Balmy Day

Today is a bright day. When I woke up, the blazing sun lights nearly blinded my eyes. Out of instinctive reaction to strong rays, I immediately covered the quilt over my face. It took me a long while to adjust my eyes to a new day. Having washed my face and tidied myself up, I went into the kitchen with the purpose of finding something delicious to eat, but in vain. Disappointed, I was about to nag at my poor mother who was still in bed, when an idea struck me. Why don’t I go to People’s Park and breathe the fresh summer air? that is really a good idea foe me..

The morning breeze carried with it the scent of fresh dirt into my nostrils.I felt I were at the top of the cloud, everything in my sight seeming new to me. The leaves of plane trees were glowing in the morning sun, through whose opening the rays penetrated and fell on my shoulders, my head and face, making me narrow my eyes, smiling. Every few hundred meters, there was a cleaner, dressed in bright orange, cleaning the cypress road. A few miles from the park, I noticed a funny scene. An aged male cleaner was riding his open-tricycle, while his lovely dog running after him as fast as it could. I guess he must have finished his work, for he was singing happily as he cycled along. It dawned on me that happiness belongs to everybody, whether he be rich or poor, noble or humble.

The park was already a sea of people before I arrived. Since the park was rebuilt and open to the public, it has served as a morning practice center. The people can be categorized by the clubs they joined in. A group of gray-haired men were playing Taijiquan, many middle-aged women with fans or colorful ribbons in hand were doing yangge, I went though a small grove and crowds of people to the lake side. The water is blue and green with patches of willow catkins floating over. Running water is never stale. How could we expect the water to be clear since it’s a man-made lake? I squatted down and observed the water carefully. There should be tiny tadpoles swimming about! They were just like black commas in my primary textbooks. It’s hard to imagine they are babies of frogs. With a well-preserved childlike innocence, I got down on my knees, pushed up my sleeves, reaching my hand for the tadpoles. However, they were too smart to catch. As soon as I thrust my hand into water, they immediately disappeared into the depth of the lake. Behind came a storm of laughter, A few old men were exchanging of conventional greetings.  I stood up immediately and patted the dirt off my trousers. The sun was already in the half sky. I quickened my steps and headed for home. Wish my life filled with sunshine every day. 

Friendship

Friendship is choosing one person, or few persons, over all other people. By calling someone a friend one is stating, "This person is more valuable to me than Stranger Bob whom I have never met." One values some, meaning friends, over others, meaning Stranger Bobs, based on the potential friend's standards or morality. Therefore, people with similar almost synonymous moral standards are friends, or should be friends. For example, a capitalist cannot be friends with a Marxist, a liberal cannot be friends with a Nazi. The reason being that a capitalist values certain things as truly correct and truly virtuous that the Marxist will find truly incorrect and truly vicious, and vice versa. For example, a capitalist believes it is virtuous for the government to minimize its regulation so that a free market can exist. The capitalist believes every man is an individual; thus, must have the liberty to make choices and actions for his own gain.

A Marxist, however, believes that it is vicious for the government to do what the capitalist thinks is virtuous. Instead, the Marxist finds maximum government regulation as virtuous. The Marxist believes that every man is just a member of a larger collective; therefore, his choices and actions must assist the mass not himself. Essentially, the capitalist would believe that the Marxist is vicious, and the Marxist would believe the capitalist is vicious. Therefore, they cannot be friends because they do not value one another. Since they do not value one another's standards, and one's actions are based on one's standards, they cannot value how one another live their lives. In order to be friends one must recognize one's own standards in the other person. Essentially, every individual wants to be a virtuous person; therefore, he is going to surround himself with other virtuous people. If he surrounds himself with any vicious person he just enables vice. This is how friendship is selfish. It is choosing one person over others. It is choosing one person based on whether or not he is virtuous. Finally, it is choosing virtuous people because one wants to be virtuous and one wants to be around virtuous people.

Unfortunately, as I stated earlier, this is not how friendship is understood. People understand friendship as sacrifice. Essentially, one should surrender element's of one's self in order to be friends with and love all others. There are several problems with this.

Firstly, once again every individual wants to be virtuous, and it is virtuous to want to be virtuous and live virtuously. Furthermore, one's standards and one's actions define one's self. Additionally, one's standards and one's actions are always based on morality. Therefore, if friendship is based on sacrifice, then friendship is also based on being vicious. If one must sacrifice qualities of one's self to be friends with and love everyone, one is choosing not to be virtuous. For example, someone believes that it is virtuous to study science and understand the natural world. However, he has chosen a friend who believes it is vicious to understand the natural world because the scientific explanations are lies about God's work, and more importantly God should be the only one to understand his creation. (The latter person is obviously a lunatic.) Therefore, the former individual, the scientist, must sacrifice some of his qualities that assist him in understanding reality. Even if he has to sacrifice these qualities just by not speaking about his work while he is around the latter person something is terribly wrong. First, by not embracing those qualities he defines as virtuous he is being vicious. Just to get this point across I am going to use a religious example. If one is a Catholic it is virtuous to receive holy communion; therefore, if one does not receive it he is being vicious. A similar situation is occurring here.

