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Peaceful enemies of all Constraint!

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Terrorism has a religion: All of them

"Terrorism has no religion" - The most common words you hear almost every time there is a terrorist attack on the "civilized world". We hear this uttered by all kinds of people, from Muslims to Christians to some Liberal Atheists. Each of them trying really hard to damage control the situation. A feeble attempt to not link an attack to a sizable chunk of the population of the world - an attempt to be politically correct.

But like all politically correct slogans, this phrase amounts to nothing but an empty plea. An attempt to delude ourselves, hoping that by constantly saying this phrase we can change the condition of Humanity. History and the present condition both disagree with this statement. Religion has been and is the causal factor common in all terrorist attacks throughout history. Islam isn't unique in this regard. In fact, it is those who say "Terrorism has no religion", who are singling out Islam. They only say this when talking about attacks from Islamist extremists. Name any religion and there are elements of terrorism attached to it. If Islam has already had its fair share of criticism from other sources, most particularly the 'apolitical' atheists, allow me to point out other acts of terrorism by other religions.

Christianity is most noted for its own version of the holy war: The Crusades. As Obama points out "Remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. Slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ". Ku Klux Klan, America's white nationalist militia, is after all a Christian organization. During the holocaust, the Nazi party relied heavily on the anti-Semitic theories and writings of Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant church. Other acts of terrorism in the name of Christ can be found here (http://www.rawstory.com/2015/02/think-islamists-are-the-only-religious-terrorists-meet-some-famous-killers-for-christ/). In India, Hindu nationalism has been the cause of much violence. In the name of maintaining cultural values, distributed Hindu groups in our society have committed violence to terrorize the population in order to "keep them in line". In the past, and even today, Hinduism was used as a justification for forcefully maintaining caste structures. Ultra peaceful religions like Jainism, the favorite of Sam Harris, isn't without criticism either. Although Jainism claims to maintain non-violence as its central philosophy, it doesn't see anything wrong in using the violence of the state to make people conform to their values. After all ban on Meat in India is most vigorously pursued by Jain organizations.

And while we are on the subject of the state, isn't Statism a religion? It is, in fact, a religion that imposes itself on all other religions most of the time. It gives out arbitrary dictates that its followers are supposed to obey without question. It has its agents that roam around terrorizing the population into following these dictates by giving out punishments which may range from a fine to a lock up. It justifies its action by arbitrary and questionable concepts like Sovereignty and Constitution. Even those who do not accept the state on its word but on its pragmatism suffer from the delusion of omnipotence and omnipresence of the state. If the example of Jains violating their non-violence principle confuses you, this might be the reason why. Statism might be your religion, without you knowing it. You might consider yourself an Atheist or a Liberal or a Secular but the State would be your religion. What violence in the past century is not attributed to Statism? In the 20th Century law abiding people who have been killed by their own governments number around 262 million. All killed in the name of authority, in the name of pragmatism, in the name of Nationalism. Most of these deaths caused by the forces of the Communist regimes driven by their firm belief in the 'scientific' nature of their socialism. In this century armies of the Allied forces march into foreign territories to establish their version of Statism. To overthrow dictators and regimes who refuse to toe the line. And in doing so upturn the lives of the citizens of those regions. Are those not acts of terrorism? And are the army men involved in this 'crusade' not devout followers of their state? Patriots ready to lay down their lives for freedom and democracy; following orders unquestionably.

What if not religion is the cause of terrorism? What alternative explanation do defenders of blind faith offer if not blind faith itself? Egoism! Selfishness! Political Control! These are the answers we get. It is the Egoism of political leaders who wish to maintain political control who use Religion as a tool for mass movement. This is absolutely irrefutable given the history of politics. However, it is not these political leaders who put their lives on the line and fight the wars. These political leaders are so small in number that they can hardly cause any effect in a war. Their egoism prevents them from sacrificing themselves for the cause of what ever religion they are exploiting. But if religions are so easy to exploit, what does it say about the religions themselves? The troops bombing the middle east are not doing it for egoistic reasons. They are  selfless in sacrificing themselves for the cause of democracy and state. The soldiers of ISIS are not egoistic, they hardly care for themselves. All their care about is a cause much greater than them: The cause of the Islamic State. If the soldiers on any side of the war were egoists, caring only for themselves, they would not be putting their lives on the line for causes external to themselves. Like the egoists controlling them today, they would avoid directly being involved in a war which does not do them any good personally. An Egoist fights a war to satisfy himself - for self-preservation. He does not bow down to external causes of religion or state, and does not rally to their war cry.

"I've set my cause on nothing"

Those are the words of Max Stirner translated to English. It has alternatively, and more popularly, been translated to "All things are nothing to me". People usually interpret Max Stirner as an extreme Individualist Anarchist, however he was much more than that. And his theories would have much to say on the current happenings. Max Stirner was an Atheist and an Anarchist, who all Atheists and Anarchist either ignore or hate. Because he exposes the true component common in all religions, which even the most staunch Atheists and Anarchists fall victim to. His radical Atheism rejects all reified concepts that have no real world existence except in the minds of the people. Whether it is god, state, political power, or morality. It is when these external concepts, external to the ego, become fixed in the minds of the adherents, then the adherents of these fixed ideas become ripe for exploitation; ready to be exploited by an egoist. All organizations filled with such pious individuals end up being followers of the representatives of those fixed ideas. They can then be commanded in the name of God, Secularism or Democracy. How fitting is it, that egoism be condemned as a cause for terrorism in the mainstream by egoists eager to exploit the pious? Such egoists would be nothing without their followers. If more and more of their followers became egoists and cared only for themselves rather than the fixed ideas imposed by these controlling egoists, who will be left to sacrifice themselves for their cause? They dare not let religion be questioned. "Those fighting on the other side are being swayed by egoists, which is the true cause of terrorism, but those fighting on our side fight for justice and other such concepts that I define or represent." That is basically what all shrewd egoists want the pious masses to accept. It is only when reified external concepts are exposed as spooks of the mind, can an individual make an attempt to stop himself from "unselfishly serving those great egoists".

[freeindiablog]

Irrelevance of Anti-Corruption Movement

Kejriwal recently said in an interview that BJP must recognize the public mandate in Bihar elections as a slap on its hate politics, and a call for maintaining a federal system. I am usually not the person who reads much into the public mandate; I do not believe that election results, and the governments that form as a result, represent the "people" in any way. Quite frankly the interpreters of the public mandate are simply imposing their own opinion on why people voted a certain way. But since we are talking about public mandates, consider this: Bihar just elected a party into power which was chiefly campaigned for by a convicted criminal out on bail. What does this public mandate say about the public's opinion on the matter of corruption? Are we to conclude that public, by and large, does not care about corruption? That even if a politician gets convicted, let alone accused, he still does not lose his position in the party or his image in the public?

Of course Kejriwal supporters would be quick to point out that the results of Bihar elections only go to show that the people hate BJP's hate politics even more than their hate for corruption. But I reject this claim all together. Firstly, people elected BJP into power in the central government with full knowledge of its hate politics - which isn't exactly a secret. Secondly, there existed a third front in this election, the one by Nitish Kumar with a "clean image". Yet people chose to give more seats to the party with a convicted head. Is corruption not an issue anymore?

Fact of the matter is: we love corruption. It doesn't matter which class you belong to, corruption has probably helped you in one way or another. So you had to give a bribe to get a passport. Obviously in a perfect world you shouldn't have to. And of course you used that example to criticize corrupt practices of the government workers. But you also failed to mention how you did not have the complete documents which are required by law, or how you were not present at the house you gave in residential address during police verification, or how the residential address has been occupied by you for less than a year, or failing to comply with countless many restrictions that really do exist. An honest officer would have kicked you out of his office, but you were lucky he was a corrupt bureaucrat who accepted your bribe and gave you the permission to live your life as a resident of this geographical area. You are now no longer in a straitjacket and have the identity necessary to travel overseas.

And when was the last time you paid a traffic police man some bribe money and didn't well deserve a fine? Of course the traffic police man chose specifically that spot to stand because everyone is prone to committing a minor traffic violation there. Sure he could choose to not be a complete dick to the people traveling and let people go through. But an honest cop can also choose to be as strict as possible. And if he knew people are making mistakes, small as they may be, at a particular point, wouldn't it be dishonesty to not police people there? Honest cops all over the city would make daily commute impossible.

But these are of course the problems of the middle class. What about the lower class? The corruption they have to do to survive makes the corruption faced by the middle class appear as a first world problem. Denied any property rights where ever they make their base, their "slums" are under constant political threat of being torn down. And it is not by corruption that such right is denied to them, it is by law. It is not some act of corruption that makes a slum illegal, it is an act of parliament, implemented by an act of law enforcers. What blame can they put on corruption when the law itself does not recognize their rights? Corruption, that is by bribing the local committee, local officers and local politicians, is how they survive. If they were surrounded by honest politicians, officers and committee members, they would be homeless. Homeless until these honest messiah are able to turn the rusted, bulky and law abiding wheels of the system to get them a house. Why would they end corruption without first "powering off" the machine that takes away their rights? What reason would the poorest or the poor have, in joining the anti-corruption movement? In many cases if their interaction with the government ended in corruption, it would be a blessing. They have to arm themselves with whatever they can find to fight for their rights, to fight against demolition squads.

