This list could grow to 1,000 ideas, but I’ve kept it down to ten. In the future, I might update it and add some more.
There are a lot of bad ideas that dominate the world we live in today, most of which are uncritically accepted as the norm and fully embraced by society.
As a millennial myself, I’ve noticed my peers seem to accept most of these as conventional wisdom. Hook, line, and sinker.
Here are some ideas I was propagandized with that I hope my children will never have to “unlearn.”
1. Violence is normal.
Presidential candidates today are fighting over who can kill better by using drones or boots on the ground. By constantly threatening the use of violence against other countries, statists have conditioned the population into thinking that killing tens of thousands of people is normal behavior, instead of the immoral, dangerous provocation it is. Rather than being charged with murder, politicians and others that help support this behavior are often paid $250,000 or more a speech after they leave office, and referred to as Mr. President or former Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Video games, movies, television shows, and even toys all have a common theme: death and destruction. For example, there’s nothing like teaching your child about policing in 2015 America via these Playmobil toys:
This isn’t normal; this is psychotic. And the sociopaths that rule over us are murdering and imprisoning people every day because “we the people” are not only allowing it, but often times, cheering it on.
Outside of self-defense, respecting other peoples’ property should become the new norm.
2. Political parties govern differently.
As a former Republican, I used to hate the Democrats. Now I see these two parties as just two wings on the same beast.
It’s true that they run with different themes and talking points, but in the end, they govern the same. They share the top donors, vote yes on the same wars, and never roll back a single thing the other does once in power.
Bush picked Bernanke to run the Fed, and Obama re-nominated him. Republicans like Nixon ran on an anti-war platform during the Vietnam era, until Reagan/Bush took over in the 80’s. Then the Democrats were anti-war in the 2000s, until Obama took over in 2008. Clinton, Bush, Obama… looking back at the last 25 years, I don’t see how anything has changed in the U.S. with regard to foreign policy, spending, or lying about U.S. economic data.
The oligarchs have us all fooled. Political parties are nothing more than spectator sport for a dumbed down public.
3. Patriotism is a virtue.
Why? It was an accident that I was born here. Am I grateful to be living in the U.S., surrounded by family and friends? Yes. All the same, I owe the U.S. government nothing. I am a sovereign man, and shouldn’t have to subscribe to any group or nation just because I happened to be born in a part of the world called North America.
I love everyone in this world, and I am not going to express loyalty for a specific region like a sports fan who loves his team only because it’s in the same city he resides in.
Governments are dangerous, and the U.S. is the most dangerous one at the moment. My love for the U.S. is no more than my love for the Bahamas or Europe.
4. Illegal aliens are evil criminals who desire to collect welfare from taxpayers.
For a long time, I couldn’t stand these people. Nevertheless, if I wasn’t randomly born in Los Angeles and was instead born just 144 miles south, in Tijuana, I would be doing the exact same thing the illegal aliens are doing. I would be attempting to better my life and my children’s lives by migrating north. Humans moving to different regions is a natural event; the only unnatural thing is the imaginary lines we call borders.
As far as the welfare, that’s a symptom of the disease we call government. It’s like me taking a tax deduction. While I don’t support the income tax, I’m not stupid, and I’m going to do everything I can to game the system and benefit myself.
5. Taxes are justified at gunpoint.
Taxes with the threat of jail or violence is wrong. I’m sorry, but I don’t owe you or anybody else a portion of the fruits of my labor – especially not under the threat of violence.
6. War is good for the economy.
I was told at a very young age, and even in high school, that war helped the economy boom. When you think about it, it makes no sense. Using production lines to create products that blow up into nothing is a tremendous waste of resources. Looking back, after WWII the U.S. cut spending by 50% and reduced the military from 12 million to 1.5 million. The evidence from the late 40’s and 50’s is that the economy boomed when we had less war.
7. Terrorists hate our freedom and culture.
Are there extremists? Absolutely. But the fact is the U.S. has troops in so many countries (see: The Golden Age of Black Ops – In Fiscal 2015 U.S. Special Forces Have Already Deployed to 105 Nations), and has a horrible track record of toppling democratically elected governments, supporting sociopaths, and arming rebels who later become “terrorists.” It’s no wonder than these policies occasionally come home to roost.
For one second, imagine that a nation bombed your neighbor and killed your son. What would your reaction be? These are the situations thousands across the world face on a consistent basis.
