A Challenge: Think you know Love?

This morning I was listening to "Hey Ya" by Outkast. Popular song with a great beat and enthusiastic chorus, but there came a line that caused me to think for a bit.

The line states that they say nothing is forever, so what makes love the exception?

Can anyone answer the question risen by Andre 3000 in this song?
If all things must come to an end, why do we expect our relationships to last forever?

I'll take it a step further, once I have a few answers on this one.

Fulton Sheen quote from Life is Worth Living on Communism and Russia

I have spent a long night in the hospital. Not that there is anything wrong with me, I was spending it with someone dear to me. I had a few books with me. Mises' Theory and History, Hazlitt's Foundations of Morality, and Fulton Sheen's Life is Worth Living. There are great quotes from each book, but I found Sheen's words interesting upon Russia. He is speaking as what a Russian would say to someone within the Voice of America program which was created by the U.S. government in order to help educate the world.

Let then the Voice of America put on the airways a Jewish rabbi who will protest against the persecution of his own people and who, in the name of God, will promise to us the glorious liberty of the children of God. Let a Protestant minister and a Catholic priest be the oracles on the Voice of America. Let them not tell us anything about the materialities of your civilization, but something that the Communists never talk to us about. Speak to us of our dousha and our soul. Communism has our body, but it does not have our soul. Use the Name of God. Our Communists are trembling in Russia, lest anyone on the Voice of America ever use that Holy Name. They are safe and unafraid of you, so long as you speak to us about your economics and your gadgets and your boasted economic superiority. They can boast of these things, too. We are tired of a Communist revolution because it is not revolutionary enough. It still leaves hate in our souls. You preach to us of the revolution of love-- the revolution of the inner freedom of spirit, the revolution that comes from submission to God-- and we shall be your brothers under a common Father.

Marxism has to deny religion. Why not bring it back to deny Communism on its own denial. "The true battle against Communism begins in the heart of every single [person]. The revolution must begin in man before it begins in society. The Communists revolution has been a basic failure; it is not revolutionary enough; it leaves hate in the soul of man."

Communism destroys human freedom. Man is free, thanks to two guarantees: one economic, the other spiritual. The economic guarantee of freedom is private property, for it enables man to call something his own which is outside himself. The spiritual guarantee of freedom is his soul, which makes him independent of an earthly tyrant or a political dictator.

Experience: First Blood Part Deux

I tire of hearing the experience argument. I am not the first nor the last to be challenged with the question upon my experience. History is the study of man's past.
Ludwig von Mises in his great treatise, Human Action, sums it up:

If we speak of history, what we have in mind is only the history of human action, whose specific mental tool is understanding.[....] The subject matter of all historical sciences is the past. They cannot teach us anything which would be valid for all human actions, that is, for the future too. The study of history makes a man wise and judicious. But it does not by itself provide any knowledge and skill which could be utilized for handling concrete tasks. [...] The human mind is not a tabula rasa(blank slate) on which the external events write their own history. It is equipped with a set of tools for grasping reality. Man acquired these tools, i.e., the logical structure of his mind in the course of his evolution from an amoeba to his present state. But these tools are logically prior to any experience. [....] Experience merely directs our curiousity toward certain problems and diverts it from other problems. It tells us what we should explore, but it does not tell us how we could proceed in our search for knowledge. Moreover, it is not instances, it is necessary to investigate unrealizable hypothetical conditions in order to conceive what is going on in the real world.

In his book Theory and History, Mises opens with an introduction to dismantle the experience argument. He points that to have any understanding, man looks to history for regularity.

A stone is a thing that reacts in a definite way. Men react to the same stimuli in different ways, and the same man at different instants of time may react in ways different from his previous or later conduct. It is impossible to group men into classes whose members always react in the same way.[...] Experience is always experience of past happenings. It refers to what has been and is no longer, to events sunk forever in the flux of time. [...] The most experience can teach us is: in all cases observed in the past there was an ascertainable regularity. [...] Nobody says that stones thrown into the air at an angle of 45 degrees will frequently fall down to earth or that a human limb lost by an accident frequently does not grow again. All our thinking and all our actions are guided by the knowledge that in such cases we are not faced with frequent repetition of the same connection, but with regular repetition. [...] The apriori forms and categories of human thinking and reasoning cannot be traced back to something of which they would appear as the logically necessary conclusion. It is contradictory to expect that logic could be of any service in demonstrating the correctness or validity of the fundamental logical principles. All that can be said about them is that to deny their correctness or validity appears to the human mind nonsensical and that thinking, guided by them, has led to modes of successful acting.