And are we to ignore that it is through the lawful exploitation of the farmers in villages that people are forced to move to cities? Essential commodities act, APMC Act, land use laws, all passed to keep price of food down in cities. To keep those election promises of cheap food. (Their long term effect is the reverse but that is a different point). Land use laws restrict a farmer to use his own land for anything other than agriculture - trapping him and his community to a life of farming as long as he stays there!

The anti-corruption movement has largely been called a middle-class movement. It attracted mostly middle class people to join the fast. It spread like a wild-fire in the social networks. The "middle class" needed someone to blame for limiting their potential and they blamed corruption. For them, the near perfect rules of the government are obviously not the cause of the problem, they are constitutional laws - needed for very obvious and well researched reasons. To them it is obviously not the incentives that governmental system creates but the people who have been attracted to it, which are the problem.

Of course, not everything about corruption is good. If it helps, think of corruption as a tool; A weapon that can be used. It can be used for self-defense and it can be used for offense. It is true that the elite occasionally use it to extract wealth from the masses. But such corruption is not the root cause of exploitation. To understand the corruption that the law and government itself is, one needs a study of money, banking, government contracts and an understanding of theory of property. Majority of the public lacks that. That the electricity distribution companies over-charge with little oversight is a small detail compared to how the electricity distribution companies have used government contracts to monopolize distribution areas. It is much smaller a detail compared to how the middle class is largely alright with this system as long as they don't have to pay the over-charge. They are perfectly fine with energy production monopolized by the state, as long as they keep getting their electricity supply - whether the electricity is under-produced for the rest is of no consequence to them. With this knowledge how can we blame the Katiyabaaz (a local electricity thief) for scarcity of electricity? It is not his corruption or the corruption of the officer who took a bribe from him, which is the root cause of the problem. It is through his corruption that electricity reaches locations which government does not connect.

Corruption is a fact of life when living under a government. It is not the cause of governmental failure, it is the result of it; and government always fails. Focusing on corruption is a non-starter for a people's movement. It induces guilt into the lives of the exploited who are using corruption in self-defense. It teaches them to be properly exploited as prescribed by the law. It certainly isn't enough to win you elections. Which is why AAP had to promise 'free' goods at the expense of the producers, just like every other political party with no real solutions, to win elections. A corruption free government is one false promise that no political party can fulfill because government is corruption in its purest form. It is an organization of con artists. They lie about their authority to govern; whether they use such authority in accordance to a document written by them, with oversight by judges appointed by them etc, is a secondary matter.

[freeindiablog]

Modi: The God That Failed

By Agrata Kumari

Worship of authority is a known phenomenon. For thousands of years we have worshiped kings, monarchs, warlords, chieftains, lord of the tribe, high priests of religious sects and cults, dictators and now politicians. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is considered one such godly figure by his followers, believers and worshipers. In India, being considered as a god and worshiped is nothing new. Almost everything is holy and sacred around here. It's very common to find Indians worship the earth, wind, water, fire, animals, plants, trees, machinery, tools, insects, rodents, reptiles, human beings, actors, actresses, scientists, politicians, shit, urine, stones, white skin foreigners, uncalled guests, sports personalities, books, rivers, mountains and many other countless things. So worshiping of a politician shouldn't come as a surprise to us. It's true that it's not the business nor the intent of libertarian philosophy to forcefully prevent such practices as people are free to believe and do whatever they wish to do until and unless they are not harming any other human being on this planet. But the worshipers don't agree with libertarian philosophy of non aggression. Instead they consider that others have no right to ridicule their beliefs and practices. And if anyone question or criticize or ridicule their beliefs and practices they can violently suppress them. This is something we know to be true from our investigation of history. So if you wish to offend the worshiper ensure that either you are prepared to die or counter attack and survive if luck in your favor.

Now we all are aware of the pre-election hype that made Prime Minister Narendra win the elections with a comfortable majority. We are also aware that at present there are many voices questioning whether he is really that competent as the pre-election hype projected him to be. But this not the problem we should be concerned with. To understand the real problem we must ask “why do we end up worshiping fellow human beings and fall for propaganda which turn out to be a disaster?”. Why does this take place again and again in history of civilization? Is it something that these sly demagogue's do to us or are we inherently susceptible to demagoguery? If we are susceptible to demagoguery then how come not all of us fall prey to it? If the sly demagogue is capable of keeping us spell bound as per their pleasure and will then what makes us break this spell and wake up to actual facts?

The mass hysteria which demands for a strict regime to be put in place is not accidental. It is not a result of failures of free market and liberty. In fact it occurs due to reasons contrary to the ideas of free market and liberty. The previously ruling congress government had bureaucratic policies which gave rise to high amount of governmental corruption. It isn't the case that only the congress government had bureaucratic policies, in fact every government does but the congress government didn't do much to remove bureaucratic hurdles which were necessary. The government was incompetent at forming strategies to counter issues on a timely basis, due to weakness in its leadership. Everyone was aware that the Prime Minister in chair was a mere puppet of the elite congress family which controls the party. On top of that the congress government had to tackle with the “anti corruption movement” which gave it a bad name. The congress government, in its tenure applied the wrong monetary and fiscal policies. This created price instability and inflation. They had to curb spending by raising tax rates as well as the interest rates on loans.

On the other hand the BJP sorted out its leadership problems and in fighting. The Modi government of Gujarat had policies like giving low interest loans, cheap electricity, cheap land, tax holidays, etc to lure investments. Such policies in the short run creates the illusion of progress. The debt burden of the Gujarat State Government has increased where as the assets it had under its reserves were leased or sold to their crony industrialist friends. The accuracy and validity of data which the Gujarat government was presenting had been questioned by various agencies including the CAG. But we all know how the propaganda brigade played its part in convincing that Gujarat was doing far better than other states of India. Ground realities were however different. After three terms of Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat we do not find that India is flooded with goods manufactured in Gujarat. We do not find that bulk of innovations in various fields, and new entrepreneurs are rising up from Gujarat. These facts were true back then when Modi was projecting the so called development and even at present. However whenever such facts were presented to the majority, they simply refused to accept them or they simply ignored them. Why were so many people suffering from cognitive bias at that period of time?

We all in our lives experience reality and perceive it differently. Whenever we live together in a large complex modern society, the various phenomenons related to public affairs are not easily understood by us. However there are certain conclusions which we arrive at from our perceptions to make sense of our experiences of the social phenomenon which is commonly felt by us. These experiences which most people face serve as the foundation for their moods towards the future. The common experience and the conclusion derived by most people in relation to the Manmohan Singh's Congress government was that it's corrupt, incompetent of implementing policies, or even form the right public policies, its methods of governance are obsolete and that they are clueless on how to sort out the problems which we are facing. To achieve the political ends which they were seeking, the voters perceived an urgent need for a form of governance that counters lawlessness and arbitrary power which had set in due to the existing governance style and its operations. The masses believed that somehow the disorder in society was due to weakness in applying policies which is required to maintain law and order in society. The idea was that there must be a strict obedience towards laws and those who disregard government policies must be strictly dealt with. This idea of the masses forms a general consensus in approval for electing a group of individuals placed in position of power which has more authority than what the current form of power structure gives to the current rulers. These group of individuals were from the BJP led camp. Everything that Modi propaganda brigade promoted Modi to be was found matching with the conclusions that people drew from their experiences. Modi promised that he will end corruption, bring in strong reforms which replaces the existing order but protecting the culture and traditions of India at the same time, he will revive the economy, he would bring in laws which will reduce crime and lawlessness, that he will restore India's name which was tarnished under the Manmohan Singh's rule and many other such things. All of the right words which the masses wanted to hear and already had them in their own minds. When what Modi proposed and whatever conclusions the people had arrived at based on their experiences they had no further doubts that Modi is the right person to govern. This is where we get biased and rigid in our beliefs. It's not difficult for the power seeking group of individuals to speculate what the general mood of public is. Fortunately for Modi, his probable strong opposition contending political party, Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party, made a few blunders and lost the confidence of the voters. All of these factors contributed to boost Modi's image and sweep the elections in his favor.

The story post election however is entirely different for the voters. Modi did start off with a few policies like restructuring of LPG subsidies, urging everyone to open a bank account and removing certain banking regulatory norms to make it easier, spreading awareness towards the importance of hygiene and cleanliness, inviting industrialists to manufacture goods in India, and initiating the process of encouraging the use of Internet by allowing cronies and lobbyist to set up an Internet infrastructure that provides Internet access for free across the country. The voters however had different expectations. They expected that there will be drop in prices and the economy will revive - that the Modi government will stabilize the price fluctuations - that there will be a sense of security and safety of their life, liberty and property - that there will be drop in crime rates - that the governmental corruption will fall - that the ease of doing business will get better - that they will get a huge stock pile of money from the booty which the government promised to confiscate from the accounts of black marketers, etc.

