Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, January 23, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 2
Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, January 23, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 2
Let me show you something about money. I got into a discussion with a Finance professor on the balance of trade controversy. My feeling was that the balance of trade was a symbol without real substance and I tried to get the information I needed to verify that from my friend. Well, she wasn't into balance of trade issues, so it never went too far.
In other words I could not get the symbol of balance of trade to come out the way I wanted, because I could not get enough information.
However I did have an interesting insight. It has to do with cash. What is cash really? Cash is by my standards legal tender. It's coins and dollar bills. Money is what it represents. I mean, when you have cash in your wallet, then the cash has substance. It is not circulating in the economy. You have the money in your pocket. If you never spend it, then it has no value. I'm serious. If you leave money as paper, then it is of no use except as paper. Money is a symbol with substance. If you leave the money in the bank, then it is loaned and generates more money through investment. If you invest money you change the type of paper your symbol is printed on. Stocks, bonds or other investments have to be converted to cash to be sent. You cannot easily walk into the handi mart and ask for a Coke and give them a share of stock. So investments are crystalized money. BUT here is the interesting insight. Cash is a piece of paper that says you have that much money. What you want in an economy is for the money to move about and be invested. The last thing you want is for the money to be tied up in cash.
Each time you invest in something the money becomes crystalized. Crystalizing money does not stop it from circulating. It is only when you convert money to cash, that it stops circulating. When I invest money, I convert cash to another piece of paper, BUT the money then can go somewhere else. This is really a funny story when you get right down to it, because very few people can grasp that the money in the bank is not really there. It is just an electronic representation. The money is being invested by loans. If EVERYBODY asks the bank for CASH, then the bank's investments have to be sold and converted to CASH.
Now here is one other thing. How much is a dollar in cash worth? Remember a symbol has a name, it has a definition and it has substance... maybe. The dollar bill itself is worth almost nothing. It the fact that it represents money that gives it value. A dollar bill is cash because we say it is cash.
Okay. Okay. I shall stop trying to confuse you. I just wanted to show you that money and cash and investments are not what they seem, because money circulates. Every time we buy something either an investment or a product, the money circulates. Cash stays in one spot in the form of bills or coins. You can never tell where money is, so money is a symbol but it doesn't have to have substance.
Now, let me talk to you about the symbol called Abortion. Yeah, today is the 33rd anniversary of the Roe vs Wade. Roe vs Wade set up a set of policies for dealing with abortions. The first trimester, the States were precluded from denying abortions for any reason. The second trimester, the States could make laws against it for a few reasons. The third trimester, abortions were not to be performed. You're sitting there going, "Wait, I didn't know that. I thought abortions were legal for all nine months." Yeah, the companion decision called Doe vs Bolton said that abortions could not be denied if a physician said it was okay for the health of the mother either mental or physical.
You might ask. Why is abortion a symbol? Well, it's how Left and the Right look at abortion. The Left perceives that humans are just bodies of meat in essence that we are all substance with no symbols behind our lives. The Right takes the position that symbolically, we are both symbols AND substance.
The Right perceives that abortion destroys too many of our symbols. By saying that a living human being has the right to kill another for light and transient reasons, we degrade human life to the point where no one is safe. As I said above, we as a country have a reasonable expectation that we do not have to fear each other. If we can kill a baby because the baby is inconvenient, then who else might we kill to remove them from our pursuit of happiness. That hasn't happened because Roe was never accepted by the majority of the people. Something like 45 million babies have been killed. The best guess is that Roe will fall in three to ten years from now. What will happen next?
This is where it gets weird. You assume that abortion will become illegal. Nope. It passes back to the state legislatures. Suddenly the Left will have to come up with arguments as to why abortion is a good idea. They won't be able to do it, because our country has never debated abortion. I know, it looks like we have, but we really haven't. The debate was just getting started in 1973 and suddenly it was cut off by fiat. No, not the car. You people are hopeless. No, I mean that the Supreme Court just dictated the answer to a policy decision that should have been settled by each state slowly so we could see what the effects were. We have a federalist system of government... Okay. Okay. Like I said above, no one studies the Constitution... If we had debated state by state about abortion rights, then the side effects of abortion could have been exposed and many people would have been able to decide rationally whether it was a good idea.