What if Iran had troops in Mexico and Canada, ships off our coasts, and drones over our air space? Would we want a nuclear bomb for defense?
George Washington was a terrorist in the eyes of Great Britain. If you want to know who’s dishing out much of the tyranny and chaos in the Middle East, as an American, you don’t have to look far from home.
8. The U.S. has a free market economy.
This is seriously stupid, but college professors and politicians repeat this mantra every day. In reality, the economy is so centrally planned that if the Fed alters one sentence in their statement, the Dow Jones could rally or fall by 200 points in an hour.
Here’s another fact. Nearly 50% of America’s EBT program in Oklahoma went straight to the coffers of one company: Walmart.
Meanwhile, regulations in some industries have forced business to have an entire division dedicated just to compliance. Even worse, many of these regulations are pushed by the larger corporations in order to drown out the competition with bureaucracy they can’t possibly afford.
There is no free market in the U.S. – only crony capitalism, manipulation, and a centrally planned system manned by busybodies.
9. U.S. troops are dying for my freedom.
This is a tough one, because you want to naturally love and respect anyone who does something for you, especially if it’s to protect you from harm. The only reason I even bring this up is because many of the troops are honest, decent young men looking to serve their country or be a part of something greater than themselves. Nevertheless, these men and women are merely being used and abused in a Game of Thrones-esque battle for global wealth and power. They are often just collateral damage for large corporations looking to expand their businesses into territories and countries that, without U.S. military intervention, would likely be thrown out by the locals.
I genuinely think the troops are willing to die for my freedom, but the corrupt American Empire poses a much greater threat to my freedom than any outside enemy we are constantly taught to fear.
10. My vote matters.
Remember in 2006 when the Democrats were going to get our fiscal house in order? Or was that in 2010, when the Republicans were going to do the same? I don’t know, but your vote doesn’t matter. The populace is easily manipulated and/or asleep when it comes to matters of importance, so why bother.
The vote counters and the media have already decided who’s acceptable and, of course, at the end of those strings are the oligarchs who run the world. See my post from last year: Election 2014 – Why I Opt Out of Voting.
Edward Snowden sacrificed his freedom to alert voters of high crimes in the U.S government, and many Americans have no idea who he is. Meanwhile, most politicians want to try him for treason.
Llpoh
Thank you very much for the detailed answer. Helpful, and much appreciated.
Quick story. I worked for a small MI manufacturing company, about 60 people — made sensors and instrument panels for boats. We had a QE manager. Also, the owner was full of a thousand platitudes one of which was “EVERY employee is involved in quality control here!!” …. but, it was pure lip service, didn’t do anything you suggested.
So, one week he’s out in CA visiting boat dealers (we sold to both OEMs and retail) trying to drum up new orders from existing customers for our new instrument panels — and he gives the store owner the “we’re all quality engineers” spiel —– and the owner leaves, goes to his showroom, brings back one of our speedometers, brand new mind you and still in its packaging, takes out a hammer — and starts smashing the fuck out of the speedo right in front of him, and says “That’s what I think of your quality! No get the fuck out of my store!!”
We knew about this event because HE CALLED IT IN right afterwards! He was foaming at the mouth. Said when he got back to MI … THERE WAS GOING TO BE HELL TO PAY AND HEADS WILL ROLL!!! (Fortunately, mine wasn’t one of them.) But … that was his method of ‘quality control’ … keep firing line employees, and then hope the next $8/hr dumb-ass would be the answer.
BTW … that company no longer exists. No surprise there, eh?
No surprise there Stuck. His attitude is all too common. And his QA guy did not help him. What QA folks do is create work – paperwork. And they have no authority. And their jobs depend on finding problems, so that is what they do.
Quality problems should be addressed immediately. And by that I mean instantly. If I get a call, I get up and go address it. On the spot. No need to lay blame. I apologise to the customer, tell them I will have a response to them immediately, go find the reason for the problem, put in a fix (usually, but not always ) problems are a result of folks stopping,with good but misguided intentions, methods previously put in place, and then calling the customer back to tell them what is being done. Often from first call to calling the customer back takes under ten minutes.
And guess what? Customers forget all about the original issue and feel respected and appreciated. As they should.
But it takes proactive management and autonomous teams of employees, who know “heads are NO going to roll because of single mistakes.
The only time heads really roll is if they lie about the problems and cover them up. Then they are screwed.