The Call Out : Needing Experience

This post is for my father and my uncle who continuously drop the same line towards my arguments. "You weren't there" or "You have read books but don't have any experience."

Experience, to my father and my uncle it is experience which matters. All things that one can learn from logic is null and void. They would say, "Yes, I agree with what you say in theory, but in reality the world does not work this way. You need experience."

I will disprove this statement. It is simple as we only need to provide a definition to experience and view if all we know is because of experience.
Experience is a historical account of what has personally happened to oneself. Experience are those times that can be measured through our senses. A thought is not an experience for if a thought were an experience, logic learned through books would be held as true, but accordingly experience must be through our senses; To see, hear, smell, taste, or touch, these are what gives us experience. Do we all agree on this definition?

If so, then now we can disprove experience as a source of ultimate knowledge. The mind can not be sensed in any fashion. You can not see it, hold it, smell it, taste it, or hear it. How then do we know we have a mind? Logic. 1 + 1 = 2; 2 * 1 = 2; These simple mathematical equations are not known through experience. You can not sense 1 + 1 = 2 nor 2 * 1 = 2. They are understood through our logic. Time, space, mind, soul ... these are a few things that can not be proven through our senses and therefore can not be proven through experience by the above definition. Without our mind, time, or space there would be no such thing as the past, no such thing as experience. The mind, time, and space are known a priori, or before hand, so that we can comprehend our experience.

Thus, experience in itself can not teach you anything. Logic teaches that yes, the world does work this way. For experience can never teach mathematics, etc... Experience needs logic.

It is by applying logic that we truly comprehend the world.

FEE @ MASON!!

Foundation for Economic Education, now participating in university outreach, is hosting a full day of lectures at George Mason University on April 19th.











We have all heard the cries "IT IS NOT FAIR"
Well it is not, and FEE is here to help address the issues that are largely debated but hardly understood.

The issues will be from Foreign Aid; International Labor Standards; even to Institutions, Constitutions, and Economic Growth...

Speakers include Doug Bandow, Geoffrey Lea, and Joshua Hall.
Program for the event can be found here, and don't forget to register here, as it is to guarantee a copy of The Law (already have it? Good! Now get another to pass to someone else you may believe may benefit) and a lunch on Saturday afternoon.

The GMU Economic Society will kick off the FEE event the night before with a social gathering and a chance to hear from our very own Professor Bryan Caplan of The Myth of the Rational Voter fame.

Don't forget to sign up for the wonderful Summer Seminars at FEE in Irvington-on-Hudson, NY just a half hour outside of NYC!!! The seminars are first come first serve if you meet the criteria for the program basis, so act now and apply. Apply to more than one to increase your chances or to be the rare individual who gets to attend more than one...(note: Although you may get accepted to two programs, you may be asked to pay for the hotel accommodations for one of the seminar programs.)
Be on the look out for more information...

Liberty Fund has an Interactive Room Too Good Not to Share

AS POSTED ON GMU ECONOMICS SOCIETY BLOG

Most know Liberty Fund for their catalog of books and online library. Now how about a chance to tour their online interactive GOODRICH ROOM. The room's walls have different names throughout history that have helped lead the argument on Liberty. From the Amagi and Gilgamesh to the Declaration of Independence. Each historical figure opens a new tab with a small historical note and its importance for liberty.

If you knew about the catalog but did not know about the online library, then it is time to get acquainted. It is a large database of online materials and difficult to decide where to begin. Liberty Fund has made easier and given us a starting point, HERE. You can log on to create reading lists, share with others, and view other members lists. Can it get any better?

ENJOY!

Why I became a Catholic: The Economic Principles That Led Me to Religion Part 1

Through my studies in economics, I have met many individuals who hold no faith towards religion. Some claim to be atheists while others agnostic, and yet I appear to be one of the limited few who turned to religion as my understanding of the science grew. The questions perhaps should be addressed why is it that I have turned to faith while others who study economics do not?

