What about now?

We need a new "religion". One that stresses the here and now. One that proclaims the greatness of mans ability and mans potential. The religion that is dominant today is one that encourages obedience, humility, and a focus on the hereafter. They claim that faith is required. I don't want faith in an unknown. I don't want to focus on the hereafter. I want people to be true to themselves. I want people to understand that faith in your abilities will be rewarded in this lifetime and that your personal integrity is the true currency in life. Be amazed at the world around you not because you cannot understand why it exists but because you can appreciate it and strive to understand its unlimited complexity. I want followers who rejoice in mans ability to create a flowing river of knowledge that does not yield to stubborn thinkers but carves its way down through ignorance to the shining sea of the truth. The journey is not quick and it is not easy but it is inevitable. The truth is powerful not because it is obvious but because it is unmovable. You can see many layers of dirt on top of the truth and the shape the dirt takes may resemble the truth. People may pronounce that the image they see is the truth but when someone else wipes away some of the dirt to reveal the truth no one can honestly look at the truth and deny it. You may ask how will we know when we have seen the real truth and the answer is that after numerous other people have tried to dig further and found only the unmovable face of the truth will it be know to all. I want a "religion" that understands not only the potential of mankind but also the necessary journey that each person must take to realize their own potential. People must be free to follow their own path. Freedom requires obedience to freedom. You cannot talk about freedom with boundaries other than where another’s freedom begins. The state is not an individual and cannot be given freedom. The state cannot stand in for an individual and take freedom. The state can only recognize that each person is free and protect that freedom when it is violated by others. This is the only way people can live with freedom. There is only one economy that is compatible with freedom and that is capitalism. Only when people are free to deal with whom ever they feel like are they free. Any alteration to a market is an alteration to who you can deal with or what can be exchanged.

To Protect and Serve? Protect who?

I hate the American pre-occupation with the idea that police keep you safe. It's called the justice system because it provides justice not safety. What's the difference you ask. If someone commits a violent crime and is tried and punished, that is justice. If someone is doing something that you don't approve of and you have the police arrest that person in the name of public safety, that is tyranny. Police are a based on a quaint notion that you can put some citizens in government uniforms and supposedly give them powers that normal citizens don't have. The idea that this is a government by the people, of the people and for the people implies that it operates through the consent of the governed. You cannot give through consent a power you do not have. You cannot preemptively stop a crime from happening. If you saw a crime about to happen and ran and tackled the guy it would be you being charged with assault. So why should we think that the police would be enabled with a power normal citizens do not possess? Police ony ''protect" the populace by apprehending criminals, which by definition means they must have already committed a crime. Why does it take a police force to do this? Couldn't this function of the justice system be handled by private detectives and bounty hunters working towards collecting a fee. Why is it more fair to have a civil servant perform the task of a glorified go-fer? The common task performed by today’s police is mainly social control tasks based on moralistic laws not actual justice. Is breaking the speed limit really a crime? What about smoking a joint and then eating 4 Twinkies. Yes, that must be a crime against say, good taste? No, these are not actions that violate another citizens rights and are not crimes. The state should not be given the assumptive power to claim a violation against the public good. The public is a straw man that is comprised of individuals. Only individuals have rights. Certainly, post suggested speeds for roads and if someone is driving in a reckless manner and causes an accident, THEN you can hit them with a book as thick as you can get it. That's the line in the sand. Once they have committed an actual crime by violating a citizens rights the justice system needs to be there and fully enabled to deal with societies undesirables. But please, let’s do away with the notion that police can actually protect society from the very individuals that comprise it.