In contrast the policies of the government as usual didn't yield any immediate benefits. Nor it seems that there will be any long term benefits as well. Most of these policies were again simply propaganda of sorts. Almost all governmental policies fails or are met after spending a great deal of resources which can be termed as waste. Even the sense of order and security somehow diluted. Typically the elected government has to falsely assure that they won't be harming their oppositions. In the back of their minds they are aware that they enjoy the ideological support of the majority and the present situation is in their favor. This allows the government to cunningly introduce laws even if such laws are unjust with respect to the standards of rights and wrongs. These laws are presented as if they must be passively accepted by all even if they are reluctant to do so. The claim behind passing such laws is that these laws are directed to transform and cleanse men into obedient subjects of law and eliminate lawlessness. These laws are claimed to be good for all. The totalitarian government justifies its actions of using force to implement such policies as necessary in order to achieve the orderly better society.

The totalitarian government's laws and policies are not based on reasoning but rather on mass appeal. This is an inherent essence of positive laws in contrast to natural laws. This breaks the notion of individual consent towards such laws, as the laws which the totalitarian government is passing is towards higher justice, more noble and betterment of people or at least in interest of the nation. This now creates a gap between actual justice and the new legal order. The meaning of law itself changes under such regimes.

Intellectuals who work for the government and intellectuals who are biased supporters, sanction such actions of the totalitarian government as necessary for changing the failed structure of previous forms of governance. Generally such voices of the intellectuals express the mood of the majority and also plays the role of molding public opinion to a great extent. Most of these intellectuals claims are pretense of science and align with the ideologies which has gripped the masses. This provides these intellectuals support for their claims and also helps in crushing any doubts which are raised against their theories. Banning of instant noodles, pornography, hoarding of essential items during shortages, consumption of meat, etc are policies which on their face appear to be harmless.

It is true that under totalitarian regimes certain types of crimes are reduced. The terror which is the result of the totalitarian regimes propaganda serves to an extent as a form of deterrence. On the other hand this terror is used in suppression of the opposition as well as resistive forces against totalitarians. For example a totalitarian regime might successfully reduce crimes like non ideological murders but there will be an increase in killings due to riots and killing intended towards suppression of the oppositions of the totalitarian regime and for spreading a sense of fear.

The notion of guilt and innocence is lost in the supporters of the regime as they believe that no matter how cruel their actions are; they are for the higher good. That their actions are towards betterment of the community, nation etc. The opposition to their actions is mere shortsightedness or are coming from those who are with evil intentions. This very ideological belief breaks down communication between individuals making them incapable of having any rational dialogue in managing public affairs. The ones who question the ideology are considered as traitors - who doubt the ideology which binds the masses and that these individuals do not fit into the movement of the masses. This terror of going against the masses and becoming an outcast eliminates the possibility of individual freedom. Everyone is aware that anyone who interferes with their plans will be crushed. There are no guiding principles for human behavior as law itself has been altered in favor of the movement.

Ideologies are never concerned with well being and betterment of society. They are concerned with becoming and perishing, with their rising and the fall of the existing structure, of destroying the current culture and have a new culture in its place, etc. Remember the very origin of these moments were based on destroying the existing, which is evil; and constructing the new, which is good. There was never any scientific exploration involved as to why and which parts of the existing structure must be uprooted and what must be preserved. The idea of race, culture, progress, nationalism, religion etc are known to be politically crowd puller. Most ideologies revolve around these elements. Ideology demands that history and reason must be disregarded as they can teach nothing new but interfere in their plans. Let us not forget that historians not just provide us with historical facts but also infuse their interpretation along with the facts to distort history for us. The totalitarian regime attacks not the value judgments of the historians but rejects entire history itself. Similarly by making non sequitur and ad hominem attacks, they disregard works of other sciences. Once this is achieved the totalitarian regime can use its propaganda brigade to promote the ideological ideas they want. It is impossible to argue or convince or even show the masses who are presently strong believers in fiction rather than facts. Such voices of reason and highlighting of actual facts have few takers. Even the one who listens, accepts and agrees with these facts won't be willing to act rationally and act contrary to the majority.

Every governments intention is towards despotism and we see this happening every time. Every critic of the government is being attacked by ad hominem like presstitutes, anti-national, sickular etc rather than any rational argumentation. Instances of mob violence are being seen in various parts of the country. Open threats of violence against those who oppose the government are being made every now and then. It's not funny anymore when lives matter and people get killed due to ideological reasons. And it is evident that Prime Minister Modi is not in any mood to carry out any strict action like he did when some IAS officer wore sunglasses in front of him or when someone obstructs when his photograph is being taken. His reluctance to deal with communal violence is not new. We had seen such reluctance during the Gujarat Riots. His narcissism and will to power was always displayed in his various actions. It was also well known that he bluffs about his policy achievements. His bluffing skills did win him the title of “Fekku”. Everything that the voters realize now were already in front of their eyes. It's only now when the spells broken some of them can see it. The problem as I have summarized doesn't begin with Modi or Manmohan or any other demagogue. The problem is inherent with us. Until and unless we don't feed our minds with proper knowledge with proper concepts we cannot have the proper perception of our reality. If this form of conscious ignorance continues we will keep creating our own demons. Have we created one in form of Modi? We don't know. What we do know for sure is that there are no gods. God is dead. And so has the notion of Modi, the God, has failed and died.

[freeindiablog]

Nepal’s new constitution, India, and the truth

By: Agrata Kumari

Nepal and India are having a face-off over the issue of the new constitution of Nepal. India has voiced its concerns over the rights of certain minority groups of Indian origin, whereas Nepal claims that India has no business in its internal affairs. The majority of Indians do not have an interest in this issue at the moment. News and opinions of so called experts beamed on television and the internet are the source of unquestionable truth for the majority of us. I'll however, urge you to have skepticism towards whatever you hear or read or see on various types of media. In this post I will be presenting my views open to your scrutiny.

No constitution in the world can give or take away our rights. Our rights are natural and inalienable. They come from our intuition of morality and the faculty of reason. It is the very reason that we understand that stealing is wrong. The constitution is formed when a gang of men, who enjoy the support of the majority, write down a set of rules for the ones they will govern. This includes the majority of their supporters who serve as a useful idiots in this political mockery of civilization. This piece of paper, called the constitution, then serves as a holy gospel on which generations and generations will debate and refer to time and again. If you reason and examine constitutional democratic republics across the globe, you will notice that it never keeps the government or criminals from violating our rights. The truth of Nepal's constitution is just like any other constitution of a nation. The constitution is being drafted by a group of elite who desire power to dictate your life, but call themselves your representatives. These representatives never invited you over for meetings to discuss every clause present in the constitution. However, when they reach a point where the constitution can be enforced on you without major conflicts they will go ahead and enforce it. You may not realize but there are several clauses in the constitution that you may not have agreed with. There may be some clauses you wished was there in the constitution but it isn't there. It doesn't matter in democratic decisions if you are happy or unhappy with the whole of it. You will be made to accept it because the majority accepted it. In a way the constitution has been forced upon you without your consent nor your consultation. You're now a party to a so called (social) contract which you did not agree to. Isn't this process of enacting the constitution a violation of your sovereign right from the very beginning? So what's this hoopla all about with the new constitution? Its serves the ruling class and not you.

Now what's India's interest in Nepal's constitution? The so called India is simply a term for its ruling elite. This set of ruling elite needs to safeguard their interest. First and foremost, it doesn't want Nepal to associate with other ruling elite like the Chinese ruling elite. The ruling elites' interest is their own perverted psychotic narcissism. They want the power to control as many resources as much they can and to be praised as great leaders. Neither India, nor China and nor any government you call your own gives a damn about you. They simply want to rule. That's it.

For ruling and gaining support of the governed the ruling elite has to use lies, deceit, sentimental and emotional appeal. Nepal, like India or any other nation state, consists of several individuals with different interests and sentiments. There, individuals will form alliances under the pretense of religion, ethnicity, culture and other such commonalities to bargain power over others which the democratic framework offers. So there will be feminist groups demanding certain power over men, misogynist group demanding power over women, religious groups demanding power over LGBT's, Religious groups trying to belittle other faiths, rich demanding power over the poor, the poor demanding power over the rich etc. This is the nature of democracy and the political system which fragments the society and destroys its fabric.

