What kind of a person would do what he did to his county?

What kind of a person would do what he did to his county?

And what kind of a country would let him do what he did?

After all, he did no do this in the dark of night or really behind everyone's backs -- he said it out loud; it was reported on the news; there are documents, files, voice recordings, videos.  And yet he still did it.

Gaia and the Pandemic

Could it be that the Pandemic is Gaia's way of reducing the human population to a healthy level?

Vaccine refusers may think that they are making a rational choice -- that they need to do more research or that the vaccine is poison or that their freedom is being denied by getting vaccinated -- but in reality it is Gaia who has structured their environment so that they are compelled to resist protecting themselves from the coronavirus, and all of their talk is an effort to justify their behavior to themselves.  They don't really know why they are refusing to protect themselves from the virus, so they make us something and let those justifications guide their behavior.

Gaia effect on people might be seen as operating in a way similar to Facebook.  According to Facebook, the goal of the company is simply to provide a way for people to connect and "engage"; yet the way that the app is built, the choices it forces, the decisions it makes, the behaviors it allows, often brings out and reinforces the worst emotions and behaviors of people.  Facebook allows people to feed off of the lies and hatred of others and gives them a way to spread these ideas to millions of others in seconds -- a power that no-one-in-the-world had a century ago.

What did we learn from 9/11?

 What did we learn from 9/11?

1.   Americans are easily scared.

2.   Americans will do horrible things to other people if they can be persuaded that doing these horrible things will keep them safe.

3.   Americans are easily scared.

Texas SB8

 The Texas law, SB8, should be called "The Rat Bill" or "The Judas Bill", as it encourages people, through a reward in the form of a bounty of at least $10,000, to rat-out or betray their neighbors if they believe that their neighbors might be enabling a woman to obtain an abortion -- or simply as a way to hurt their neighbor. [A piece of land in Israel measuring about 51 by 51 feet, is currently selling for about $10,000. The Bible says that Judas' 30 pieces of silver was used to buy a "potter's field" because since it was blood money, it could not be used in the temple.]

The Federal government has tried this tactic -- ratting-out one's neighbor -- in Iraq, when the US placed a bounty on suspected ISIS members.  This policy worked in the sense that it resulted in many arrests and incarcerations -- some of whom ended up being incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  

Whether this policy actually worked to identify actual ISIS members is questionable in that, apparently, many of the people identified as ISIS members were simply people whom their betrayers did not like.  That is, someone reports his neighbor as an ISIS member because he does not like his neighbor, not because the neighbor had any connection with ISIS.  This policy benefited the betrayer because he gets a US-paid bounty and his neighbor is gone.  The accused neighbor, on the other hand, is in the eyes of the US government, guilty unless proven innocent.  

A fine policy to build public support for and trust in government, and promote love for one's neighbor.

Paradox: Law and Society

 It is paradoxical that the law seems to grant and protect so much freedom of action and thought, whereas society seem so determined to enforce conformity.