But Who Will Build The Roads?

But Who Will Build The Roads?

A popular socialist contention against people who want a lesser government (eg libertarians) and anarchists is: "Who will build the roads?" implying mainly that it is ONLY government that can build roads and thus government is necessary. The question seems comical yet holds a philosophical essence as to the nature and role of government in society.

A simple answer to this is: "Who built the first foot tracks during the early times?". Certainly not government but people out of the natural necessity to do so. 

But why early people did not build roads during those times? The answer is that there is no reason for them to build something that is not yet required by the need to have it. Technology and roads go together. When technology advances, the roads gets wider because it is necessary to be so. The invention of wheels made foot tracks to be widened. The invention of cars need widened foot tracks to be paved.

So who will build roads? The answer is those who feel there is a need for it.

Why Government Services are a Fake Compassion?

Why Government Services are a Fake Compassion?

One does compassion not to make himself happy. He does compassion because he is happy. That is why taxes and government socialist services are fake forms of compassion. They arise not of the genuine feeling to extend help to others but rest on the idea that such action MIGHT make other people better or surely make the giver happy about himself. 

On Legalized Compassion

On Legalized Compassion

There is an understanding worthy to arrive at:  that an action is ought to be done because it is the right thing to do and not that a Supreme Being or gods or the government tells it is so.

All are interconnected. And this is a very popularly accepted idea. Calamity, for example, unites people together. At hours of extreme distress, the will of men converges to help each other out. People don't waste time waiting for someone, say a free-riding politician, to say what needed to be done. A deeply seated impulse is acted out to help others. Cooperation comes out unpremeditated and compassion is a palpable sphere.

Out of unending difficulties, the aim of men is to fulfill compassion effectively. And perhaps there is no other way to signify the intent to help others than forming an organized compassion delivery system called Government. Social services, which aim to grant to everybody the means to survive and improve their well-being, are in place.

Government social services are made possible through legislation. With such, the allocation of funds is guaranteed. However, government cannot be separated from taxation. Government is funded by forced contributions or taxes. And every government social program is guaranteed by taxes. There is a statist view that the best way to fix all social problems is to legislate the way through it. This is to demand everybody to contribute in the name of everybody's well-being practically to reiterate and to convince people of the "goodness" of the popular view that all people are interconnected. In a certain way, compassion through government is a legislated compassion, a compassion legalized.

But, though the intent of taking care of all people can be applauded, government social programs have ill effects that are later on to be seen. The intention is never wrong. What is wrong lies in the means by which society tried to attain the goal. The problem is to be blamed mainly on the legislation of compassion itself. 

The impulse to help others is an inherent part of human nature. However, there is a bad taste if the act of helping others is tried to be accomplished with government laws. Given the coercive nature of government laws, eg. tax collection, taxpayers can only give up to a limit. The social program is then unsustainable and is doomed to fail and can only be extended until the threat of jail against the taxpayers is effective. Another ill effect would be on the recipients. Constant dole-out services would create dull minded citizens not capable of appreciating self-worth and dignity and will eventually be consumed by a parasitic attitude.  But the worst effect worth mentioning last is that the funds will be likely squandered and plundered by in-charge bureaucrats. 

A strong lobby for more social services would be inevitable. People would require more from the government and other people and less from their own selves. People would be boldly parasitic on taxes supplied by the working class.And this would happen so easily in a society whose people already forgot the voluntary nature of compassion. 

A government-hosted compassion should be a no-no. Compassion is to be done from inside out. Not that the government says it is so. Not even when the gods ordered it to be done. Not even when your friends or parents insist you to do it. But only when you feel you love doing it because you understand that it is so and not otherwise.

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.

Freedom or No freedom at All

Freedom or No freedom at All

No one is born democrat or republican, liberal or conservative, right or left, donkey or elephant. One is only born either alive or dead human baby. No one is even born free or slave. Again, just alive or dead babies.

Freedom is just an idea. Just like all other ideas, freedom only matters to the ones still living. Never been to the dead. We can only have the time to bicker about it as long as we are still alive. Once we're dead we're done. So allow me to bicker and I chose to bicker about it sensibly. 

There are two options we can take in the name of talking. Either there is freedom or there is none at all. Since I am a believer of another idea called unlimited rights I chose to believe that the  idea of freedom is better that the idea that men have no freedom at all. But though just an idea, freedom is an excellent idea for humans to have. Freedom is not a separately existing phenomenon in our realm (more precisely my realm). It is a part of the whole sense of existence we call consciousness (more precisely my consciousness). Freedom is the number one ingredient to feel the totality of being. 

