knowing being, who happens to be illogical and not very nice.

To believe in the Christian dogma and yet be an unrepentant and unchanged homosexual are diametrical opposites. That is, it is illogical. But then, I have found over the years that many, if not most, people allow their logical self to be controlled by their emotional self. That's one reason why so many people are screwed up, why the world is so screwed up. And, at the bottom of all this screwing up you will almost always find religion...emotion versus logic.

Narco News

This is old stuff, but I just found out about it recently and have finally gotten around to writing something about it.

It has been stated in no uncertain terms that the United States is the biggest money laundering nation in the world--especially in relation to drug money--and that Wall Street is the place where the action happens. The same person who so claimed, stated that people high up in the government for several Presidential administrations have know about this and are or may be complicit with this money laundering.

This could be a reason why the so-called war on drugs will never be won...those in power don't want it to be...notwithstanding the fact that the war on drugs is a direct violation of the inalienable rights of adult citizens to the full and complete ownership and use of their bodies and minds if they are not violating the rights of others.

In any case, you can go to the first URL that I list below, then follow up to the next two from there, or click on each one separately, as you wish. These are must read articles if you want to know how evil the prohibition of the presently illegal drugs really is.

www.narconews.com/narcodollars1.html
www.narconews.com/narcodollars2
.html
www.narconews.com/narcodollars3
.html

I wonder how the recent losses on Wall Street will affect the drug money invested there. Probably not nearly as much as legitimate investments. The only way to make money is to buy low and sell high. In the illegitimate drug world, what costs a dollar to produce can be sold for thirty, forty, fifty dollars or more; the epitome of buying low and selling high. The illegitimate drug producers can afford to take large losses and still make tons of money.

BEGINNING DAY

Lightly the wind sweeps through the trees.
Paloverde and mesquite gently dancing in the breeze.
Quietly the gathering light of day
Pushes back the soft darkness.
Palest lavender, the early dawn is lifting
The veil of night so silently.

I think . . . . . . . nothing.
I hear . . . sounds of morning . . . awakening birds
And the slightly sighing breeze.
I see . . . inchoate colors and textures
Emerging all about me.

Old man crow, winging slowly overhead,
Croaks his harsh and guttural greeting to the new-come day.
I hear.
I see.
I take it as a greeting to me.
Another day in my prison is beginning.
I sit wrapped warmly in a blanket
Against the desert winter cold.
I sit wrapped in the tranquility of early morning.
But, in reality . . .
I sit naked, exposed, and oh so lonely in my soul.

Why I Can’t Own a Liquor Store

Supposedly, recreational drugs other than alcohol and tobacco are so bad, dangerous, addictive, and such society wreckers that the government has to protect adults from their use and abuse. Even though you may be an honest, self-supporting, hard-working adult, you are not competent to decide if you want to use certain chemical substances because they are so dangerous that you won’t be able to control yourself and will become: (A) addicted, (B) a murderer, (C) brain dead, (D) a thief , (E) all of the above.

Sounds like a good reason to ban certain drugs, right?. There is just one little problem with the government’s scenario. The true narcotic drug, alcohol, is addictive. Hard core alcoholics (drug addicts) are brain dead, more or less. Alcohol use is related to over 40% of all murders, among other crimes. The use of alcohol is responsible for five times more deaths than all the illegal drugs. Tobacco is responsible for 25 times more deaths.

If you go to Drug War Facts at http://www.drugwarfacts.org and click on the simulated book cover in the upper left corner, that will take you to a page where you can find facts about drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. Then , “click” on “Causes of Death in the United States”.
Illegal drugs cause about 17,000 deaths per year. Aspirin and other such drugs cause about 7,600. Prescription drug use (in hospitals) cause 32,000, maybe as many as 106,000. Marijuana use causes no deaths. However, alcohol use causes 85,000 such deaths and tobacco 435,000.

Then, if you go back and “click” on “Alcohol” you can find that nearly 40% of all convicted prisoners were using alcohol at the time of committing their crime (paragraph 3). About 60% of jail inmates had been drinking regularly in the year previous to their crimes (paragraph 4). For more than 40% of convicted murderers alcohol played a part in the murders they committed (paragraph 6). Finally, under “Crime”, at paragraph 15, we find that, overall, the mere use of alcohol causes more violent crimes than all the illegal drugs.

So this is why I can’t own a liquor store, or any store that sells alcohol or tobacco. If the government’s rationale for banning the presently illegal drugs is correct—that they are addictive, dangerous, deadly, and cause crime and therefore must be prohibited—then wouldn’t that rationale hold true for the drugs alcohol and tobacco also? If it is wrong to sell any of the presently illegal drugs then it must be more wrong to sell alcohol and tobacco because of the far greater harm those two drugs cause to individuals and society.

