Missing an aggravated battery criminal charge

As evidenced by the half grown cat currently trying to distract me, I do like animals.

Except armadillos. We hates them we does my precious.

But I like critters.

Got home today and saw a dog inside the fence. Said to myself, "Best be out of my yard before I find you or there'll be some regrets on your part."

Parked. Got out. Eased a gun out. - In case you wonder, when I was 8, I got 40 stitches in my head from a family pet German shepherd that turned on me. It lived less than 2 minutes because the owner Uncle Billy, 'bout blew his engine getting from the far end of the property to the house to kill it. I've had many other dogs offer to do the Violence Waltz in the past. Some survived their first and only lesson to behave. Some did not.-

I was mad. Very mad.

Rounded the corner. The dog saw me and sat down. He wagged his tail. Still holding the gun, I called out "You're a friendly boy. C'mere then."

The dog eased toward me. He lay on the ground and crawled toward me. A pit bull.

Where I was mad before, I was furious to the point of crying and almost am now.

This dog looked like he'd just been liberated from Auschwitz. If the owner had been in front of me, I'd probably be in jail right now on an aggravated battery charge.

I picked up a few things in the yard and "Pal" followed my every step. We took the garbage can to the road and back. I went in the house, still about as mad as I could be, and got some cat food for him to eat. Best I could on such short notice.

Outside, he took a few bites and then was right back at my side again.

Animal control was called. My yard is too small for a dog and he had no collar or identfying marks. He'd be better off at the animal shelter than running around the streets starved and a likely target for the infected hemorrhoids that steal dogs to use as bait to train fighting dogs.

By the time Chad showed up, Pal was gone.

I'm still mad, furious. But if Pal shows up again, I'll feed him and sit with him until Chad shows up to collect him. In the shelter, he may die in a few days, but it will be a painless death and he'll be well fed and warm until then.

Unless someone else wants to claim him. In which case, privately send me your number and if Pal shows up again, I'll call you.

Wrapping this up.

Seriously. With this being the whateverth post, I've yet to hear from many readers (this presumes more than 4 people are reading this). Am I right? Wrong? A mixture? Have I started out with a fundamentally flawed precept?

Show me where I am wrong. Make your case. Prove it. Any takers?

Ok then, on with the show and the conclusion!

Hokay. I think I finally have this thought out. Try this.

What makes your rights more important than mine?

Say owning TV sets is a right.

You don't have a TV.

I have 2.

Do you have the right to take one of mine? Take implies you will use any and all force necessary, up to and including lethal force.

Do you still have right to take one of my TVs. If I refuse to give one up, do you have the right to kill me to take one?

The item is irrelevant. I use TV here because they are ubiquitous. But you can change it. Make it a house, money, gun, food hat, shoes, air, note pad, camera, free speech, water, self-defense, voting, vehicle, Internet access. Pick one.

The point is: I have it. You don't. I have more than one. You have none.

Do you have the right to take one away from me? Do you have the right to kill me to take it?

Do I have the right to respond with as much force as necessary to stop you?

Sane people will say theft is wrong.

Some insane people will also say theft is wrong but will still try to take my TV.

They try to take my TV through an act of government.

Apparently when government takes action, this makes it legitimate. Another tautology. Government creates the laws and so gets to decide what is illegal and legal.

According to the majority in this case, the rights of an individual are not equal to the rights of a group. The strongest group can then decide the rights of one person are superior to the rights of another person. Slavery, disenfranchisement, separate but equal, government dictating what marriage is.

This is government - deciding your rights are more important than mine. Why?

This is the fundamental flaw and one we cannot escape except by going to complete and utter anarchy. But anarchy brings another set of flaws. Anarchy, by very definition, means no consistency and no law whatsoever. Under anarchy, everything, including murder, is permitted because nothing can be banned.

Just like with government, the strongest get to decide. Hope the strong will be fair, but history shows this has never, ever happened except in brief instances. Long term, we're all subject to the whims of the strong.

There's the flaw. In order to function at an absolutely fair level government must be orchestrated when each person is to be a realistic altruist. And that has never happened that I know of. Even Jesus was not a realistic altruist because He had an overriding agenda.

The problem is you. The problem is me. The problem is all 7.5 billion people on the planet today. As Pogo once said, We have met the enemy and he is us.

Problems from the start - Part 11

So now we finally have the fundamental problem.

Your right to be without harming me. My right to be without you harming me.