The Catholic faith believes that all of the citizens of the world are Catholics. (What religion would not see the world as its children?) Catholic, in fact, means universal therefore all men are called to go to Heaven by imitating Jesus, but this is only the tip of the faith which means I could not discuss all of it in one blog.
Economics is the study of individual's choices among a world of scarcity and the affects of their choices both intended and unintended. Think of a decision you made this morning of getting out of bed rather than staying in it. That is one extra person awake, breathing, eating, whatever other acts you may want to consider. That one extra person is breathing in that air that could have been for another, ate the food that could have gone for another, and even taking up an amount of space that could have been for another. Just one choice of getting out of bed has many side effects which would cause others to make decision likewise. If someone is in a spot you want to be in, you have a choice to make from asking them to move, paying them to move, or even moving to another spot themselves. Through actions individuals interact, and by cooperating with one another we reach our desired ends. Thus everyone in the world is tied to one another by the choices they make which affect the choices that others make.

The Catholic faith as it is universal sees the people within the Church to be the body of Christ and Jesus as the head. As the body, the people interact with one another each trying to imitate Christ and reach Heaven. Each making their own choices to reach heaven which affect others abilities to make choices and the Church tells Catholics to always look out for one another.
How fascinating that the world filled with individuals with different goals work together in such a constructive way for most individuals to actually achieve this goal. The world socially cooperates without any control mandating each individual how to do it. This symbolized to me the citizens of the world to be acting as a body, The Body of Christ.

Tyranny of the Majority in the New Testament

We saw it best on The Passion of the Christ. The masses cried out for crucifixion. "Crucify him" the answer shouted in unison when asked by Pilate on what they wanted him to do. It is the same words recited every Easter at a Roman Catholic mass and yet many Christians still believe in majority rule, at least it appears so through what I have seen.

The tyranny of the majority is not a new concept. John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville were only two of many who had spoken on the topic. Christians had read of this tyranny since the Church began. There it was written, spoken, even viewed (as in the Passion) for us to see, the Crucifixion of Christ. The masses had called for it. They threatened and Pilate to complete his duty as governor completed what the masses demanded in order to keep his own position. What else do we expect of a politician? To do the right thing and not kill an innocent man? It was either crucify an innocent man or have a mob on his hands which would cause him to lose face in Rome. Naturally, we would expect the politician to choose his own selfish needs and condemn an innocent man to his death.
Is the innocent's death the fault of the politician or the fault of the tyranny of the masses? Perhaps it is both, but the event has passed and the innocent man had died only to be born again. Thanks to the murderous mob that persuaded a Roman governor to crucify an innocent man. A man heralded by many today as the savior. Even through evil, Good arises.

Control: Is it ever achieved?

Recently, I have entered into a debate with many individuals over the topic of control.

Control defined in Dictionary.com as "to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command."

I do not believe we can ever achieve control. To me this is proven by action. If we were ever in control why would we act? By acting we would be changing the situation causing us to lose control. In acting, we are trying to get closer to being in control.

What do we want control in? Control of a situation, of our actions, of nature.
We can never have control of a situation since there are outside factors that influence our actions. Those outside factors cause us to act but do not allow us to have control on the outcomes of our actions. We can act causing an effect that was not perceived before the action was taken place therefore taking any control away from our actions as we caused an unwanted outcome.

There is no system in the world that can ever let us be in control. Socialism fails as it never obtains control, but socialism is not alone; No One can ever obtain control; except the Lord.

