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How Smart People Can Be Really Dumb Part 4
This is the Final in the Series of Posts “How Smart People Can Be Really Dumb”
These Are Not Principles of a Meritocracy or Capitalism - Nepotism and Fraternalism:
Nepotism and fraternalism are not the way things ought to be, and are not compatible with a meritocracy. Yet can this issue be resolved? Not if those ring-knockers and good-old-boys in power can help it, otherwise they wouldn’t be in power any longer, and people who are truly better skilled, qualified and able would actually be in power, right?
Those in power only want the majority to believe it’s about merit, so they can keep them working toward it all their lives, while the inept can stay in power via affiliation, cronyism and elitism and hide the fact that they don’t have the skill, the decision-making, the moral courage, the integrity, as well as the ability to do things they ask others to do, like go to war…etc…and yet continue to rule over those who do have the integrity to do these things.
Silver Spooned Fraternalism
It amazes me, those in power often never had hardship or war or common ordinary lives, but instead were elitist schooled and silver-spooned, and therefore feel superior to everyone else though when campaigning will kiss babies, tell blue collar workers they are all for them, tell troops they know how they feel, and tell everyone else what they need to hear in order to get elected.
These people try to act ordinary but are not, they claim that they’re just like everyone else and truly understand things they truly don’t because they’ve never “Been There, Done That” as they claim!
Yet such need and depend on the integrity and honesty of the common person to carry out their plan…hmm…maybe they’re not so dumb after all, maybe us smart people, are the dummies and dupes for violating the “fool me twice, shame on me” lesson. It’s our fault. But they are also dumb, because this is how revolutions form, to put a stop to this kind of stuff.
Revolutions = Tyrannies
Unfortunately every revolution seems to have only resulted in one form of tyranny after another, some very light, some really bad, and so did revolution really result in the goal intended? No. It seems EVERYWHERE, a small ruling elite oligarchy forms, remains and runs things.
Such a strange commonality from such oft divergent and polarized philosophies, often not followed according to their true principles but instead a result of their flawed execution yet unopposed because “those with the gold make the rules”. Too late to try to oppose once the rules are made and the gold has been divided.
Is There a Solution to Anti-Meritocricy and Anti-Capitalism?
Feels like I’m chasing after the wind here…is there a solution? Yes, do not despair, there is hope, there is a solution and it is quite reasonable and intelligent. More on that later…
Realize the “smart ones” even though they think they’ve outsmarted us, will never get it. That’s why smart people can really be dumb sometimes. They miss the point, forget what really matters, lose themselves, don’t realize how much smarter the little people really are. They tend to go off and become what they hate and may then lose themselves forever. My God, I pray that doesn’t happen to me! I covered a lot here, let me know what you think!
I Hope you enjoyed my 4 part series on How Smart People Can Be Really Dum
Dude, Where’s My Freedom? Part 3
Let Me Say That Again…Dude, Where’s My Freedom?
What the Fishing Example Proves!
We can’t even get it right when it comes to fishing! I am completely apalled by that, and it proves that laws and bureaucracy as well as big government do not make things better, nor protect us from big business. Benefits people get cost them twice as much. So the opposite seems to be true…big government and big business go hand in hand, are directly related and proportional, the bigger they are, the worse and more expensive things get…and the little people and middle class is the victim every time still, even in this new millenium.
Is there hope?
If enough people can jump on this bandwagon, we can turn the tide. It will take time, years and perhaps decades to reverse the damage. But I don’t want to say it can’t be done. Sometimes I think we’ve gone too far down the road, but people, things, and God’s hand above all and through all just continually amazes me and gives me hope.
He can work a miracle in and through you and we need and want that, don’t we? Or have you given up hope and turned only to live a life for yourself and your own ego and magnificence? Such is the deceitfulness of the little ring of power you’ve been given, to borrow and analogy from the Lord of the Rings, to serve only the things you want to serve rather than those you should.
Forget where you came from?