Your right and my right cannot be absolute. Or can they? Your right and my right should be absolute. Or should they?

This is the problem from the start.

How do we balance these?

Lemme make this basic.

Your right to breathe means you are taking in oxygen I need. You exhale. When you exhale, you discharge all manner of things (follow these links!):

• Moisture

• Body cells

• Dangerous microbes

This doesn't even count the substances you inhale and then exhale.

Do you have the right to breathe?

Do I have the right to not breathe in your waste products?

See the problem?

This is further compounded by government. Government can't have rights. Government doesn't exist in a purely physical sense like you and me. Yet, government takes our rights.

JMSIII and Greg have posted two excellent comments about this series in the FB links.

We ride, Pancho!

Polonius:
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!

Laertes:
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

The older I get the more I appreciate the words of Shakespeare, regardless who wrote 'em.

This morning, I got up and amid my Saturday a.m. putterings, I came to a decision. It was helped by an NPR story on a candidate for president. I decided whom I will vote for in the coming primary.

Far more than anything the news has presented, this decision was a direct result of my friends, all of you, who post about politics.

I must digress briefly. I tell you I am a rebel. I object to being told what to do.

I fight authority, Authority always wins
I fight authority, Authority always wins
I been doing it since I was a young kid
I come out grinnin'
I fight authority, Authority always wins

Well, I don't always come out grinnin'. Sometimes I come out cussing. Sometimes I come out ... let's just say upset. Every so often, not nearly as often as I'd like, I win. Sometimes, when I win, I regret it, Not because I won, but because my win means other people have to suffer. They suffer because they would not accept reality and I brought reality crashing down on their heads.

That hurts. But, life hurts.

So why fight? Because it is who I am. Been doing for as long as I can remember and I probably will keep fighting.

A lot of people. TC being the most vocal, but absolutely not the first, have accused me of tilting at windmills. You see a windmill. I see a dragon with a windmill glamour.

So back on topic.

I have friends who are so vehement about the coming presidential election, you'd think they have money invested in the outcome. They do have money invested in the outcome. So do you. More than that, we all have rights invested in the outcome.

Folks are hurling invective the way Jackson Pollock painted. They are busy attacking the windmill because it is green and it must be yellow. The other side sees yellow and says it must be green.

It ain't a windmill folks. The color of the dragon does not mean a f'dangin' thing when your head gets bitten off.

When the General Primary comes along, I have decided whom I will vote for. I will vote for my choice ONLY for these two reasons.

1) There is so much hate aimed at the candidate.

2) Those slinging the arrows of outrageous fortune believe there is a difference between their chosen windmill color and the other chosen windmill.

So, I will vote. I will vote to prove the difference between green and yellow is irrelevant and almost non existent. Colors are a division in the spectrum of radiation. If the entire spectrum was laid out on a yardstick, you could not see the difference between yellow and green except with an electron microscope.

The difference is not enough to matter.

And so, in the general primary I will vote. I will vote because I am tired of hate, tired of invective, tired of people who refuse to believe the dragon is real even when the dragon is busy eating their friends,

I will vote. I do not believe the person I will vote for is suited to run the country. No-one in the General Primary is capable of running the country. I will vote. Then no matter who wins the presidency, it will not matter. If the person I vote for in the primary wins the presidency, we will all lose. If another in the primary wins the general election, we will all lose.

I will vote. I will vote because so many of you spew so much hate. I will vote, not because I want to, but because I am a rebel. The oxymoron in this is not lost on me.

So, yes, I have decided whom I will vote for in the General Primary.

Problems from the start - Part 10

Now we've hit the fundamental problem.

You have the right to own a TV. You do not have the right to take someone else's TV.

But government has the ability, which becomes a right de facto and de juri, to take your TV.

You never had the right to take my TV. Yet, acting from a base of power of individuals, government achieves the ability to take my TV and I have no recourse.

So another question (I lied about post 9 having the last question.)

Does a group have more rights than an individual?

I say no, existentially. A group has more power than an individual to enforce its decisions. The more power the group has, the more it can force its decisions on others, including less powerful groups.

That's not the same as a right.

You may have rights. But power eliminates your rights, whether you like it or not. The more power that is brought against you, the less rights you have.

When a person or a group begins to exercise power over someone else, this is government.

Government is an exercise of power designed to take away your rights. Government may claim to protect your rights, but it does so at the expense of someone else's rights.

