Vortex of Dependency

It would appear that your happiness would make someone else unhappy, while your state of unhappiness will make someone else happy. Today, this is called marketing and sales, while others might call it guilt versus innocence or redemption.

Those that see a battle between altruism and egoism have agreed that one person can conclude altruistic acts and egoistic acts. They will revere the motivations for the first and demonize the second, unless of course, the observer is more predicated to the latter himself.

In an effort to espouse compassion for fellow humans, many converge on the simple conclusion that intention or motivation should be determined before passing judgment. Further, like a bit of computer programming forced in sequential commands, humans are apparently unable to combine altruistic and egoistic motives for any one act. Some therefore believe that if there are any other motivations beyond altruism, that the act itself is no longer altruistic.

Market forces in free economies have fed, clothed, sheltered and provided medical treatment for more humans then any other so-called ruler or system of governance. On compassionate grounds alone, this single identifiable and irrefutable truth should help lead the charge. For some reason, hand-outs of food, clothing and cash is still the preferred method, though no singular noticeable improvement has emerged, as in the case of the starving masses on the African continent.

In a UN Report published in 2006 stated that 1 billion pounds of food had been shipped to Africa that year. What initially grabbed my attention was the cost, apparently 1 million dollars, but this was corrected later on in the report to 1 million Rand (which is approx. 1/10^th of a US Dollar). Interestingly too was the fact that no food was purchased locally, because this would increase the local pricing of food as the demand is so high. So rather than rewarding local growers, the UN prefers to ship billions of pounds from overseas at anywhere from US$100 to US$10 per pound, which of course, burns enormous amounts of fuel.

Expanding on this logic, Americans would be better off buying their fuel from other nations than from their own local sources of refining, in an effort to keep local costs down. Oops! I forgot, that is what's happening. Mexicans would be better off buying corn for their tortillas from anywhere else but Mexico, in order to keep the local cost of corn low. They're not that loco. Shipping vast amounts of fuel and food from all over the globe somehow does not raise any environmental concerns.

Canadians adopted an inverted self-punishment mechanism to their fuel pricing, with the adoption of the 1980 Trudeau World-Pricing-Matching to its own sources of refined fuels. So today in March of 2007, unleaded regular gasoline in Toronto Ontario costs 1.06/L which is equal to CDN $4.028/US Gallon, which is about $3.42 in US Dollars. The same fuel, shipped to NY State, on the same day sells for $2.34/US Gallon ($2.75 in Canadian Dollars), with the exception that it was shipped a little further south. Canadians should therefore not feel guilty about their use of fossil fuels.

So the United Nations, while attempting to portray an image of altruistic actions on starvation HIV/AIDS pandemics in Africa, and genocide in Rwanda, accomplishes very little. Why? Let's put it this way.

Imagine a time in early America, where settlers had to fend for themselves, both for sustenance and security, all the while hordes of other peoples (natives in this case) are around you at all times, waiting for the right time to pounce, take your foods, rape the women and otherwise massacre as many of your people as possible. Imagine also, some foreign overlords attempting to control your access to fire arms (weapons for defense, hunting), restricting your access to market your farm products (to keep local prices low), while protecting the rights of everyone in the region from religious indoctrination (which espouses moral values and codes of conduct, and of course, to higher reasoning) such as Judeo/Christian values for example. Lastly imagine the foreign overlords shipping foodstuffs to your starving brethren, which you will get for free, if it gets to you before the shipments are raided, before the convoys looted and used as improved military units against your brethren. Many will die as you wait, but the Overlords are smarter, wiser than you.

The United Foreign Overlords would then gather in a huge conference, publish extensive publications and attempt to resolve the problems in America, while pleading to the rest of the world your plight, your inability to provide for yourself on an otherwise resource-rich continent.

Starvation in Africa is mismanaged as a catastrophe, even to this day. Is it wise to disregard the devastation of the human spirit by rendering his entire existence on the dependence of others? Is the method then truly based on altruistic motivations? "Actions are visible, though motives are secret", said Samuel Johnson. Or are there ideological motivations at work here? "Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity", said Karl Marx.

As a western-hemisphere citizen, I see that guilt is being dispensed to even the marginally successful. Because of affluence and relative comfort and quality of life, we can clearly see a difference when images of the starving and the poor are distributed through newspapers and television broadcasts. Your redemption appears clear (send money), and you will have purchased some happiness for a short time. The so-called wars on poverty, on starvation, on AIDS appear huge and enigmatic; practically beyond a solution. "If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it", said Dwight D. Eisenhower.

So there must be something wrong with you if you are happy, because you should not be happy. You should be angry and/or be in fear. It's a war on happiness, especially on successful capitalists. You should fear the damage your success will do, and should not be happy about your carbon-footprint. Those of the World-Order (espousing one Earthly government for all nations) should cease and desist: The Global World Market is contributing to global warming, thus everyone should buy locally whatever they can. Hmmm, that might help the African growers market!

So how many ships cross the oceans with food and fuel from abroad? How many flights with similar cargo manifests? Obviously, America must begin drilling for oil closer to home, and Americans must start buying American-made. It's your duty to reduce the nation's overall carbon-footprint. It's also your duty to disregard any previous history of the end of any of the ice ages and any other global warming period such as that of the 16^th century, when there were no cars or trucks, no factories and any other emissions, other than the deadly cattle (UN Report: Cows source of Global Warming).

Let those who believe that man on Earth is a nuisance and a detriment to Earth's very existence be the first to extract themselves, without forcing their beliefs on the rest of us.

America is proof that egoistic intentions, which ferment in most potent men and women, provide for the greatest compassionate and altruistic goal: self-dependence in every sense of the word. If the UN were altruistic in its intentions, it would focus on enabling Africans to defend themselves, to earn their place by un-shackling them from world handouts, encouraging and rewarding their farming, mining and production. Continually forgiving debts and liabilities is another form of dependency; they can keep borrowing and know they will never have to repay, or if they do, only pennies on the dollar. You cannot effect change by following the same policies detrimental to human development, proven as failures time and time again.

Making the successful feel guilty with this war on happiness will only end up increasing taxes (from volunteering funds) in an effort to redistribute wealth, which has never worked. It's a vortex of dependency, which sucks in more and more, while increasing misery, and never accomplishing its original stated goal. This is historically correct. As in the physical construct of a vortex, the closer we get the center, the least likely we can get out of it. At the other end of this vortex is the darkness of inertia and dimmed spirits.