#I like the amount of internal and interpersonal conflict everyone seems to have but these three in particular you can sort of see

[olessan]

There's some subtle height stuff happening here -- Lloyd Owen and Maxim Baldry are about the same height, but the height difference between Isildur and Eárien seems to be about the same as the difference between all three's natural heights. Elendil's intentionally a lot taller, about as much as is reasonable to keep everyone comfortable in frame lol

[queeranarchism]

Basic action organization, concept 2

Since ‘what do I actually need to organize an activist thing?’ is a question that new groups seem to ask over and over, I’m thinking of writing a little overview of what you might need. Which teams you have and what tasks they have will obviously vary from place to place, but maybe we can put together some kind of basic starting guide, ya know? Advice welcome.

So I’d say you have a general meeting and then a number of teams concerned with organizing and a number of basic safety teams and for long term organizing you have internal communication teams:

The organizing teams:

Logisitics team

Decides on gathering point, route, finishing point and whether there is a place for people to hang out afterwards. Often arranges warm drinks at the action and plenty of good food afterwards.

This team might have a trained and experienced Police Spokesperson. The most hostile the police is towards your action, the more useful it is to have someone that can keep them busy with prepared answers, can manipulate or delay them and can inform the logistics team of a chance in attitude that might mean arrests are coming soon.

A logistics team may have a subgroup that forms a Self-defense team that plans the immediate response to danger. This may consist of physical self-defense but it can also involve planning ways to get vulnerable people to a safer place inside the group, planning escape routes, filming the aggressors, and more. Physical self defense often depends on safety in numbers. For that the self-defense team prepares and initiates, but once the self-defense is needed they do not go in alone: doing the self-defense part is everyone’s job.

The self-defense team or the logistics team will  probably have spotters that keep an eye on the area and report things like the amount of police, riot police, arrest vans, or fascists to the logistics team.  

Message and decorations team

Arranges banners, posters and other things that express the message of the action. Arranges speakers and materials such as megaphones, microphones, amplification. (If it is a public action. Obviously not relevant if you’re doing a direct action that doesn’t want any attention.)

This team might have a trained and experienced Media Spokesperson. The most hostile the media is towards your action, the more useful it is to have someone that can keep them busy with prepared answers and away from people not prepared for how shit the media can be.

Mobilisation team

Promotes the action. Often works closely with message and decorations team. Depending on the type of action, this team may write a press release, may make a social media event, may distribute flyers, or could just quietly spread the word from mouth to mouth that there is going to be a surprise action soon.

Fundraising team

Raises and manages the funds for the action.

The safety net teams:

The safety teams are important if an action is likely to be risky. For example if it involves large numbers of people, if it involves a blockade or other lawbreaking, if arrests are expected, if a confrontation with fascists is expected, if the action involves a lot of people of color (= increased likely hood of police brutality) or if the topic of the action is focused against police brutality.

The safety teams are composed of trained and experienced people. Reach out to other groups for this if you need help. Do not hand people without experience a few zines and expect them to handle it!

Legal Team

Offers activists the opportunity to sign in and sign out. Keeps track of arrests and tries to get everyone out of the police station as fast as possible. Has a lawyer on standby. Organizes a welcome party outside the police station to make sure people don’t walk home alone. Does the immediate things the arrested mentioned on their sign in sheet, like ‘tell my boss i am sick if i am still under arrest by monday morning’.

Legal observers

Observe and report, carefully document arrests and police brutality for later use. Communicate arrests to legal team.  

Jail Support

For long term support.

Medics

For immediate physical first aid.

Out of Action / Support and Recovery team

For immediate psychological first aid, trauma prevention and aftercare.

Internal communication teams

Depending on the size of your group, how much you organize and how long you work together you may have:

Evaluation team

Facilitates general meetings focuses on learning from our successes and our mistakes and getting better at what we do over time.

Sustainable activism team

Focuses on burnout prevention, makes sure the community prioritizes healing and collective care instead of running from action to action.

Awareness team

Watches for oppressive behavior and power imbalances forming within the group and addresses them. Can be contacted by people that witness oppressive behavior and don’t feel ready to step in and address is themselves.