On the other hand, the idea that no man is free is also a viable idea to cling into. There is nothing wrong with that. But for me that can only be possible if there is a plausible reason that I can use to say that I own a part of  someone's inherent feeling of his or her own totality with him or her necessarily agreeing that it is so. Unfortunately, I have yet to find one so I have to reject the idea that no man is free. In short, all men are born free.

The sense of freedom is a feeling that does not need any rationalization. The feeling of it arises on its own. There is always a desire to be free from any kind of control. Controls may come in the form of government laws and taxes, mob rule, parental control, oppression or religious control. Self-guilt, worries and anxieties are also forms of control anyone would want to be free from.

There is no time men never wanted to be free. The mind has the propensity to be go beyond. That is a bold manifestation that indeed humans didn't wish to be enslaved by anything or anyone. There is always a struggle to keep up above bounds and to be at a place beyond limits. Insisting that men has no freedom will contradict the inherent and unthought and unprovoked sense of freedom.

 Prosperity resides in a society of freemen.

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.

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. 

My Child Answers the Difference Between Value and Price

My Child Answers the Difference Between Value and Price

The original feeling I had was that any attempt to explain the distinction between the concepts of Value and Price to any people is a wasteful thing to do, no more than just a regurgitation of what's already obvious, isn't it? Come on. People must not be that utterly ridiculous to ever ask what's the difference between Value and Price. But, I somehow convinced myself that I was wrong on my original impression. Some people, and disgustingly not so few, specially in a land of so much socialists who still idolize Karl Marx and his Labor Theory of Price Value, think Value and Price are just the same.

They are not. So what's the difference? Ask a child.

My 3-year old daughter, as all other children,  don't know anything about prices. But my little girl must have caused  a slight headache to her mom when she's on tantrum when her mom refused to buy her favorite doll. She really like to have the doll no matter what. My question is: What's in the doll that made my daughter cry for it? Certainly, there is something. And also, what's in the doll that made my wife refused to buy it? Certainly, there is something too. What are they?

Definition of Value and Price

Price is the sum of money a sum offered for the capture of a criminal dead or alive. Well, I mean to joke. That is true but it is not the kind of definition to use in front of a hard-core, often irrational socialist. We need a definition in economic context.

So, lawmakers want to amend FCDA? Plunderer's answer: Hey stupid, We Find Ways!

So, lawmakers want to amend FCDA? Plunderer's answer: Hey stupid, We Find Ways!

Here we go again. Politicians and mainstream think tanks are batting to pass amendment of RA 6426 or the Foreign Currency Deposit Act. Technically they want to kill it.

The lawmakers and their avid supporters blame FCDA for the headache the prosecution gets on its failure to open Corona's dollar account for scrutiny. The culprit they say is that FCDA provides absolute confidential nature to any foreign currency account against any disclosure not approved by the account holder. Thus they feel incapacitated on their campaign against government corruptions.

These "thinking" people contend that once they revoke FCDA, they are one step closer at solving government corruption. By some common sense, they foresee that the current Corona dilemma could be avoided. Corruption could then be solved. Hurraaah! Excellent idea? No. Not even close. It doesn't show  anything logical.

About MonkeySociety (surviving in a society ruled by monkeys)

About MonkeySociety (surviving in a society ruled by monkeys)

MonkeySocietyblog is an attempt to spread the message of individual liberty using the kind of spirituality the Buddha had taught people in ages.

MonkeySociety is a metaphor for a backward-thinking society. The term "backward thinking society" is a vague idea. There is no clear calibration from where the "backward" thing can be seen to begin. But there is an unwritten rule for it I think. A rule that can't be well described and expected not to be agreed upon by all men. It means only one thing and that is it uniquely depends on the person making such evaluation. In my case, it is I who holds the idea how backward my society is. In my viewpoint shall reside the basis of judgment when to call my society a backward society or in this blog's theme, a MonkeySociety.

Milton Friedman - Four Ways to Spend Money

Milton Friedman - Four Ways to Spend Money

Here is a Milton Friedman valuable insight. Four ways to spend money:

1. Spend your own money for yourself
2. Spend your money for sombody else
3. Spend somebody else's money for yourself
4. Spend somebody else's money for somebody else

Of all these, what our government is very good at is the fourth way.

Anyway, let's begin with the first item. When you spend your own money for yourself, the tendency would be, which is true all the time, you want to have the best services and goods in