Liberalism is a term that has been distorted and changed over the years. Now the majority of us when we think of Liberalism we think of the views related more to the left of the political spectrum, but this view has not always been the same. The term classical liberalism is the term that describes the original definition of liberalism, which is more or less almost the opposite of the view that modern liberals have today. What is classical liberalism?
Classical liberalism is the view in which freedom is of utmost importance. Classical liberals believe in the individual freedom of the individual, which includes the beliefs of: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of press. Many classical liberals also believe in the concept of the free market. The majority of classical liberals disapprove of government intervention, and the overriding of an individual’s liberties. Thus, this is classical liberalism.
Fiat money or the paper money that the majority of society uses today is convenient, easy to understand, and overall has made the buying and selling of goods and services easier. Like everything fiat money has its issues or disadvantages which are rather overlooked the most. What are three of these disadvantages of fiat money?
The first disadvantage of fiat money is that it can inflate. Because the government is in control of the money supply, and how much money is to be printed, prices of things can go up or fluctuate and reduce the value of the money. This is a common theme unfortunately today, where something ten years ago was cheaper than the same thing would be today. Another disadvantage that comes along with inflation is that fiat money can drop to zero value, and when that happens that money’s value cannot rise again.
The final disadvantage I must note is that because fiat money is controlled by the government, it increases the power of the government over the people. Money is very important and pretty much everyone relies on it one way or another, if the government has control over that money when it comes to printing, that government has a pretty stronghold on the people. The people can only use the money that the government makes themselves.
Fiat money is the norm in the majority of today’s societies and has been in use for some time. Unfortunately, fiat money has many disadvantages including the truth that it can inflate, has a risk of dropping to zero value, and gives governments the opportunity to have more control over their people.
Money is a very important part of our modern society today and is the medium of exchange that everyone uses to exchange goods and services. Like everything money has its origins, what is the origin of money?
To first note money is a rather nonspecific word that could refer to many things, which is why when I am referring to the word “money,” I mean paper bills that the majority of us use today. With that now in mind the origin of money. People before a form of money used to barter, which is a method where one trades one good or another good from someone else. For example say if I traded some chocolate for some flour with someone, that is barter. Barter though it worked was not exactly convenient, no one exactly knew what good equaled the value of another good, which led to some confusion.
After a while people began to search for other methods for a medium of exchange that had universal value; they landed on gold. Gold though it had many pros had one main con, which was that it was not exactly practical to carry around. Carrying around pieces of gold is not exactly convenient. This is why eventually, the paper money we have today came into the picture.
In conclusion, money originated from barter, which was not exactly convenient, but eventually evolved into using gold. The usage of gold because it was not practical to carry around bits of gold, eventually changed and evolved yet again into the paper money we have today. This is the origin of money.
Mark is one of the four gospels in the New Testament, which covered the same basic message and story, but through different perspectives and authors. Something that is seen quite prevalent is the resistance towards Christ from the Leaders of Israel, throughout the book of Mark, and the other books in the New Testament. According to Mark’s Gospel, what was the main issue dividing Jesus from the Leaders of Israel?
The Leaders of Israel played an important role in the society in which they lived. They were prominent figures who were respected, and were very much in control when it came in regards to religious practices, which were very much ritualistic. When Jesus came along, this changed for them; Jesus healed many people, with a number of ailments both spiritually and physically. He was able to do so because he had the authority to do so. Many people turned to Jesus for guidance and His teachings, instead of turning to the original Leaders of Israel. Because of these factors and many others the Leaders of Israel not surprisingly enough were envious, which turned into destructive resentment. Also the Leaders of Israel feared Him greatly, which greatly impacted their attitude towards Him. Even though they witnessed some of Jesus’ miracles themselves, they still rejected Him.
The largest factor in my opinion that divided Jesus and the Leaders of Israel even more was the truth that Jesus was God’s Son. This truth infuriated them and they tried to deny it, which made them attempt to accuse Jesus of crimes such as Blasphemy, even though it was clearly the fact that Jesus was the Son of God. They were too stubborn, envious, and prideful to accept Christ as their Savior. Even after Jesus’ physical death, His teachings and influence continued to live on regardless of the people like the Leaders of Israel who tried to stifle it.
The divide between Jesus and the Leaders of Israel was mostly due to the Leaders of Israel being envious and resentful. They did not want to accept Him as the Son of God, and rejected Him even though there were so many examples that they witnessed to feel otherwise. Truly this is an example of how jealousy and resentment fuels people to do wrong and evil deeds.
Governments throughout history have done unethical things at one point. Even though the majority of those unethical deeds did seem unethical to the public, that did not justify them. An unethical and questionable thing that the US government did is referred to as the Washington Monument Syndrome. What is the Washington Monument Syndrome?
