A Free Nation Has Free Money

The purpose of any good government is to protect the lives and property of the people. Property is money. Money must be solid. It must be free, in that it is independent of the nefarious deeds of plutocrats. It doesn’t matter how much free speech or free love you have. If you have no money, you have no property, and all your “freedoms” are worthless.

The Federal Reserve, masquerading as part of our government, bails out corporations that have gotten themselves far into debt. In theory, this protects the jobs of the people, because the corporation keeps going. How does the Federal Reserve do this? They print lots more money, backed by nothing, and give it to the corporation, making up for billions of accumulated debts. How do corporations like General Motors and Bear Stearns lose so much money? By becoming unprofitable, bureaucratic failures. Companies that should go out of business are propped up by the government. Every time they do this, our currency gets closer to worthless. An invisible tax is placed on the money in your bank, because its value declines progressively.

When you prop up failures, you bring down everyone else. Small businesses that are rightfully profitable get no help, while losers are supported by the public debt. The rich get richer, the poor (us) get poorer, and the middle class disappears as we turn into Soviet Russia.

We continue creating more and more money out of thin air to fund wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia, Yemen, and more, all for the continual war on “terror.” We have troops in 100 countries, spread all over the world. This is all funded by the continual whoring of our dollar. We give China I.O.U.’s in exchange for billions of dollars in goods. What’s going to happen is that we won’t be able to pay them back, and then they’ll use their U.S. money to buy out our country from under us while our currency and bank accounts become completely useless.

This shouldn’t happen. A $20 bill is a piece of paper, just like a $20 bill from 1900. Only then, the bill was worth the equivalent of $1000 of my dollars. What happened? Our money is fake now. It has no link to gold. Private bankers, as part of the private company that controls our money (the Federal Reserve), can print any amount of money on a whim, devaluing our labor. Not just future labor. All the liquid wealth you’ve accumulated in your bank account shrinks at once. All your hard work over many years is taken away at once. And like saps, we all accept it.

What is the root cause of the financial failure of our businesses? A foreign policy which involves us bombing everything that moves, and terrible taxes which kill all good business. An example: owning a restaurant is one of the worst businesses to be in, because every department of the government gets a piece of you. 80% of your money goes toward government inspections and regulation fees. It’s hard to even cover your expenses, no matter how efficient you are.

When you have a feather-bedded, socialist government, the only businesses that can make it have to government-backed. They pay all these terrible fees, but are subsidized by tax dollars. Without government exemptions, the ordinary businessman can’t afford to start his own corporation. Have you seen what the taxes on a sole proprietorship are like these days?

Instead, we’re all relegated to serfdom working for companies like Wal-Mart. I must admit, Wal-Mart is about the most efficient and prudent company around. But they’re still part of our socialist government. The root cause is our fiat currency, our continual warring, and our meddling with the free market. It’s not a “free” market now. It isn’t a free market when you’re taxed at a rate of 90%. Even if you work under the table, you pay huge taxes. Sales tax is one. The rest is in prices that are three times higher than they should be, because every merchant along the way has to cover his tax burden by raising his prices. The United States is the Roman Empire, Part 2.

People are working harder than ever. It’s only because our wasteful government has completely failed us, just as Great Britain had failed our fore-fathers before their noble revolution. 40 years ago, a man could do good honest work and support his wife, several kids, a car, and a mortgage with money to spare. What happens now? Couples have to take out life-time mortgages and both work 50 hours a week in career jobs, leaving their kids to be raised by strangers. Still, they can barely pay the bills. Are they slacking off? Not in the slightest. The currency traders and international bankers get richer and richer while we slave away as pawns of the state.

Students have to work full-time while attending college just to make ends meet. My family can’t even keep a cool house or travel freely, because of the terrible cost of fuel. This isn’t because we as a people are running out of fuel or pillaging the environment. It’s because our money is becoming worthless. There’s plenty of gas to be had at $3.60 per gallon: there are no shortages. Considering gas was 85¢ a gallon in 2002, my money has lost three-fourths it’s value. Your four years of labor from the 90’s is worth one year of labor in 2008. How does that make you feel?

Our technology and collective intellect keeps getting better, but we keep having to work harder and smarter for ever-smaller gains. If innovation had stood still since the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, we’d be working for two cents a day by now. It’s only the unwavering American spirit of growth and progress that has secured what little we have now. War, fear, fake money, and martial law isn’t American. This is supposed to be the home of the brave, remember?