The constitution of Nepal and the political parties are communist. One significant trait of those who believe in communism is that they evade responsibility and blame everyone and everything else for their plight. Under a political turmoil there is always a tendency for the prices of goods to fluctuate. Many a times leading to extreme shortages. Nepal is facing such crisis here as the ruling elite doesn't wish to take any decision which triggers a revolt against them. The ruling class doesn't like a direct power struggle. When there are blockades of transport routes within the territory of Nepal itself, blaming India for what happens within its territory is unjustified. But there is an Indian ruling class interest in play as well. You may have noticed that border areas have a high population of individuals who can identify themselves with the adjoining neighboring state rather than state under which they and their properties are currently present. These groups are of an interest to the neighboring state's ruling elite to stir conflicts in their neighbor's state. We have seen how one state sponsors rebel groups in another state so that they can invade, annex or have a government of their liking in their neighboring state. India is not sacrosanct either that it ain't playing any mischief.

If there is truth in Nepal Government's claims that India is blocking the trade routes unofficially then it's an act of aggression by India. Blocking of entry and exit routes are like putting someone in jail or house arrest. Blocking access to part of unowned land is also considered aggression under many ethical theories. Sieges are immoral military tactics of aggression to create shortages of goods in order to soften the enemy or make them surrender. Rulers never shy away from such evil practices.

Unfortunately the constitution of Nepal is heavily communist. Its major political party claims to follow Maoism. If anyone has any clue of communism and socialism then they know that it's the road to hell but paved with good intentions. However, if Nepal really wants to prosper, there are certain steps they can take. First and foremost, they have to recognize complete individual rights. If there is no violation of rights then there is no need for government intervention. Property rights are inalienable. The government cannot confiscate anyone's property. Not even under the pretense of public interest. It should do away with all protectionist trade policies. It should allow trade to take place using any form of currency which the individual prefers. The other option is that they should opt for a people's militia as it's a small landlocked country and nation states which surround it have huge standing armies. Nepal should also enter protection treaties with other nations in case it enters into military conflict with its neighbors. As of now I have little hope that the constitution will do any good for Nepal.

[freeindiablog]

Calm down, Its just another life

By Agrata Kumari

For years, in the name of religion, nation, culture, tradition etc a group of people have committed enough autocracies. Be it assassination of peace loving Mahatma Gandhi, religion based rioting, harassing lovers, harassing liberal thinkers, harassing women, spreading hate against other nations/cultures/religions/castes etc via propaganda based on lies and deceit; this group has nothing to offer but hate. Violence, which is considered to be evil and to be used as the last resort, is their first choice. Such fascist groups are present in every country. The political parties who are not in power are guilty too. They too are in the game for fueling violence. Democracy is based on violence. The political power structure is based on violence. It has always been so since their origin and will remain so.

Yet another life was taken away today. That of Mohammad Ikhlaq. Brutally beaten to death by a mob. My sincere condolences to his family. My heart weeps for innocent lives that are lost at the hands of evil. Now I shall begin my rant not for political reasons but because I feel its necessary to do so.

Loosely speaking India has never understood the importance of separation of state and religion. India never understood how dangerous power can be and why the western developed civilized nations are suspicious of governmental power. India never understood how deadly nationalism can be and what monster it can become. India never understood how democracy fragments the society and is nothing more than mob-rule. India never understood how socialism can destroy and corrupt the morals of its citizens and make them irresponsible. Fortunately for India they never had to deal with the dark ages nor had to face mass scale murders during the two world wars nor undergo a total collapse as a failed communist state.But it is not so that they have never experienced tyranny of some form or the other. It is not so that during the freedom struggle our influential leaders didn't warn us about the menace of nationalism, religious fanaticism and fascism; like Tagore and Gandhi did. The notion of human rights in India is a joke. The disparity between the classes and culture is huge in this part of the world. The ruling elite enjoys all the luxuries and power where as others either have to die or lick up their boots to survive. This tradition is not new to this part of the world but has been so for thousands of years. First it started by means of caste-ism, religion-ism, regionalism etc where one section dominated over other section of the society, and then came the foreign rulers. To please the foreign rulers and get benefits from them a class of Indian elites always preferred to align with them for benefits. This is evident from the fact that during the rules of the Moguls and then of the British, only a handful were able to rule over millions. We all know the stories of how a few fought against these foreign rulers, where as the majority didn't bother.

I know and I am aware that this write up will serve no purpose than being yet another blog post and nor I am expecting that this write up should evoke any sentiments within you. But I believe that when blood flows, ink must flow. This post is just me standing up and voicing my objection. As I have said before in my previous posts, that we lost the notion of self esteem and self respect long ago. We do not believe nor understand natural inalienable human rights. Nor do we realize the importance of it. We don't like owning responsibility for our actions. We are over optimistic and believe in magical overnight transformations of society rather than accepting that miracles don't happen and progress takes time, capital and freedom. If we had this understanding we wouldn't have elected fascist or socialist power hungry liars into office, right from the day of power was handed over by the British elite to the Indian elite.

Now I will be wasting my time if I don't come to the point. There are certain natural rights of men which we civilized human beings living in civilized society believe in. Rights like right to self ownership, right to individual liberty and the right to property. If the natural right to self ownership is denied or not recognized then we are all born a slave. The one who says that you don't own yourself is basically saying "you are my slave". The question is do we own ourselves or not? If yes then we have the right to decide what we do with our bodies, what we consume, what we believe in, what we like, what we dislike etc as long as we are not violating natural rights of anyone else. Therefore, if some individuals in our society form a group and call themselves governments, and acting in a governmental fashion refuse to recognize the right to self ownership, then all we become are mere slaves to those individuals. Therefore a non-slave is free to choose what he wants to consume, and what he wants to do with his body within the limits of his individual freedom. The man who was killed by the mob was well within his unalienable human rights as a human being to consume what he wants until and unless he wasn't harming any other fellow human being. This right was denied to him. Even the right to life was not denied. Why? Simply because we are all puppets at the hands of the politicians? Or is it because we have bigger issues, like getting free WiFi connection from the government, than valuing a life? If the government promises to make you a millionaire at the cost of thousand lives will you accept it? Remember that the seeds of hate were sown by the very government in power right now. And this hate was funded by us who are now disappointed with it. If we fund it via taxation, is there not blood on our hands now? We can blame the government and the mob who murdered Mohammad Ikhlaq but what about our role? Isn't our inertness towards governmental oppression and our participation in this evil political apparatus allow them to continue with this hegemonic relationship?

The answer is simple. We don't care about lives or other people and nor do we care about the notion of human rights. We don't care because its just a life lost of someone we don't know. We don't care because people die here every day. We don't care because we alone cannot change the system nor fight it. We don't care because we are scared slaves. We don't care because we are weak and helpless. We don't care because we don't want to face the reality. If we did, we wouldn't dare have a government with absolute power to disregard our rights at will. If any change has to come in this country it has to begin by having some self esteem, some guts, and some dignity. As long as individual rights and property rights are not taken seriously, we can forget being a civilized society, ever. Malcolm X once said "No body can give you freedom, nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you are a man, you take it". So deal with this fact of life, if you refuse to remain a slave or a puppet.

[freeindiablog]

The bans, the banner and us

By Agrata Kumari

Individual Rights in India have always been a joke. Thanks to the socialist mindset and centuries of cultural dogmatism based on such beliefs. Beliefs which are based on altruism, mystical moralities of right and wrong and unquestionable duties towards society, tribe, nation, caste, religion etc. Due to such beliefs we've stopped valuing our own self esteem, self respect and self interest. In other words our own individuality. We somehow developed having a "guilty conscious" for having interests opposite than the ones we were taught to follow since childhood.

Indian government, like any other government in the world, regardless of the political party in power, disregards individual rights. To make matters worse the governed individual believes that its okay for the government to take away their rights for higher good and well being of society. In this "blind devotion" they forget that the society consists of individuals. Individuals with minds of their own and capable of knowing what's good for them. Individuals with the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, moral and immoral, good and evil. We are however not immune from being carried away and erring. We as individuals differ from each other in our character traits and personality. But it is a general tendency among us to avoid conflicts between each other and respect each others rights. But we are also under the constant fear of the uncertain future and the possibility of having to deal with violent conflicts with others who are trying to gain what we have or get access to things which we want. We all have a quest to secure our lives for survival against uncertain forces of nature using various scarce resources available in nature. Due to scarcity there arises conflicts as to who should use which resource and for which ends. Sometimes such conflict over resources leads to the formation of groups with us and fights between us. Such conflicts have even lead toward wars. In time one such group is able to govern over the other group.

Continuous conflicts and rule by the use of brute force is impossible. These groups of men, mostly a handful of them, use tactics of deceit to rule others by forming governments. Governments normally sounds like a great idea. They use fakery of promises and lies in order to appeal to our hopes and emotions, so that under their influence we confer upon these men the authority to administer us and others. This conferring of authority to them is not purely voluntary, but due to our fear and a hope within us that they won't take away everything from us. That we somehow survive and spend the rest of our lives peacefully.

If you look at the political method used by the past and present party in power, it was based on false promises. They would also warn us of calamities and bad consequences, if they are not the ones elected into power. After getting into power they use all forms of deception and deviation techniques to remain in power and expropriate us. In time they start to threaten us, erode our rights slowly, disrespect our views and crush acts of questioning, protest or resisting towards their authority.