The Washington Monument Syndrome refers to a period in which the Washington Monument was closed by the United States government, to control budget cuts. In a normal situation if the government was faced with a budget cut, they would shut something down that does not have much use, or fire a few government employees that were not necessary employees. But in this case the government did not want to go ahead with this budget cut so to override it they shut down the very famous and visited Washington Monument. This angered the public to a point that it reversed the budget cut ultimately. Not surprisingly this was exactly the government’s plan, to use the public in their favor, without maybe considering why the budget cut needed to happen in the first place.
The Washington Monument Syndrome refers to how the United States government overrode a budget cut by using the public’s anger in their favor, regardless of if the budget cut was necessary.
Compulsory state education is a common norm in the west, with the majority of children in the west getting an education. In England in particular this system of compulsory state education system was established in 1870, which leaves the question: what does the evidence show about education in England before the compulsory state system was established?
At first most likely one thinks that before compulsory state education in England, few children were being educated in the lower classes, that education was merely for the rich. This was absolutely not the case. Before this compulsory education in England the percentage rates of literacy were already dramatically rising. In the later period of the 1830s, ninety five percent of fifteen year olds were literate. The compulsory education law in fact was established because there was a dramatic rise in people being educated, not the other way around. Also to note the reason why there was a drastic rise in people being educated was due to the increase in income and population.
In short, the evidence showed that education in England was already dramatically increasing before 1870, when compulsory state education was put in place.
The benefit principle is the concept that people should be taxed in accordance with the benefits those people receive from the government. Overall this concept sounds relatively sound, but with every concept there is always the question of, does it have any issues? Does the benefit principle have any problems with it?
First of all, because the benefit principle is a concept of people being taxed in accordance with the benefits those people receive from the government, there are some definant issues, including the question: what about people who receive welfare checks, or people who work for the government? In technical terms a person who works for the government receives all of their monetary benefits from the government, which means in the definition of the benefit principle, these people have to be taxed their entire income from the state, this also goes for people who receive welfare checks. This is questionable, who wants to get paid to just give all that money back to the entity that is paying you, a bit contradictory to say the least. Another problem with the concept of the benefit principle is how it does not apply in the market. For example people who benefit greatly from a product pay the same amount as somebody who benefits only a little to none from the same product.
The “benefit principle,” though the concept in and of itself sounds relatively sound, has a few important contradictory issues. Any concept that contradicts itself, cannot be implemented effectively, and thus if implemented results in confusion.
The Congress of Vienna(1814-1815), brought together the four major European powers: England, Prussia, Austria, and Russia. This was after the French Revolution which was a time of uncertainty in Europe. What were the major principles guiding the diplomats at the Congress of Vienna?
The four powers at this meeting had one goal which was to unite Europe after Napoleon. They believed that working together in this way would protect them from another devastating Revolution, such as the one in France. The key principles that were guiding these diplomats included: compensation, power balance, and legitimacy of the throne.
This Congress in Vienna influenced the replacing of Napoleon with Louis the 18th, who was the previous unfortunate king of France’s brother, which ultimately united Europe.
March was definitely a month of reading. I was able to find a few unique reads that I had either never heard of or had been recommended many times. The common theme with the majority of the books I read is that these pieces of literature deal with or discuss serious issues like mental health. I really wanted to find books that would leave a lasting impact on me; that wasn’t just fluffy and forgettable, like most I have read. Over the years of reading, I have realized that some books just aren’t worth reading and that your time is precious so use it wisely.
Besides all that, I hope you will learn something or discover some new and intriguing reads for the future :).
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid, was *a chef kiss. It was a great read and I thoroughly enjoyed it greatly! The novel is about a journalist named Monique who is interviewing the Old Hollywood star Evelyn Hugo, who is now an old woman. Evelyn Hugo was this sex symbol, bombshell actress of the 50s and 60s, who in many ways is a personification of figures such as Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor. As the title implies Evelyn was married seven times, which is an important theme of the story. The story does an excellent job of telling Evelyn Hugo’s life story and keeping you hooked on the story. Also, the twists in the plot were very well done and even left me surprised. Overall a solid 9/10.
A Little Life
ALittle Life, by Hanya Yanagihara, was a book that I had been seeing all over. If you have heard of it you most likely would know that it is very sad, and dark. Sad and dark are words that understate this book. I personally would never recommend this book to anyone since it is very triggering and graphic to the point that it could cause some serious harm to somebody. Overall if you do feel that your mental state can take a book like this please read this as a further warning, it’s a lot worse than I thought it would be. If you have a trigger it’s most likely in this book. Some of the Tws include self harm, sexual abuse, physical abuse, grooming, and suicide.