People achieve the American Dream, then they become big people who step on others? I have a long list of other topics and things I could talk about with regards to this topic. But this should be enough for now! We need to get back to our foundational and Godly principles in order to be who and what we really should be. There is enough Godlessness and Devilry in the world.
The fishing example above serves as an “epitome example” of what’s wrong with big government, the dangers of eroded freedom in the simplest of things. This is an example of blowback, over-regulation, what happens to freedom for the common individual at the expense of special interests, red tape and bureaucracy. All the stuff we normal people, common people, the majority who are underrepresented, hate, seems to thrive, while we sit idle.
What is one to think or do?
The smartest people with Harvard and Yale degrees, the Ivy League silver spooned folk running our country and their big companies and cronies or good ol’ boy and now the up and coming good ol’ girl networks, making all the decisions for us, since they think they know best for everyone…man-given not necessarily God-given wisdom I might add…The Lord is Just.
What they feel they can be trusted to deliver, as a result, unintended or not, for all their smarts and skills…serves as an example of what must be changed, as a mere glimpse of the rest my friend. After all the think tanks and millions spent on thoughts and de-facto policies set by elitist thinking not the common sense common thinking of common and ordinary folk…pray tell…
What would the Founding Fathers of America have said, and they of course not being perfect at that?! After the simple fishing example, and all else I’ve said here, I know what I have to say one last time and I hope it grabs your attention like it should, “Dude, Where’s My Freedom?!”
Cheers, and thoughts please! More to come along these lines…
Dude, Where’s My Freedom? Part 2
Let Me Say That Again…Dude, Where’s My Freedom?
Case in point # 1 of Many I Could Use– Fishing!!!
When I go to the lake to fish someone comes up to me and says, “where’s your license” To that I reply, “Dude, Where’s My Freedom?”
When I PAY the fee, get the license and go to the lake again to fish, someone comes up to me and says, you can’t fish here now because it’s not in season. To that I reply, “Dude, Where’s My Freedom?”
This gets even worse…
When I go again to fish when in season, someone comes up to me and says, you can’t fish here now because it’s outside of fishing hours, between the hours of 9am to 6pm for instance. To that I reply, “Dude, Where’s My Freedom?”
When I wait till things are in season, go to the lake again at the right time to fish, someone comes up to me and says, you can’t fish for that kind of fish here, only this kind, not this kind, etc… To that I reply, “Dude, Where’s My Freedom?”
When I catch the fish I can catch, someone comes up to me and says, you can’t keep it because it’s the wrong size… To that I reply, “Dude, Where’s My Freedom?”
When I catch the fish the right size, someone comes up to me and says, you can’t keep more than two of those fish of that kind, that size… To that I reply, “Dude, Where’s My Freedom?”
You thought it was bad enough?
When I go to the store, I find out that I could’ve bought the same two fish on sale for half price, because the big businesses have much more freedom to get things cheaper, and still cover all their overhead, and then still supposedly make me happy by giving me a fish without all the time to fish, trouble and for half the price, and however else this is justified as ok…get my point?
That’s not to mention the $3-5 per gallon of gas I could’ve saved, and not made more Oil Billionaires any richer or cut some of the 70 Million Dollar golden parachutes at our expense, even though we’re rebuilding countries with some of the largest reserves ever yet still pay the highest of prices on top of all that?!
To understand what this example proves, see part 3
Dude, Where’s My Freedom? Part 1
Let Me Say That Again…Dude, Where’s My Freedom?
When Michael Moore said, “Dude, Where’s My Country”, that was an example of a powerfully, brandable expression that associated certain things and empowered a call for action and change. Same with the words Fahrenheit 9-11. It made a huge point…
So I’m branding this one…Dude, Where’s My Freedom because I hope the words drive home a powerful point about freedom…so here goes…
Some Are Violating Our Basic Principles of Freedom and Liberty
If I remember correctly, the American Declaration of Independence promised the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The word liberty is what I’d like to focus on. How much liberty were the founding fathers talking about? That’s my key point of this discussion…and where the dangers lie with giving up freedom in exchange for other things.