For this do we have religion, control is only obtained through our faith in God. Socialism was man's attempt at achieving Heaven on Earth. The attempt of a world full of control with no fears upon need, yet as control can never be obtained thanks to socialism's failure to many economic problems such as imitating the price and money system, we find that there is only one way to achieve control which is through faith.
To overcome sin we must pray for strength, for courage, for self control. It is through God's will that we are able to drive without an accident interfering in our desired end. Control can be achieved, but to achieve it you must have faith otherwise we are just blind with hands outstretched in hopes that we do not walk off a ledge. To say you have control is to believe that you are in control; belief is a matter of faith which is a gift from the Holy Spirit.
In the end, Man can not have control except through the Lord, our God

Why Transformers was better than 300

Yes, I said it. Transformers was better than 300. A little late to write this but lets have it, I am never on time as it is.
300, the movie about Thermopylae and the 300 Spartans. Disappointing as it lacked storyline as it was extremely predictable filled with sex scenes that were pointless. I'll give it to them for the scene at the Oracle, that is how the Oracle originally worked, but the marital sex was pointless as he was not turned on by her but to the mere fact he was a "free man". A "free man" who did not choose to be a fighter nor a Spartan. A "free man" who only had one choice throughout the movie, bow down to Xerxes or have to fight for his kingdom. Hey have to call it. When you have no choice towards your profession or lifestyle, it is not freedom. A shame for everyone to believe that only through the State can you achieve Freedom.
Transformers, corny throughout the movie, but more depth in the storyline than 300. Why did the car choose Sam should have been the question in the beginning? What is it the Decepticons are after should have been the next question. Of course, we should have been able to foretell what they were since the displayed it in the beginning of the movie with Sam. Yet the plot of Transformers had something that 300 lacked. Cooperation, innovation, and a better message.
Let us define the different versions of Freedom
In 300, Freedom is to live under the state you are used to.
In Transformers, Freedom is the ability to choose b/w life and death; between good or evil and not allowing others to make that decision for you.
How about Innovation?
300, Innovation was to fight at Thermopylae as to create a small pass where the 300 could hold off the entire Persian Army.
Transformers, the military overcame and adapted to the situation learning from each battle with the Decepticons of what they could do to cause harm to the giant robots; changing the battle area from one place to another to allow themselves a strategic advantage. Heck even the Decepticons overcame their disadvantages by shutting down the communications link throughout the world. This isn't to say that Xerxes never overcame anything, but according to the movie he had to wait until a crippled Spartan had leaked information about a pass so that he could attack the Spartans in a new fashion.
As for the message,
300 claimed that men died for a reason which would be Freedom thus encouraging all of Greece to unite to fight against the Persian Army.
Transformers completely took all the work 300 and worked it into 300's ending. Instead of their being death to cause people to unite, they found their was one cause that those with differences can unite for; Freedom.
Truth is the actual history of Thermopylae is a time when Greece unified itself to overcome the Persians. The true story was that like the movie Transformers. The most disciplined force of ancient times, the Spartans, with only a handful of themselves assembled with other Greeks and held the land battle. The Athenians, greatly outnumbered in the sea, led a sea attack against Persian ships to curtail them from sending reinforcements behind the land units on the pass.

Face it, 300 was disapointing, so they gave us Transformers.

Can not be Pro-Life and Pro-War

So I slack on my blog entries. Luckily for me this is not a popular blog. Perhaps because my arguments have been said over and over again. I have never said anything new, only things I had read elsewhere.

But I am bothered. The religious are Pro-Life therefore against any action that takes away life. For this reason abortion is an important political issue which I completely understand, but for the same people who are against abortion yet support any type of war seems to be a contradiction. Can you support a war and be Pro-Life? Wars bring death, and war is promoted by those politicians who we vote for. As war is the decision of those elected officials it only makes sense for war to be a major political issue for the religious. Yet abortions, with laws or without are always at the hands of the woman in labor. If she is going to choose to have an abortion she will find a way, there is hardly anything law can do to prevent this. Yet, war which brings death is caused by the elected officials.

You can not be Pro-Life and Pro-War. If you support life then you support all life, you can not pick and choose between which lives you support.

Easter Special: Religion and Economics

It is Good Friday. Easter is among us, and we continously face scarcity.

What am I implying? That the free market is God's gift. Many Christians believe that God would want us to live in socialism as we should share everything, but I ask you, IF this was the case, why would God have written the Ten Commandments to include property rights. Oh yes, property rights for how else can you covet your neighbor's property unless it is your neighbor's property and not your own. Private property is one of the foundations upon the free market.

Free market is not a thing that was created by man, but a gift that functions on its own. Man does not cooperate with one another and bring about a society when all is shared and given to one another, but this rather allows for free riders. A society that cooperates is one that trades for one action for another. Trades between their own private property.

