Violence Justified

When I was 16, I got into a fight.  A friend of mine and I were putting gas in my car, it was around 8:00 in the evening when a couple of other 16 year old’s, past friends of mine, started to hassle my friend.  I stepped into the middle of the frey and when I was pushed, I pushed back, harder and with more purpose, the other guy fell down and moved away, ending the problem.

Three hours later I was jumped.  Three guys, one of them the past friend, had hidden in the bushes that lined are long driveway and jumped out, hitting me from behind.  The blow to my head was hardened and heavy, sending me reeling and wobbly.   The other two quickly joined in and started to thrash me with their fists.  

The odds were not in my favor and yet I remained standing and was able to move toward my house.  The porch light was on and with every step toward that light the blows to my body and head diminished.  The thought ran through my addled brain at the time “run toward the light”, so I ran.

When I got to the porch I looked back and the three assailants had gone, back into the darkness and the bushes, or back to their car and a quick getaway.  I was in no shape to track them down, I knew who they were, I knew where two of them lived and I also knew it would be my word against theirs, so I leaned against the old spanish stucco, letting my head drop, my adrenaline to subside and my emotions to resort back to normal.  

I don’t like to admit this but I liked the rush of adrenaline and I like the feeling of getting into fights, it was exhilarating and exciting. I did not like the headache that I was having and would be experiencing for some time, nor did I like the fact that I had been jumped and it took me several hours to get over the desire to get in my car and confront each and every one of those cowards.  Remember I was 16 years old, had been in Judo for three years and I was pretty much ignorant at understanding the cause and effect of one’s actions.

Just to end this tale, I did get some justice when the same, past friend, tried to steal a pair of moccasins from my PE locker.  He didn’t succeed and he found himself on the ground again, but this time there were witnesses.

I was reminded of those events when I watched a pro Trump Rally, without Trump, at Berkeley, the liberal university, yes the same Berkeley that rioted to stop the visit of Milo Yiannopoulos.  This rally was a bit more peaceful but mostly due to a large contingent of police.  But even with a police presence the anti Trump crowd over shouted the peaceful demonstrators for Trump, using foul language and racial slurs.  The promise of violence however, was the tipping point for the Trump supporters to disband and this brings me to the point of this Blog.

Violence is a behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.  The left is not afraid to use violence to further their cause; the right is more afraid of the consequences of using violence.  

When is violence appropriate?  For those with morals, I am not being judgemental here but the true difference between those who are easily provoked toward anger and violence are those with less morality, less distinction between right and wrong, having a less principled life and therefore more prone to violence.  These are the same individuals who favor anarchy and lawlessness and have attached themselves to this country's liberal political parties.

This division of belief causes a serious separation within the basic rights of all, with those who want law and order in direct conflict with those who want anarchy and incorrectly believe that freedom is defined as no rules and no laws.  How you define freedom will in essence place you on the scale of Anarchist or harmony, order and peace.  

In our educational system we promote a level of order and peace but do so without the reality of life as it’s foundation.  Life is not equal, fair nor filled with opportunity.  Life can be harsh and does not offer free services.  Life must be earned if you want to move beyond mere existence and into life.  The demonstrators across this country have failed to learn those basic life skills and our educational system has failed to assist in that learning, leaving millions of students unprepared, unwilling and incapable of acting rationally.  

This same group makes claims toward free speech but fail to understand the concepts of allowing all that same privilege.  What good is free speech if your speech is stopped by violence or rioting?  This same group demands equality but fails to understand that equality is a God given right within our constitution (yes we’ve had problems in our past) and have failed to comprehend that ...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

This group is also the most entitled but the least deserving of all who came before.  Their demands on society, on their parents and on government is unprecedented.  For the first time in this countries history there are times when those who are unemployed outnumber those employed, depending on how those statistics are manipulated.  Currently there are approximately 120 millions working full time.  There are nearly 350 million people in the US. this means that for every worker there are 2.9 non workers.  

Of course we have children and dependents in that mix but the statistic is clear, we have less workers supporting more non workers than ever before.  Economics is a concern but within that excuse is the reality that our youth, that group, exists the lack of desire to push ahead, to be self motivating, be creative or in a more simple term are more lazy.  They want what they want and are willing to use violence to get it.

Violence should be a last resort and perhaps, should even be thought about when you think it’s a last resort. To use it to squelch free speech, just because you don’t like the speaker is 100% wrong.   B
Because of the way these children were raised, educated and coddled in life they truly believe they have the right to act as their acting.  Is it too late for them?  That’s hard to say but the solution to this growing problem is not more of the same.  They need rules, guidelines and structure, they need purpose and responsibility, they need to get a life worth living.  

