Challenge for you - because communism ever worked...

Can someone give a example of a communist government that worked efficiently, for the good of people and not breaking any commie rules to a major degree? And I mean on a national level, not some minor communities.

Is change good?

I’ll leave this question open, but many people to whom I speak seem quite keen on it. I think that change is good in the sense of us learning more everyday, in bringing some new opportunities and challenges. On the other hand there is the nice old saying that one should not fix, what is not broken; but the question is whether it can be improved? Are there any large changes that occurred rapidly that were good (coming of the Lord)? Where there any that were bad (commies)?

Quantity and Quality

People seem to like ‘much/many’ nowadays. Everyone is running, to earn much money, have much sex (and there is always the fact of so many divorces... and other issues) or drink loads of alcohol (to be fair in most cases it is all of them). People eat loads of cheap, disgusting food and do not take proper care of themselves. It is their choice and thats fine, but I think they are loosing something from it and I think that we could all gain something if the situation would change. To reference back to the previous post, look at change that could occur if people did their jobs properly (quality), which would obviously result in less of them. There is probably a nice quality to quantity ration, which is most efficient (and most strategies tend to be about making things most efficient, not maximising a certain parameter), but with the wide range of skills different people would occupy different niches in the market. But if people want to do what they are already doing, let them, its their choice.

Alcohol is a other interesting example. Working in different venues across Scotland I noticed that people like to get pissed (apparently I do not get the wonders of not remembering the previous night, hang-overs - though I’m Polish, so I do not have much chance of experiencing them anyway; and vomiting). I prefer fine mead or vodka, enjoying the quality, the pureness, the taste, not even to mention the discussions in fine company (putting good lads aside, fine women are much more of a interesting company than as one of my friends said ‘sluts’). And the same holds true for food (joys of little things in life) and exercise (all those boys in the gym doing semi-pull-ups). The list goes on. And in the end, it will count how you lived your life, not how many days it lasted.

On pride, patience and calmness

A interesting conversation happened just over a week ago, on the topic of pride and I think I can share some of my thoughts. Firstly it seems, as if people lack pride in what they are doing, but on the other hand many have a whole supply of personal pride i.e. a large ego. So you might get the worlds worst carpenter, who will want to start a fight with you if you accidentally bump into him on the pavement.

The ego part, seems to be the case for a long time in history, but the media ‘macho’ vision is possibly aiding its development. The lack of pride in ones art is more of a interesting case, as it manifests itself in the low quality of many products and services (I will also discuss this in my next post). It seems like part of the problem lays in the lack of respect that people people have for their professions, everyone wants to be a manager but no one wants to start from the position of the manual worker (this is widely observed in the population of Non-Educated Deliquents who seem to despise of many jobs, even when un-employed, as they are either ‘jobs for emigrants’ or they want something better - but if you have 0 jobs on your CV it is logical to try to get something on it for a start, isn’t it???). Managers, doctors and lawyers seem to be the only REAL jobs for many people. But society needs good carpenters, as not everyone wants to buy cheap IKEA stuff, but wants the real deal! And how can people do their job efficiently if they do not have any motivation and people who take pride in their jobs, are more likely to pay attention to the details and be motivated to do their best. And as my friend said, a good garbage cleaner is of higher value to society than a rubbish doctor.

Part of the issue might lie in the general notion of lack of patience in modern times. People are in a hurry, as they want more (once more, this will be discussed in the next post); this results in the lack of quality - as there is no time for it. Being in such a rush, we are also unable to see the beauty of the world around us. We can’t appreciate neither the light breeze, nor the sound of the wind in the leaves and the movement of brunches in it. This takes away those small pleasures of our lives, the ones that can fill everyday, but people seem to want big stuff. Big stuff neither does happen often, neither it usually lasts long. Also in this race, people tend to stress, which has negative effects on our health and makes us more prone to mistakes.

The old sages new that patience and calmness are gold. Great knowledge takes time to be gained, great peaces of art take long to be made, they all require patience and calmness and pride in once creation. Such approach improves our everyday experience of life and our skill in it. So go and make yourself a cup of fine tea and bless the Lord for the beauty of the day.

Freedom the flip site of the coin of democracy?

While having a discussion regarding freedom my flatmates friend replied to my praise of freedom and critique of democracy with a question of whether democracy isn't the flip site of the coin of freedom. Now lets do not forget that democracy is just a voting system, it implies nothing about the views of the elected government, neither about the governmental structures... a voting system that got Hitler into power. Even commies had quasi-democratic elections! More interestingly democracy does not predict who will win the elections. What do I mean by that? Well, dependently on the exact voting system and division of constituencies, it does not have to be the majority of the population who ‘wins’. If we take into the account that not everybody is voting, the results of the votes show a even more skewed vision of the nations will, and it is the individuals who will bear the biggest benefits or losses that have the most motivation to go and vote. This rises a point that policies that are massively discriminatory against minorities e.g. extremely rich people have a high chance of being passed. At least for the moment we will put aside the issue of who and why should be voting, if at all anyone should. Democracy has the ability of subduing people in a legitimate way to the the wills of the government. To justify this I will have to at some point write on the relation between freedom, social policy and other abstract ideas like the common good. And one more point: the government elected may not be one that supports freedom, whether economic or social. I hope that I presented a general notion of why democracy does not necessarily imply freedom.

Libya - a long, vague list of ideas

Firstly I want to make a disclaimer, that I by no means want to defend colonel Gaddafi, he is a lefty and one with loads of personal problems (just look at his unit of virgin bodyguards). All that I want to do is to rise questions about the ‘Wests’ intervention in Libya.