You see, anytime we look at the words of the founding fathers as found in the U.S. Constitution or Declaration of Independence, to truly understand their meaning, we must understand their spirit and intent, not just the words. Too many lawyers and judges it seems have taken to playing wordsmith games and semantic tricks, because they forgot one important thing, and they discovered two important things.
How Did This Happen?
First, they discovered that they should try to see what all they could get away with, and if they could pull it off, then do it all the more. Because of this, we see freedom erode as much as it’s allowed to, until this is put in check.
Second, they discovered that they get no objections for their flawed interpretations and views because they actually could become doctors of the law in such a way where they could play what I call the “Layer Interpretation Game”, where they could take words apart from their context and spirit of intent, and get them to mean or say or imply practically anything…even though they know quite well what they really meant…which is the worst offense.
These people violate basic lawsof logic and get away with it because of the zealousness of their emotion.
Third, they forgot that some of us are not so dumb, and they also forgot that they left out one big piece of what must be used to dictate how anything so important should be interpreted – through spirit and intent.
Where Have Freedom, Simplicity and Common Sense Gone?
So now you know how things can get so messed up…that’s something to think about when I say “Dude, Where’s My Freedom?” because it shows why we have a serious problem in America today, and why freedom seems to be eroding more and more, even in the simple things people do to try to be happy. My God, they took freedom out of fishing. What is the world coming to? Let me show you what I mean…here’s how fishing is in the “Land of the Free”…see part 2 of “Dude, Where’s My Freedom?”
Big Government 2-Party Politics is The Problem
Bamboozling the Taxpayer “Left and Right”
We see too often in our unfortunate 2-party politics that the taxpayer is often tossed to and fro, with decisive words and slick speech about what is good and what is bad about the other side’s policies and decisions or actions.
What this does is gravely distract the taxpayer from the obvious real problem at the hear of the matter, and that is, both sides are wrong and there is a better way, a different way, a third way that these two polarized and pendulum-swinging sides just can’t see, nor achieve a balanced middle on. Even when things get desperate, until they get so bad that the compromise is more freedom lost and bigger government.
This happens by accident in a sense…
Both sides want to use as much of your tax policies, not for your agenda, my dear citizens, but for theirs, as much as possible. But later a bunch of unintended consequences backfire and both sides are forces to bargain drastic measures.
They distract you with the constant arguments, which makes you get distracted from the real issue that they’re both wrong. This may be unintentional, but this is what happens anyhow.
The best way to counter this is by looking at the big picture and seeing how both have very ignorant policies and priorities, some good, some bad. Base your decisions on the facts not their opinions.
The Real Problem
Both sides advocate BIG GOVERNMENT, which is anti-freedom and anti-liberty. Just read the book Where the Right Went Wrong by Pat Buchanan, which criticizes both sides of the fence. It’s awesome reading! Yet both sides use words like “freedom and liberty” to take your eyes off of the obvious, BIG GOVERNMENT. What a sham!
Big government is the problem, always has been, always will be as long as it’s big. Vote for a smaller Constitutional Federal Republic, not a large superstate would-be empire where way too may people are employed by the state and where freedoms erode year after year all in the name of security, social economic or otherwise…and where we’re stretched too thin to last!
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Gov Loans Maybe - But Free Money For Banks - Heck NO!
This article made me so mad. It basically says big government supports big business not the people. Again. What a shame. More of the same. How can this happen in America? Our founding fathers would be so ashamed. Is it a BIG Government BAILOUT or a “BIG GOVERNMENT” bailout?
This just reinforces bad financial decisions made by banks will result in no consequences. Remember the BCCI scandal? How about the history of other bank bailouts like the Savings and Loan crisis? Now a big bank gets over 125 Billion within only a couple months, and another gets the biggest bailout in history…all with YOUR TAX DOLLARS!
Who does this protect? You? or Big Business and big rich investors? You guessed it.
Fear Inc is Back!
The use of a “fear of a great depression” or “deep recession” and a “run on the banks” and “falling investor confidence” are the fear inc. buzz words of the day…as I call them…and is what is used to force this hand on the taxpayer.