Think of this, the Holy Trinity, is three entities in one God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We break them into three entitites in order to better comprehend God.

"Competing in cooperation and cooperating in competition all people are instrumental in bringing about the result, .... the determination of prices, the direction of productive efforts, and distribution.... These three events are not different matters. They are only different aspects of one indivisible phenomenon which our analytical scrutiny seperates into three parts."(Mises)

Similar by coincidence or is the free market a gift? Capitalism is the means. A peaceful society is the end to the means. Thank God for Capitalism

Smoking

I do not point fingers or say any politician is at fault, but what is it with government wishing to impose upon more on our lives. To ban smoking from restaurants as if they owned the restaurants. Next they will ban smoking in our own homes. What is the use of owning a property if you do not get to do what you wish with it? Is the government not to protect our property? If its duty is to protect our property, why does it seem they continuously invade our homes with all their organizations? (FDA, FCC, etc)

This is short because there is not much to say on it only the few questions asked. Why shouldn't the restaurants decide on their own what their customers value more smoking or non. If the customers would rather have nonsmoking wouldn't we expect the greedy restaurants to cut away with their smoking section in order to increase their profits? Just a thought... or an outburst.

Politicians and the things they say

It is said "Economists do not vote". The reasons why are numerous. You can ask many on how do you vote and they may answer that they choose the lesser of the two evils. If it is evil why should we vote on it? Evil is evil no matter how much.

I think I am officially tired of politics. Those who are part of the party in power will always say "Stay the course". If they say we need change, then they are dividing their party which will harm their political career. Those who are not in the party in power will run with the slogan of change. What else is new? We expect it, but how much can we be lied to?

I was at a rally and heard that we need to discontinue the politicians supporting special interest groups. Furthermore, we need to end the politicians supporting their own agendas. I have heard it dozens of times before. Yet, here was the rally for change. A movement that was meant to be a beginning, and yet the politician spoke to a special interest group. The topics he touched related to this special interest group.

The politician was Senator Barrack Obama, whose heart is in the right place, but so caught up in caring he may in reality hurt those he wishes to help. How? Why? I will briefly discuss the items that were discussed yesterday which were universal health care and education, but we shall save that for my next posts as they deserve to be the topic of their own posts.

The Season for Giving

I give all credit to this post to Professor Larry Iannocconne from GMU. Although, I had never had a class from him; listening to podcasts, his debate with Professor Caplan(GMU), and other sources helped me to understand the reason for giving gifts.

We spoke before upon the issue that gifts are not efficient. If you don't remember you can find it here. Now it is true that it is inefficient because we do not have perfect information; but what is it about the winter holiday season that gives it a name like "The Season for Giving"?

We have one season, one season for as individuals in a capitalistic society to break off time in order to help others. Why is that? Shouldn't we do it year round? And the thought of not giving presents on birthdays and holidays had simply left some with a foul taste in their mouths. Is it because they wished to receive gifts, or perhaps, the pure enjoyment of giving? It is actually more than selfish reasons of wanting to receive or give.

We give gifts in order to show others we care. It is inefficient upon the lens of individuals, but as a community, as a family. It unites the individuals to not look only upon themselves, but to others in hope of being something more. Some families do not need to give gifts because there is no need as they are already so close, but then there are those who live distant from one another, who once a year get a moment to unite and show that they care. The gifts are shared not necessarily to make yourself feel good or make someone else feel good, but to bring everyone closer, to build the community/family. We are social beings after all...

Faith in Life

After writing my previous post, I read one comment. Thank you Anon 7:59 for your comment although instead of writing you a comment in return I had decided for a new post.
Faith is more than religion. Faith is knowing with almost up most certainty that it is true.

Everyday, we walk across streets. We are placing faith in walking across for at any moment we may be run over. It is improbable but the chance is there.Your faith makes it worth taking the risk. Nothing in life is for certain except that we are born and then die. Some are born with sight and find themselves blind after a tragic event. The doctors have told many of people that they may never walk, and we find more and more people with the drive to overcome what the doctors had said would not occur. They had faith. They had a certainty that they would succeed.
Statisticians would tell you that there is nothing that is 100% accurate outside of certain known laws; law of supply, law of demand. For example 1+1 always equals 2, but it is not known for certain that you will live or die today. You believe that today you won't die and so you invest your time in working to enable you to receive more in the future. If you knew without a doubt you would die today, you would not go to work but do anything that may actually kill you.

