Inoculation Against Social Conditioning

Think your way to freedom....  here is how to think your way through nonsense of a certain kind... for example you'll hear people say:

“No freedom without the revolutionary war...”

Never mind in this case “freedom” is for only a certain group of people, certainly not the African slaves.  In fact, many slaves fought for the British for their freedom, and were rewarded for their efforts. But back to the proper thinking:

We did have revolutionary war, so we cannot say what would have happened without it in this instance.  We simply cannot know.

But we can step aside and look for similar circumstances, in which freedom was achieved, without war.  How close can we get with an example?

Well, Canada and USA are similar, and Canada suffered little (or as much) under British rule, and the Canadians were able to get their independence without war.

So, what do we know?

1. USA had a bloody revolutionary war, and got its freedom... True.  (Except for African slaves.)

2. Canada  did not have a bloody revolutionary war and they got their freedom. 

3. The mostly likely conclusion to be drawn is USA would have achieved freedom without a revolutionary war, based on what evidence we have.  

4. There is nothing to support the assertion USA would not have freedom without  a revolutionary war.

Let’s do it again:

We would still have slavery if not for the civil war. 

1. USA had a bloody civil war, and slavery (as personal property) ended. True.  

2. Nineteen countries in the same time-frame did not have a bloody civil war and ended slavery.

3. The mostly likely conclusion to be drawn is USA would have ended slavery without a civil war, based on what evidence we have.  

4. There is nothing to support the assertion USA would still have slavery if not for the civil war. 

(Technical problems:  Slavery is legal in USA today. USA may have ended slavery as personal property, but unlike those 19 other countries, USA enshrined slavery as state property, so slavery is now a permanent part of the written constitution (13th amendment) although no one likes to mention it.  Those blacks who went from personal property slavery to state-owned slavery attest that state slavery is worse than personal property slavery.)

So lets look at another example.

If government did not regulate pollution, it would be much worse.

1. In counties where the government regulates pollution, it is very bad, the top three polluters being the top three with regulations: Soviet Union, USA and China.  So we have government regulation and bad pollution.  True.

2. Before regulations, we had little pollution, since it was controlled by property rights. Those territories with strong property rights see little pollution - Norway, Japan, Switzerland, Hong Kong,  Singapore, Andorra, etc. True.

3. The mostly likely conclusion to be drawn is without regulations, USA would have far less pollution, based on what evidence we have.  

4. There is nothing to support the assertion USA government did not regulate pollution, it would be much worse.

Social conditioning requires a couple of factors:

1 Snapshot versus video.  The world did not start when we were born.  There were people before us who made decisions and took actions.  To get a sense of options, we should look at the video, that is what came before and after, and not just the snapshot, what we see right now.

2. Related to on is 2, the false dilemma.  By ignoring the history and efficacy of property rights in protecting the environment, one believes clean environment depends on the state or nothing.  This is a false dilemma,   We have other options.

For a “video” on USA law you can read:

For more on the present state of active, legal slavery in USA, you can read:

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