Cultural and moral appeals they make gives them blind support of the already indoctrinated masses. The masses right from their childhood, before their age of reason, has been made to believe that these cultural values are necessary and must be protected no matter what. They use religion as a tool for controlling masses by dividing them.

They also claim that they will assist the poor, unemployed, helpless and the needy in order to influence our empathy towards them. Such pretense helps them win votes but no government ever wants to help in reality. That's not their intent. Their intent is to gain power and boost their egos. They run temporary welfare schemes along with propaganda beamed across television sets, newspaper and radios to make us believe that betterment of society is their utmost concern. Later in time when we do a reality check, we realize that they have simply benefited themselves and deceived us. Sometimes criticism and scrutiny of certain welfare policies and schemes are not entertained by the masses because the politician was a noble and a sincere person. They may be noble and sincere as individuals but their sincerity and nobility falls short of admitting that they are ignorant of pure economics.

Look at the policies of the past and present governments. This government banned a brand of noodles so that few of their crony friends can benefit and enter the highly competitive market. They attempted to ban porn to gain support of those who dogmatically consider sex as taboo. They have their own sex lives too. But the fact is they do not want anyone else to dictate their sex lives. The meat ban also had similar contextual appeal. The members of the vegetarian community were the group whose support they seek to gain. Unfortunately not all members of the community wanted such ban to be imposed. In fact, for many years now they have been living peacefully with others who consume meat. This is even true for the peaceful existence of two communities who consumed beef and the ones who don't. For political reasons these politicians bring up such bans and policies so that peace is disrupted. The anger and feeling of discontent of both the communities was directed towards each other, whereas the main culprits were power seeking politicians and their supporters who enjoy political patronage. Vote bank politics is the real motive. Such bans also enable politicians to receive kickbacks in the form of gifts and donations from meat producers to lift the ban. The Government of India also stated that individuals don't have any right to privacy. This means that the government now do not have to follow any procedure of the law to disregard what is private to us. Land acquisition acts are simply means for the government to systematically take away property of one person and give it to another. Mostly taking away from the poor and give it to their crony friends. They also promise us big budget welfare projects in order to keep us (the masses) calm for the present moment; by giving us hope for the future. Future assurances and belief in government has made us susceptible to such honey traps. We have had enough of such lies and deceit. This cannot go on forever. We don't need a nanny state dictating every aspect of our lives. We are not slaves whom the government can dictate any terms and take away any rights without due process of public discussion and participation. Our tragedy is that most of us do not even realize what our rights are and why they are important. Perhaps slavery and fear of the barbarian political cartel has conditioned us to the point where we dont even think of what our rights are anymore.

What needs to be banned and what shouldn't be banned cannot be answered without the notion of rights. The concept of rights begins with self ownership. We own ourselves and thus for fulfillment of our life and growth; we need freedom to make choices. We are responsible for our actions and its us who have to face consequences of our actions. Our freedom has its limits. Our freedom doesn't allow us to impose our wish and will over others by the use or threat of force or violence or by fraud. Our freedom doesn't allow us to take away other's rights and their liberties. It is therefore acceptable if murder is banned, rape is banned, war is banned, fraud is banned and other such crimes. Banning such crimes doesn't stop criminals from committing crimes. So what purpose does these bans serve besides harassing us, the law abiding peaceful citizens? There is no freedom from facing the consequences of committing crime and fraud. Criminals should be tried in a court of law to do justice for the victims of crime. The governmental action should ideally be to provide justice and protection for us. The government itself is not above the laws of morality and ethics. Governments are also not supposed to violate the rights of others; just like us, the individuals. But in reality they do and have always done so. To safeguard our freedom and to be responsible for our lives we must be prepared to defend ourselves. Disobeying bad, immoral laws are absolutely virtuous thing to do.

The right to self defense has also been denied to us by the governments. Thus they easily disrespect our rights as we cannot defend ourselves and will continuously fear them helplessly. It is no one's business to decide what the other people can do with their lives within their liberties; not even the government. We have to begin by respecting the rights and the liberties of others. We must also ensure that the governments are made to respect the rights and the liberties of the governed. They are after all representatives of ours elected to administer and resolve conflicts in society and not our masters. Thus if there is now another ban lets remind them that our previous leaders had taught us: That "Swaraj (self-rule) is my birthright and I shall have it."

[freeindiablog]

The Classical Liberal as a Modern Liberal

To Classical Liberals this new strain of liberalism called Modern Liberalism, seems to be of alien origin - something that is not a part of their tradition. Their rejection of Modern Liberalism goes so far as to call them socialists who have hijacked the term "liberalism". (It seems counter-intuitive to name-call people who are self-proclaimed socialists as socialists, but whatever) To a certain extent they are right. Modern Liberals appear as nothing but the same socialists who were opposed to classical liberalism during its inception. I usually don't have a dog in this fight except when critics of classical liberalism reject libertarianism as on same grounds as if they are the same thing. Worse is when classical liberals proclaim that they have to use the word libertarian to describe their philosophy because the word "liberal" has been hijacked by the socialists. To complicate the matter, libertarians of the United States let classical liberals get away with this making classical liberalism and libertarianism appear not that far apart. To further complicate the matter, the confused anti-market wing of libertarianism contributes towards this clubbing of classical liberalism and libertarianism as that "US version of libertarianism" to suppress the libertarians in United States from influencing libertarian thought; which is a pity because most recent contributions of libertarians from United States are very crucial to further development of libertarian thought. To avoid further confusion allow me to concentrate on what differentiates libertarians from classical liberals and modern liberals. And what all liberals have in common, "classical" or "modern".

Dispute resolution is probably one of the most important aspects of a society. It is what differentiates us from most of the animals. Humans have the almost unique ability to talk their problems through and resolve a conflict between themselves. When they are unable to resolve a conflict amongst themselves, they enlist others to resolve a conflict, either prior or during or after the conflict arises. Such freedom of dispute resolution is very essential in almost every social circle whether it is a group of friends, or a club, or a community. If a social circle can't resolve disputes and allows one section to enjoy at the expense of another, the social circle is sure to split allowing the suppressed to move away. This is by far the most elemental need for human co-operation. It gives rise to property where commons would be a "tragedy", and it allows for markets to flourish. Without such mutual respect for each other and their property no social co-operation is possible. Perhaps it is this reason that liberals hold the rule of law in such high regard. From a liberal perspective, without rule of law the society would disintegrate into a war of all against all as people find it hard to resolve their conflict, and instead try to force the other party into subservience. In liberal view (and incidentally the anti-market anarchist view) markets cannot emerge without the state providing this vital function.

It is true that there isn't a de facto dispute resolution mechanism in nature and any such mechanism would need to be man made. However the need for something does not justify the proposed solution. The development and effects of the justice system under the power principle would need to be analyzed in accordance with the incentive structure that exists under the power principle. A justice system under the power principle is one where the majority of the population has convinced itself that no matter what the dispute may be, there needs to be a body with the final authority to impose a resolution to a conflict. This body is popularly accepted to be the only body capable of not only overriding any previous dispute resolution but also the only body with the ability to impose itself on to a dispute resolution process where it has no business being involved. As a result this body gets involved in almost every decision that needs to be made in the land - even price of a commodity. If a seller is not selling you a commodity at a particular price then this body could be your final chance to impose a price on the seller. Had the body not existed, the buyer who can't afford a commodity would not have considered himself to be in conflict with the seller. But since people accept such a body to have a final say, no matter how unjust its interference, it is approached with such cases. In this case, the body with monopoly over final dispute resolution has created a conflict instead of resolving one. The result of the existence of such a body is politics. All aspects of the society becomes politicized. When a verdict is reached the people do not think whether the verdict was just or not - the decision taken is final. Basically, when such a body exists "everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else". Far from countering the state of nature, the nature of state enhances the war of all against all.

Not only are now conflicts created that would otherwise not be economical to pursue, the state renders any alternative dispute resolution process useless. Once you can get the "law on your side" any acceptance of alternative judgement becomes hard. Suppose you are an industrialist who got a chunk of land through state's eminent domain, and you find that the land is still occupied by people who have become squatters on their own land. You are less likely to resolve this conflict outside the influence of the state. It would be much cheaper to simply call the police. The power of the police also stems from this monopoly over dispute resolution. Since if anyone tries to commit action against the police he is judged by the same body. The society enters a stage where there is an artificial scarcity of dispute resolution. The scarcity is artificial because it is purely man-made. It doesn't automatically exist in the nature. It exists as a result of this widespread belief in authority.

