Laws of Nations

There is a false saying:  No one is above the law.  The opposite is true:  All are above the law.  Laws, whether religious or legal, are man-made and none are sacred.  Each person has the right to decide what is right.  For the common good of society, governments enact laws for their citizenry; but as the primary objective of government is its survival into perpetuity, and not the good of all residents, each citizen has to decide which laws are best obeyed.  What this means, is: Every man is in conflict with the state in which he was born, as not all the laws of his state can be beneficial to him.  Some, may in fact, be harmful.  So, what then to do to resolve the conflict?  First, know the law.  Second, support those in one's government whose interpretation of the law is most nearly one's own.  Third, for those laws deemed to be detrimental, look to change the law.  And if all three above fail, locate to some new state whose laws are more congenial to oneself. 

America is an oligarchic plutocracy

Like most nations, America is an oligarchic plutocracy.  It always has been ever since it was founded by plantation owners whose main cause was their refusal to pay excise taxes to Britain for the colonial costs of the Seven Years' War.  George Washington, for instance, owned the largest distillery in America---it's why he suppressed the Whiskey Rebellion---they were his direct competitors.  Since politicians, once acquiring public office, must seek funding to pay for future races (costs to run for Mayor of New York exceed a hundred million and to run for President of the United States exceed a billion), the only persons with access to politicians are the large contributors to their respective campaigns.  Such contributors do so because they have specific agendas to which they want politicians to adhere.  Each politician then has an obligation to follow the wishes of their contributors or his or her funding dries up.  Without funding, it's impossible to run for any public office whatsoever, and the more powerful the public office is, the more funding that's necessary to aspire to it.  So, the plutocrats run America.  The political parties are oligopolies, in that the two dominant parties agree to disparage and prevent any new party from coming into existence.  In this, they share a common agenda.  America is neither a republic nor is it a democracy.  America is an oligopoly run by plutocrats and it always has been.

Fact and Fiction

Nothing can be accepted as fact unless it's tested and validated, but who the tester is determines the accuracy of the validation.  What is taught as science is mostly mainly opinion unless it's been validated and it usually isn't...it's still in some state awaiting validation.  Scientists are just as prone to opinion as is anyone else, although sometimes their opinions are better informed than the opinions of non-scientists, but not always.  Often, they are autistic in that they fail to recognize the many obvious links and relationships between their own discipline and the impact on it of new finds in others...they are shortsighted; their imaginations poorly employed.

Nature of Evil

If we examine evil as being an aberration; something that is not normal within humanity, we may well miss its evolutionary advantage. Although we are all capable of stupid acts, some of which might have tragic consequences; very few of us are actually capable of performing malicious evil acts, say of purposely and deliberately harming others, for pleasure. The evil lack empathy for others. They have moral autism. In most traditional societies, those who're perceived to be evil are driven out. They are ostracized. Contemporary societies, because they are so large, help to conceal those that are evil. In societies that lack a universally accepted code of conduct, such as in the United States, the evil can flourish and thrive, even attaining election to high public office.

Ethics and Society

If we think of what we do as something we have a responsibility for; it must mean that we can either somehow alter what we do, or choose not to do it. But if we have no choice in what we do, then we lack any responsibility for what it is we've done. All too often, however, society gives us no choice in what we do and it wants us to take full responsibility for our choice-less action. The choice-less action has a false ethical content inculcated by the society: Society wishes for us to perform an action; we perform the action; society judges performance. Society employs subtle enslaving of its members whenever calling acceptance of conscription conditioning: patriotism.

Ethics

All religions have a set of ethical standards dealing with how one treats others...and usually this consists of a golden rule of some sort...treat all others as you would that they treat you. This has nothing to do with spirituality...it is simply good manners. It is a survival mechanism. If you don't treat people well, they won't treat you well either. We have a different way naturally. It's this: Be good to do good and do good to be good. What it means is that actions are reflective of character and character is reflective of actions. What one does and what one refrains from doing change one and that change causes one to act as one does. The action taken or not taken and the character resulting from that action are the same. This is the reason why we have the saying: Become who you Are. That is our golden rule.