A free nation starts with a currency backed by gold, and a market backed by the success of its marketeers. Not the government. The government cannot fight wars nor grant rights. Only God can. The government can only protect or usurp your rights. By usurping your labor, the U.S. government is usurping your rights and your livelihood. It has to stop. It will stop when our government falls and our money is worse less than toilet paper. Only then will people see the truth, but all will be lost and we’ll have to start anew. I’m already getting ready.

For now, stay below the radar. We’re losing our freedoms by the minute. The police are not on your side. Don’t get stuck with a heavy mortgage, keep your mouth shut if the IRS calls you, and don’t pay taxes that you don’t have to pay. Don’t join the army, and if you’re turning eighteen, stay off their list. Don’t vote for Obama or McCain because they’re both identical. A vote for Mickey Mouse is better. Don’t keep too much worthless money lying around. Go back to bartering if you have to. And most of all, foster a spirit of peaceful, nonviolent resistance to government oppression, just as Gandhi wanted.

Photo: Sunrays 5

Sunrays 5

The fifth entry in the series: a burst of sunshine through the dark clouds. I like the power lines at the bottom-right… they sweep in at the right angle.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/4000, F4, 18mm, ISO100, 2008-08-11T17:21:08-04, 20080811-212108rxt

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

More of the Sunrays series.

Photo: Twilight Sundown

Twilight Sundown

I saw this sunset out the window on the Granada bridge over the Halifax river in Ormond Beach. I was a passenger in the car, so I was able to snap this out the window. It was quite dark, almost night. I had to go all the way up to ISO1600 and all the way down to F1.6 to get a 1/60 shutter speed, so the full size version is quite grainy, but it seems artful.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/60, F1.6, 50mm, ISO1600, 2008-08-15T20:20:47-04, 20080816-002047rxt

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

Photo: Caramel Sunset

Caramel Sunset

This beautiful sunset caught my eye out the window. The skies here are just getting better and better. I ran out with my wide-angle lens (the kit lens) and started snapping different angles of it. It didn’t look like this to start, but I stuck around for ten minutes and the clouds came together in this odd formation. It looks like cotton candy, caramel flavored. I found it really interesting that the sun was like a spotlight, because it was dark outside of the clouds as you can see at the edges of this photo.

I don’t have many angles to work with because of the trees in my neighbor’s yard, but this definitely works best for showing the origin of the light (at the bottom). I did most of my post-processing right in Adobe Camera Raw. To improve the look, all I did was increase the contrast and black levels, and then I added a bit more contrast with the curves tool.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/100, F4, 18mm, ISO200, 2008-08-19T20:04:27-04, 20080820-000427rxt

Location: 1832 Nelson Ave., Ormond Beach, FL  32174-7228

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

Photo: Sunset

Sunset — a vivid, fiery mix of orange and white clouds at sundown

I saw the golden colors flooding in through the window just a few hours ago, so I rain out and snapped this photo of the gorgeous sunset that was gracing my front yard. I haven’t seen a sunset this impressive before. The swirls of clouds were awesome, and went far above what you see in the frame. I couldn’t fit them all in even at 18mm, which is as wide as the Canon Rebel XTi kit lens would go.

I punched the contrast up in Photoshop. The camera always captures images in such a dull way, but editing restores the beauty of the scene (Being a Free Photographer).

I literally ran out of the house to catch this, and kept taking pictures afterward, though they are less impressive. You have to work very quickly to get shots of sunsets; within ten minutes it had mostly faded away. I didn’t notice it while the clouds were forming like this; they may have looked even better then.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/200, F4.5, 18mm, ISO400, 2008-08-14T20:07:55-04, 20080815-000755rxt

Location: 1832 Nelson Ave., Ormond Beach, FL  32174-7228

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

Talking to Rocks

I’ve found a powerful and time-saving technique for responding to long-winded critiques and challenges from others.

Give a short answer.

Not because a short answer is better, but because there’s no need for a long answer. A lengthy, elegant, point-by-point essay can be interesting, but it’s just more of the same because you’re engaging the criticism. That’s boring and expected. You give me any argument, and I can come up with a logical, point-by-point answer why it’s wrong. But when you fail to attempt this at all, you cut like a knife through your opponent’s inquiries. Basically, you’re saying, “your points are so pointless, they’re not even worth talking about.” There’s no need to say it so bluntly, because it’s just plain negative. A short, positive, deflective response is much better, because it has all the positive aspects of a negative response, but none of the ill will. It saves the time and energy of everyone.

This isn’t something you should do all the time. You will get great feedback and ideas occasionally, which you should not dismiss. Most often, these come not from your friends or family, but from people you don’t know. This is because strangers have a fresh, entirely unbiased interpretation of you. Unfortunately, 90% of all the criticism you receive isn’t worth a cent. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the people who say “your photography doesn’t make me think” or “anyone can do what you do, it’s all Photoshop.” I’ve gotten those comments before, and I’ve try to give an in-depth and convincing counter-argument, when really, I should be saying “Dude, you just don’t get it. I’m not making art for you.”