What then is the classical liberal free market? While the classical liberals imagine that their free markets is one where dispute resolution is assisted by the state, what actually results is a market where the state has created a scarcity of dispute resolution - that is where the disputes are not resolved efficiently and new disputes are created. Even if the state is reduced to its simple functions, this artificial scarcity is not eradicated. What more? It is worsened in certain situations. If a factory started polluting a river that was being used by a village, a conflict arises. Had mechanisms existed that efficiently resolved these conflicts there would probably be no need for explicit regulations as the regulations would be implied by the various cases that existed prior. Had the state machinery responsible for dispute resolution been as effective and efficient as classical liberals proclaimed there would be no demand for regulations. There is a general tendency, both by classical liberals and many libertarians, to assume that most state regulations on the market are a result of some nefarious activity. Indeed some nefarious activity does happen in the formation of all regulations - after all, the state has politicized all issues. However, the acceptance of these regulations is not a result of some nefarious activity but because of the failure of the state dispute resolution engine. The demand to hold such violators of property rights accountable for their negative externalities, end up as a demand to have an administrative wing making regulations and enforcing them. Since not every dispute can go through state courts the unresolved disputes come into the jurisdiction of the administrative wing of the state by means of law. A state without these so-called "regulating" bodies but with everyone trying to get the state to pass judgement in their favour (rather than resolve conflicts) has been incorrectly called a "free market". The wide spread impression of laissez faire to be a system of gross negative externalities is not just a conspiracy cropped up be leftists trying to gain control the market, there is some truth to it because classical liberals have been calling it laissez faire incorrectly. Under the classical liberal free market the state does not interfere on behalf of anybody, instead it lets those closest to the state reap the benefits of the state machinery of dispute resolution.

A developed free society is not one without regulations. In fact, a developed free society will have, and historically has had, far more regulations than what members of parliament can physically draft. The difference is that those regulations would not be imposed by a monopolistic organization. They would be adopted voluntarily based on situations and people involved; they will vary from person to person and situation to situation. Dispute resolution will not be imposed upon by what is written in a book of law but book of law will document results from dispute resolution.[1]

What the classical liberals and modern liberals have in common is their agreement for the necessity of such minimal institutions of monopoly. That itself is of course obvious, but what else they have in common is their mental inability to see the large scale effect of these institutions on the market. Both refer to markets with state imposed scarcity of dispute resolution as "free market". While the classical liberals argue for those free markets, the modern liberals argue against.

This does not of course mean that a classical liberal should be a modern liberal. Of course, as said in the beginning, the need for a solution does not justify the first solution that comes to mind. Just because there is a need for regulation does not mean that more state regulations would alleviate the situation. The state is a malregulating agency. It imposes one size fits all regulations and cannot imitate regulations that would arise out of voluntary interaction. This of course has to do with the calculation problem of the state. Due to lack of voluntary negotiations the state imposed regulations are arbitrary at best and political at worst. Much for the same reason as state imposed prices are arbitrary at best and political at worst. No matter how well the state tries to compute the price and imitate the market, the price would be higher for certain situations and lower for certain others. You would simultaneously see lack of supply of that good in certain regions and excessive supply of that good in other. Similarly, state imposed regulations are highly restrictive of human action when no such restriction is needed (as such action would not harm anybody) in certain situations, and in other situations it authorizes gross violations of property rights in form of negative externalities. Regulations meant to bring large corporations in control end up restricting the smaller corporations that have a much smaller externalities footprint; while the large corporations are able to afford following these regulations and still do enough damage. The classical liberal blames the over-reaching state for these problems while the modern liberal blames the under-reaching state (lack of regulations) - as one would expect. As with all political dichotomies both are correct and incorrect: The problem is lack of regulations because of the over-reaching state. A dialectically third position they both are unable to understand.

The classical liberal is a modern liberal because when confronted with the problems caused by lack of regulations, and excessive negative externalities, he suggests the same solution as the modern liberal: More state regulations. While it is true that socialists have taken over the term liberal, such take over is not by accident. Modern liberalism is the devolution of classical liberal thought.

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[1] An interesting example is given by Walter Block which I would like to cite here. During the industrial revolution in England, the factories were polluting the atmosphere and effecting the civilians around so much that clothes left to dry on clothes line would blacken from the soot in the atmosphere. England, in those days, had a system of competing courts which even competed with king's courts. Such a system was called common law - because there emerged documents of law which were simply patterns of court judgements across various competing courts. The word "common" comes from the fact that these laws were common across the various courts. These "laws" were not like the codified laws that exist today. They existed to bring some form of prediction to court judgements rather than a tool to control court judgements. The civilians started to sue the factories in these courts, and even detective agencies sprang up which could analyse the soot and pin point which factory the soot originated from. The courts started to extract restitution for damages done to the civilians from these factories. This act had a prominent regulatory effect on these factories. But unfortunately, England was not a libertarian society. Common law system enjoyed such freedom only by the grace of the state. Majority of the people still suffered from the delusion of authority. When the Great War hit the state declared that it would be regulating the emission from these factories and as a result directed courts to not hear such cases.

[freeindiablog]

Can Education Solve Poverty?

Today while browsing for news I came across this news article.

Education best way to fight poverty: PM Modi

Eradication of poverty by means of education has been promoted in almost all governmental policies for many years now. So PM Modi reiterating this belief is nothing new. PM's speech on this topic presents me with the opportunity to discuss two key issues here: Poverty and its relationship with Education.

So here are some of the highlights of what PM Modi said:

That more efforts are needed to eradicate poverty in the country, and that education "is the best way (and even the least expensive) to fight poverty."

"Our efforts to remove poverty over the years have not yielded the results we desired. The speed (of removing poverty) needs to improve."

Parents should not impose their choices on their children.

That education should not create "robots" as he emphasized the importance of art and culture in students' life during his talk.

It can't be denied that education is important for civil society but it is equally important to examine the role of government in it and what it calls 'education'. The governmental method of imparting education is schooling. The method of schooling is based on the the Prussian education system of late 18th and early 19th century. The Prussian education system was a means to create a unified German Nation state by shaping the personality of students, to enable their minds to obey orders of the regime. It shouldn't surprise us to find that Prussian method of schooling became immensely popular with governments and regimes across the globe, as it serves in their best interest: to shape the psyche of their subjects towards supporting them. The rulers controlled what should be taught, who should teach, and how it should be taught in this schooling system. This keeps them in total control of what needs to be indoctrinated. This system is in contrast with the science of schooling: Pedagogy. Pedagogy is the discipline that deals with the theory and practice of education; it thus concerns itself with the study and practice of how best to teach. Pedagogy emphasizes on the importance of homeschooling and freedom in choices of what should be taught, how it should be taught and who should teach in schools.

Education is different from schooling. Learning from self experience and arriving at conclusion of various problems by a human ability of reasoning and thinking is also considered as educating or education. A mother teaching the first words to a baby is education. A grandfather sharing his experiences of life and passing valuable words of wisdom to their grandchildren is also considered education. Parents teaching their kids the professional skills they possess is also education. Parents who find their kids interested in other profession or sciences hires a tutor who imparts such knowledge to their kids is also education. A curious mind searching on the internet for information and going through online materials to seek answers for the questions that have come up in his mind, is education. Homeschooling is the term which we use for such methods of imparting education but it is not recognized as a way of formal education in most nation states. Why?

Once again I must emphasize that schools and colleges do disperse a lot of valuable knowledge. However, imagine that you were asked to sit through a lecture on a subject which doesn't interest you a bit or that the subject knowledge will serve no purpose in your life. What will be the outcome of such an exercise? What if you are a literate and intelligent person who is smart and capable of learning, and your immediate need is to acquire a skill which is not tough to learn and doesn't take lot of time. You may wish to acquire skills like plumbing or carpentry or accounting or computers programming or medicine but you don't want to spend several years in college. Even after spending time and money on this exercise you won't have the expected practical skills demanded in the market. You have to undergo such training privately. The state syllabus and content lacks the necessary knowledge which are demanded presently in the market. So there is always an element of self study required by the individual.

Each of us is aware that most of our skills were acquired on job via experience and/or revisiting several books on those subject matter or by discussing the problem with experts. Can't we reach our end of educating a person via homeschooling or private and then by "on job training", in a cost effective and efficient manner? Is it not true that a competent person is a better choice than a college pass-out who is unfit for dealing with the task at hand without practical "on job training"?

Education costs. The current system enforces imparting unnecessary irrelevant knowledge on students; which has least instrumental value or usefulness. Imagine a student with no vocal skills nor interest in music, he is supposed to take up singing lessons at school because the ruler feels that some form of art is necessary and therefore must be made mandatory in schools. The cost is forced by the state on us; to fund imparting of such unnecessary exercise which has no good consequence. Such method of educating citizens clearly sounds inefficient, irresponsible and costly approach to me and therefore I have my disagreement on the first point that our PM made. Doing the same thing over and over again won't result into something different. Thus that point that you made goes for a toss.