Why is your right to own a TV greater than my right to own a TV and indeed have two TVs? It's that simple. No context, qualifiers or addenda needed. A simple TV set, two of them. Something not vital for survival and something many people (me included) live without.

Yet, I have the right to own a TV and even own more than one.

Government can come and take my TV. You say I do have recourse. Have you ever fought the government. I have no effective recourse to get my TV back if government decides I should not have it.

How can government have a right that you, as an individual, do not have?

Either the individual has rights or the group with the most power has power to take your rights. There is no in between. If the group with the most power has enough power, then individuals have only what the powerful concede.

Again, does a group with power have more rights than an individual? The reality is, government means the ability of the most powerful are the only points that matter. You may object. History proves you wrong over and over until this reaches the level of unassailable fact.

Government is only a concept and an idea. Like any idea, religion included, it is inert until humans take the notion into their head. They use the idea to justify their actions.

Meantime, you have taken my TV without any right to do so. You have brought me harm and I have no recourse.

Problems from the start - Part 9

We're getting closer. I promise.

My last question asked if you want majority rule. Do you?

Are you willing to abide by the rule of the group? How big does the group have to be? No qualifiers allowed, beyond group size.

You are in a group of 100 people. If 51 agree to do something, will you accept it? No qualifiers, no addenda, no context. You have all the information needed to make a decision. Yes or no.

You can't say, it depends, because it does not.

Vary the group size. 10 people. 1,000 people. 300 million. 7 billion. 3.

Are you willing to accept the decision of the majority?

If you agree to majority rule, then what about the minority? If a majority says the minority has no rights, then what?

Say you are in a group of 300 million people. You have 2 TVs. 150,000,001 decide to take one of your TVs and give it to someone else who does not have a TV. Change the majority vote to whatever you want, up to and including 299,999,999 to 1. You are the only person to vote no.

Under that last instance, you'll be giving up a TV, like it or not. With that many people allied against you, your 2nd TV is gone. You may protest. Tough.

Majority rule means majority rule.

What if those 299,999,999 people decide you have to die?

You are dead.

Power matters. Power defeats rights every time.

If you agree that the minorities' TVs can't be taken away, how will you stop the TV removal? If enough power sides against you, your TV is gone. Their TV is gone.

Never mind owning a TV is an absolute right.

Might makes right. Argue that all you want to, but the reality is, might makes right. Don't like it? Enough might permanently eliminates you from the equation.

You, as an individual or a group, come to take my TV. You shoot incapacitating gas grenades into my house. When I am knocked out, you take my TV and leave. If I say I am coming to my TV, you respond with even greater force to prevent me from attempting to get it back.

You can only fight until you are dead. Bring enough power to bear on the matter, and you won't have much ability, if any, to fight back.

Problems from the start - Part 8

If you don't have the right to take my TV, then how did government get this right?

Yes, government can take your TV. It's called eminent domain. Eminent domain is not a right, but a power. It has morphed into a right.

So how did government get the right to take my TV? You never had the right to take my TV, yet you effectively granted government the right to take my TV.

This is a tautology.

I also call it magic. Something is created from nothing.

You don't and never did have the right to take my TV. Yet you can grant this right to government.

So maybe majority rule? If enough people get together and say "This is the way it is," then we have to accept that?

Power corrupts.

So, do you really want majority rule? Think about that. Really hard.

Gonna deep fry his butt

How do you know when you're doing it right?

When a politician starts whining and wants to impose new laws on you.

S. Carolina State Rep. Mike Pitts, R-Laurens, is one of those. Mr. Laurens is tired of being held accountable for his actions in office and he's trying to something to make those hateful people go away. Check it out.

Some people may not have a problem with this registry. Fortunately, the First Amendment is pretty clear about it. Government, and that includes whiny little boys like Pitts (what an accurate last name, eh?) from interfering with reporters.

Fortunately too the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that First Amendment rights afforded to those of us in journalism ALSO apply to you. Yes, you, the person reading this column. It even applies to butt-hurt politicians like Pitts.

Under Pitts' plan, every person who comes into S. Carolina would have to be effectively "registered" as a journalist. Every one. Why? Cause every person has the right and the ability to be a journalist. Increasingly more and more people are doing it. This column? When you click one of the ads, I get paid. Ergo, I am paid to write this column.

You can sign up at blogspot and so the same thing.