Mediation team

For conflict resolution

Transformative justice team

For long term transformative processes that address interpersonal harm.

Vibes team

Organizes parties, movies, dinners, picknicks and other things that focus on having fun together and maintaining the sense of community that is vital to our organizing.

So far that makes:

Did I miss anything?

[mittensmorgul]

not sure What It All Means, but i think it’s kinda interesting that when crowley and gadreel were in sam’s head, gadreel manifested as Tahmoh, and lucifer manifested as nick in cas’ head, but when michael was in dean’s head, he manifested as dean. oooh or is that more of the metaphor for repression everyone was talking about

I know you’re looking for a deep narrative reason for it, but I think this one is a lot simpler than that.

Let’s start with Gadreel. When we first met Gadreel, he was in the Tahmoh vessel. That’s the face we associated with Gadreel, even when Sam was possessed by him, if that makes sense. Before and after Sam was possessed, Gadreel returned to that same vessel, who remained his vessel until his death in 9.23. In the scene in 9.10 where Crowley went into Sam’s head to convince him to evict Gadreel, it just... wouldn’t make narrative sense for Sam to have to fight HIMSELF, you know? Gadreel had spent most of his possession of Sam keeping Sam tidily in the dark. Sam didn’t even KNOW he was possessed most of that time, and what he did remember, Gadreel had wiped those memories, saying it was for Sam’s own good. (which, yeah, at first it was so Sam wouldn’t evict him before he could heal him enough so that he wouldn’t just insta-die if Gadreel left)

So there was never any interpersonal conflict between Sam and Gadreel, no identification between Sam and Gadreel during which Gadreel’s goal was to “steal Sam’s identity” in that way. Not to mention Sam’s conflict in s9 wasn’t with himself. So a fight scene of Sam wrestling and banishing HIMSELF would’ve been narratively... a mess. :P

We had ONE episode of Sam possessed by Lucifer (5.22), wherein Lucifer used Sam’s face. For the purposes of this post I’m not counting 5.04, because it was either Dean’s dream injected into his head by Zachariah (if you believe canon as we’ve seen it through the present time where AU Zachariah’s abilities clarified OG Zachariah’s powers-- ironically enough by using them ON Nick-As-Lucifer in 13.07, as well as Jack in 13.14), or a time travel scenario that Lucifer would have no recollection of after the fact when that timeline never came to pass in reality. So either way, irrelvant to the point of this post. :P

Back to the point. The visage of Lucifer, over the years, has LARGELY been portrayed by and associated with the Nick vessel. That has been the face that not only *we* have identified on the spot as Lucifer, but that Sam and Dean have identified as Lucifer, despite the fact he has possessed numerous other people-- including Cas, Vince Vincente, and President Rooney. Somehow he always comes back around to Nick.

And in 11.18, again Cas’s issue wasn’t an internal struggle against himself. At least not like that. His difficulty was his resignation and self-worthlessness, his belief that only Lucifer could act, and the only important purpose he could serve was as a willing vessel who just got out of the way and let Lucifer do the thing. Even though the current face had truly and traumatically been established as Cas’s face during the latter half of s11, and even though he continued to possess Cas right through the end of 11.22, it wasn’t CAS HIMSELF that was fighting to either expel Lucifer or to keep Lucifer in residence. He was literally sitting across the room not even paying much attention to the fight at all, resigned to his self-worthlessness and wallowing as if he was irrelevant. That was the point-- that Cas didn’t put up a fight either way. So he needed another face, and again, the face we all identify as “Lucifer” is Nick’s. That’s Lucifer’s Antagonist face-- not Sam’s face, not Cas’s own face.

Using the Nick vessel as his face possessing Cas (as it did for Sam when he confronted him in the cage in 11.09 and 11.10) also doubled down on the fact that yes, Lucifer is still that Antagonist. And for a character whose signature move is using specific faces to gain the trust of his intended vessels via manipulation (tempting Sam to say yes by appearing as Jessica, tempting Nick to say yes by appearing as his dead wife, tempting Vince to say yes by appearing as his dead girlfriend, etc.), the fact that he didn’t attempt to manipulate Cas by appearing as someone to “trick him” into compliance says a lot. He didn’t NEED to manipulate Cas into compliance, because Cas’s own mental state was doing most of the work for him.

