US withdrawal from Syria

I am not a Trump fan (at all), but this is a good decision. I do NOT care whether the president's motives were nobly or ignobly driven, his decision was properly or improperly formulated, nor do i care if this is more back-room collusion or not. For I truly HOPE and PRAY for more such motives, decisions and collusion until all US foreign wars, operations overt and covert, occupations, bases, perhaps some embassies (see note) as well, have been rightly ended and/or closed.

What I suggest may be viewed as political/military isolationism (and so be it if you do). However, as logically argued over the centuries by some empirically studious economists, political/military expansion sooner or later initiates and exasperates economic isolation thus declination. It is an unavoidable causality. For as attributed to the 19th century French economist Claude-Frédéric Bastiat, "When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will."

Note:
Intended or not, embassies of imperial empires (like United States) often serve as antagonistic lines-in-the-sand, while quite unnecessary for diplomacy per modern communication technology.

Come let us Reason (Is 1:18). Peace is always a Choice (Mt 5:9).
Study, Ponder, Labor, till last Breath (2 Tm 2:15 / Cl 3:23).

Mysteries as Love’s Epistles - A Poetic Perambulation

Poem taken from the book THE MEMPHIS NIGHTCLUB MURDERS & Other Poetic Mysteries, now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and many others in paperback, hardbound and ebook (click on book cover below)...

Mysteries as Love’s Epistles

~ A Poetic Perambulation ~

From sunlit porticos, upon ivied columns along corridors

Twinges pitch hence pang, at pith and pit of inner core

Flesh twain, apart, the distancing bane, liken fleeing harts

Per hunt, such harm by hubris, with this, Ego’s abstract art

Beneath cool archways and arbors, hanging so voluptuous

Blooms of petals dewed, swelled skins of fruit sensuous

Timid as tumid, lust slows then grows, as passions insist

Twitching the lips, twisting the tongues, until pair by tryst

Hesitant she as desirous, impressions still as indecisions

Reluctant he as delirious by abstractions, her divinations

Or by intoxications, he dreams in trance mid funeral pyres

With tambourine she dances, as gypsies `round ritual fires

Stung then the lies, alas foregone shit stings like thistles

Forget they must, to trust the mysteries as Love’s epistles

Low the tears, hard as rain, from cheek to breasts the mist

Stained shirt, strained skirt by four hands vised as one fist

Pressed till wrested, palms to palms, fingers form coitus

Side by side, thigh feels thigh, sighs until cries arduous

Night falls like Turin shroud, as one hundred candles burn

Akin to moths, they flit and flutter o’er hurts, each in turn

O to learn from past spurns, withal, hearts always callow

Within fervor’s fury, Passion smolders as cloth in tallow

Beguiled, wiled, maybe a bit maudlin (often lovers’ coffin)

Such uncoiling as mortals collide, an erotic storm therein

Singed wings by old flings, or some other goddamn thing

Wounds to scars, hang far into mind, on sullied brass rings

Liken black-lighted rooms, archetypal galleries of Self-art

Jungian pelf on psychotic carts, pile high as none departs

No one imparts dissimilar, for bent as this is quite familiar

Mortals’ birthright, Strife (oft miswritten as Life), millers

As such, and much if not all, burns as fire, as well warms

Ill, fraught, still sought, some reason amid passion’s norms

Two souls stumble and struggle, past the doors and closets

Down Fear’s hall, groping mid walls scrawled with posits

Harshest of truths, rarely sleuthed, either animus or anima

Keener incubus, or inner vox humana as morning’s manna

Ergo subtle nuances, so it goes, snakes in pile, calm or riled

Good portends, while Evil pretends, as sanity slips into exile

To Patmos isle, upon insanity’s bile, to flirt in foolish mirth

Misanthropes de trop or not, tho’ hoping of one logical firth

Oh Love rebirths, seemingly recherché among worldly frays

Swirling displays; corpses rigor-ed, souls cold, hearts filleted

As well minds abysmal, yea, the warmth by fervid baptismal

Regardless the chances dismal, or tenacious choices chrismal

Onerous to bedchamber, beyond last tread and rise, thus run

By Godspeed, hand o’er foot, sweat on brow, neither outdone

Alas cursed by sad verse, John Donne’s madness his sorrow

"Anguish'd, not that 'twas sin, but that 'twas she", a fervid woe

Twin in throes, thrust into lustful trust, their melding flesh

As continents clash, or welding of steel, white hot the mesh

Paramours threshing out the Love, without doubt or pause

Hesitation now epicurean determination, their shared cause

To floor the vase shatters, water splatters and roses scatter

Prurient the groans swore, more variant the moans blather

Dethroned then devoured, Pride as well the whore Despair

A sudden Diaspora, by Love diademed and Passion the heir

Brawn, sinew, muscle and tendon, desires flex then stretch

Unto four corners ‘low canopy’s lace, each sniff and scratch

Along nape and back, wet and etch anew, as bloody tattoos

Entwined or strewn upon the satin, flooding senses of two

Skewed their sprawled dimensions, queued the raw tension

Lewd within Love’s lexicon, tongues’ unknown expressions

Mouths uttering low, lips stuttering slow at midlands’ gist

Kissed the hushes, `tween the rushes, as agog gushes insist

Resist not did they, dyad to plait, anon unbraided to repeat

Oft encircling, akin Greco grapplers in Romanesque heat

By arabesque feats, thus eiderdown tossed, flesh glossed

Sheets moist as shaded moss, ah the choice to rid the dross

To passionately joust no further, as lust wanes to cincture

So to pine (unlike Young Werther, lacking bane’s venture)