We don’t arrest people for drinking. They are arrested only if their behavior violates or threatens to violate the rights of others. Why don’t we apply that same standard to all the “recreational” drugs? Don’t we, as adults, have the right to the use (or abuse) of our bodies as we want, just so long as we don’t violate the rights of others? Isn’t that what the concept of inalienable rights is all about?

Besides, re-legalizing drugs would put violent drug cartels and street gangs out of business, and severely restrict the money flow to global terrorists. Such a policy would also make it much more difficult for minors to buy those drugs. Then and only then could I own a liquor store . . . that is, if I had been so foolish as to have believed the government’s irrational, hypocritical, and rights-violating propaganda to begin with.

THE GOD SNOT THEORY OF LIFE

One day God was out walking in the void. He was experimenting with a new idea He had: light. It's rather dark in the void so God decided to make light.

First, He put it below Him. But He didn't like that effect. Oh, it would have been good for a scary monster effect...but at the time there were no scary monsters, or people, so He moved the light behind Him. He didn't like that either. It cast His shadow out in front of Him...and God has a very big shadow. Then He moved it to His right side, but wasn't happy with the results. A light always shining on the right side of Him was rather irritating. He didn't move it to the left side. He figured He wouldn't like it any better there than He had on the right side. Next, He moved the light in front of Him. But then it shone right into His eyes. That wouldn't do. Finally, He moved the light above Him. Ah! Now that was good. He could see all around in the void without shadows, or light in His eyes, or constantly on one side or the other. He liked it above, so He left it there.

As God was standing there looking up, He got a strange sensation in His nose. You know how, sometimes, it makes you want to sneeze when you look up at a bright light, or into the bright sky? Well, that is what happened to God...and God had never sneezed before, or He would have done something about it.

In any case, God sneezed. Oh my, what a sneeze that was! Billions and billions of tiny God-particles of mucus, moisture, and who knows what else went flying out into the void. Each particle contained a bit of God's DNA, of course. God's sneeze also shattered the light into billions and billions of tiny pieces. They, too, went spinning out into the void. God saw all the tiny points of lights in the void and thought it was very pretty and that it was good. He called it cosmos (God only spoke Greek in those days). God then turned around and walked back to his house (yes, the house of God) and went inside, closing the door behind Him. He went to contemplate some more, maybe come up with a new idea, like He had with light.

In the meantime, all the billions and billions of particles were now frozen balls of stuff...because the void is very cold...which, of course, doesn't bother God in the least. But slowly, over time (and one day of God's time is one-hundred million of our years), the bits of shattered light, which were bigger and heavier than the bits of God snot, attracted various bits of the God snot to themselves, which, due to gravity (another one of God's unique ideas) began orbiting the bits of light and, thus, solar systems came into being. The bits of God snot that were too close to the bits of light either vaporized or dried out. The ones too far away remained balls of ice. But the ones, like our Earth, that were at just the right distance from its bit of light, were neither too hot nor too cold. And God’s DNA, embedded in the God-Snot, began to grow, divide, and evolve. The rest is history.

"Is Proven" and Eating Healthy"?

I have a gripe—actually, two of them—about what I perceive to be abuses of the English language. Several times in commercials for one pharmaceutical product or another I have heard the same phrase: This product is proven to be clinically effective. My other gripe is about a phrase in common usage regarding one’s diet: I eat healthy.

My first gripe has to do with mixing verb tenses improperly. The word is happens to be the present tense (third person) of the verb to be. Proven is a past tense (past participle) of the verb to prove. Is describes a state of being in the present—right now. Proven describes what has happened in the past. From what I learned in school about English, and from what I have looked up on line to verify what I had learned, the sentence should be written: This product has been proven to be clinically effective. One could also say: There is clinical proof as to the effectiveness of this product. The first sentence tells us that, in the past, the drug was tested and shown to work as expected and promoted. The second sentence tells us that the drug company has proof—records, documents—on hand showing that the drug does what it is supposed to do.

I did a little searching and at www.learnersdictionary.com/langhelp/usage.htm, a Merriam-Webster site. I found “Common Word Usage Problems,” and “clicked” on proven (proved is equally correct). There, I saw an example that fit perfectly with my theory of proper grammar: “(‘a drug that has been proved [proven] effective’).” (Emphasis added.)

I am sure that the ads of which I am complaining cost more money to make and televise than I make in a year’s time . . . maybe even two or three years. And yet, “it is proven” is repeated time and again and the listening public hears the incorrect grammar, believing it to be correct. Could this grammar error be driven by ignorance?