Now we all know that education costs and under the current system this cost is borne by tax payers. To pay taxes a person needs to have sufficient income levels and should be well above sustenance levels of survival. Certainly those under privilege and living marginally above the level of sustenance cannot afford to bear the cost of gaining skills via schools and colleges. The government policy is to provide them with free schooling. Free schooling; the term used by governments is basically waiving of the school fees or subsidizing it. Free schooling is not free. The cost involved in running these schools are forced on tax payers. But the argument is that by forcing others to pay the cost at least the under privileged have an opportunity for access to so called knowledge imparting center aka government school, as the fees are waived off. But still this policy didn't meet with success and we know that the drop out rate has not improved a lot. There must be additional costs involved.  What about the time parents have to spend in order to prepare their kids for school everyday? Dropping and picking them up from schools. What about the time duration required to complete schooling and certainty of finding employment after getting though the process? Does five years of schooling relieve the poor parents from the curse of poverty? Or is ten to twenty five years of schooling required for a person to posses skills that helps him earn? What if the kids do not secure high scores in the standardize exams in this cut throat competitive world? Are these not "costs" for the poor? The answer to these questions should now put a doubt on the claim that education eradicates poverty. We simply do not know if the pass out will be employed or end up as yet another unemployed educated person. The governments, instead of agreeing with these facts and accepting that theirs is a defunct method to eliminate the problem of poverty, start other schemes like unemployment benefits.

Poverty thus cannot be removed by the governmental method of schooling and nor by home schooling immediately. A poor person is one who lacks resources to produce goods that helps him to survive. To produce goods a person needs access to land and money. All the land is under government control. The government can forcefully acquire anyone's property. Property Rights in India is not absolute. The state owns a territorial monopoly over land. The government or the state controls those regions of land which are unowned by any individual or groups and prevent their occupation. It also refuses to allocate these virgin or unowned land which it control to its citizens without the citizens begging to the ones in power to allocate some of these resources to them. They also regulate the land which is owned.

If a poor person builds house on a piece of unowned; unallocated land and engages in some form of production activities without the permission of the state then that person's actions are deemed illegal as they lack permits from the state. Mostly the property; that the person has built by spending their life and labor is either confiscated or demolished. How do these actions help end poverty? Laborers who live in slums and shanties in cities often find unowned unused vacant strips of lands and settle there. Their houses are demolished time and again by the authorities. Does this help their plight a bit? It is true that the poor person can follow the law and go through the governmental bureaucratic procedures by waiting forever for the government to efficiently allocate land to them or to update records for the new piece of land they put into use. But how efficient and helpful the government is in such schemes can be understood by studying history of such schemes and by noticing the wide spread corruption and bureaucratic delays. The politicians and the cronies however do not face such difficulties in getting access to land and other resources. This is how the honest and noble political system works. Recognizing procurement of land via homesteading principle based on natural rights is the only efficient solution to our problem of poverty.

The next aspect is that of access to capital. The poor do not have access to credit from banks due to regulatory issues. Banks do not give out loans to those without security. If this is the case then you know why a helpless poor chap never approaches the bank for loans. On top of that; the law has criminalized private money lending. The only option the poor chap now has is to get funds from private money lenders like Jewelers, under the table. With higher risks involved in lending money to the poor (as its illegal to do so by private individuals) and with higher demand for loans from these loan seekers; the interest rates are driven up. This makes repayment of loans quite difficult for the poor. Therefore we find the poor mostly in debts and struggling to make repayments.

The conclusion that I have arrived is that government has no role in education nor in money lending. The reason that elimination of poverty is taking such a long time is due to lack of access to land and capital for the poor to get into productive activities. Tax payers hard earned money is valuable to the one who has earned it. Taxing them and spending it on unnecessary activities is unfair to them. Let the people decide how they spend their money on education.

Necessity is the mother of invention. If there is demand for goods and services we have seen that entrepreneurs, if given a free hand, provide these goods and services to the needy. For instance, the poor get access to land and capital via the black market and not from the governmental system. This is a clear example of how market solves these problems. There are options like homeschooling, NGOs providing education, parents cooperatives and entrepreneurs eager to provide low cost quality efficient education for all. One less headache for the government to deal with and less tax burden on the tax payers.

Politicians are well aware that education is not the solution to poverty. However promising free stuff like education helps them to get votes. It also allows them to condition future citizens towards conformity.    

Before I end I must say I agree to point three and four that you have made PM.

[freeindiablog]

Ditch ICANN use OpenNIC

With US considering India's proposal to host a root DNS server in India, an interesting point needs to be brought back into view: Internet is not as decentralized and free as many think it is. Domain Name System are servers that match the domain names like "google.com" to IP addresses which can be used to connect to that site. Obviously, the world needs to follow a single such database if we are to avoid "anarchy" of domains being double registered, and domains being accessible from certain DNS servers but not from others. With this thought in mind the world has allowed ICANN, which is largely a US based supposedly "international organization", to take over the job of governing access to Domain Name Systems. 10 out of the 13 root servers are located in US. ISPs all over the world have configured their end user routers to use ICANN dominated DNS servers.

However, this blind faith is not without its side-effects of central authority. Being largely a US organization (and not an independent one as it is falsely promoted), US government has authority over basically the entire DNS. US government has largely declared that any domain like .com, .net etc that belong to US based companies, can be seized at any time. In most cases the US government has simply got a warrant from a judge to seize a domain with the other party not been given a chance to respond. (Read More) Not to mention ICANN's hatred for anonymity while holding a domain.

In a nutshell, ICANN has a global hegemony over DNS and its policies, but this hegemony has largely been touted as a "natural monopoly" - which I claim it is not. While the reason cited for this natural monopoly is that we need a "consistent root" so that there are no clashes of domain naming - there is nothing that makes a distributed naming network impossible. Nothing stops one domain name system from serving requests from other domain name systems. Consider the fact that OpenNIC DNS servers not only provide access to ICANN approved domain names but also to alternative domains like .geek and .bit namecoin domains. Ideally I would prefer that we have many such services like OpenNIC that are ready to peer with other naming services, forming a distributed network with the desire to maintain consistency and will therefore stay away from other service's top level domains - but if it takes "democracy" of OpenNIC with its support for "anarchy" of Namecoin to defeat the "monarchy" of ICANN, I will take it. ICANN's monopoly is not a natural monopoly, a DNS system that does not provide access to other alternative DNS systems, or does not maintain consistency with other top level domains, would obviously not be a preferred domain. Which is probably why OpenNIC has opened itself to peering with alternative namespaces (currently emercoin, namecoin and New-Nations). ICANN's hegemony is largely the result of US government support, its advertizing, and lack of support by engineers for these alternative DNS - largely driven by fear of fragmentation, making the natural monopoly a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Another reason it is not a natural monopoly is because you can easily escape it. Simply head over to https://www.opennicproject.org/ where you will find a list of DNS servers which are closest to you. Follow these instructions and switch your DNS server in the Network settings. And voila, you now not only have access to ICANN approved domains but also alternative top level domains like .geek, .free and .bit(namecoin). If you can use an alternative service and get your job done, it is not a natural monopoly. While it is true that getting a .bit domain would severly restrict your audience (you can use their proxy to access alternatives domains though), it is important to remember that this is not because of a "natural monopoly" that cannot be worked against, but a result of blind faith in ICANN. By switching to OpenNIC you dont lose access to ICANN domains you gain access to whole another worlds.

This is a call to arms. Rather than hoping that India gets to host a root server, simply ditch ICANN and adopt OpenNIC.

[freeindiablog]

Do you trust the current parliament to frame the constitution?

In political debates it is common to hear the phrase "this is unconstitutional" or "the constitution allows the government to do this act", and so forth. As if every political debate must confine itself within the bounds of the constitution, and that every suggestion that is provably not possible under the constitution is not a viable solution to a particular problem (Conversely if the constitution contains a solution to a particular problem then its viability in reality is undeniable). But whether the constitution says one thing or the other, I urge that you go through a mental exercise: What if the current constitution was scrapped, or didn't exist, and that the representatives in the current parliament were asked to frame a new constitution, then would you trust them to frame this new constitution in the most righteous and proper fashion which serves the rights and interest of each and everyone?

The reason I ask this is because the constitution didn't come into existence from the heavens or another dimension. It was drafted by a Constituent Assembly consisting of mortal men like us who were selected or elected much like the way members of the parliament are elected today. A good effort was taken to make sure that representatives were present from minority sects from different parts of the country. The elected representatives sat in a series of meetings, just like the parliamentary sessions of today, and framed the constitution by appointing a drafting committee.

To put the question in perspective: If Narendra Modi appointed a drafting committee today and they started to draft a new constitution, would that constitution be accepted as the real legal document or the old one? Or conversely, before the congress party was overthrown, if the party had done the same act of drafting a new constitution, would you have accepted that document to be of any real value in a political debate? Would you accept these newly drafted constitutions to be your ruling guide like you accept the original constitution?