Further, there are a LOT of people who function as journalists without getting paid. I have a bunch of people in my lil town of Ashburn, GA who write for and take pictures for the paper I run. They do not get paid, in the financial sense. They do it for love of the kids and love of the community.

Dunno about you, but if you are like me and tired of politicians acting like someone stepped on their pet frog, here's what ya do. Tell him. Send him a link to this column.

Or, call him. Your choice.

Business Phone (803) 734-2830

Home Phone (864) 923-2925

Home Address

372 Bucks Point Rd.
Laurens SC 29360

Problems from the start - Part 7

People believe that government has rights.

How? Why?

Government, they say, gets these rights from the people.

Government is two things:

• A concept. Concepts cannot have rights.

• A group of people. A group of people can have rights.

In reality, government is nothing more than a group of people with enough power to make individuals and groups submit or be killed.

Do you have the right to kill me? Do I have the right to kill you? That's the whole question. No qualifiers, addenda or context added.

Government has this ability, some will say a right, to kill me, to kill you, to kill anyone else it sees fit.

Yes. The US government is, even as you read this, busy killing people in other nations. Other nations are busy killing people in different nations. The US government also allows capital punishment for crimes other than murder.

Where did government get this ability? Abdication. We as citizens abdicated. We handed over our rights to a concept, an idea. We gave up our rights to a block of people in the name of government.

I can't just kill you without facing legal repercussions. You can't just kill me without repercussions. Government can kill either or both of us, carte blanche.

So going back to my TV idea, why does government have the right to take my TV, but you don't?

Problems from the start - Part 6

Let's accept for a moment that the people who say government gets rights from the people are correct.

Now I go back to my first post on this matter.

Can you give away something you don't own?

Can I take something you don't have and give it to someone else?

One person does not have the right to take my TV.

If a group has the right to take my TV, how big does that group have to be? Two? Three? A dozen? As the group gets bigger does it automatically get more and stronger rights?

That still sounds ludicrous, but that's what government is doing.

It's taking your TV and giving it to someone else because the ability to own a TV is a right and government has the responsibility and the right to make sure you have a TV.

It is this simple. It is as simple as TV set. Period. You can make it a lot more complicated, but a TV set is enough.

Do you have the right to give someone a TV? Certainly.

Do you have the right to take my TV and give it to someone? Under the concept of government, you do. Further, this eliminates MY right to own a TV.

This is a central and compelling contradiction of government.

Problems from the start - Part 5

Some people say the right to own a TV is equal to actually owning a TV.

If that is case, then who supplies the TVs?

Government?

Ooooo, now we've just hit something square between the eyes. Let's find out what.

Does government have rights?

Some people say yes. Then how and where does government get these rights. These same people say "from the people."

These people are wrong on two counts.

1) Government cannot have rights. Government is a concept, an idea. A concept cannot have rights. An idea exists only in the mind of beings that think.

2) Government is a group takes its abilities, not rights, from power. Without power, government is impotent. Government as a group is able to control and rule because it can bring overwhelming force against individuals and other groups to make them submit or kill them. Period.

Every government is a group and manages rule because it has power. Power, incidentally, that is supposed to come from the people. It's power the people do not have.

A group of people have no more rights than a single individual.

Problems from the start - Part 4

This is about as dense as a brick of plutonium and even more dangerous. I'm trying. It gets better. Read parts 1-3 first.



In my mind, all rights are completely equal. None is greater than the other.

So you have the right to own a TV, but where do you get the TV from?

Suppose no one will sell or give you a TV.

Do you have the right to force them to provide you with a TV?

Say no. Then where do you get a TV if no one will sell or give you one? (This assumes you will not build a TV for yourself.)

If owning a TV is a right, then you have the right to try to get one, certainly. But you can't harm someone to get one. Conundrum encountered! I do not have a solution, except to say a TV is not necessary for your continued existence.

If you don't get a TV, tough.

Say yes, you can force someone to provide you with a TV.

Where did you get the right to force someone to provide you with a TV?

Is the right to own a TV equal to the right to force someone to provide a TV?

You have the right to own a TV.

Who is responsible for supplying your TV?

If you say government is responsible for getting a TV for you, where will government get it? Government does not create anything. It takes, manages and distributes.

To get your TV, government has to take my TV. There is no other way for government to get a TV. None. Government can hire someone to build you a TV. Government must get the money from me. This prevents ME from having enough money to buy a TV.