Now we get into what I consider the weird part. Abortion has become a symbol on the Left for freedom. What gets weird about it is that the freedom abortion offers is a false freedom. Ann Coulter once said of abortion, "At its most majestic, this precious right that 'women have come to depend on' is the right to have sex with men they don't want to have children with." Why is promiscuous sex freedom? I surely do not know. Sex and the City was a very popular show. A bunch of women got together and compared sexual experiences and this was to make them look free. Yet for anyone with any intelligence, it showed that their lives were hollow. They pursued pleasure incessantly and got it. But they were also lonely. Why was that a good thing?
In other words, I think abortion as a symbol is a false one. The substance of the symbol is not what the definition says it is.
Come on people. Let's try this one more time. Symbols have a name. They have a meaning. and they have substance... maybe.
What if the substance is not what the meaning said it was? Then you have a situation called cognitive dissonance. you believe something to be true, but you cannot get it to BE true in reality. Abortion has not freed women. Anyone who believes that is crazy by my standards. In the debate we shall have when Roe vs Wade falls, we shall explore the substance of abortion. I do not believe that most people will like what they find out about the last 33 years. All the fixed assumptions will be explored and I believe that abortion will mostly be declared illegal. Some states like Massachusetts will legalize abortion. Some states like Alabama will not. If you believe that abortion is a right, then you will have the opportunity to move to Massachusetts.
I know, I know, abortion is a right according to the Constitution. Nope... The Constitution does not protect abortion even in a general instance. Starting in 1922, Supreme Court decisions slowly inched forward until 1973 when someone decided that they saw a right to privacy in the Constitution. There is none. We COULD amend the Constitution to create a right of privacy, some states have done that, but right now it does not really exist.
I wanted in this program to make clear that symbols should have a definition that match their substance. When they do not, we have to debate whether the substance or the definition is wrong. Right now, the definition of abortion is freedom. Is the substance of abortion actually freedom? In order for abortion to be a right, abortion has to free women in actual fact instead of in theory.
I want you to think about that. Are you sure abortion actually equates to freedom? After all, Freedom is NOT free. Sometimes it IS necessary to kill to maintain your freedom. If you ARE going to kill someone, shouldn't you be sure that the freedom you have bought at such a high price is real freedom? Something to think about.
Let me show you something about money. I got into a discussion with a Finance professor on the balance of trade controversy. My feeling was that the balance of trade was a symbol without real substance and I tried to get the information I needed to verify that from my friend. Well, she wasn't into balance of trade issues, so it never went too far.
In other words I could not get the symbol of balance of trade to come out the way I wanted, because I could not get enough information.
However I did have an interesting insight. It has to do with cash. What is cash really? Cash is by my standards legal tender. It's coins and dollar bills. Money is what it represents. I mean, when you have cash in your wallet, then the cash has substance. It is not circulating in the economy. You have the money in your pocket. If you never spend it, then it has no value. I'm serious. If you leave money as paper, then it is of no use except as paper. Money is a symbol with substance. If you leave the money in the bank, then it is loaned and generates more money through investment. If you invest money you change the type of paper your symbol is printed on. Stocks, bonds or other investments have to be converted to cash to be sent. You cannot easily walk into the handi mart and ask for a Coke and give them a share of stock. So investments are crystalized money. BUT here is the interesting insight. Cash is a piece of paper that says you have that much money. What you want in an economy is for the money to move about and be invested. The last thing you want is for the money to be tied up in cash.
Each time you invest in something the money becomes crystalized. Crystalizing money does not stop it from circulating. It is only when you convert money to cash, that it stops circulating. When I invest money, I convert cash to another piece of paper, BUT the money then can go somewhere else. This is really a funny story when you get right down to it, because very few people can grasp that the money in the bank is not really there. It is just an electronic representation. The money is being invested by loans. If EVERYBODY asks the bank for CASH, then the bank's investments have to be sold and converted to CASH.
Now here is one other thing. How much is a dollar in cash worth? Remember a symbol has a name, it has a definition and it has substance... maybe. The dollar bill itself is worth almost nothing. It the fact that it represents money that gives it value. A dollar bill is cash because we say it is cash.
Okay. Okay. I shall stop trying to confuse you. I just wanted to show you that money and cash and investments are not what they seem, because money circulates. Every time we buy something either an investment or a product, the money circulates. Cash stays in one spot in the form of bills or coins. You can never tell where money is, so money is a symbol but it doesn't have to have substance.