While both souls longingly smolder, their censers by vesper

Unfettered festering, skin on skin, `low night air’s whispers

From sunlit porticos, upon ivied columns along tomorrows

Twinges pitch hence pang, at pith and pit by forth-sorrows

Yet to love once, twice, thrice else ceaselessly, heedlessly

Of all others’ druthers or mutters, two utter adrift virtuously

Graced by thirty winters she, faced dilemmas odd by threes

Or singly so, third worst among throes, a cancerous decree

Thou cruel Dancer, well versed in Womb’s ascetic suffering

More, Tomb’s poetic suffrage, futile the swain’s thwarting

Erstwhile, the swan’s hoarding, raw secrets mid romances

Chance upon advances, time aft’ time aft’ fuckin’ chances

Wronged by illiterate flirts, withdrawn per itinerant hurts

Intended or not, pretended her lot, along tearstained shirts

He by solitude in surplus, she of dawn till dusk, imminent

Independently sufficient, although, separately reminiscent

One dried burnt-sienna rose, espoused `twixt sacred breasts

Laid by poet fraught, yet orbs heave not at Death’s behest

Sonnets with arias, so plummet from summits sabbatical

Canticles fanatical, equally, odes unfold in woes viatical

Devils as wolves, lurk in his literature, then empty pitcher

Love pours, from bottle mid lips to floor, as poetic stricture

Breath faltered as Life slipped, his hand she ceased to grip

“The stars…to be one” eclipsed by lisp, from her pale lips

To replay again and again, as sand spills, grain by grain

Between fingers, memories linger, pain damns then reigns

By ashes she fell, o’er upper Appalachia, to the lower dells

He dashes and scales, five cataracts, veils to slower swells

Per swirling facts in hurling pell-mell, a disturbing motion

Rekindling emotion, reviving a devotion for their locutions

Mêlées lyrical, sways literal, as one ancient, poetical soul

Rarely so, possessing two modern minds in untold strolls

Within images stirred, by words, metaphors or apologues

An endless epic, dialogue without prologue, nor epilogue

In fist tightly, per fits nightly, a tarnished, bloodied crucifix

Whispers bleed from lips, as oaths of gods o’er river Styx

Transfixed betwixt, between two ends, the insisting mean

Persisting mode, poetry flows, in crowded solitude unseen

Ah the passions prolonged, by every zephyr brushing hands

Like her breath then, hot on flesh, as shadows in hinterland

Form in brain, upon each rain, shedding she the shroud wet

In silence he loudly vets, as often Love hauntingly begets

(click on cover for Amazon.com)

Copyright © 2017 by D.C. Quillan Stone

Mine!

The natural retort "MINE!" when intruded upon by an uninvited other, whether criminal, social or political, is not due to some poorly defined greed or selfishness, rather to an innate expectation to retain that which was obtained by one's own labor expended therefore one's own human time unrecoverable. The resistant reaction to personal time forever lost in form of robbery, swindle, confiscation even taxation, is as reasonably logical thus ethical as consistently practiced by each and every individual without exception.

It is only by the owners' specific consent, no matter if out numbered or voted, no matter if great or small the volume or value, can it be ethically justifiable to transfer or exchange goods, services, possessions and/or properties. To declare one's resistance and rejection to criminally or politically forceful transfer or exchange as greedy or selfish, is to declare human nature, natural law or empirical evidence as something nonhuman, unnatural or conjectural.

Come let us Reason (Is 1:18). Peace is always a Choice (Mt 5:9).
Study, Ponder, Labor, till last Breath (2 Tm 2:15 / Cl 3:23).

French Yellow Jackets may have won the day

French Yellow Jackets may have won the day (if you will) but what exactly did they win? Were they consistently protesting against taxation or merely one particular tax? Were they consistently protesting against government power, or merely those in power? Were not the protests nothing more than temporary political manipulation, however grandiose the notions of wresting government power for some misguided common good, when in fact it is once again some or most forcefully controlling others with or without their consent? Were not the protests conveniently silent therefore excusing popular Isms though empirically and clearly the causes ill effecting the economy as well the sole ethical Ism; Individualism.

Consequently, no real change at all.

This movement was (and is) as unprincipled as others like Occupy Wall Street. There is no genuine concern economically nor ethically, it is the impatient, expedient use of force, in this case government power, as the necessary, presumptuous means towards preferential though quite arbitrary ends. In this way, such activism is using the same sort of coercion as those they protest for both sides will highly favor their own prerogatives while disregarding, trampling even molesting other individuals' person, preference and possession (i.e. life, liberty and property, or in a word, Individualism). Strangely and often in situations like this, both sides erroneously claim to represent the people per some conjured morality or mandate.