Faith is what lets you complete actions throughout the day. No, faith is not dumb. How can it when it allows us to live.
Because of faith we cannot understand government intervention. Why government intervention only proves a lack of faith in the market. Are we really to believe that government officials can control an economy better than a market that fixes itself? I think not, and I came to my conclusion through faith...

It all returns to Faith

Its almost Halloween, not that I am a huge fan of Halloween, it is just another day... but I was writing a post upon horror films when I decided it was about time to discuss one of my favorite movies, which I do not classify as a horror film, The Exorcist.

Oh yes, people tremble at just the name of the movie. Many have only viewed the movie once and have only traces of the demonic scenes imbedded into their memory of the movie. I tend to try to speak about this movie any chance I get because what I believe the message is, even though the movie executives would rather the message be different. I won't lead you on, I'll tell you what I found in this movie that makes me smile whenever Halloween comes around, because I know it would lead to The Exorcist to be played on tv. It is like the Christmas Story for many others on Christmas. I just enjoy the Exorcist. Yea, I know I must be a Satanist to enjoy a movie with this topic, but the topic to me is not of demonic possession; but of Faith.

I first noticed this years ago when watching the movie. I like to find explanations to anything, for this reason I like watching Ghost Hunters on Sci Fi when I can since they tend to disprove any supposed hauntings. Where is the faith you might ask? Although the movie is loosely based on a true event, we do not know what actually occurred. It is really just a screen writer/book author and Hollywoods rendition of a demonic possession and exorcism. Yet, from the beginning of the film we are introduced to a young priest. This young priest is continuously attacked and has begun to lose his faith in the Catholic Church. Recall that his mother is dying; he is approached and told that if only he wasn't a Catholic priest he would be a rich psychiatrist able to take better care of his dying mother. Here is when the demonic face first rises in the young priest's dreams when he is chasing his mother.

I am not going to make this longer but just describe the loss of faith from the young priest who could find no explanations in the possessed girl's actions. His faith was so low that when the Exorcist had told him not to listen to the demon that possessed the girl the young priest could not. Remember, the demon began talking like the young priest's deceased mother, to which the elder priest remarked not to listen the demon's lies. Attacking his spirit from the beginning of the movie, I believe the demon's goal was the priest not the young girl. The Exorcist made the young priest leave the room because he knew his faith was too weak to be of any help in performing the exorcism. The next scenes are not shown, but we are next invited back into the room where the demon lived in the girl with the limp body of the Catholic priest who was performing the exorcism. It was not that the demon was too strong for the exorcism, but I believe that although the Exorcist was strong in faith that he could call out to God to wield him the power to cast the demon, his physical strength was too weak; recall he was sick since his first meeting with the demon both from a past exorcism and in the dig in Iraq. The Exorcist had needed the young priest in order to wield the power of God to cast the demon, but as the young priest had little faith he was of no use causing the Exorcist to die. Entering the room, the young priest has no choice. It appears he finally understood what it was the demon wanted and his faith grew. He knew it was he the demon wanted and called out to it, commanding the demon to take him and leave the girl. For this, I believe the movie to be about faith, that the demon left the girl for the Catholic Priest who finally found enough faith and strength that he could hold on to his physical body enough to kill himself and the demon.

Because of this movie, I am not afraid of demonic possession. I know that it is faith that wields the strength in order to cast out the demon. In this time of fright before Halloween, perhaps you should build up your own faith. Not neccessarily Catholic, but with whatever it is you have faith in. I am not here to say what religion is right, only that when you feel like you are falling you mean only to look into oneself and strengthen your faith.

Birthdays; Holidays; old past time

I have decided to finally post this topic, well just because I think it is time and I don't want to talk about politicks or government.

