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by Free Market Duck

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

   The following story is from Lynne Truss’ bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves: 

   A panda walks into a café.  He orders a sandwich, eats it, then pulls out a gun and blasts two shots into the ceiling.

   “Why?” asks the confused waiter, as the panda strolls toward the exit.  The panda whips out a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

   “I’m a panda,” he says, at the door.  “Look it up.”

   The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

   “Panda.  Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China.  Eats, shoots, and leaves.”

   Punctuation matters.  It’s the basis for good grammar and, therefore, written communication.

   Similarly, philosophy matters.  Whether you think about it consciously or not, your philosophical thinking – or lack of it – is to politics as punctuation is to grammar.  Bad punctuation, bad grammar.  Illogical philosophy, illogical government.

   Philosophy is the basis for thinking and, therefore, human action.  Metaphysical philosophy is the foundation of philosophy.  A is A, B is B, a wine glass is not a choo-choo train.  Epistemological philosophy is built upon metaphysics.  It’s the step-by-step method of thinking called logic or reason.  2 + 2 = 4.  5 + 5 does not equal 17 trillion.  Ethical philosophy is built upon epistemology.  It’s the moral philosophy of right and wrong.  It’s our legal system of government.

   Free market capitalism is the outcome of logical philosophy.  A is A; 2 + 2 = 4; Individuals are inherently born with individual rights:  freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of voluntary association, and freedom of economic exchange of ideas, services, and commodities.  Rational society is a limited constitutional republic.  The government’s only legitimate function is to protect individual rights, to prohibit infringements upon individual freedoms.

   Socialism is the outcome of illogical philosophy.  A can sometimes equal B if the Dictator feels like it; 2 + 2 can equal a deficit 17 trillion (Keynesian economics); Individual rights is a Marxian oxymoron of reciprocal slavery which means everybody has the right to receive the fruits of everybody else’s labor (redistribution of the wealth based upon altruistic “need”).  Irrational socialist society is characterized by democratic majority pilfer.  The socialist government’s function is to rob Peter to pay Paul.

   Check your philosophy.  Where do you fit in?

   The Moral Majority running the Republican Party eats, shoots, and leaves the country with a huge economic deficit.  They’re Christian Socialists, preaching theocracy, preaching the tired old Divine Right of Kings.  They attack your epistemological philosophy by substituting the mysticism of religion for reason and logic.  They substitute the moral philosophy of Deism with Theism.  Theism says there is one God who created and continually interferes with and rules the Universe.  Deism says there is one God who created but does not interfere with individuals and the Universe (individuals have free will).  Theism is the basis for theocracy and the Divine Right of Kings.  Deism is the basis for individual freedom, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, a limited constitutional republic, and free market capitalism.

   The Democratic Party eats your shoots, loots your shorts, and never leaves you alone.  They’re Marxian Socialists, preaching George Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother governmental intervention.  They attack your metaphysical and epistemological philosophy by substituting the mysticism of socialist economics for reason and logic.  They substitute the moral philosophy of individual freedom with altruistic collectivism.  Altruistic collectivism says individuals are sacrificial animals for the collective “public good.”  Marxism is the basis for socialism and the Divine Right of Dictators.

   The Free Marketeer group eats shoots and leaves.  They’re free market capitalists, like natural panda bears; live and let live.  They know where to put their commas and question marks.  They know how to read the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights and understand our forefathers’ philosophy behind those documents.

   Both the Democrats and the Republicans have badly punctuated political platforms.  That’s because both Parties’ political philosophies are dragging us into an illogical government that shoots, loots, and feeds at the state and federal Congressional pig troughs. 

   Like the panda story that exemplifies the importance of punctuation to language, philosophy is not just some ideological, nonsensical, abstract construct that we can live without.  Your philosophy is who you are.

   Which one are you:  the political panda that eats shoots and leaves or the political panda that eats, shoots, and leaves?

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