Taxpayers Lose Again
I think the way this should have been done is: 100% of the money the banks needed get loaned to the banks by bonds we pay for, as loans to them…and we should get 21.99% interest rates and they have 15 years (line of credit terms!) to pay us back…see what happens when the shoe is on the other foot?! They can’t handle it yet would shark US like that ALL DAY LONG!
Big Business and Big Government Wins Again
We can get gouged but big business gets 90% of free money and only 10% so it can be called a “loan?”. Ha! It’s not a loan, it’s a free money gift with something small, like a loan, 10%…and probably gets no interest or minimal back…they win again! The two big 800 pound gorillas…big government and big business…are laughing at taxpayers once again…I can see the cartoon now…laughing all the way to the bank baby!
Robert Kiyosaki Was Right - Employees vs Entrepreneurs
This post really fits the Anti Red Tape Manifesto…
I recently read an article where Robert Kiyosaki was basically saying what I’ve always said after getting my MBA…that schools don’t truly teach entrepreneurship…which is the real American way last time I checked…
What do Schools Teach?
Like Robert Kiyosaki said, they teach us to be good employees, people who work for someone else…instead of entrepreneurs who work for themselves and create something.
Why Is This The Way Is?
Don’t school know their curriculums are non-entrepreneur oriented as 80% of their focus, for their business and marketing degrees?
Of course they do!
They do this on purpose. For several reasons:
The schools are part of the corporate churning system to produce good employees for the corporations…not to turn out independent minded entrepreneurs. Only the dropouts become true Entrepreneurs it seems.
The corporations sponsor these schools in various ways and in the cycle get back their return on investment by getting loyal corporate employees. The schools are tehir recruiting grounds to make them the Billions they make.
The schools are filled with business teachers and professors who aren’t entrepreneurs…I dare say 80% or more are not…if they were they probably wouldn’t teach…and if they are business owners then my hat’s off to them…but I sure hope entrepreneurship IS part of their curriculum.
Why it’s not…
Because teachers and professors can’t control their curriculum to a great degree…since it has to follow the established textbooks…and the textbook approach to college business is one of corporate employeeship not of entrepreneurship…
Those who write the textbooks and that whole churning mill is corporatist-centric as well. Students learn textbook corporate management but nothing about how to run their own business…that’s sad!
I hope this will one day change…so 80% of what they teach in any business school is pure Entrepreneurship…I was lucky enough to have a school that taught about half by allowing an entrepreneurial case study similar to a theses, all the way through. Bit I still had to learn most of what I learned about Entrepreneurship on my own.
I’ve also been to colleges where the corporatist approach is their main emphasis…and again this is not where their emphasis should be.
Go Entrepreneurship!
How Smart People Can Be Really Dumb Part 3
What’s The Worst That Could Happen?
I guarantee in the end I would be smarter, better, richer, happier, freer. What a radical concept. It’s not hard. I’m not that smart. It’s obvious common sense, and it’s easy. I’m only here to point out the obvious, a skill worth developing and retaining but that many wise lose, and thereby become in many respects, dumb.
Sometimes the degree seems useless, a reflection of theoretical knowledge that sounds good but is not what it is purported to be in the real world, right? It all depends how practical and applicable to the real world they’ve made the education, or how far removed from things such an education is. Theoretical knowledge is an education racket.
I truly think the big secret of the Ivy League school people, regarding their success is not necessarily the quality of education, rather than the networking and connections that can be made there at such places. Social networking and the power of alumni and fraternities and other clubs or networks, rather than merits, is the real way it seems to work in America.
This is the dark secret behind the American Dream, and it boils down to how well liked and respected you are, not really how good you are in terms of true skill and talent. If you can be an expert socialite, manipulate appearance, bamboozle thoughts, you’re in and you’re golden. The way to break in is sponsorship, ask one to be one, or whatever.