So that brings us to Dean and Michael in 14.10. For most of s14, when Michael wasn’t actively possessing Dean, the fear and trauma suffered by Dean because of that possession had been the underlying dread for him. That loss of identity was something that Dean had never had to face so directly before, making his issue with Michael as one of him “fighting his way to the surface” through a feeling of “drowning” inside himself. And yeah, that also does directly touch on ALL of Dean’s issues, but from the moment Dean said yes in 13.23, Michael effectively adopted Dean’s face as his own. 

The struggle for Dean after Michael repossessed him in 14.09 wasn’t so much against Michael, but against himself. This had been portrayed all season via the flashbacks to what Michael did while wearing Dean’s face, Dean’s first confrontation against Michael where Dean appeared in the mirror himself, already fighting to evict Michael, for whom the “etiquette of possession” did not seem to apply. Even though Dean was DIRECTLY revoking his consent to possession, Michael calmly refused to gtfo, you know? They’d already established a MUCH deeper connection there, entirely against Dean’s will.

Because Dean’s battle was never one of deception, it was always a matter of human will versus divine manipulation. Just as we saw unfold in 14.20 with Chuck, where we learned that NO amount of free will applied to these sorts of cosmic situations could ever have won the day as long as Chuck was invested in manipulating their story for his own entertainment, you know? And his struggle against Michael was basically the Final Boss Battle for Dean’s will, with Michael wearing Dean’s own face, locked in a literal fridge inside Dean’s mind. Nothing that’s locked up ever stays locked up forever, as long as cosmic forces are around to pry open those locks again for the sake of the story.

In that scene in Rocky’s Bar in 14.10, this was Dean metaphorically confronting those parts of himself that were tempted to believe in the story, the parts that made him doubt his own will, his own understanding (because the things Michael tormented him with were pretty warped interpretations of Dean’s own memories, you know?). And eventually it did take Dean’s “mirror” to destroy Michael... who continued to manifest right through 14.14 with Dean’s face, when he sought out Rowena to possess her. Theoretically he could’ve chosen any face to do that, and yet... he picked Dean’s.

Because that’s what s14′s main point boiled down to in that final scene, setting up s15′s initial conflict-- that after a lifetime of Dean basing his his ENTIRE personal philosophy in the face of Cosmic Conflict on the indomitability of the human will... well, now he must confront that essential belief and truly understand who he is, and his true place in the universe in the face of this eternal divine conflict.

[goonsmonkeyworld]

Critiquing myself

My issue in life is Im a “Yes man”. I cant say “No”, cause Im afraid to get abused! Only to the person I am dating or married too! Everyone else, I can say “NO”! *******************

I this a huge issue for me! I have to have a person who is willing to be honest and talk decisions out, to make the best choices in life! THAT HAS TO STOP!

All of my life I have put everyone first, and simply forgot about myself! Ive tried to make everyone happy around me. Whether, its take a load off, chores, work, gifts. I'm feeding their “happiness”, thinking Im doing a good thing at that moment. But, Im only enabling complacency and dependability! I'm literally crippling them! In my head I think Im showing Love and caring, but thats not the case! Im creating a negative effect, of a person changing with a “takers mindset”! I have literary set my mind up to sabotage my own relationship with that person, by doing so! I put myself on the back burner, so by saying “YES”, they are in turn learning to place me on a back burner! THAT HAS TO STOP!

Ive noticed when I stop folding my clothes, and just throw them on the floor. Or, fold them on a shelf. Thats a huge warning sign, that I have lost interest and caring for that relationship! Because I feel like whats the point in caring? HINT, HINT!

I cant make a single person happy, that is not a job! Thats mos def not my job!  Happiness lies with in and NO amount of money, love, caring, can ever be enuff to make someone else happy! 

