Fake Compassion and the Sin Tax Bill

Fake Compassion and the Sin Tax Bill

Philippines - Well, a monkey catcher knows well how to catch a monkey. One of his clever ways to catch a monkey is to put a banana inside a coconut shell with a hole just enough for the hand of the monkey. The shell is tied to a fixed anchor. When the monkey puts its hand inside the shell and grabs the banana, the catcher will show up in surprise. Holding on to the banana on its hands inside the shell that was tied to a post, the terrified monkey can't pull its hands out. The job is now too easy for the monkey catcher. 

Now, when it comes to bureaucrats and society, the easiest way to trick the sheep out of the people is to deceive them there is super bushy green pasture ahead awaiting them. Or better yet feed them what they really like along the way. 

The Philippine Sin tax bill is about to change to landscape of cigarette and liquor industry.in the country. Both farmers and puffers; both brewers and tomadors. Sin tax will raise prices on tobacco and liquor products by charging more taxes on these products. The higher pricing is claimed by sin tax proponents will effectively reduce people indulgence on tobaccos and liquor thus could bring positive health effects into the society overall. Also with so much emphasis on the potential huge collection of taxes to fund government health services, proponents says the sin tax is good for the public health. The agenda is glaringly noble (it seems): FOR THE GOOD OF THE PUBLIC. Who doesn't want public good by the way?

So, the typically dole-out minded Filipinos is once again subjected under a socialistic propaganda of Papa Government taking care of its children. Sin tax will collect more funds to take care the poor. Health services for the poor; hospital rooms with air conditioners for the poor; free MRI for the poor; free healthcare for the poor.  Indeed. Without these typical sweetcoats do you think poor people and their representative wouldn't ram for the sin tax bill? Heck. Everybody wants a sugar-coated lollipop even it was a pepper lollipop.

But what is wrong with Papa Government taking care of the people?  What is wrong with taking care of the people by the way? None. Taking care of poor people is a sign of compassion and love. What is wrong is that we already developed this mentality that it is only through government that we can express our compassion to poor people. No longer it becomes people taking care of people. So we let bureaucrats and politicians legislate ways to enforce compassion while assuming poor people have every right to be taken care of. But to be taken care of is not a right. Bullshit. It is a privilege. We afford privilege to interest groups, the poor sector, through government laws which can only be enforced at the expense of the actual rights of the the ones taxes are taken from. 

So no. Though Sin tax is being taught as a way to take care for the poor, it is only a step closer to a socialistic mentality of parasitism and dole-out mindedness. Compassion must naturally grow from within each person. Not by government force of laws but by mere understanding what true love is. Not while bureaucrats, lobby groups and interest groups parasitically benefit on the taxes forcefully take from the productive sector of the society.

Your Government is Like a Traffic Light

Your Government is Like a Traffic Light

Traffic lights will make road traffic better. Maybe. But here is one quite unseen truth I am so sure about. Traffic lights make people unintelligent and negligent. 

Long before traffic lights were used, drivers would have to look practically at every direction before crossing an intersection. All reflexes are all engaged trying to avoid any life or property loss that might be sustained if sufficient attention is not exercised.

But the affairs of road traffic slowly changed when traffic lights were introduced. Drivers wouldn't have to look at every direction as they do at the absence of a traffic light. All it takes to do most of the time is to look at the front  to the lights and see what color is in there. All reflexes are still engaged but concentrated mainly on the toggles of the colored lights. If it is green, go. If red, stop. They don't have to look to every incoming side since their heads are assuming all other drivers think as they do when it comes to traffic lights.

Now, the change of lights and what they mean for everybody is quite obvious. But what is the quite unseen truth I was talking about? I was talking about the re-packaging of safety measures. The protection of life, limb and property no longer resides on a wholly-engaged self-attentiveness. Rather such critical aspect of road safety is now reduced and re-packaged in a metal box with light bulbs. The existence of traffic lights practically diminishes the ability of the driver to rely much on his overall awareness of what's going on outside his car. The light is all that there is for him. And unfortunately, all other drivers are thinking at the same degree too.

Government is like a traffic light in an obvious sense. As traffic lights have monopolized much of the aspect of traffic safety and people have relied on it more and more, so as government has already assumed responsibility on the welfare of the people and the people have in turn became parasites of the system.
Losing the sense of self is last thing people would accept they do. But this is what happens when people delegate decision-making to few men in government. Desecrating self-respect is what people would never do to their selves. But this what goes on and on every time people give-up hardwork and wait for government dole-outs.

Society has gone mad. Governments and traffic lights are the symptoms of it.

Laziness is Just One Part of Human Nature

Laziness is Just One Part of Human Nature

Sorry for using a monkey for this post.

