The wisdom of Lord Acton

It's beginning to occur to me just how thoroughly arrogant the push toward force as a governing philosophy is. Lord Acton was both right - that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely - and, if people won't choose differently, inescapably so. There will be no end to this if people can't find the courage to choose something better.

I can't imagine just how scary it must have seemed to Germans and Jews or to Russians when the Nazis and Bolsheviks raced to power. To watch a group of people trying to create a sense of inevitability to their dominance. And to never be satiated with creating that sense until their enemies had been thoroughly decimated or put down.

The kids and I studied Benjamin Banneker, today. Banneker was a free African American in 18th century America who was one of America's first black mathematicians and scientists. Benjamin Banneker built some of the earliest clocks in the nation's history. He was an astute student of mathematics and astronomy who developed almanacs that predicted solar and lunar eclipses more accurately than many of his white brethren. We talked about how seriously Banneker took education, despite so many obstacles and hardships. Banneker was legally prohibited from getting an education. He lived amidst serious prejudice that his race was intellectually inferior. He was outraged at the hypocrisy of one of the most important living proclaimers of the equality of man, Thomas Jefferson, keeping slaves in captivity. Banneker opposed capital punishment and supported a Department of Peace alongside a Department of War long before such thinking became common, as it is more common today. He spent an entire lifetime independent at a time when most men of his ancestory spent their lives in chains. And he took education more seriously than most people do with much more freedom and opportunity.

It's beginning to occur to me just how arrogant this push toward force as a governing philosophy is. How arrogant all of its practicioners are. Liberal, conservative, or otherwise.

It cannot possibly hold because it is so enanthema to our basic human nature.

And that basic human nature is not good or bad.

Our basic human nature is freedom.

Abraham Maslow knew that. And he was right.

And this is the period that must bear that out.

Because it will not end until we have freedom.

Love,
Ben

My new rule

I have a new rule that I'm going to force pressure-oriented folks to deal with.

You pressure me, I won't do your fuckin' work. Except really lackluster and at a speed that suits me.

Fuck you, you fuckin' pricks.

Those are the new rules.

I give up

I'm tired of all the pressure at my job. Shit gets done when it gets done. I need another job.

By the way, to all the assholes still bucking for pressure to get things done: Fuck you you fuckin' pricks. You get zero credit from me for jack shit.

May you be bounced from every position of responsibility that you currently and undeservedly enjoy.

My thinking on this is becoming much more staunch at this point as I see people deciding not to back off.

You pressure me, I respect you not in the least. I think of you as an unappeasable asswipe whom I will relunctantly cooperate with, at best, and resist, at worst. You will never get my wholehearted cooperation.

I was working long hours at work, lately. That will not be happening anymore.

I keep thinking it's going to let up. And then I realize, I just need to give up and go do something else.

I say let them find someone else to eat their shit. I need a new job.

Ben