Llpoh,
I figured there’d be some lag in replying, so I’m going to figure your last post to me as a New Orleans – a battle fought after the peace treaty was signed… and leave it at that.
Re: Engineering (or anything, really) I was taught that there’s one way to do things – the right way. Then there’s everything else. This is the work ethic instilled in me by my father… which came from his father, etc.
That got modified later to “You can have it best quality, done the right way. Or you can have it as cheap as possible. Or you can have it as fast as possible. You have to figure out what you want, and sacrifice the other two to the first.”
I’m planning on putting up a sign in my shop.
YOU CAN HAVE ANYTHING YOU WANT. YOU CAN HAVE IT:
1. DONE RIGHT.
2. FAST.
3. CHEAP.
PLEASE PICK ONE.
My answer to your question: ““when am I going to get such and such done?” would be “When it’s finished, and not one moment sooner”. If you wanted me to expand on that, then I would.
I ramrodded a couple shops after separation, and my boss hated that answer. He was looking for a hard date, which is impossible to fortell when you’re doing handwork and custom fabrication, which is impossible when dealing with so many unknowns. You simply do not know what you’re going to encounter in the way of problems.
To fall into Southern for a moment: “I ain’t no goddamned prognosticator. You want the future told, hire a gypsy.”
Guy brings in a piece that’s 100+ years old, beat to shit and wants a huge pile of work done. You try to explain return on investment to them, their eyes glaze over. If shit’s missing, do you want me to blueprint and fab a new part, or make an effort to hunt down a replacement? Because that could take anywhere from one day to a year, depending on how old the piece is, how many were made in total, survival rate of that model, how many undocumented changes were made to it, etc…
Many companies made knock-offs after the patents ran out and made their own changes, which were almost never documented formally. Sometimes spares are nonexistent and you have to fab the part by hand. Then you run into ROI, which the client may or may not want to do…
Worst case: Some old duffer walks in with something that looks like it’s been used as a tomato stake for the last 40 years and says “My Grand-daddy bought this fer me back in 19-ought-eleventy-twelve, and I want you to make it look like the day I got it.”
Uh huh… “That’s worth about 20 bucks in parts, which I will pay you if you want. But you’re looking at at least 200 hours of hand labor and fabrication. That’s going to end up being a big hog to eat for not much rifle”.
Three “values”: Fair market value. Collector value. Sentimental value. And never the three shall meet, though two might hook up now and again…
I have stuff that’s priceless to me because of a familial connection, but I won’t get “priceless” on the open market unless it’s fabulously rare or unusual… which actually does happen sometimes. (Related note: Back in the 50’s, Daddy bought a 1957 Gibson Acoustic Electric guitar. Sunburst on the body. Complete with brown leather case, spares, paperwork, etc… it is, in a word, perfect. I’ll never give it up, but word is that it’s worth some serious bucks. North of 30 grand. Apparently, they made very, very few “thick” body acoustic electrics. This is one of them.)
One thing I have learned is that money follows talent. I did some side work for a guy about a year ago. Within a couple months, I had complete strangers tracking me down here at my house, wanting me to do work for them… and I didn’t even have a shop. Didn’t matter.
Another guy in a nearby town wanted me to buy him out and take over his business. Nope. I got a zoning exemption and the perfect spot picked out for my shop. I like the idea of being able to walk 200 feet from my front door to my business front door, not having to drive 20+ miles just to go to work…
Billy – you indeed sound like an engineer. Probably a good one for r+d, reconstruction, etc.
But you would not be a good manufacturing engineer. Mfg is all about when. “When it is finished” does not cut it in manufacturing. If the could not tell e when, I could not use them.
When you have several hundred, or perhaps thousands of people idle, at a cost of $50 per hour each say, and you have GM’s plant depending on a part, “when it is finished” is not good enough, and if I cannot train the engineer to be able to provide accurate timing, I have to get a new engineer.
My plant costs around $6000 an hour, not including materials, to run.
When is very important – even moreso if the $6000 an hour comes out of your own pocket.
Your answer is why I do not have much time for most engineers I encounter in a professional capacity – most cannot bring themselves to commit to timing. Really good mfg engineers can, but they are very rare beasts. But they would not be good at the stuff you are.
Gotta find the right peg for the right hole.
Btw – I worked as an engineer for a while. I was horrible at it. This peg did not fit that hole.