To redundantly point out, no real change at all.

Come let us Reason (Is 1:18). Peace is always a Choice (Mt 5:9).
Study, Ponder, Labor, till last Breath (2 Tm 2:15 / Cl 3:23).

Paper over Substance (and bear with me)...

When an employer interview, prefer then hire per a degree and/or certification over actual knowledge and/or skill, it is primarily due to laziness or ignorance of the HR department or hiring manager who will not or cannot properly assess the interviewee's work experience. Secondly, this preference is driven at times by contract requirements with other companies or government, maybe even customer expectations, still ultimately due to the aforementioned reason. Ironically, this tremendously naive faith in credentials have long been found inconsistent, flawed, erred even completely baseless. Hence it should be stated quite plainly, paper is noteworthy only if representational of something substantial. As a diploma-less, self-taught software engineer (since mid/late 1980s), I have encountered early on (yet overcome) many such biases and prejudices.

Concisely, society have become duped by a piece of paper over substance. So much so, similar paper schemes have cancerously infected other economic as well political activities.

Monetarily, we placed the same sort of naive confidence in government's monopolized albeit ever-declining fiat currency, again, paper over substance (i.e. gold, silver or any other commodity backing).

Politically, there again, we placed a naive reverence upon the (2nd perhaps unlawful or unethical) Constitution and Bill of Rights (well flawed per Federalist Paper No. 84) to preventively guarantee although failed to maintain a small government so to purpose and preserve each person's Life, Liberty and Property, consequently, detrimentally, paper or rhetoric over substance.

Ideologically, it only worsens for we placed naive accuracy on books, essays, now blogs, soundbites even 1-line tweets postulating, espousing Isms of various unfounded varieties as in Socialism, Interventionism (economically or militarily), Paternalism, Protectionism, Modern Liberalism, Neo Conservatism, and more, while expostulating empirical evidences as well plain facts to the contrary, therefore tear-stained paper, sentimental words or emotional feelings over substance.

Why? For the same reason mentioned initially; laziness and/or ignorance. We rather be spoon-fed information by others as well to arbitrarily emote, to whimsically feel instead to logically ponder and endlessly labor while performing our own due diligence by personal studies over not a few days or weeks but years, decades if not an entire lifetime.

---

Come let us Reason. Peace is always a Choice.
Study, Ponder, Labor, till last Breath.

Is 1:18. Mt 5:9.
2 Tm 2:15 / Cl 3:23.

---

For more views on a fundamentally related topic...

100 Proems & Poems on the Peculiar Human ABILITY to REASON, Singular Human RIGHT to CONSENT & Other Neglected Matters
https://cafeperq.blogspot.com/2017/07/ability-to-reason-right-to-consent_45.html

More Proems & Poems on the Peculiar Human ABILITY to REASON, Singular Human RIGHT to CONSENT & Other Neglected Matters
http://cafeperq.blogspot.com/2018/11/more-proems-poems-on-peculiar-human.html

How are my political views different...

How are my political views different from the Democrat/Left, Republican/Right as well so-called (and further confused) Moderate?

I expect and want nothing from them save the total regard for my sole human right to consent or not consent on all matters. They however expect and want everything from me thus the total disregard for my sole human right to consent or not consent on all matters.

To say one is a Democrat/Left, Republican/Right or Moderate is the same as saying one prefers forcing his/her covetous, presumptuous will upon others with or without their consent, inhumanely utilizing against the latter confiscation of their property, restriction of their liberty even termination of their life if necessary to satiate the former's personal preferences.

Come let us Reason (Is 1:18). Peace is always a Choice (Mt 5:9).
Study, Ponder, Labor, till last Breath (2 Tm 2:15 / Cl 3:23).

Forms of Tyranny

Duty whether imposed socially, religiously, politically, nationally, patriotically and similarly, presumptuously more are just forms of Tyranny.

Come let us Reason (Is 1:18). Peace is always a Choice (Mt 5:9).
Study, Ponder, Labor, till last Breath (2 Tm 2:15 / Cl 3:23).

Carl Menger (1840-1921)

"When I discussed the nature of value, I observed that value is nothing inherent in goods and that it is not a property of goods. But neither is value an independent thing. There is no reason why a good may not have value to one economizing individual but no value to another individual under different circumstances. The measure of value is entirely subjective in nature, and for this reason a good can have great value to one economizing individual, little value to another, and no value at all to a third, depending upon the differences in their requirements and available amounts. What one person disdains or values lightly is appreciated by another, and what one person abandons is often picked up by another."

Carl Menger (1840-1921)

Free ebook download courtesy of Mises Institute...
https://mises.org/library/principles-economics

Yet today, politicians are still hellbent on determining fair wage, fair price, as though fairness is specifically numeric thus defined in holy writ. Rather, fairness is merely one consenting to employ, sell or barter, and the other consenting to work, buy or trade upon mutually agreeable terms negotiated coolly even heatedly per competing self-interests even greed; nevertheless the only absolute historically observable.