1) #MAGAAnalysis - #MAGAPhilosophy 1 March 2020 So, there I was just now, innocently practicing my guitar when my damned philosophy monster struck again. You'd never know it from how much I post, but I actually love practicing my guitar. Alas.
2) A few introductions are in order. My guitar is Stella. My ridiculous electronic piano, which I do not play, but use to analyze guitar music is Lettie. And the statue is my grandfather, Pasquale, yep, you guessed it, from whom I get my name. Check that out!
3) Don't let me get started on the story of my grandfather or I'll get completely sidetracked. He came from Italy, Calabria, and that's all I'll say about him right now. My mother was once a sculptor, and she sculpted his bust.
4) After I turned 21, I decided, temporarily, to become a thief. One day, I walked into our home, walked up to the statue of Grandpa, picked it up, and walked out to my car and drove away with it. No one has ever come looking for it ever since. You know, better to apologize...
5) So, there I was just now practicing when philosophy struck, like I said. Stop making me repeat myself. Okay. What philosophy? Come on, don't ask dumb questions. You already know. #KeepCalmBuyStocks
6) Who knows, maybe I'll get it out of my system with this thread. This stuff goes deep. Three rights in the Declaration, a fourth added from the 5th and 14th Amendments - if I remember right - turn into the complete and sufficient cause of the great American miracle.
7) Don't let me get started about each one of these rights or I'll get sidetracked. I sidetrack easy, you know? Here they are, once again... 1) Life 2) Liberty 3) The Pursuit of Happiness 4) Property
8) In case you hadn't noticed, these four really work, and work in that precise order. You'd absolutely sacrifice your liberty for you life. Well, unless you're Jeffrey Epstein and you conveniently kill yourself while being the most famous prisoner in America, hell, in the world.
9) Unless you're Jeffrey, you care more about your life than you care about your liberty. Got that? Cool! Same with happiness. Who would sacrifice their own liberty in order to be happy? Okay, okay, we'll come back to this one. People do. Still, they shouldn't!
10) Did you know there's a profession of law, and its practitioners are called lawyers? Yeah. It's real. I know, wow, how ridiculous but there you have it. And they all cost hard cash money. And why do we pay them? Because any of us would sacrifice property for the rights above.
11) The math works in strange ways. If you wish to kill someone, don't kill them. That's illegal. Rather, just take their cash. They won't be happy, free or even alive, much, if you just legally take their cash. That's how it works.
12) Have I mentioned the 16th Amendment? We should repeal it. Idiots that we were - and we were - we ratified that evil amendment into the reality of our very Constitution itself. And oh my, how the courts ran with that one! Courts love the 16th Amendment.
13) Here it is, people, we did this to ourselves: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
14) Don't let me get started on the 3/5s thingie. Yes, when we struck our very Constitution itself, we allowed slave owners an additional vote for, I can't do the math, can you?, for some number of slaves they owned. Three, five, who can figure. It's so confusing.
15) Oh wait! Each slave was 3/5s of a man. So, let's try to count. Three plus three = six. We're up to 6/5s of a man. Plus three more. We're now at nine fifths, right? Okay, we go on up to twelve, next and finally, fifteen. Whew. If I own 15 slaves I get 3 more votes to vote.
16) As a Southern Plantation owner, my goal is to get as many sets of 15 slaves so I can collect as many 3 more votes as I can. Did I do the math right? Property. My slaves are my property. I own people. How awesome am I? And I get votes and votes and more votes. I'm powerful.
17) We stopped all that. We fought a Civil War, in a very uncivil manner, and somewhere around 650,000 souls died in that war. We're still fighting it, if you ask me. We're not done with slavery quite yet. We're still right there, Plantation owning and slave masters that we are.
18) The 13th & 14th Amendments ended legalized slavery. Now that was real progress. But then, just a few decades later, we decided, all of us, to enslave ourselves. We are now all of us tax slaves. Don't cower. Don't deny. We are. We've hired our own slave masters over ourselves.
19) When Thomas Jefferson penned the first draft of the Declaration, his greatest case against George III was that he caused us to be a slave-owning people. When I read that, I kind of cringe. No, George sent no soldiers to point guns and make you buy slaves. Didn't happen.
20) Jefferson's fellow Virginians, and especially the Carolinians and Georgians, they looked at him and went, like, yeah, right, jerk. We're NOT giving up our slaves. Not happening. Get that right of Property right on out of there, good buddy. No way.
21) Practical man that he was, Jefferson contemplated. And, he realized that even a slave can pursue his or her own happiness. It was a natural right that even the terrible institution of slavery could not remove from any human of any skin color. It was a natural right.
22) We've discussed previously how ancient the term happiness is, and how it rooted, anciently, to the surplus of virtues over vices. The pursuit of happiness is the will to build virtue within one's soul, and to demonstrate that virtue within one's actions. That is happiness.
23) Do you see what I'm saying about philosophy, and my personal philosophy monster? I'd be a far better musician if that monster did not so completely control me. Our Declaration of Independence is the veritable statement of our philosophy as a people.
24) The Declaration does not stand alone. 1789 - 1776 = 13 years. 13 years later we ratified our Constitution. Somehow, and who knows how, the right of Property sneaked right back in, even as we were completing our evil 3/5s deal. Do remember, 3/5 is the most evil number we have.