It truly has to come from within! Happiness is an internal source based feeling, that we all poses! We cannot make anyone happy, till we are happy with ourselves FIRST! In every way shape and form! We should all do what makes us happy! As an individual! And we cant bother the other person if they are not interested in what we like! The key here is come enjoy my happiness, or dont enjoy my happiness. Shared happiness is the best, but seemingly hard to find. 

Conflict is an issue with me. My past, has really damaged me so bad, that I hate conflict! In my head Im scared to get abused! So, I avoid it at all cost! No matter what! LOL! Im a talker, and more than willing to talk about any thing. But, people seem not to want to talk, or they dont hear me, or, choose not to hear me! Im not sure, depends on the person Im talking with! Conflicts should be discussed and not lead to violence! Remain calm, and talk through everything! Just make sure you hear what is being said and not just listen!

In life if you find a person that is outgoing and not pinned. If you find that they have an “issue” that is going to hamper your relationship, you better ask them to work on that. If you see improvement, great! But, if they dont, that will never change, till they are ready to change. Its at a cost of, how long do you wanta wait? Are they willing to change? Do they see what they are doing? Im sorry, but somethings will never change, no matter what you say or do! 

Whats hard in life is you meet a new person, with an open heart. You see the red flags and ignore them, thinking! BAD IDEA! You need to find your “bar” or line, and stick to that! If you ever, choose to drop that “bar”, the cost can be mentally expensive in the long run. You have to be 100% willing to accept everything, or dont even start. But, we feel as if we get stuck in that relationship and feel trapped. Then that resentment meter starts to peg out, moving back and forth. It will either get to 0, or peg out to 100. Then we tend to blow a gasket and have a meltdown. Relationships are very hard, each of you have to put in 100%, and both pull the load in life. A tilted stage isnt healthy and isnt fair in a relationship. If its not 100%, someone needs to work on their interpersonality, and want to change for the better. I notice that in me, the resentment meter gets to high. I lose that emotional connection, and just stop trying or caring. 

I am the only person that can make myself happy, comfortable and at peace! Never let yourself lose yourself. NEVER FORGET ABOUT YOURSELF, FIRST!!!!!! I have to love myself first, before I can love anyone else 100%. I have to be true to myself, and really stick to that. I am not responsible for anyone else's happiness, love, mindset but myself.

Stop trying to help (emotionally) everyone else, that is not my responsibility. That is on that person, ONLY!  Never let someone drag you down! Truth be told; I can do that myself. I dont need help with that. In life I have offered my hand as they drown, and only got a slap of my wrist. So the effort and time wasnt worth it, in the long run. Save your energy for yourself. Each person has to take responsibility for their own actions.

[johnnymundano]

Night Fare (2015)

Directed by Julien Seri

Screenplay by Cyril Ferment, Pascal Sid and Julien Seri

Story by Wahid "Tarubi" Mosta

Music by Alex Cortes

Country: France

Running Time: 80 minutes

CAST

Jonathan Howard as Chris

Jonathan Demurger as Luc

Fanny Valette as Ludivine

Jess Liaudin as the driver

Édouard Montoute as the police officer

Alighting from the stale fart and sweaty sock ambience of a London-Paris coach, Chris (Jonathan Howard) is reunited, after a two year self-imposed absence, with Luc (Jonathan Demurger) and Ludivine (Fanny Valette). Ludivine still resents Chris for leaving her without any whiff of warning, and has shacked up with Luc in the meantime. Luc is understandably a little edgy about this, but even edgier about the reason Chris left. After the trio’s internal tensions spoil the initial part of the evening’s partying, Ludivine begs off and goes home, taking Luc’s car. Determined to make sure the night is one to remember Luc cajoles moody Chris into accompanying him to another party. Increasingly unsettled by Luc’s  blatant drug huffing and overbearing passive aggression Chris complies, because Chris is English, and thus believes confrontation must be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately the pair take a taxi and dun the driver on the fare; Luc as a hilarious joke to show Chris who is in control and Chris, because he is English and follows the path of least resistance. Big mistake. The driver takes umbrage to excessive levels and stalks the bickering pair through the eerily unpopulated Parisian night, a night in which interpersonal conflicts will be settled forever and one person will discover an unexpected future.