Now, let me talk to you about the symbol called Abortion. Yeah, today is the 33rd anniversary of the Roe vs Wade. Roe vs Wade set up a set of policies for dealing with abortions. The first trimester, the States were precluded from denying abortions for any reason. The second trimester, the States could make laws against it for a few reasons. The third trimester, abortions were not to be performed. You're sitting there going, "Wait, I didn't know that. I thought abortions were legal for all nine months." Yeah, the companion decision called Doe vs Bolton said that abortions could not be denied if a physician said it was okay for the health of the mother either mental or physical.
You might ask. Why is abortion a symbol? Well, it's how Left and the Right look at abortion. The Left perceives that humans are just bodies of meat in essence that we are all substance with no symbols behind our lives. The Right takes the position that symbolically, we are both symbols AND substance.
The Right perceives that abortion destroys too many of our symbols. By saying that a living human being has the right to kill another for light and transient reasons, we degrade human life to the point where no one is safe. As I said above, we as a country have a reasonable expectation that we do not have to fear each other. If we can kill a baby because the baby is inconvenient, then who else might we kill to remove them from our pursuit of happiness. That hasn't happened because Roe was never accepted by the majority of the people. Something like 45 million babies have been killed. The best guess is that Roe will fall in three to ten years from now. What will happen next?
This is where it gets weird. You assume that abortion will become illegal. Nope. It passes back to the state legislatures. Suddenly the Left will have to come up with arguments as to why abortion is a good idea. They won't be able to do it, because our country has never debated abortion. I know, it looks like we have, but we really haven't. The debate was just getting started in 1973 and suddenly it was cut off by fiat. No, not the car. You people are hopeless. No, I mean that the Supreme Court just dictated the answer to a policy decision that should have been settled by each state slowly so we could see what the effects were. We have a federalist system of government... Okay. Okay. Like I said above, no one studies the Constitution... If we had debated state by state about abortion rights, then the side effects of abortion could have been exposed and many people would have been able to decide rationally whether it was a good idea.
Now we get into what I consider the weird part. Abortion has become a symbol on the Left for freedom. What gets weird about it is that the freedom abortion offers is a false freedom. Ann Coulter once said of abortion, "At its most majestic, this precious right that 'women have come to depend on' is the right to have sex with men they don't want to have children with." Why is promiscuous sex freedom? I surely do not know. Sex and the City was a very popular show. A bunch of women got together and compared sexual experiences and this was to make them look free. Yet for anyone with any intelligence, it showed that their lives were hollow. They pursued pleasure incessantly and got it. But they were also lonely. Why was that a good thing?
In other words, I think abortion as a symbol is a false one. The substance of the symbol is not what the definition says it is.
Come on people. Let's try this one more time. Symbols have a name. They have a meaning. and they have substance... maybe.
What if the substance is not what the meaning said it was? Then you have a situation called cognitive dissonance. you believe something to be true, but you cannot get it to BE true in reality. Abortion has not freed women. Anyone who believes that is crazy by my standards. In the debate we shall have when Roe vs Wade falls, we shall explore the substance of abortion. I do not believe that most people will like what they find out about the last 33 years. All the fixed assumptions will be explored and I believe that abortion will mostly be declared illegal. Some states like Massachusetts will legalize abortion. Some states like Alabama will not. If you believe that abortion is a right, then you will have the opportunity to move to Massachusetts.
I know, I know, abortion is a right according to the Constitution. Nope... The Constitution does not protect abortion even in a general instance. Starting in 1922, Supreme Court decisions slowly inched forward until 1973 when someone decided that they saw a right to privacy in the Constitution. There is none. We COULD amend the Constitution to create a right of privacy, some states have done that, but right now it does not really exist.
I wanted in this program to make clear that symbols should have a definition that match their substance. When they do not, we have to debate whether the substance or the definition is wrong. Right now, the definition of abortion is freedom. Is the substance of abortion actually freedom? In order for abortion to be a right, abortion has to free women in actual fact instead of in theory.
I want you to think about that. Are you sure abortion actually equates to freedom? After all, Freedom is NOT free. Sometimes it IS necessary to kill to maintain your freedom. If you ARE going to kill someone, shouldn't you be sure that the freedom you have bought at such a high price is real freedom? Something to think about.
posted by aRandomTexan at
4:06 PM
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