I’ve shared The Cancer Myth with people, and they’ve told me how I shouldn’t be pretending medical knowledge, nor supporting “treatment” that has not been double-blind tested / backed by the government / approved by Oprah. They’ll say stuff like “There’s no evidence to back it up. If what you say is true, then surely more people would know about it.” These people are rocks. You can’t talk to them. I’ve tried. I’ve written more about cancer in Conquering Big Problems, and I’m writing more about it here, but it doesn’t matter if I show a rock all this and a million case studies and a million eyewitness testimonials. It’s still a rock I’m talking to, and there can be no progress. [For my uninformed readers: cancer is a vitamin deficiency, the prevention and cure for which is vitamin B17, found in the seeds of apricots, apples, and other fruits, which you should start eating today. Apricot seeds have a hard shell. Use a nutcracker to get to the seed.]

Strangers, family, and friends alike are your brothers, because everyone is a part of the interconnected whole. But that doesn’t mean you should waste time talking to rocks when you could be connecting to people. Time is precious. There are 6.5 billion people in this world, and if you speak English, you can influence 1.5 billion of them. That’s a lot of people, and you can never live to help all of them. It’s a sin to waste your time on people who are rocks because they refuse to consider change.

Rocks are all around us. Don’t worry; if you’ve been open-minded to read this far, you are not a rock. A true rock would’ve left long ago. Rocks are not impermeable, but it takes tons of effort to overcome rockiness. It’s like painting a house with a toothbrush. You can’t make someone turn from a rock into a person. He has to do it himself, or consciously decide at the influence of others. Persistent pestering just makes a rock harden. Don’t dedicate your life to a rock; pick up and move on to the non-rocks in this world.

I meant to make this a short article, but it’s become decidedly un-short. When you have an open stage like a blog, you should go all out by covering a subject in more depth than anyone else dares to. You’re not just influencing one person. Through the magic of the Internets, you can be influencing tens of thousands of people everyday with just a few, permanent hours of writing. Plus, you easily be compensated for your contribution through advertising and affiliate commissions. It’s the business model of a newspaper, without the staggering printing bill.

The next time a rock attacks you, let it be like a knife through water. What you say doesn’t matter, because you’re talking to a rock. Say “Yeah, you’re right.” Not even a rock can argue with that.

Conquering Big Problems: An Introduction

I don’t hate problems. Problems are challenges, and all challenges are an opportunity for growth. Big problems are an opportunity for big growth. But a problem that has only grown through negligence yields little growth.

A small hole in your roof is a small problem. Sure, the occasional bug will come in, but it isn’t any risk to your shelter. If it’s hot out, turn up the air conditioner. If it’s cold, put some more logs on the fire. If it rains, put a bucket under it.

Perhaps you grow tired of these kludges. Every month you’re paying more on your electric bill. You left the house for a week, the bucket filled up, and the overage flooded your living room. The hole has grown a little bit. Birds are beginning to nest in your house. They are feasting on the lizards that have also found refuge inside.

The next step is to cover the hole. It’s still under control. Bits of your roof are being eaten away, but you can cover the hole with a frisbee. So you do that. The frisbee blows away. Darn it. Next step is to put a rock on the frisbee. You’re scared of heights, so it’s all you can do to go up there. In fact, the first time you threw it up there and got lucky. This time you aren’t so lucky and the frisbee lands far from the hole.

You don’t want to pay anyone to go up there and secure the frisbee, or, heaven forbid, fix the hole. This is because you aren’t convinced it’s a real problem yet. Instead, you fasten a rag to your inside ceiling with duct tape. The rag blocks the hole completely. A few rainy days go by, and only a few drops fall. You’re heating bills are back to normal. Everything seems alright.

Then, a big storm comes. Rain pounds your roof for hours. The small hole becomes a gaping hole. Your attic floods with water, until the whole roof collapses under the weight.

This is now a big problem.

All along, you had warning signs. The birds, the lizards, the leakage, the sagging ceiling before the collapse. Those events were all telling you to do something, pushing you, forcing you, yet you ignored the signs.

Don’t ignore the signs.

If there’s a problem, fix it now. If you don’t even know what the problem is, try to find out. Always be in motion.

I have a friend who didn’t want to fix her teeth when she was younger. She had all sorts of cavities and decay, but she’d protest that it wasn’t worth the money to fix. I don’t know if it was for lack of flossing and brushing. Her excuse was that she could wait till she’s older and have all her teeth removed and replaced with dentures. Coming from a woman in her thirties, this is nothing short of absurd.