I don’t want to be too hard on Night Fare, it does a lot of things very well indeed for most of its run-time after all. In fact if it had just stuck to the psycho-stalk cabdriver premise it would have been a nifty little movie. Unfortunately someone didn’t think that would be enough, and the last third of the movie shifts gears way too abruptly, the back door swings open and coherence’s seat belt snaps and it tumbles out, becoming just a bloody snail trail in the movie’s wake. But before that happens, Night Fare is pretty good stuff. Obviously you have to buy into the rules of the game: you can’t just knock on anyone’s door for help; the police will be dicks; there will only be one police car and it will be the one full of dicks; the cab driver will be able to find them as though the pair were programmed into his SatNav; and, as ever, people being chased by a car must always run in a straight line for an unseemly amount of time before belatedly realising this is a really bad idea. This latter is fine, a familiar part of the filmic furniture for anyone who has seen Christine (1983) or The Car (1977). The police, well, we all respect the police obviously (good evening, officer) but since Luc is an obvious wrong ‘un, their attitude is understandable. As for just not knocking on the nearest door, well…I don’t know about Paris but I was once down that there London, and we (I wasn’t alone; well spotted) got the tube out to an outlying district, which was a massive mistake. Apparently big cities have these large areas that are just made up of offices and sandwich bars that serve the office workers. After a certain hour they are deader than Guinness, the dog I had in the 1970s. Seriously, it was like The Omega Man (1971), but without the albino afro vampires or Charlton Heston. Eerie stuff. As for the cab driver being able to find them all the time, well, that’s just what happens in these movies, so go with it or get another movie.

So, yes, Night Fare is an efficient and enjoyably tense thriller with a keen eye for style, which effectively transforms the city at night into a sodium lit hunting ground, and it also has some thrillingly brutal action sequences where sharp editing makes up for a lack of budget. I am delighted to report that the acting is spot on by all involved. I particularly enjoyed the fact that Jonathan Howard was allowed to have a proper English accent (“Thays a fukkin bin ovah thurr!”). Fanny Valette  has little to do but does what little she has to do very well. Jess Liaudin is convincingly implacable as the cabbie with a mission. And Jonathan Demurger convincingly travels from one-note rogue to faceted human being, but no one could travel past that to the extent he is expected to do and remain convincing. Night Fare is good, solid genre fun right up until, well, right up to the point it isn’t.  If Night Fare was just a movie about two cheeky scamps who rip off a taxi driver who then stalks them through the Parisian night with violence on his mind, then it would be pretty great. Unfortunately Night Fare abruptly decides that’s not enough and makes a hard turn into some sort of comic book origin story. This just confuses things far in excess of anything the movie’s initial, elegantly simple, premise can bear. About the only bit of foreshadowing that supports this whiplash inducing change is that dogs like the driver and he doesn’t kill a cop who behaves decently. It’s not enough, son; as my Dad might say. Ultimately Night Fare doesn’t lay enough groundwork and thus chokes on a massive exposition dump that seems to jump out of nowhere like an angry cab driver in the Parisian night.

In Night Fare’s defence though I could well have missed something, as quite a bit of it is in French. There were no subtitles so I naturally assumed this was an artistic choice. Both Chris and I could be as equally bemused by the goings on around us, both of us limited to drawing only the broadest of inferences from the opaque chatter around us. This did work quite well. Initially. The party scene was just meaningless noise neither Chris nor I felt part of. When the cops stop our cheeky chaps and the encounter takes a counter intuitive route, we were both unbalanced and non-plussed. And when Luc seeks shelter with his gangsta pals the initial air of threat is suitably discombobulating. Clever stuff I thought. Or I did until the ill-advised animated (!!?!!) exposition dump narrated entirely in French. Even I figured out at that point that someone had just neglected to put subtitles on the version I was (legally) streaming. Luckily, despite being monolingual, I am able to draw information from the moving image alone (as is any normal human being) so I could pick up the gist of what I was seeing. Unfortunately the gist of what I was seeing suggested that Vlad the Impaler turned into The Count Of Monte Cristo and after a daring escape, washed up In Japan, where he stole rice until a Samurai caught him and trained him to become a weapon of justice. Not only that, but also to be part of a secret order of human justice weapons which ultimately reached their modern day incarnation in our disgruntled cab driver. Yeah, just…no. And full disclosure here - I’ve read comics since I was 5 years old, so God help anyone normal with digesting that stuff so late in the movie.