They need to move toward the light, bath in it's motivation, it's enthusiasm and optimism, relish in the inspirational glow of its power. Maybe then and only then will they grow a backbone and develop a conscience and finely be willing to enter the life that they have been so blessed with. Or not ….

Fascist Cognition

Bill Nye, the Science Guy, was a pseudo hero of mine, especially when I was raising my kids and during the early years of teaching.  It was amazing to me how some nerdy guy could capture the attention by being odd and weird, but he did and for that I am grateful. 

He saved me hours of trying to figure out what to do and how to fill precious minutes with my school students and my own kids, so thank you, Bill Nye.

He’s not my hero now.  He has adopted the position similar to a religious zealot with his belief in science and his faith in global warming.  His position is clear and concise, you either believe like he does or you’re a denier, a heretic, a Global Warming Sinner.  

Science attempts to understand the natural and the physical world through observation and experimentation, a process that has no practical end unless you can prove, without question that all of your questions, future questions, past and present have been answered.  There will no longer be a debate because there is no reason to question what is now the truth.  

The position taken by Bill Nye is that Global Warming is a foregone conclusion and any further descent from the issue is akin to sacrilege or as he put it “cognitive dissonance” or in other words,  a conflict between cognitions or conflicting beliefs.  It should be mentioned here that this psychological issue does not claim to conflict with the truth but with belief.  I would also like to mention that the belief in science often has conflicting scenarios that cause scientist great concern, especially when their hypothesis has been threatened with extinction due to faulty, manufactured or just wrong information.  

When there is insufficient reward there is dissonance...there is a tendency to avoid information that would create cognitive dissonance because it is incompatible with their current beliefs. Inconsistencies between our beliefs and the facts that surround us create a cognitive discord. In order to balance that discord one of four things needs to occur:  

1.  Change one of the conflicting thoughts to restore your consistency.

2.  Change a behavior to restore balance.  

3.  Add new thoughts, justifications or excuses to reduce the cognitive dissonance or to more effectively rationalize the behaviors and or justify the decisions to maintain the dissonance.

4.  Trivialize the inconsistencies.

Peace within is the ultimate cure for cognitive dissonance.  Psychology suggests that the 4 points above are attempts toward restoring balance or peace.  When science encounters cognitive dissonance they simply change the parameters of their experiments or alter their theory but when the common man deals with conflicts of cognition they must come back into balance through one of the four prescribed methods.  There really isn’t that much difference between the common man and the sciences when it comes to creating a balanced view of our world but add a little Global Climate Change and all the rules are thrown out the window.  

Bill Nye is emphatic about the “settled science”.  Have you ever heard of a science that is settled? Mammograms was a settled science until they found that in a study of 90,000 women Mammograms did not affect the number of breast cancer incidents.  Settled to unsettled in just over 25 years.  If climate science is settled, why do its predictions keep changing?  Settled or unsettling?  

Leeches were used universally years ago and are still used today for very specific cases.   But the settled science of bloodletting was considered a standard practice and was considered the order of the day, a day that lasted for over 2000 years.  If anything was considered settled one would have to include bloodletting.  That practice is almost completely abandoned now and has no place within our present day system of medicine.  Who knows what will change in the future.

Science that is settled is no longer science since science is the process of discovery through experimentation and observation.  Settled science is then an unmitigated fact with no need to experiment or observe for the purpose of discovery.  As it pertains to Global Climate change, settled science implies no need for argument or discussion, especially for those who don’t agree.  (A Pew study done in October of 2016 showed a stark contrast between what has been reported and what was recently observed.  Three-quarters of Americans have doubts about the effects of climate change due to human behavior.)

To me, that is not science but a form of fascism that would severely curtail the free speech of those who dissent from the governmental position.  The use of force to limit those voices is encouraged as is violence and abuse of those who disagree.  “Settled science” has taken up those fascist ideals and they claim they should be the only voices, the only solutions and theirs should be the only means to their ends, leaving the rest of the country to accept, willing or not.

There are numerous issues, not scientific in nature but controversial areas of belief that have galvanized this country.  Abortion, immigration, gun control, minimum wage, gender Identity, the death penalty and many others.  These issues are far from settled and still hold the country apart. Who is to say what is right or wrong? I would vote for myself to be the arbiter of what is right or wrong but that might cause even more issues than we already have.  

In order to solve these issues we need to solve the most basic problem of how we feel about each other, we need to love more, care more and serve more, then and only then can we be in a position to want to help those around us despite their political views, and only then will we be able to discuss those divisive topics without the overwhelming need to end the discussion with violence...You go first and I’ll see how you do...