Recently, she told me that she had $5000 in surgery done on a molar, with no insurance to cover it. The tooth had to be drilled out and bone had to be replaced. Knowing her, she waited too long; way too long. A relatively minor problem became a huge pain requiring invasive surgery. A little problem became a big problem.

Here’s another example. For six and a half months this site was richardxthripp.richardxthripp.com. I always intended for it to be a multi-user site, but didn’t consider Thripp.com because it was taken. I became convinced that richardxthripp.com was better, more distinctive, more interesting, despite it’s length.

I’d become increasingly aware of the length of the domain. When I moved to WordPress MU at first, I had to switch to subdirectories as my host wouldn’t support subdomains. I became richardxthripp.com/richardxthripp, but I continued using the subdomain in print (with an HTTP 301 redirect).

When I switched hosts, I soon became aware the new host supports virtual subdomains. “Can’t change it,” I thought. It’s too much trouble. It’s not designed to be changed. Subdirectories are better branded. Everyone’s used to it. This was actually sour grapes and complacency bias. I didn’t find out till thripp.com became available, which I immediately snatched up. After a couple hours of hard thought, I decided to switch to subdomains and move from richardxthripp.com to thripp.com all in one go. It was hard work, securing all the old links while making the switch, but it was worth it. At the same time, I chose to begin using “rxthripp.com” where convenient in print and in branding for this site, as a shorter domain, though it redirects to the formal address, richardxthripp.thripp.com.

I’ve already printed “richardxthripp.richardxthripp.com” on the backs of thousands of 4*6 photographs. I give them out to everyone I meet. It may take me years to exhaust the old stock. But the good thing is I’ve still fixed the problem early. I could’ve waited till 2030 once I’d printed the old site on millions of items. Perhaps I’d have published several books with the address. Either way, even the old URLs could easily work forever, changing them would produce huge discontinuties in my identity. Compare that to a small blip now. Before the switch, the problem seemed huge (WordPress MU doesn’t let you switch domains and URL structures easily). In hindsight, it’s nothing.

Don’t convince yourself that something isn’t a problem just because it feels safe. I’ve done it too many times before. If you’re a thief but you’ve convinced yourself stealing is okay, that’s a problem. In ethical dilemmas and beyond, I find it useful to ask, “If I had unlimited money / time / resources, would I think this is wrong, or a problem?” “If I had unlimited money, would I go to college?” If the answer is no and you’re in college, you have a problem. You shouldn’t be there. I have a problem right now, because I’m doing just that. The first step is acknowledging you have a problem for which you have no solution nor plan of action. That takes courage.

Is it really a problem?

The problems you have may be nothing. Think of the ideal you. The ideal you probably has loads of money—not that that defines him. It’s simply a fact that huge sums of cash can obliterate huge problems. If you have enough money, you can literally move a mountain. The money doesn’t move the mountain per se, but other people will be happy to do the work in exchange for it, because they know they can use it to get the food, houses, cars, and gadgets they need. The ideal you has a lot of money, because the ideal you has done so much good for the world that he is a magnet for coinage. People are literally forcing him to accept donations.

If you have a problem that can be solved by money, it isn’t a big problem. A big problem is being at the end of your life but not having found your purpose. A big problem is dying from cancer but not knowing the cure. A big problem kills you, or has a highly damaging effect on the health of you or your family. Most of life’s problems are not big problems. For the purpose of comparison, small problems can be called big problems. Life isn’t objective.

Persistent problems require persistent solutions.

Thirst is a big problem. If you refuse to drink liquids for a few months, you will die, no doubt about it. If you drink sixteen gallons of water today so that you can go on a liquid fast for the next few weeks, don’t be surprised when it ends disastrously. Thirst is a persistent problem. You can’t drink your life’s water now to get it over with. You have to take in fluids every day. You have to eliminate these fluids every day once they’ve served your body’s purpose. Most people have to do this many times per day. It never ends. The problem cannot be stopped. A one-off solution simply won’t work; you must be constantly fighting the problem to keep it at bay.

A normal problem requires a heroic solution; a singular, overwhelming assault in which the problem is systematically slaughtered. I borrow this terminology from heroic medicine. In heroic medicine, if your arm is itchy, the solution is to chop it off and cauterize the flesh (I exaggerate). But let’s think of a less extreme, yet still heroic, solution. You know your arm is going to feel an itch again. It’s done it before, hundreds of times. You’ll have to scratch it. It will distract you many times. Why not just scratch it now until it’s scarred and bloody, so you never have to do it again? Of course that’s a horrible idea and won’t work. After the mutilation, the scabs will prove themselves far itchier. The next heroic solution is to remove the sensation of touch from your arm. This can be accomplished through the marvels of modern surgery. Maybe you won’t be able to feel anything after electrostatic shocks?