Nobody involved in Night Fare disgraces themselves, and let’s be fair, until the final act everyone positively excels. Night Fare is undoubtedly a stylish exercise in tension with some remarkably personable characters you can really root for. That is, as long as you watch a version with subtitles, and as long as you stop at the bit where someone makes a very difficult choice (you’ll know it; don’t worry). After that...eh, yeah, you’re on your own. You might like it; it’s possible. Crossed fingers, eh?

[occupyvenus]

Do you think that maybe the reason why Jon didn't share anything personal with Dany is because he was trying to deny his feelings for her by keeping things less personal as possible? And 7.07 he was finally deciding to love her?

Hi, nonny!

You know what, the first thing I’ll have to admit is that is that’s a valid argument. It’s completely possible and I have no real way to just outright refute it. It would be mostly in character for Jon, I would expect D&D to be more clear about (in the writing itself, not the additional commentary. That’s not a very reliable source for anything in my opinion… Jon snow is dead as dead, y’all) it if it was the case, but that isn’t a very solid argument on it’s own either. 

Before I go on to explain why I believe it’s unlikely, at least in my opinion, I would like to point out tree thing considering the “political jon” theory and j0nerys in general. Buckle up, I will go off topic here. 

1) While the theory gives a sufficient explanation for Jon’s behaviour in ep6 and ep7 without him having any romantic feelings towards Dany, it does not necessarily mean that he has none at all. It’s plausible that he is at least attracted and/or intrigued with her. He might even have stronger feelings than this. I’ll go into why I personally don’t believe this a bit later, but there’s no way for me to objectively deny it either. 

2) I honestly expected Jon and Dany to have some sort of romantic entanglement (unintentional incest is something that grrm would definitely do), but even with this in possibility in mind, it would still be bad storytelling. I’m not talking about the way it was presented per se, but the implications for Dany’s character development in particular. What really bothers me, or rather what makes me question the romance presented by the show, is the fact that both Jon’s newfound political conviction (Dany should rule the seven kingdoms, he gives up Northern independence to Dany freely because he believes in her cause) seems to perfectly align with his personal feelings (he’s genuinely in love with her). It’s too easy. Dany doesn’t has to give up either to gain the other. Her relationship with Jon comes without cost. 

This actually halts Dany’s character development. Or at least, it doesn’t actively further it. She gets everything she wants, both another kingdom’s allegiance and the man she has feelings for. There is no lesson for her to be learned by entering this relationship. She doesn’t have to make a hard choice, there’s no more interpersonal tension for her. No tension means no drama. No drama means no arc. No arc means no story. No story means no point. In the end, she doesn’t even have to decide between fighting the dead or fighting for the Throne. Though this will mostly likely be an issue next season. It all adds up too nicely. Dany should have to make some hard decisions, because that is how a character grows. This should also apply to her relationship with Jon, something that should be of foremost significance to her overall character development. That’s just something I would expect from a romantic relationship between two main characters. Dany should either remain unrelenting on her position on Northern Independence, straining her personal relationship with Jon, or she should be willing to enter a personal relationship with Jon, without also gaining his political support as a subject. Jon saying something like “I love you, but I can’t bend the knee because my people and all.” and Dany being all “I don’t care and stuff” or “I’ll bend the knee, but just so you know I’m not happy about it. I hate that you force me to do this.” and Dany being “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I’ve been working towards this goal half my life and I can’t give you a pass because I’m into you and stuff”. 

