Monday, July 09, 2007

Paine of Government

I'm reading this book on Thomas Paine. He is the author of the book called Common Sense and because of the book (or I guess I should call it a pamphlet) he kick started the public ideal that American Revolution was a great idea.

A little bit of info on this is that Thomas Paine worked as a Excise Officer which the book equated to being a customs agent. The taxes were being raised in England and so it affect his job. He was asked to write something, because he was a fine writer, to present to Parliament.

The problem was that these Excise officers had to pay for travel and lodging when they went from location to location and on top of that with the higher taxes they were not making enough money to make it worth it.

So he asked for them to get more money.

They said no.

Here is the paragraph I think is very interesting:

"Paine left for London in the winter of 1772, no doubt confident of his work on the petition and consequently of achieving his comrades' just aims of a pay raise. But, as Paine would soon learn, the will of the British government during this period was not swayed by sound logic or just arguments. A jaded political veteran such as Benjamin Franklin, then in London representing the colonies of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, could have saved him the disappointment. Unlike the naive Englishman, the famous American knew that success in such cases depended too often on the support of powerful friends and interested parties within the government. In representing a group of investors attempting to acquire a large tract of land in the Ohio Valley, Franklin recommended that they offer shares in the project to persons of influence at court and in Parliament. Without such maneuvers, Franklin told his partners, their cause didn't stand a chance. Such facts must have come as harsh realizations to Paine, still innocent in the ways of government. In spite of the fact that his pamphlet was well written, generally praised, and widely circulated the campaign for a salary increase came to naught. As he later summarized bitterly, "...the King, or somebody for him, applied to Parliament to have his own salary raised 100,000 pounds, which being done, everything else was laid aside.""

The amusing part is that the American Government is what the British Parliament and King were like when the Americans wanted a Revolution.

it is not just because of Bush or Clinton...it's the whole Government.

The founding fathers would want another Revolution for nothing that the American Government is right now has not already been played out by the British Parliament of the 1700's.

We need a Thomas Paine, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin

Monday, March 05, 2007

Random Rambling

the brain is something that has been studied for years and yet they don't know a whole lot about it.

All these theories and things and research but still nothing that makes it totally understood. Of course science never totally understands anything. They leave room for error which is understandable...no need to be exclusive when you can just state that something most likely is and then watch it and see if it is...and even though it continues to be that way one day maybe it'll change.

Gravity is a theory---though it continues to be true...we are held down by gravity which pulls us to the center of the earth---but maybe one day something will make gravity not gravity and they can alter it without whatevering what they just said...meh...I'm just rambling.

I find science interesting---it, as a community, knows so much and yet so little at the same time. They leave room for growth no need to stunt growth by being absolute...nothing can be so.

Which makes people who state absolutes weird...not wrong just weird. You can't be wrong because that in itself is an absolute and if things are not absolute then stating someone is wrong is wrong----I like absolutes.

I could never be a scientist...not because of my beliefs but because of my personality. I just couldn't be so boring and long winded...and to other people it's not boring or long winded it's interesting and fascinating. I don't blame them for liking it I can see why something like science would be interesting---I just don't find it that interesting.

People shouldn't bash other people's beliefs to further their own. State your own without smashing someone else's it's possible...I know that I've done that before and that's something I'm just going to try not to do ever again. I will not alter the way in which I talk about things with sarcasm and such---I'm not going to just smash their beliefs with OMG you're an idiot. I can't say the same for other people against me. haha.

I think it's funny that my opinions are so powerful they evoke such strong emotions from people. No one's opinions evoke such strong emotions from me. My opinions are already strong and stubborn and are not so because of someone else's opinions.

People complain about what I've said and done and not just here off line as well. How can I not think I'm some sort of power house of thought? Not that I actually do think that...maybe a little...but really how am I to just not think it?

I constantly think----I never not and my brain just won't shut up. 8)