Reflections From a Murky Pond

What is wealth? What is it based upon and what is it comprised of? This seems an important question, though one that it might not be wise or helpful to answer.

I do not ask this question in the philosophical or spirituals realms where one might find true and lasting wealth but purely in the context of material wealth.

This is, however, a dangerous question because, if the answer to it shows that the economies of the Civilized World are based upon lies and stupidity instead of true wealth, too many people learning what wealth is and what it is based upon would completely collapse those economies.

By many people’s standards I’m quite wealthy, one of the Rich that they want to enslave for the subsistence of the less- and non-productive. I’m not, however truly one of the “Rich People” despite my income and the material comforts it brings. I can’t buy and/or do anything that pleases me.

If and when I’m rich enough to do utterly as I please, insofar as housing and spending is concerned, I’m going to do this:

Someday, If I Can Swing It, I’m Going To Have One Of These

Yes, as foolish and seemingly wasteful as it seems, I want to install a slide that in my home – if I don’t chuck it all in and move my family into a ger somewhere – yes, my wives would cheerfully agree to that.

Ger is the Mongolian term for their felt tents. If in their presence, call then yurts at your own peril. Their past “dealings” with the Ottomans and Russians have left them sensitive to that word.

That’s the true boon of significant material wealth. It’s not just that you can afford such foolish luxuries; it’s that few will look at you too askance for indulging in them.

I have a simple question; has, in the recorded history of Mankind, an Atheist ever had an original moral thought?

Perhaps it’s just me and the odd way my mind works, but the dichotomy in both legal and societal reaction to blackmail and “investigative journalism” seems quite odd to me. The difference between how we as a society view the two enterprises doesn’t seem to have any real, fact-based reasoning.

Why is Blackmail a crime, a felony in most or all cases, and “investigative journalism,” which is often better described as “muckraking” and does greater perceived harm to the victim an oft-lauded and protected activity?

The Shamed – Might They Have Preferred Blackmail?

Both blackmail and “investigative journalism” are based upon finding damaging and/or embarrassing details about a victim. The only difference is that a blackmailer gives the victim an alternative to being exposed.

So why is the blackmailer vilified and the reporter oft-times lauded?

It can’t be because blackmail causes greater harm to the victim than the muckraker does. Simple economics require that the price asked of the the victim by the blackmailer be less painful than exposure would be. Blackmail, after all, is a consumer driven industry where the victim sets the price based upon his or perceived pain points.

It can’t be because the blackmailer profits from his activities. Journalists, paparazzi, and random individuals with access to “sensitive” information regularly profit from exposing influential or famous people’s various faults, flaws, failings, and peccadilloes.

Nor can I see where or how it could be that blackmail is a crime against the People or State as opposed to being a crime against a Person. Not all, or even most cases of blackmail have involved politicians or businessmen in the context of their jobs and few of those that we know of have involved extorting them to act in certain manners. In point of fact, the exposées much touted by the media have seemingly had far more impact upon corporations and politics, yet they are legal and societally approved of.

It just doesn’t some to make any logical sense, yet I and all who I know are firm in our convictions that blackmail is wrong and must be a crime, whereas “investigative journalism” – or even “tell all,” unapproved biographies – are to be protected as basic rights necessary to our society.

This post is solely due to the emotions that my friend – you don’t really know me so you don’t understand the weight of that word upon my soul –  ichabod dredged up out of my memory by including a simple image in one of his articles.

I refer you, my valued reader, simply to this video – a rare glimpse of Canada’s Bluenose as she lived and loved upon the Widowmaker,

The Bluenose vs. Gertrude L. Thebaud

Years and years ago I stood the deck of the Bluenose II, which was a true replica of the original great lady of the Grand Banks. Standing there I wept. I wept with both the joy of her lines and life and with grief over Man’s casting her and her sisters aside along with the love of them in favor of the practicalities of modern maritime shipping.

I wept as I read and commented on ichabod’s article and I wept still as wrote this one.

I f you can’t understand why I weep without shame over the loss of these grand queens of the seas then the languages of our souls have too little in common with each others’ to ever truly understand each other.

I say that without reproach for I know that I’m a living, or plausible facsimile of living, atavism in this modern and needfully oh-so-practical world.

For those very few who will care, the Bluenose died in January of 1946 when she was gutted on a Haitian reef. With her died an era and large part, – in my estimation – of Man’s soul.