Dogmatic people would be the first to answer "No". They will fail to provide any coherent justification for their disagreement. The original constitution, we are told, is the real document and any new draft of constitution hence forth is not to be accepted as a legal document. Any law, we are told, that goes against the original constitution must be scrapped and supreme court is authorized, by the constitution, to be the final decider of the constitutionality of the law. But I can give various reasons as to why the new document could be far superior to the old one. Assuming, and this is a big assumption, that the elected representatives represent the will of the people, the current elected representatives are in a much better position to draft a constitution that is more in tune with the current population. The older representatives were elected by an older population, many of whom are not even alive today. We live in a world that is drastically different than what existed around 70 years ago. Our problems and its solutions are much different than what existed back then. Sure some problems remain in our society: hunger, poverty, droughts etc. But not only do we now have to deal with many new problems like the broken down public distribution system, corruption, police brutality etc, we are now technologically more advanced than before to take on these problems. Internet has allowed a much greater degree of communication, consensus building and decision making. So what logical reason can the supporters of the older constitution give to say that the older constitution is a valid/legal document and the newer one is not?

I hypothesize that the reason we can't draft a new constitution is the same reason the Vatican can't draft a new Bible: The new bible wouldn't have much acceptability in the masses who have been indoctrinated into believing that the Bible is the single greatest book ever written - that all the solution to all your problems lie within the Bible. And that any solution that goes against the "nature or intent of the bible" is "unchristian" or "immoral". Constitution is a doctrine that is spread in a similar fashion. Which is why you don't see the elected representatives drafting new constitutions every now and then.

But even Bible had the new testament. And constitutions are re-written. The point I wanted to make here is different than whether the newer or the older constitution is valid. My original question was whether you would trust the new framers of the constitution, who are currently members of parliament. Or if you are a BJP supporter would you have trusted the "Sonia Gandhi Sarkar" to frame the constitution. If the answer is no, then what reason do we have to trust the original framers of the constitution? Must we then not disregard the "argumentation via constitution" in any real political debate?

The wide-spread belief is that corruption is a recent problem. Indeed it has been recently highlighted but it is not true that the corruption did not exist back then. Or that the elected representatives of the Constituent Assembly were benign and not power hungry. There were 299 elected representatives in the Constituent Assembly, each of them with the power to debate and vote on proposals. While only a few dozens of names are passed around when we talk about who were the framers of our constitution. Were the 299 elected representatives any different than the representatives we have today? Even today we have a few dozen people in the parliament who have, what is called a "clean image". The rest, we do not trust. It is usually accepted that the majority of elected representatives are corrupt and power hungry. What reason do we have to believe that the situation in 1947 was any different?

Dr B. R. Ambedkar is usually advertized as the "prime architect of the constitution". But any honest look at the constituent assembly debates would show that the title of "prime architect" is a lie. Most of his proposals were turned down and many of his criticisms were ignored. To call him the "prime architect" can serve only two purposes: First to pacify him and second to use his credentials as an economist to give strength to an economically delusional constitution. The first purpose wasn't as successful, as he has reportedly been quoted saying "I shall be the first person to burn it (the constitution) out. I do not want it. It does not suit anybody".

Is there any doubt then that the machinery that expropriated the productive in India, created by the Britishers, is still alive today? The same institutions of the Police, RBI and the Judicial System are performing the same functions that they performed back then: expropriation. What has changed is largely "the face of the state". I can only conclude that what happened in 1947 was far from Indian Independence - it was simply a power struggle between Indian elements and the British elements of the ruling class. They used the Indian Independence struggle to snatch power from the British counterparts for themselves. More than "independence" they wanted the then recognized institutions of power to authorize the Indian faction of the ruling class to have complete control over us. And the greatest indicator of this fact is that the constituent assembly was formed by an act of the British authorities. They did not want the British authority to leave the productive Indians alone, they wanted a transfer of power to them.

[freeindiablog]

Ab ki baar.. Mai-baap Sarkar

Gideon J. Tucker's famous quote "No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session" is so relevant today. Look at the current situation of India. It moves me a lot seeing how steadily we are drifting far from civility and there is no strong resistance or attempts to stop it. No one has a clue, whether there will be some sort of conflict which threatens our life, or censorship that silences us from voicing our objection to confiscation of our property under any pretense of social benefit. No one has a clue, what these legislators are planning to do with us right now. How gloomy is our current situation?

The high expectations and optimism, that most of us had when we elected the ruling party with vast majority, has changed. The economy has not revived. Prosperity has not arrived. Civility and order in society has not improved. The promised overnight golden land can't even be seen anywhere in the horizon of possibilities. All in all there is a growing despair, dejection and disappointment somewhere within us. We don't like to admit that we have been fooled, but we are; Maybe not completely but to a certain extent, for sure. Maybe we will find some consolation in not being a complete moron. Acceptance of reality and harsh truths of life has seldom been the cornerstone of our culture for past few centuries. Are we not dogmatic; filled with superstitions and other customary beliefs, which have been culturally and traditionally followed for over centuries now? With such innate superstitious characteristics within us how can we expect that we will somehow appoint honest, competent, truthful, moral and virtuous legislators in office who fulfill their promises like removal of poverty ("gareebi hatao") or bring back of the golden prosperous era that our ancestors lived in ("Acche din ayenge")? Is it not true that a little self examination of our such beliefs would have shown us the impossibility of such promises and our expectations of those promises being fulfilled? What were we so euphoric about? What was this mass hysteria all about? Yes, we must now right away blame the politicians, and the economic conditions, and the zodiac constellations, and the western developed imperial powers of the past as well as the present, and the irrational irresponsible stupid people, and the evil rich elites, and the helpless poor, and the aliens, and the lady luck, and what not; Everyone, but ourselves. Pat your back fellas you are doing just great. This is precisely the attitude and the approach that makes us so vulnerable and susceptible to failure rather than success. Therefore, we must have to face the truth now and come to terms with it.

The truth is that this society is made of us; the individuals. Each of us individuals are responsible of our own selves. We act, and our actions have consequences. If we do not examine the means to reach our ends, we won't reach them. I think that not all of us were fooled. Some of us who rationally examined the promises and the means selected to reach the desired ends warned others - that this is not going to happen, stating the complex nature of the world we live in which we can never completely command and control. This fact of life is irrefutable. Then where is all this hope, denial, euphoria and hysteria coming from?

It all begins with lack of self esteem. Without self esteem the idea of self ownership is lost. Statements like "Swaraj (freedom) is my birthright" become mere fascinating words. Self esteem raises our awareness of ourselves and the external reality of the world (or the society) that we live in. Self esteem takes joy in accomplishments and achievements but also pain and suffering when we fail. Self esteem makes us value our life. It makes us value our individuality and freedom. It makes us value our property that we acquire by our labor and skills. Self esteem separates us from other beasts, for whom it’s mere instinctive survival. It makes us think. It makes us analyze. It makes us cooperate and respect other beings by maintaining our self esteem and dignity. What happened to our self esteem, that we have considered mortal men as godly kings, and priests, and presidents, and prime ministers? How did they become our "mai-baap sarkaar" (omnipotent government)?

It's time for us to revive our self esteem and dignity. It's time for us to be responsible for our actions and start questioning the roles and necessity of "mai-baap sarkaar". The "mai-baaps" - whose omnipotence which we dogmatically believe - that they are capable of performing miraculous over turning of events; of which they are in complete control. It’s better that we stop deceiving ourselves into expecting the unexpected from "mai-baap sarkaar". It's time for us to take charge of our own lives and accept that we are totally responsible for what we do with it and that it belongs to us and us only. It doesn't require permissions or dictates from other people for us to decide what we must do, and how we shall lead our private individual lives, within our own properties. The government power today decides what we eat, what we should read, what we should wear, what we should watch etc. One day we will end up with no freedom to choose anything. If we question the infringement of our rights by the nanny state, we get response that the nanny state is necessary for protection of our rights and for the welfare of the poor. Some among us are part of a class of elitist who consider that the poor are helpless creatures at our mercy who cannot survive without our help at all. Where as, the reason that the poor are unable to escape poverty is their lack of access to land and government manipulation of the value of money. Historically and as well as at present the ruling class forcefully denies complete property rights to us. Remember that in India property rights are not fundamental but only constitutional.

The ruling elite also assumes that without them we are incapable and incompetent to cooperate with each other and mutually sort out conflicts and achieve administrative order. Most of what humanity has achieved is due to mutual cooperation and self interest. It's the ruling class which has kept themselves above the law and served as the source of legal laws which are effectively used to suppress us. These laws have also fragmented social unity by granting privileges to one group over another. The agenda is and always has been to rule and expropriate as much and as long as possible by the ruling elite.

In the present government also we see prevalent cronyism. Each passing moment we find that some of our rights have been nibbled away. The rational and reasonable mind can see through the propaganda. It can read between the lines and understand the fine print. It can understand the governance structure as it stands today. A rational mind is immune to propaganda. It cannot accept a “mai-baap sarkar” which demeans its existence. Reason is the only weapon we have against lies and fallacies. We are not free from errors in reasoning but still being rational is better than being dogmatic. Let there be a revolution of self esteem and rational thinking to shape the world we live in for better. And let it begin by questioning. And let the questioning begin via examining the views made in this article.