Birthdays, why do we celebrate them? We are only born once, and by using different calendars we could have multible birthdays throughout the year. Therefore, I think we should stand up for the right to save our money and not celebrate birthdays. Everyday, I have to congratulate someone for their birthday. Here's a hint, if you are passed 21 there is not much left to look forward to except for when you turn 25 and the cost of insurance falls; therefore its time to stop counting birthdays. Years come years go, we live and then we die. Why should we count just to know we are only getting older? How about you stop counting that way you feel forever young?

Well, my real point is namely on gifts. If you want to celebrate someone's birthday that is your choice, but do not waste your time by searching for the perfect gift. Most likely, whatever you buy will not be the perfect gift. Why? Because you are not them therefore you do not know for certain what they would like. You only increase the price of the gift by spending the amount of time searching for it. To save time (cost) and make the gift more efficient you should just give money or a gift card. This way, whoever you were given the gift to could buy themselves what they would like. Since they know what they would like, they will be able to maximize the gift's utility(someones rate of enjoyment).

How many times have you been given the sweater that you never wear? How many times have you given the bread maker that was given to you two years ago for your birthday but it just is returned to you at another birthday/holiday?

If it were up to me, you save your money, I shall save mine. On your birthday, you buy yourself a gift with the money you would have spent on me, and I will do the same with the money I would have spent on you for your birthday/holiday. This way, we will actually use or admire what it is we had bought for ourselves, since we know what it is that we want.

Western Philosophy from the Middle East

It has been a long time since I have blogged. I did not want to help fill the internet nor the bloggersphere with ill tempered material that only voiced my opinion upon the situations that arose last week. Instead I decided to hold my tongue rather than insert a plague of malicious words upon anyone. Ok, so I am hardly malicious in any way towards anyone, more of the guy who smiles even when things turn for the bad.

I want to start off this week by speaking upon Iran. No, not upon the Iranian President's interview, although that did turn sour and I may post upon it tomorrow, but on a gentleman's writings I just happened to stumble upon. A blog on blogger was created to help free him from his cell, but as for right now he is free; touring the free world expressing his gratitude for any allegiance to his cause. It wasn't his blog that I found but an article in the Washington Post that had me begin reading the blog that also posted some of his translated letters from the prison. These letters are fascinating as they are the beginning of Western Philosophy in the Middle East.
His name is Akbar Ganji. He had fought in the revolution to free his country from the Shah, only to find a new form of government that began taking away people's rights. Akbar Ganji is a writer and began to believe in the Freedom of the Press. I don't want to begin a biography upon him, for a brief summary you can read the article in the Washington Post, but here we find a Iranian, who has begun to find freedom.
What is fascinating about freedom is that it is almost entirely western. The Eastern philosophies had never pertained towards natural rights. Most countries in Asia have lived off a monarchy or other forms of dictatorships that to them an idea of revolution is ridiculous. We can go back to cultural movies as in Jet Li's HERO where one King raged war across his neighboring countries in order to unify them under one Kingdom causing all the wars between the neighboring countries to end. The wars fought were not for freedom, but over patroitism towards the King and Land. Only in Ancient Greece under philosophers as Socrates, was Democracy able to be created. A land of thought, of acceptance, and of opportunity. For those reasons did Rome and Greece begin to surpass others. (Of course, they did fall, but corruption reared its head)

Yet, this gentleman, Ganji, who is free at the moment feels a duty to return home to Iran to fight the fight from within. Not by starting a revolutionary war, but a revolution in thought. He knows he may be arrested again, but he knows that this is what he has to do.

For those who enjoyed V for Vendetta, Ganji is V. Knowing that his end may be near, but without fearing he takes the steps that he believes that are needed. I once had a friend who thought perhaps those who appeal government should be taking care of their families first. But Ganji, who is married and has two daughters must think the same as I would if I was in his place; Do I want my kids to live under rule like this? Should I not try to change it?

Our own country is far from perfect, but it is a heck of a lot better than anywhere else. Let us remember that whenever tyranny or leviathan raise their ugly head, gentleman like Ganji who I consider to be in the same group as Ghandi, Mandela, Guy Fawkes(yes, I threw that in just for the comment on V For Vendetta earlier), and the Founding Fathers. The men who see oppression and feel the need to try to change things to bring about individual rights and freedom.