25) If you can find someone who did this first, I'd love to honor that person. I don't think you will, though. I honestly think I'm the very first analyst to pull together our four rights in the order that I have. What do you think? Have you heard them presented this way before?
26) If you've been watching, you'll recall that I then moved them forward from rights to commands. 1) Be Healthy 2) Be Free 3) Be Happy 4) Be Wealthy
27) Be healthy enough to not die, today. Be free enough to not accept your own enslavement, today. Be happy enough so you don't stand as your own worst enemy. Be good to yourself. Pursue happiness. Be happy. And be wealthy. You have the right of property. Use your right.
28) Slow down with me now. Our planet rotates at roughly 1,000 miles per hour. Its circumference is about 24,000 miles round. Wipe out the zeroes and you get 1,000 miles per each of the 24 hours of the day. This breaks out into roughly 12 hours of light and dark, each.
29) Pretend you sleep at night. Pretend you wake in the morning. Pretend that, once awakened, it is your job to envision the coming day. If you actually believed that that was your job, how might you best go about your daily preparations?
30) Health, freedom, happiness and wealth are, in that order, the answer. How will you make yourself healthier today, so you can live longer, and collect on your right of life? I say exercise and diet. Do more stuff with your body. Move. Eat less carbohydrates.
31) How does one make oneself more free? Stop obeying so much. Be a bad slave. Escape. My own answer back in 1987 was to become self-employed. I'm still in the same job these decades later. I may not be the best boss, but at least I am free to do as I please.
32) You do NOT need to follow my suit. You can if you wish. But, you can be free as an employee as long as the following fact is true, about you! You have to be able to quit. You have to be able to get a new job. If you can't quit, then you're not free.
33) I'll assume you're following my logic. Life requires you to be healthy enough to not die today. Freedom - liberty - means your choices are your own, not the obedient acceptance of another's power over you. Happiness and Wealth await your righteous decisions and actions.
34) Before we move on, it is critical that we comprehend just how powerful these rights and their attendant commands are. Never before, in the entire history of the world, was a nation founded on the individual rights of its citizens. That is what our founders gave us.
35) I have to mention my greatest teacher over all these things. His name is David Shestokas, @shestokas. His book on the Declaration, and his website on the Constitution are among the greatest treasures in America today. I love my teachers. I love Dave.
Let's go again. Here are our rights, and here are our corresponding treasures: 1) Life 2) Liberty 3) The Pursuit of Happiness 4) Property 1) Health 2) Freedom 3) Happiness 4) Wealth
37) Who studies the angels? What are their names? I am not an angelic student. I have to propose, however, that for each of us there are these four angels: health, freedom, happiness, and wealth. Now, and I am as serious as I can be, linger with me about your mornings.
38) I implore you, both philosophically and practically, worship on these four altars each day in the morning. How will you be healthier, freer, happier, and wealthier today, this day? How will you convert your rights into your actions?
39) It is now time to go dark, demonic. In fact, it was this that halted my delightful little guitar practice. I saw the demons. I saw them, and knew I had to name them here in public. There are four great American demons. I will introduce them to you below...
40) Here are our demons: 1) Disease 2) Slavery 3) Sadness 4) Poverty
41) I am a severe diabetic. Controlling my blood sugar levels is a daily endeavor for me. At times, I have done so without Insulin. Right now, I'm using Insulin. But in all cases, I log my blood sugar count and decide my actions. What will I eat? How hard will I exercise?
42) As Americans, we have allowed addictions to enslave us. It is SO easy for me to imagine being addicted to opiods. Pain is pain. Pain is the true and greatest slave master of all. Be it opiods or alcohol, any addiction at all is the greatest slave master there is.
43) I am not sure quite why we humans are so ready to be enslaved. Yet, the fact is that we are. Look around the planet. Dictatorships rise and fall and rise again. Our need to be led is a type of addiction in itself. We are followers. We are pack creatures.
44) Communism states that the need for greed is the ultimate sin. I disagree. The need to be led is the ultimate sin. We are enslaved to followership. We need our leader. Oh, if only our leader would lead us rightly.
45) What stopped me from practicing my guitar was this. There are four Great American Demons. They are: 1) Disease 2) Slavery 3) Fear 4) Poverty
46) Disease is the condition of the human body before it dies. If we're going to be healthy, we must reject death. No, not forever. Sooner or later, we will all die. But we must stand and state...not today. I die tomorrow. I live today.
47) What does it mean to be free? It means that the demon of slavery is defeated. I don't smoke cigarettes. Do you? If you do, stop. Stops smoking. Why? Because science tells us it will kill us. Stop. So also with all addictions. Stop.
48) Are you a virtus man or woman? I am. My virtues top my vices. I have many vices. I do NOT place myself as your role model. Rather, I am merely a philosopher. But I am an American, to the core of my being.
49) And every day, I face these demons: 1) Disease 2) Slavery 3) Fear 4) Poverty
50) I may be diseased. I may be enslaved. I may be afraid. I may be poor. These are all possible. Yet, I reject them all. Rather, I proclaim, I am... 1) Alive and Healthy 2) Free 3) Happy 4) Wealthy That's where I stand. Where do you stand?
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