The book revolves around four friends: Jude, JB, Malcolm, and Wilhelm, and their lives over the decades. The book though primarily focuses on the life and perspective of the character Jude, who is a disabled, intelligent man who struggles with the effects of the severe childhood trauma he experienced; which is described in the book with great graphic detail. A major theme of the book is how the people in Jude’s life are affected by Jude’s personal struggles which they cannot do anything about. The book does an excellent job of making you fall in love with the characters especially Jude which makes it even more painful when the book continues to destroy the characters. With that said the thing that I really liked about this book was how the author was able to depict the happy moments or the beautiful moments in the characters’ lives. An effective tragedy needs to have happy moments to make the ending more of a tragedy and this book really goes by that truth. While reading this book I felt like I was watching a person I really loved fall apart and hurt, and being unable to do reassure or comfort them. It really hurt. To be honest I was very surprised I didn’t cry though I was very close too. I rate this book 8.5/10. It would have been a ten if it hadn’t been for the painful reading experience. Don’t read this book!
The Bell Jar
The Bell Jar, by Slyvia Plath, was on my reading bucket list for a while, it most certainly did not disappoint. Definitely, this book does have some trigger warnings(suicide, depression, racism, etc), which is important to note. The book is about a young woman named Esther Greenwood who is living in New York as a guest editor for a short period of time. Esther’s mental health deteriorates throughout the timeline of the story, and though she is supposed to be having the time of her life her emotional state states otherwise. This novel captivated and drew me in almost immediately. Plath does an excellent job of using the first-person narration style, and in many moments I felt like I was really in Esther Greenwood’s head, which made her story even more relatable. I highly recommend this book and rate it 9/10.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, was another book that had been on my bucket list for a while. It most certainly did not disappoint, and I will forever call it a genius novel. The novel itself is about a beautiful young man named Dorian Gray who gets his portrait painted by the artist Basil Hallward. Basil introduces Dorian to Lord Henry who is a very worldly figure. Lord Henry influences Dorian to begin living his life in the indulgence of pleasure or sin. Dorian begins to wish that the marks of age would instead appear on is a portrait and not his physical appearance. This becomes a reality for Dorian. The worst and more corrupt Dorian’s character becomes is reflected in his portrait along with his actual age, which he realizes is a curse in actuality. This novel is beautifully written, and you really are able to experience the inner turmoil of Dorian’s character. The novel, in my opinion, is an excellent allegory of the mainstream, beauty culture today which has an emphasis on looking young and focusing on one’s appearance, often to a point of neglecting one’s inner character. This novel is a 9.5/10 in my opinion.
Though the reading list for March is quite short(I do have the excuse that A Little Life was over 700 pages long), it was a solid one from not reading for two months. Hopefully, April will be an even more successful month of reading but let’s see. I hope you guys find something new to read in this post.
Drugs are a very large issue and have been for decades. Even though most illicit drugs are illegal, that does not prevent people from getting a hold of them. There are many sides to this complicated debate on drugs, which is far too vast to get into much detail. The US government has acted many times to fight this plague of drugs, but overall these attempts are unsuccessful, which brings up the question: what are some of the problems with the federal prohibition on certain drugs?
A commonly known fact is that no matter how much information is brought out there on the terrible side effects of these illicit drugs, that does not stop people from getting intrigued by them or getting their hands on these drugs. No matter how much is done by the people or state it does not stop the use of drugs. The Federal Prohibition on illicit drugs began in 1971 under President Nixon. Some of the issues that the Federal Prohibition on drugs faced included the heavy use of limited resources such as police officers. Because police officers now had to focus on catching drug offenders, there was less of a focus on other crimes such as crimes against private property, which sometimes led to a rise in those crimes. This focus on drug offenders in the police force did not solve the underlying problem.
Prisons began to fill up with drug addicts instead of all actual real criminals such as murderers, thieves, assaulters, or people who sold drugs. This led to an increase in taxpayer money being spent, because not surprisingly drug addicts require medical attention. This, though not as mentioned, is the ugly truth that because drug addicts could go to jail for abusing drugs, people resist getting medical attention or calling 911 when someone in their circle is overdosing. This increases deaths due to drugs. Overall the federal prohibition on certain drugs has not been successful in decreasing the number of deaths from drugs, the overall problem, and most importantly making it more difficult for people to find them.
The debate on drugs is probably one of the more controversial topics today, with many ins and outs for arguments. Regardless, one must note the truth that the Federal Prohibition on drugs in the US has not improved the situation, and instead in many ways made it worse. Thus these are some of the problems with the Federal Prohibition on certain drugs.
The Dreamer 