29.1.10

Atrás da cortina de ferro (I)


Publicado por JoaoMiranda em 29 Janeiro, 2010 no Blasfémias

No mundo ideal de Sócrates, o problema do rating resolvia-se assim:

1. Um telefonema de Sócrates para a RTP e seria marcado um Prós&Contras sobre o assunto. De um lado um representante do Bloco e outro do PCP que defenderiam a posição “é necessário criar vias alternativas ao capitalismo”. Do outro Pedro Adão e Silva, Ana Gomes e Perez Metelo defenderiam a tese “É necessário criar uma agência de rating pública”. Na terceira parte, um representante das agências de rating seria chamado a responder à pergunta: “As agências de rating falharam em 2008. Como se atrevem agora a criticar os governos?”. As agências de rating seriam arrasadas.

2. O ministro das finanças apareceria a atacar as agências de rating. As agências de rating seriam arrasadas. (espera, isso foi o que ele fez …)

3. Constâncio apareceria a prever um crescimento de 4% para 2011 e a dizer que os cenários das agências de rating não têm ponta por onde se lhe pegue. Constâncio aproveitaria para prever o défice de 2012 com precisão até à centésima. As agências de rating seriam arrasadas.

4. Depois de um telefonema para o amigo Joaquim, o DN publicaria um relatório da inspecção do trabalho lançando suspeitas sobre as práticas laborais das agências de rating. As agências de rating seriam arrasadas.

5. Vital Moreira escreveria um artigo a demonstrar a inconstitucionalidade das agências de rating. As agências de rating seriam arrasadas.

6. Após um Eixo do Mal inteiramente dedicado às agências de rating, a respectiva reputação fica de rastos. As agências de rating seriam arrasadas.

7. Um telefone a Armando Vara e o BCP apareceria a comprar dívida portuguesa e a recomendá-la aos seus clientes. Em alternativa, Vara arranjaria forma de comprar as agências de rating e de lhes substituir a direcção. As agências de rating seriam arrasadas.

Clever Sillies II - um exemplo prático

Já aqui referi o post de Bruce Charlton sobre o modus operandi de pessoas que embora dotadas de intelecto possante, raramente conseguem descodificar eficazmente situações nas quais uma leitura pragmática e conciliadora é essencial. Às vezes dir-se-ia até que fazem de propósito, só para não perder a face ou ceder a taça, e isso é que já é mais complicado.

Um exemplo completamente imaginário, sob a forma de diálogo:

- Hoje fizeste montes de barulho com o secador*, eram sete da manhã.
- Teve que ser, não me parece pior que ter o rádio ligado a essa mesma hora.
- AH, bom, se isso é assim tão horrível para ti, devias ter dito antes.
- Por não o ser é que não disse nada...
- ÉS MESMO DISSIMULADO, queres distorcer tudo à tua maneira.
- Eu? Mas quem se queixou foste tu. Por mim tanto uma coisa como outra são suportáveis.
- Claro, eu é que estou errada.
- Se quiseres vê-lo assim. Não alimento irracionalidades.

Fico na dúvida, e é isso que detesto, se isto será genuinamente incapacidade, ou uma aleivosia.


*substituir ad lib por "ias muito depressa", "mudaste de faixa bruscamente", "repreendeste mal os putos", "não podes dizer isto sem levar em conta aquilo" ou qualquer outro motivo parvo.


27.1.10

Criaturas infelizmente extintas - I


The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that -- however bloody -- can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave.

And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are among the greatest villains that the world has ever seen. And they as much deserve to be hunted and killed (if they cannot otherwise be got rid of) as any slave traders, robbers, or pirates that ever lived.

The Rothschilds, and that class of money-lenders of whom they are the representatives and agents - men who never think of lending a shilling to their next-door neighbors, for purposes of honest industry, unless upon the most ample security, and at the highest rate of interest - stand ready, at all times, to lend money in unlimited amounts to those robbers and murderers, who call themselves governments, to be expended in shooting down those who do not submit quietly to being robbed and enslaved.

And the so-called sovereigns, in these different governments, are simply the heads, or chiefs, of different bands of robbers and murderers.

A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases. The result -- and a natural one -- has been that we have had governments, State and national, devoted to nearly every grade and species of crime that governments have ever practised upon their victims; and these crimes have culminated in a war that has cost a million of lives; a war carried on, upon one side, for chattel slavery, and on the other for political slavery; upon neither for liberty, justice, or truth. And these crimes have been committed, and this war waged, by men, and the descendants of men, who, less than a hundred years ago, said that all men were equal, and could owe neither service to individuals, nor allegiance to governments, except with their own consent.

If our fathers, in 1776, had acknowledged the principle that a majority had the right to rule the minority, we should never have become a nation; for they were in a small minority, as compared with those who claimed the right to rule over them.

In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having ever been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot -- which is a mere substitute for a bullet -- because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency, into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him.

A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.

No attempt or pretence, that was ever carried into practical operation amongst civilized men -- unless possibly the pretence of a “Divine Right,” on the part of some, to govern and enslave others -- embodied so much of shameless absurdity, falsehood, impudence, robbery, usurpation, tyranny, and villany of every kind, as the attempt or pretence of establishing a government by consent, and getting the actual consent of only so many as may be necessary to keep the rest in subjection by force. Such a government is a mere conspiracy of the strong against the weak. It no more rests on consent than does the worst government on earth.

The strong are always free by virtue of their superior strength. So long as government is a mere contest as to which of two parties shall rule the other, the weaker must always succumb. And whether the contest be carried on with ballots or bullets, the principle is the same; for under the theory of government now prevailing, the ballot either signifies a bullet, or it signifies nothing. And no one can consistently use a ballot, unless he intends to use a bullet, if the latter should be needed to insure submission to the former.