Do I protest too much? I don’t think so. Even though the English language is more than a bit complicated, I believe it is important to keep the language intact for as long as possible. Change will come, of course. And that’s all right. But I am talking about basic grammar here, not some new, catchy word or phrase. I am talking about some very rich companies. It seems to me that they could have gotten it right.

My second gripe is with the now common sentence regarding one’s diet: I eat healthy. The word healthy is an adjective. Adjectives describe or modify nouns or pronouns. In the sentence I eat healthy, the adjective healthy modifies nothing. To say that you eat healthy is like saying that you eat eggs, or apples, or some other thing. It is using the word healthy as a noun. You can eat a healthy diet—a diet that is healthy for you. You can eat healthily—in a manner that is healthy for you. But you can’t eat healthy unless you can describe the taste, smell, size, texture, and so forth of the thing that you are eating.

Will my gripes (okay, the rantings of a curmudgeon) make any difference? Probably not. Most people are too busy with their own problems to care about a little deviation in proper grammar usage of the English language . . . but I feel better.

Logic, Secularism, and Sex

I am not a deist. That way is most illogical for many reasons, which I will not discuss at this time. I believe that the Founding Fathers of this nation tried to give us a secular government.

They knew that most people were deists of one type or another, but they believed that the government should not enforce one religion’s dogma over another. They did not want a religious government, knowing that such a government would lead to less, not more liberty, and more, not less intolerance. They knew that legislators would vote according to their personal moral beliefs, but that the government, as an entity, should be neutral on the issue of religion. That was logical.

I am also a rational hedonist, that is, someone who believes that the pursuit of pleasure qua pleasure is a good, but sometimes the chores need to be done first. The pursuit of pleasure, of course, would include things sexual.

I like sex. I think it’s great. I think that any and every adult who wants to participate in a sexual behavior should be encouraged to do so, anyway they want, with anyone they want. It’s such a stress reliever and it feels so good . . . well, it does if you do it right. Of course, as a rational hedonist I have to add the following caveat: Enjoy sex as you want just so long as you do not violate the rights of others.

My guiding principle in life, the path that I believe all citizens of a truly free and liberty-loving society should follow, and that the laws and regulations of the government should adhere to is rather simple. Any and all non-violent, non-coerced, non-larcenous, consensual adult behavior that does not physically harm other people or their property, that does not immediately and directly threaten to physically harm other people or their property, that does not disturb the peace or create a public nuisance, especially if done in private and on private property is the inalienable right of all adults.

But, when it came to the sexual issue, I thought that something more needed to be added to my guiding principle. After much thought I have come up with three logical rules that should always be followed when it comes to sexual behavior. I call them the three objective rules of sex.

First, all people involved must be mentally competent and of a sufficient age so that their decision to have any sexual encounter will be accepted as a knowing and willing consensual decision. For simplicity's sake, we will call such people consenting adults. (The age of consent varies from nation-to-nation, even by state or province in many nations, from 12 to 21—and in the United States from 14 to 18.) Second, there must be no unwanted pregnancies. Third, there must be no sexually transmissible diseases.

That is simple enough in theory in our modern world, but somewhat difficult in practice for many people because they do not think logically, let alone act logically. They let their emotions control them. And they don’t fully follow the principle of inalienable rights. So, logically, there are only three objective reasons not to have sex for any given situation. But, of course, there are hundreds, if not thousands of subjective reasons not to.

The sexual practices of adult citizens are not a legitimate subject for government if my guiding principle of life and the three objective rules of sex are being observed. The reason that it is not the government’s concern is that no one’s right would be violated and no minors would be involved. As Lysander Spooner wrote, “[v]ices are not crimes” if they lack the intent to harm others.

Such practices are the legitimate concern of religion, but then, religions do not have the legitimate authority to punish anyone for sexual practices that do not comport with their dogmas, other than to ex-communicate them or otherwise ban them from the church. But if you do not belong to a sexually prohibitive church, or any church at all, then my guiding principle of life and the three objective rules of sex are all you need to decide if you wish to have sex of any kind.

And it should be no one’s business but your own; not your neighbor’s and especially not the government’s. Of course, that could only happen in a truly free and liberty-loving society that upholds the principle of inalienable rights, one that does not force other people’s religious/personal moral codes upon non-believing others who are not violating anyone’s rights.

I should also add that I firmly believe that society has no obligation to help any adult who knowingly and willingly makes decisions (sexual or otherwise) that causes him or her harm. As a rational hedonist, I also heed the wise words of Thomas Jefferson: Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.