Obviously, applying heroic solutions to persistent problems is completely ridiculous. Yet you see people doing it every day without realizing it. Usually it just isn’t so blatant.

The Case of Cancer

Cancer is a good example of a persistent problem being attacked with a heroic solution. What are we told? The solution is early detection. This requires regular probing. Once you’ve been probed, and the cancer, discovered (it’s inevitable), the next step is to forcibly remove it. If it’s not in a position to be cut out of you, we’ll poison or burn you till it dies. If this were a Pokémon game, the battle would be Human [Pikachu] vs. Cancer [Mewtwo], and the theory would be that Pikachu has 250 hit points (HP) and Mewtwo has 240. Mewtwo’s only known skill is “String Shot,” which reduces your agility but doesn’t reduce your HP. However, after being hit with String Shot 25 times, you die. Letting the cancer live isn’t an option. The only way you can effectively hurt Mewtwo is with Equal Damage, which reduces Mewtwo’s HP by 10, but also brings you down by 10. Think of this as chemotherapy treatment. After 23 rounds of “treatment,” the cancer is weak and near death, with 10 HP. You are weak and near death with 20 HP, but the cancer is weaker. The doctors and your family are cheering. “We’ve almost done it!”, they shout. Then, Mewtwo unleashes his secret weapon, a move called Recover which you didn’t know about. In one turn, his HP shoots up to 130. He’s stronger than ever. You use Equal Damage one more time, and it’s 120 to 10. Then, he knocks you out with one String Shot. My cousin had brain cancer, back when we didn’t know the cure. He was doing well with radiation treatment. Then, the cancer came back, stronger than ever, and killed him just like nothing.

Little did we know that Pikachu has a secret move called Fruit Seeds, in which he attacks Mewtwo with the seeds of fruit that break down his defenses, cutting his HP by 100 while increasing ours by 50. The cure for cancer, which I’ve written more about here, is a vitamin found in the seeds of fruit such as apples, watermelons, and especially apricots. Rogue healing cells, unassigned a duty, reproduce swiftly, clogging your internals with unproductive tumors. The only way to kill them is to provide your body with the enzyme (vitamin B17) that breaks them down. Cancer is a persistent problem; the persistent solution is to eat fruit every day, whole with the seeds. If you already have cancer, the tumors won’t go away, but they’ll stop growing and you’ll live. But if you’re at the point that three String Shots will wipe you out, it may be too late.

Attacking cancer with cutting, burning, and poisoning is archaic. It’s a heroic solution attacking a persistent problem. It doesn’t work. It’s a leftover from the dark ages.

Don’t let mismatched solutions invade your life. Instead of belatedly masking tooth decay with expensive, painful root canals, start flossing your teeth now, every day. [Tip: bleeding is normal because your gums are damaged from unrelenting exposure to bacteria. It should subside within two weeks.] If you hate your name, and you know you’re always going to hate your name, change it. My Dad did this back in the 80’s, and from him I got the Thripp name. Don’t wait. Start telling people your new name before you even try to have it changed. A terrible name is a big, unceasing problem, and it requires a big, unceasing solution.

If you’ve come this far, you may now realize you have no big problems. Get some, because in part 2, I’ll be tackling intermittent and singular problems.

Photo: Night on the River

Night on the River

Nighttime at the docks, under the bridge over the river. This was a fun shoot, though anything at 3 A.M. is. I did three versions: one at 1/6, one at 3.2″, and this one at 30″. In the slower versions the water looks rippled and ugly, but with a longer exposure it’s beautifully smooth, and the streetlights turn to stars. You can see eight points to each light because my lens has eight aperture blades. If I’d have opened up all the way there would be no spikes, and if I opened up further they’d be less prominent.

The number of spikes is equal to the number of aperture blades if even, and double the number if odd, though they’ll be half as bright. They are often a nice touch. For editing, I did simple contrast and color adjustments.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 30″, F9, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-07-21T02:50:56-04, 20080721-065056rxt

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

Photo: Streetlight

Streetlight — a flying saucer pretending to be a street light

This is an overhead light at Publix that resembles a streetlight. In this photo, it looks like a weird spaceship. I found the shape of the light interesting, so I pointed my camera up and snapped this. In Photoshop, I removed all color and added contrast so the background went to black.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/1600, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-07-12T12:18:55-04, 20080712-161855rxt

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.