This is harm to me. This violates my right to not be harmed.

Maybe getting a TV is not a right. Maybe getting a TV is privilege. A privilege is not a right.

Problems from the start - Part 3

I hope you read Parts 1 and 2. My apologies for making your headparts hurt as Rebel likes to say.

Let's clarify this a bit and back up some.

What is a right? Who has a right? Where does it come from?

Here's my explanation: A right is something inherent. You have a right because you exist. It comes from you because you are you.

This is a tautology. I can't find a way to break the circle.  I have to say everything has a beginning and prior to that, nothing existed.

For this blog, a right is the bedrock on which everything else must be based. There is no lower common denominator. The right is the smallest unit of matter, so to speak. There was and is nothing before the right. Much comes after it.

So what rights do you have? I'd say you have the right to try but not the right to harm others. I think that covers most everything.

Let's go back to a part 2. Do you have the right to own a TV?

That's the whole question. No context, no qualifiers, no addendums or additions.

Make this simple. You do have the right to own a TV. Good enough.

Now we experience actual, concrete problems. We have left the existential and metaphysical and entered the real world.

You have the right to own a TV. So where do you get it from?

Do you have the right to take it from someone else?

Problems from the start - Part 2

Go back and read Part 1. Become very confused.

Now, I try to explain what I mean, in several more posts. I broke it up to make it easier to understand. I hope.

Let's look at rights. What is a right? A sentient being has rights, sentient being the qualifier. Please note, well-being and personal welfare are not the same as rights.

To have a right, a being must be able to know right from wrong, make conscious decisions, plan and understand actions have consequences. Leave one of these out and the entity does not have rights, by my thinking.

The ability to think is what rights are based on.

A being with a right can grant welfare, a state of being kept healthy, to a non-sentient being.

This is why I oppose animal rights, but support animal welfare.

Now let's get particular-

Do you have the right to go into someone's house and take their possessions?

Do you have the right to take their TV and give it to someone else? Do you have the right to take their TV and sell it to someone else?

No conditions or qualifiers in the questions. The only context is, it's as simple as you walking into my house, picking up a TV and walking out with it. Do you have the right to do this?

Do I have the right to do this to you?

Do two people have the right to go in your house, take your TV and sell it or give it away?

Do three people have this right?

Add as many people as you wish. The number of people taking the TV is completely irrelevant and so relevant that the question can't be asked without knowing the number of people.

I still ask if one person can do it. I still ask if the number of people taking one TV matters.

I suggest it is wrong for one person to do it. But is it wrong for a group of people to do it?

Yeah, I know. You are now more confused than ever. It gets worse before it gets better.

Problems from the start - Part 1

The problem is the situation has a basic flaw. It has a fundamental problem at the very root, the core, the foundation, the basis.

I'm gonna try to explain the problem. This may will take more than one blog. At that, I may not manage to explain it. Addenda - just a few minutes ago, I did explain it. But I'm still posting these in order. Gonna take 2 weeks.

It's a simple problem and can be expressed very simply.

You are giving away things you don't have.

Simple enough in one respect, But it gets exponentially more complicated with each step away from this simple statement.

You are giving away things you don't have. I try to explain:

This is a paradox. If you don't have it, how can you give it away? Sounds impossible, but that is exactly what you are doing.

You give it away by taking it from someone else.

They give it away by taking it from you.

But neither of you ever had it.

I told you this is complicated and it may not make sense.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

When you take something away from someone and you get away with it, you get bolder. You start to think about what else you can take away. Few people can resist the urge to continue taking stuff from other people.

But, you are taking something that person never had. But you are still giving away something you took from them.

They are taking from you. You never had it either. But they still give it away. They come back for more of something you never had.

Once you get a taste of power, it's hard to get rid of it.

Arg. arg. arg. arg.

So as of this writing I have 11 (12 if you count this one) blogs trying to explain something. Still ain't made it.

It's clear enough in my head, but getting that from the gray matter to electrons you can see, it ain't happenin'.

So I'm throwing this to you. Hep a po' wordmonger, wudja?

What gives you the right to take away my right?

Before you answer, add this. I have done nothing to cause you or anyone else harm by exercising that right. Nothing. No harm.

So what gives you the right to take away my right?

Gonna give this a couple of days. Then I will re-re-re-re-re-edit blogs 1-11 (they a short) and post.

Lemme hear from ya.