People are inherently lazy. That is how I see it. The mind demands ends by the least possible means.

Being lazy works for both the extremes: the lazy poor (the one who waits dole outs) and the lazy rich (the one who feast on somebody else's labor). They all wanted ends on lesser means.

Human nature is the problem of the world.

However, why this world is still rolling is that between those extremes there lies the staying power of men who never lost self-respect and dignity and well-intended ingenuity. They are the ones who recognize that ends must be acquired through means that need honest labor and real sweat and creativity.

So if human nature is the problem of the world, human nature can still very well serve to correct it. And it is the only way. Regaining self-respect and recognizing dignity are what makes humans happy and contented deep inside.

Being Poor is Just a Fad, Too

Being Poor is Just a Fad, Too

... for me, being poor depends on the collective view where the definition of poverty lies. each society has its own unique scale.

during primitive time, one can be considered rich if he lives in a cave. but when house was invented and became a trend, owning a cave became a subject of ridicule.

...the feeling of being poor, and the apparent inability to cope-up with the current lifestyle and trend, which is of course set primarily by well-off class as propagated by media, are the reasons why one has to work hard or go abroad. It is the desire not to be included in the bracket of society's current classification of poor that one has to really work hard to be able to stand out.

..in economic sense, owing to the palpable gap between the one who can afford luxuries and the one who barely eats 3 times a day, poverty scale can be well understood. however, because eating three times a day, I believe was also a luxury long time ago, I found it interesting to define poverty as just the relative feeling of it. it is just a thought that goes along to what society imposed unto itself as far as the difference between what it calls poor and rich is concerned. 

... because the definition of poverty depends on social trend, the feeling of being poor is much like a fad, too.

Just Leave Socialism to Ants Alone

Just Leave Socialism to Ants Alone

I have yet to find a capitalist ant, a self-proclaimed socialist ant, an ant bureaucrat, or an ant buddha. 

In the sacred unwritten book of Ant's Socialism, the following passage can be found: "For all kinds of ants, the following edict is to be seen as spontaneous: No individual ant or group of ants must utilize, monopolize, or limit in themselves any means of food production in all for the purpose of profit. All activity must be solely for the purpose of fulfilling each colony's survival demands and all of the ants' daily needs."

Humans are really dumbfounded how to achieve that. The ants already did it. I am baffled what kind of social theory might the ants have used to reach their current state of antly affairs. Humans must be envious of the ants, don't you think? Poor intelligent humans.

The Essence of Socialism

Being true to what socialism really means, and I mean the purest form of it, my tongue carries no bud of distaste to it. It is the pro-capitalism fanatics, those with insufficient and dishonest understanding of what they are fighting against, who are the ones who bring bad color to supposedly stain-proof socialism.  Why did I say insufficient and dishonest? Because as opposed to the popular idea that if it is government then it entails socialism. It is not. USSR, though labeled Socialist did not fail because of socialism. It failed because of the stupid and anti-ant idea that  government is the only way to achieve the goal. USSR failed because it tried to utilize the very same strategy which was warned not to be used - the monopoly of control or Government. Socialism can't fail. It's the machinery employed, thought to be the way to achieve the goal, that eventually breaks down.

The rationally ill-equipped capitalism subscribers are not  the only party to blame why socialism seems to be a bad idea. The substantial portion of fault must be put unto the people who were so excited at bringing in the anticipated euphoria of communal harmony as envisioned to be attained through socialism. 

Contrary to popular belief of Marx diehard followers that it was Marx who had ignited socialism to take-off, I suspect Marx himself must be the number one to blame why socialism reached it very much opposed status today. He tried to rush everything, didn't he? What he did is to entice the proletariat, or the working class, to rise in arms against the bourgeois, the middle class and wealthy, by saying they were exploited by the latter and it is the right of the workers, the alleged creators of wealth, to take back what they made believed they own. As a result, those  laborers, who of course majority of them lacked the wisdom Marx might have, can only manage to carry on up to the point of having a trigger-happy mentality. So everyone ended-up choking each other while hypocritically thinking it was all for equality and freedom. 

Ants versus Humans

So what separated the ants from humans? What is the distinctive quality ants have or might not have why they attained the spontaneous order of their society? In comparison, what do humans have and might not have that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to emulate the ants?

I came to see the reason, I believe. But it is a rather partially disinteresting thought. But on the other side, if really sought to attain, would be the key to the promises of socialism. And it is the "elimination of the intellect". Sounds so uninteresting. But wait. Be careful not to impress upon self that such intellect be erased in the literal sense by subjecting each human to some kind of genetic manipulation, a surgery, or anything that could render the intellect incapable of creative activities.