Some people might accuse me of thinking so because I begrudge her both political and personal happiness, but it simply doesn’t make for a compelling character arc or story. These issues could/should be resolved at the end of the series, not when we still have 6 feature-film long episodes ahead of us. Even if you could explain the, in my opinion unsatisfying development of their romance by saying Jon was simply denying his feelings, this is a critique that remains. Even the revelation of r+l=j would be a rather weak source of conflict if Dany and Jon are in a mutual, deep, sincere relationship AND agree on her being the rightful queen of the seven kingdoms.The romantic relationship between two major characters having no real personal tension during the entire finale season … just sounds implausible to me. Even if their relationship was later hindered by external sources, there should be internal sources of conflict as well, something that they have to resolve in the course of the next season. This is something from a pure story-telling perspective that bugs me about the j0nerys romance in season 7. In my opinion, the marge!Jon theory builds a compelling case in remediating this little problem (in addition to explaining some of the other ooc moments of the season). Don’t get me wrong, all these things can line up … all conflict should be resolved eventually, but not before the conclusion of the story. Not this soon into Jon and Dany’s shared arc. 

3) My opinions about all this are of course influenced by my other ideas about the series’s final conclusion. I’m trying to stay as unbiased as possible when talking about the actual direction the series could take (compared to my personal preferences), but my opinion on something as important as the relationship between two major characters is not going to be unaffected by my other opinions, expectations, speculations, theories, conclusions, etc. I do not believe that Dany will win the Iron Throne (a believe I already explained in other posts, and I won’t go into more detail here. This is already long enough), I actually believe her to take an antagonistic role at some point before the finale (I will refer you to the grrm approved “Untying the meereenese knot” essays, or anything on my blog tagged as dark!dany. But be warned: there’s probably an equal amount of warranted critique and salty wank in there.) I obviously believe Jonsa to be a thing by the end of the series (again there are many, many posts and metas on why I believe this on my blog), and while I don’t believe that a romance between Dany and Jon would necessarily forecloses the possibility of my ship happening, which means I’m not desperate enough to oppose “the other ship” by all means, it obviously makes me more critical and suspicious. Claiming anything else would be dishonest. But since believing in the ship, or at least seeing it as a foregone conclusion, makes you less critical and suspicious… you know what I’m getting at. There’s no escape from confirmation bias. 

Now, back to the original topic (and this is probably the most biased thing about this entire answer): My biggest argument against this (beside from the one mentioned in point 2) is that Jon has no reason to be in love with her. He certainly has reasons to be attracted to her or intrigued. But I can’t find something that would lead him to develop deeper feelings. 

Other than saving him from a suicide mission he only went on because she wouldn’t help him without proof for either herself or Cersei, Jon hasn’t really seen anything that would endear her to him. She does not leave a good impression at their first meeting, she later basically makes him her prisoner, refuses to form an alliance on any other basis than him bending the knee (in contrast to the one she formed with Asha and Theon), he does not seem too happy about her decision to use her dragons (even if she burned an army instead of a city) and as I already mentioned in my political Jon posts, her prioritizing her position in the south over the survival of his people should not exactly make him like her better either. It should be really hard for her to redeem herself for all this in Jon’s eyes, especially to the point where he develops genuine romantic feelings for her. 

Some people will argue that saving his life north of the wall was enough, I would argue that since she’s the main reason he even had to put himself in such danger in the first place … it wouldn’t be. So that’s something we could argue about to no end. He says that she has “a good heart”, but we never see Jon witness anything that would bring him to this conclusion. Missandei compliments Dany and tells Jon that “she is the queen we chose”… when Dany is demanding he bends the knee to her … even though his people chose HIM …and not her. He even questions Danys goodness of heart in this very conversation when asking Missandei whether she truly believes that Dany would allow her to leave. 

I don’t think that Dany’s wish to be “extraordinary”, her lamenting the confinement and subsequent demise of dragons because it changed her family into “being just like everyone else” after listening to Jorah explaining what makes dragons so dangerous they had to be locked away in the first place, is something that Jon could relate to or appreciate or find particularly attractive. To me, his response “you’re not like everybody else”, sounds like him simply telling her what she wants to hear. Not like him expressing his own thoughts. And despite what some people think Jon is really observant and knows what buttons to push: 

Guest right or no, Jon Snow knew he walked on rotten ice here. One false step and he might plunge through, into water cold enough to stop his heart. Weigh every word before you speak it, he told himself. He took a long draught of mead to buy time for his answer. When he set the horn aside he said, “Tell me why you turned your cloak, and I’ll tell you why I turned mine.”