For the last couple of weeks there is loads of noise in the media about Libya. There was loads of mess in Northern Africa and even beyond, but the Chinese government seemed efficient at handling it (whether that is good, that is a separate issue). Now we are dealing with a intranational conflict with a lot of international attention. People (i.e. mainly the media) are shouting all sorts of abuse on Gaddafi being a dictator, at the West for either not intervening or for doing the wrong thing. People seem to trow all sorts of arguments for who is the good guys and who is the bad guys, including some bizarre arguments about bringing democracy to the Libyan people which I do not get as in general countries seem to have greater problems than their voting systems. As most conflicts of this scale, they are quite complex and I think that the comparison with a domestic (husband - wife) conflict is quite appropriate.

Colonel Gaddafi, who officially does not possess a title of a ruler, gained power over the country 42 years ago, by overthrowing the monarchy established after the end of the Italian occupation. He conveyed his rule as a dictator with leftish tendencies, included th usual murder and persecutions. Recently he started to put some reforms, that hinted on a will of change, on a longer range possibly in a Chinese style, but we will probably never get to know that, as if he wins, he will likely be not to co-operative with the West (possibly not even with the Arab states as there is some support from them towards the Rebels). His regime, like most, was/is full of murder and rape. 

The Rebels are not very quantifiable, though there exists some sort of opposition/alternative government, it seems like a significant proportion of those people do not have a clue about who their leaders are. They seem to be also performing some vigilante stunts in the towns that are in their possession by performing some brutal searches, interrogations and killings of people who they suspect on being on the colonels site (not really surprising in such a stressful environment). As much as Gaddafi is fighting to stay in control of the country, except some notions of freedom I have no clue what the Rebels are fighting for, but freedom does the job for me for the moment.

Now the UN for some reason seems to be the ubergovernment of the world and whether for the better or worse it decides to interfere in the works of sovereign governments (though if they signed up to it in the first place, its kind-of their fault). We might agree with the Rebels or Gaddafi or with non of them, but what is the authority by which other countries intervene into sovereign states? Governments are paid by taxpayers money to deal with their problems, not with those of other states, and most of governments have enough problems doing that and understanding the inner workings of their countries, not to mention their knowledge of those in other regions of the world. Thats the business of the people of the country and it seems that in this case some of them took it seriously. And who decided that the Rebels are right? I am personally not supporting Gaddafi, but those are important questions to be asked. Are Rebels the majority and is the majority always right? What are their arguments? On what basis did the UN decide on this type of intervention? And what are the plans for the Libyan oil? I do not know the answers to those specific questions, but they had to be asked at some point by someone and as I wrote on the issue of truth, it would have been helpful to know them.

You can look at the conflict from the eyes of Gaddafi, the rebels or the other countries (which we could further divide). In judging what is the best solution we should be looking at what solution seems to be just/fair, I do not think we should be judging it e.g. by what is best for the West e.g. which solution is best in reducing the influence of fundamentalistic Muslims on Europe. I think that personal freedom is very important. That is my main problem with most political regimes, they take away this fundamental element from human lives, though I might be a little bit sentimental as half of Polish history seems to be a struggle for freedom. As much as stoping bloodshed is a nice romantic idea, current interventions do not seem to be stoping that from happening, but I guess people tend to care less about soldiers dying than about civilians, probably since the first group is payed to live with that risk. Supporting negotiations is definitively a good thing, that is for sure, the problem is whether the provisional Libyan government is a true representation of the Rebel leaders. Efforts of getting humanitarian aid back to Libya are also definitively good, there will be tons of people requiring medical aid or shelter and a substantial amount of that aid will be delivered in a neutral way, due to the way how organisations like the Red Cross function. As I mentioned above, I do not thing foreign states have a moral obligation to aid those people in the boundaries of Libya, what happens with them outside its borders, that is a separate issue. There is sadly no way that Gaddafi will suddenly decide to put through libertarian reforms and neither do I believe that people should be forced to seek freedom outside their home land, since it is their land. The whole thing would be much easier to judge if it was a private military organisation that was asked by the Rebels to intervene, but since this is not the case and most likely will not be, we may discard the idea (so far the only mercenaries involved, of which I am aware, are on the side of Gaddafi and it is due to them that part of the Libyan army decided to join the Rebels). Supporting the rebels with weapons is once more taking sites and rises the question of who and on what grounds should be doing it (and who would be paying for it)? So far it seems like the only solution that does not seem to breach any rights of any of the sites is to allow the Rebel side to disperse into neighbouring countries and allow to organise some underground opposition (but on who's expense). To be honest I do not know what the best and fairest solution is, but I hope that this posts will help you, dear reader ask yourself some important questions about this and other international issues. (For the interested, you can read a short stance of the Catholic Church on war in points 483-486 of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church)

Wisdom, love and general life management...

As it is written in the Bible: “wisdom is better than silver and gold” (yes Bob Marley was singing about that) and “and now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

What is the importance of those in relation to truth and freedom? Wisdom for me, in its purest sense, is the use of truth in a God pleasing manner. That is acting with justice and compassion. Love is (besides the fact that it is probably many things) the act of applied wisdom towards a other person from our own free will (i.e. a choice), with the highest manifestation of compassion being self-sacrifice. Acting with wisdom allows us to get the best for not only our selves, but also for others. It allows for a good relation with other people and builds a positive atmosphere. It is not the same as allowing the other party to do anything without critique, but it is helping other people to improve their own lives. It supports the best solutions, a humble life and encourages peace, but also remains ready for a rapid response to developing conflicts if necessary. Both require the freedom to express them; one must be able to express himself, so that he can freely make those decisions and put them into practise. That is one of the reasons why I believe that truth and freedom are so important and why we should incorporate wisdom and love into our everyday lives.