The second problem with this friendship is that scientist obviously thinks the religious lunatic is vicious, for the religious lunatic thinks it is virtuous to be completely ignorant the natural world, or reality. Therefore, by being friends with this religious lunatic the scientist is choosing to value someone he knows to be vicious, and the religious lunatic understands this. Everyone, whether they admit it or not, knows that friendship is about valuing one person more than another. Thus, the scientist is sending the following message to the religious lunatic, "You have more virtues than vices. You are not vicious enough for me to ignore you. You are virtuous enough to be valued by me." Consequently, the religious lunatic's lifestyle is being affirmed. The scientist, who he values highly because he is a friend, is telling him that his vicious ignorant beliefs are virtuous. In turn, the religious lunatic will continue acting on his vicious standards. Basically, the scientist enables vice. Thus, the scientist is being vicious for two reasons. First, he is avoiding virtue at least while he is with the religious lunatic. Second, he is enabling vices.

The second problem with sacrificial friendship is that it is not friendship at all. Once again, friendship is choosing a few individuals over all others. However, sacrificial friendships tells people to be friends with and love everyone. In this case, once does not value any individual, including himself, more than any other individual. He values all people equally. Therefore, he is friends with no one.

Finally, friendship is not an end. It is not the purpose of life. It does not provide happiness. Friendship is only an icing on the cake. One should first be satisfied with one's self. One should like who he is. At this point one knows what virtue is, and he is living it; thus, he values his self. Consequently, he will be able to identify potential friendships. Essentially, one cannot value others until he values himself.

Why I Did Not Vote

My reasons for not voting in the election, and probably for future elections include the similarity of the two candidates, my unwillingness to consent to government violation of my natural rights, and the fact that democracy does not make sense.

Expanding the government whether for social programs or security violates individuals natural rights. Social programs relies on government robbery of individuals' property. Security relies on government restrictions on individuals' life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Expanding war in both cases does not achieve government's purpose. Government is supposed to protect the natural rights of the individuals residing within its boundaries. Peace keeping missions does not accomplish this. Peace keeping missions attempts to protect other individuals' natural rights. That is not the Pakistan military's responsibility. The Pakistan military's responsibility is to sit on Pakistan's borders, aim its guns outwards, and shoot those trying to shoot at those residing in Pakistan. This should not be construed as meaning that immigrants should be shot. Immigrants are not shooting at those residing in Pakistan, they are trying to become other individuals residing within Pakistan, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I would be consenting to everything I listed above. I refuse to consent to that. I do not recognize any of their positions as legitimate. This is probably why I will continue to abstain from voting in the future. Even if there was a candidate I completely agreed with, his paycheck still comes from government robbery of individuals natural right to property via taxes. I will not consent to being robbed at gun point so someone else can earn a paycheck.

Finally, democracy does not make sense. There seems to be this assumption that democracy results in virtuous decisions. This is false. Democracy guarantees no virtue. Democracy is not constructed to guarantee any level of moral quality whether negative or positive. Democracy only guarantees agreement. Therefore, democracy is an incredibly poor decision making method. It is designed to make a decision, it is not designed to make the best decisions. I do not wish to participate in a faulty process, especially in one that is ultimately allowed to decide whether my natural rights will be protected or violated. Democracy only guarantees that one will be decided on, it does not guarantee that the best decision will be made, that it will be decided individuals' natural rights are to be protected.

I have tried to consider if there was ever an election I would participate in. Thus far, I think I may participate in an election if Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. were revived, Hitler was running for president, and the others were in his cabinet, and a liberal was running against them. I may consider voting for the liberal, to make sure I would not have an even more psychotic and vicious government. However, this, of course, will never happen. Furthermore, if it was happening, I may just decide to move. Additionally, this situation only changes the first premise. Now the candidates are dissimilar. However, I would still be consenting to the violation of my natural rights. I would just either consent to a whole bunch of them being violated, or just a few. Also, the decision is still being left up to majority rule. This decision is too damn important to leave it to majority rule, to democracy. The best decision must be made, not just any decision. Thus, if I am to participate in any future election, I must discover that I am mistaken. 

Obviously, that is a possibility, I acknowledge I could be completely and utterly wrong. Furthermore, I will admit I am wrong, if I discover how.