Vices are not crimes.

Our constitutions purport to be established by 'the people,' and, in theory, 'all the people' consent to such government as the constitutions authorize. But this consent of 'the people' exists only in theory. It has no existence in fact. Government is in reality established by the few; and these few assume the consent of all the rest, without any such consent being actually given.

But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: 'Your money, or your life.' And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a 'protector,' and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to 'protect' those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. He does not keep 'protecting' you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.

The ostensible supporters of the Constitution, like the ostensible supporters of most other governments, are made up of three classes, viz.: 1. Knaves, a numerous and active class, who see in the government an instrument which they can use for their own aggrandizement or wealth. 2. Dupes—a large class, no doubt—each of whom, because he is allowed one voice out of millions in deciding what he may do with his own person and his own property, and because he is permitted to have the same voice in robbing, enslaving, and murdering others, that others have in robbing, enslaving, and murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that he is a “free man,” a “sovereign”; that this is “a free government”; “a government of equal rights,” “the best government on earth,” and such like absurdities. 3. A class who have some appreciation of the evils of government, but either do not see how to get rid of them, or do not choose to so far sacrifice their private interests as to give themselves seriously and earnestly to the work of making a change.

The 'nations,' as they are called, with whom our pretended ambassadors, secretaries, presidents, and senators profess to make treaties, are as much myths as our own. On general principles of law and reason, there are no such 'nations.' ... Our pretended treaties, then, being made with no legitimate or bona fide nations, or representatives of nations, and being made, on our part, by persons who have no legitimate authority to act for us, have intrinsically no more validity than a pretended treaty made by the Man in the Moon with the king of the Pleiades.

24.1.10

La haine

Que causas, longe das convulsões atávicas motivadas por diferenças ideológicas, preconceito ou falhas de comunicação, conduzem ao ódio entre pessoas - individuais ou colectivas - entre as quais previamente não exista qualquer relacionamento? Porque é que uns parecem ver noutros um alvo a abater, chegando a extremos de exibir, a despudor, double-standards que invocam sob uma capa de altruísmo ou rectidão?

É humano, e bem intelectualizável, que a intolerância favoreça perseguições recorrentes; religiosos/ateus, gays/hetero, esquerda/direita, hutus/tutsis são exemplos de pares ordenados nesta álgebra da estupidez. Mas ainda que recorramos à totalidade taxonómica das idiossincrasias "clássicas", continuam a sobrar peças.

Porque é que há famílias e casais, interiormente a cuja vivência emocional tudo funciona - do companheirismo à carne, das ideias ao conforto perante os medos do quotidiano - e grupos de amigos ou colegas, onde a coexistência e até a entreajuda deveriam servir de cimento, mas onde, contudo, cedo ou tarde há sempre uma exígua minoria - por vezes de um só elemento - que se torna passível de "receber um peixe num jornal", como n´O Padrinho de Mario Puzo?

Parecem-me identificáveis pelo menos três situações em que tal pode suceder:

- a "ovelha negra" evidencia uma independência de carácter, consubstanciada pela inexistência de carências socio-psicológicas; não tem "need to belong", nem complexos de culpa por ser feliz/bem sucedido, nem tão pouco necessidades prementes de ser útil a quem quer que seja a não ser a quem bem decidir sê-lo de sua livre vontade. Tais entidades são de imediato marcadas para abate, com raiva e revolta, por servirem de espelho a quem muitas vezes gostaria de compartilhar das especificações técnicas que aqui evidenciei. O mote, assim, seria aqui "odeio-te porque não tens as minhas fraquezas, então vou denegrir as tuas forças".

- pode ser, ainda, que o "alvo" sendo de facto uma pessoa justa e equilibrada, opte por não exercer esta forma de estar até ao sacrifício, e somente algumas vezes pelas mesmas normas éticas da maioria; também neste caso, semelhantemente ao que ocorre quando os animais na savana farejam a diferença num da matilha e o afastam com dentes e garras, a humanidade que temos vem enquadrar como "patológicas" as dissonâncias de conduta preconizadas por aquele ou aqueles a quem pareça irracional a submissão a certos códigos deontológicos tidos como superiormente válidos.

- por último, hoje acontece, pelo menos no mundo ocidental onde as preocupações, após a primeira metade do séc. XX, deixaram de versar essencialmente sobre a obtenção de segurança física para se inclinarem sobre questões mais etéreas, que existe uma espécie de "ditadura do racional", bem desmontada aqui pelo psiquiatra Bruce Charlton, por força da qual ocorre uma repressão de tratos evolutivos favoráveis adquiridos ao longo do tempo, como a intuição, o senso comum e a inteligência emocional, por parte de uma intelligentsia cujos membros fazem por conduzir a sua vida por estradas onde principalmente arquétipos, e raramente o pragmatismo, servem para decidir.

Daqui floresce então muito ódio, na medida em que é de todo impossível a quem estiver de fora dos círculos kosher (escrevo-o sem conotações rácicas, atenção) evitar o ostracismo, num mundo onde cada vez mais pensar contra a corrente é tido como uma perigosa subversão. Em suma as pessoas odeiam outras pessoas para não se odiarem a si mesmas.


Ainda brota quem quer bem

Bem vindo seja mais um blogue objectivista.


21.1.10

Momento alto...

...à espera que o pavio arda: entrevista de Cantiga Esteves a Mário Crespo, hoje na SIC-N. O Estado Social Europeu enquanto maior fraude da História.