Fraternalism, Meritocracies, Revolutions and Solutions
True meritocracy has either escaped us, or never was. It was corrupted by those unfortunately influenced long ago by radical concepts that derived probably from ancient Greece, perpetuated through places of monopolized thought and learning like Alexandria and other channels, through the French Revolution and Jacobin concepts of “Fraternity”
This perpetuated all the way through other secret societies, orders and then even some of the Founding Fathers, Ivy League and ordinary colleges and universities where privilege and power rests with those Frat and Alumni circles that by association rather than merit, bestow favor.
Fraternalism is Anti-American philosophy that crept in and gained a foothold long ago, yet remains. It’s a good ol’ boy network concept that even if some or many of the Founding Fathers were elitists, this does NOT mean it was right, and so we must continue to better define and improve what being American is supposed to really be, but then again maybe this has a limit, and the other solution is more spiritual?
Stay tuned for How Smart People Can Be Really Dumb Part 3
Defeating Waste vs An Exercise in Futility
Do you work in futility for a living?
Ok…what do we do on a daily basis that wastes time and amount to just exercises in futility. I know because I’ve been there. I’ve been in a job before where this was almost a daily occurrence. We were literally chasing our tails and chasing after the wind!
None of my nor my colleague’s good advice was followed…typical
The lack of wisdom of bosses to choose against years of experienced counsel resulted in mega waste and caused pain for everyone…to include us, ironically…the biggest advocates against waste. They just didn’t realize the talent and experience they had advising them.
An old fashioned stubborn-as-a-mule mindset just couldn’t be wrong and had to be right…no matter what…kinda like that move Path to War…where no amount of good advice on the part of the Secretary of State could ever be followed…and then after more than 10 years of a long war on Vietnam…the lessons were learned anyhow
Why isn’t sound advice ever followed? Depends on your organization…
A bureaucracy is too much of a big fat sacred cow to ever change or follow good advice…it’s just not practical
Good advice…”son there’s years of experience at this table and you’re the new guy…we tell you how to do it and you follow it…or else…now…do you have any recommendations…no son, not suggestions…we suggest…you recommend…please understand the difference…Dilbert”…
Ok…if you’re in an organization that’s like this and creates an atmosphere of waste and futility, then do this as soon as possible:
Get the heck outta there…the organization will NEVER change for you, it will only change after there is a big DISASTER and you’ll be blamed for it and spend the long nights and weekends cleaning it up…
Some other thoughts, tips and ideas about not wasting and keeping it simple…
How Smart People Can Be Really Dumb Part 2
I don’t necessarily feel smarter after doing what I’ve done. But here’s what I do feel…dumber?…no…though sometimes I wonder :) ) :
I feel like I’m more burnt out now.
I feel like I’m more tired and have been sleep deprived for years.
I feel like I can’t remember as much anymore, and that 80% of what I’ve learned from formal classrooms is not very useful, practical or applicable in the real world. It’s just part of academia that self-justifies that industry’s existence. More on that one later.
I do get paid more, but am I happier than before? Deep down, not really, only the fact that extra money I make stresses me less? No way. Maybe when it comes to bills it stresses a bit less, but other stressors enter in all to quickly, it seems. Many hate to admit what I just admitted, but deep down they too also feel the exact same way. Cognitive dissonance abounds.
I feel like freedom has escaped me and I frustratingly have to be a conformist following others agendas where they think they know best when that’s probably not the case.
I feel like I had to mouth the party line too long, that I had to conform too long, that I had to play along to get that stupid piece of paper, that I had to waste my time following others’ agendas rather than what I really wanted to do, all because I couldn’t get a better paying job due to not having that stupid piece of paper.
What a game. Education has become a money making industry, and therefore a racket in many respects, and an often ineffective bureaucracy.
So how should things be? How about this:
- Fun, Interesting, Enjoyable!
- What I want, not what you want!
- What interests and inspires me, not what interests and inspires you!
- What elevates my values not what imposes yours on me!
- Free of sleep deprivation, frustration and stress!
Stay tuned for How Smart People Can Be Really Dumb Part 3
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