Mance Rayder smiled, as Jon had hoped he would. The king was plainly a man who liked the sound of his own voice. “You will have heard stories of my desertion, I have no doubt.“ 

ASOS, Jon I

He has appealed to this certain characteristic before, when Dany asks for his opinion on the beach: “The people who follow you know that you made something impossible happen….”. Btw, I don’t think that Dany lashing out against her advisors left a particularly good impression either…. Not that Dany didn’t have a reason to be upset, but despite just coming from their “romantic” cave scene (romantic in lightning, setting, score and some facial expressions. Not so romantic when you think about the topic they talked about… but that’s another issue. Let’s just note this one as a bonding moment), the first real bonding moment between them this is his reaction when Dany tells to him to stay during their little war council: 

I don’t know, this doesn’t look like repressed romantic feelings to me. (I actually managed to add both a book quote and a gif.sry about the shitty quality, I made this rather quickly.) 

And even if Jon was simply hiding his true feelings, the show could have easily done a better job at showing this. Most notably when he leaves Dragonstone to go beyond the Wall. When Dany is taking another step to close the gap between them and he doesn’t react. When Jorah turns around to take a last look at the woman he loves, only emphasizing the fact that Jon doesn’t. The show could have easily written in a scene to make Jon calling her “Dany” in ep6 more plausible. To make this sudden shift from “I wish you good fortunes in the wars to come your grace” less … random. A scene where she offers to converse on a first-name basis, but he declines because “it wouldn’t be appropriate”, for example. Something to stress that he is fighting against these feelings. They could have written in a scene of Jon sharing something before the dragonpit meeting at the beginning of ep7, after the first time he appears to reciprocate her feelings on the boat, or even at some point between the dragonpit meeting and their journey back north. If this was the grand love story of the series I’m sure they could have sacrificed 1 or 2 minutes of screentime to give them some proper, mutual bonding time before doing the deed. Why not replace the group discussion with both of them having a private conversation about their journey north? They could have discussed the same issues. Instead Jon gets another one-one-one scene with Theon, where they talked about their shared daddy issues. (… btw, Jon saying that he isn’t always as good as it seems … it’s just…) Instead we get Jorah worrying about Dany’s safety, while Jon cares more about how her arrival should look like to the north. Then of course there is the issue about how their sex-scene was filmed (no first kiss, no undressing, etc.), but I’m going to leave this discussion for another time. Other people have already talked about this as well. 

Now of course all of this is open to interpretation and different people will have vastly different views on this. This is just my own. I simply can’t refute the possibility of Jon denying his feelings because of that. But in my opinion there are still so many things that don’t add up. For me, there are simply one too many indications for Jon lying about or exaggerating his feelings (though… he never actually said anything about them) and too many missed opportunities to establish an actual romance. 

Also, this doesn’t fit into Jon’s theme of learning from his predecessors mistakes. Robb did the same thing, “betraying” his people by giving in to love (at least on the show. Something that was brought up again in s6 for no reason by lord glover … though D&D might just love to use the word “whore”, who knows?). If we consider Jon to be the final big “hero” of this story he should learn a lesson from every “hero” that came before him. Now, if he had decided to love her by the end of the season, while still refusing to “betray” his people and their trust by bending the knee it would be a different story entirely. 

I will leave it at that. I’m not sure most of this even makes sense and I let my mind run free about this little innocent question for long enough. 

[ganymedesclock]

Hi! Im a big fan of your metas and I wanted your opinion in something I was looking at the paladin quiz in the official site and in the "deepest fear" question Keith's answer is feelings. I don't really think this is right, Lance's answer (losing) seems more accurate for Keith. But what do you think?

I’ve heard mixed input on the “paladin quiz” and not sure how I feel about it myself (part of it is I haven’t experienced it personally) but I think “feelings” could make sense for Keith.

Not necessarily in that he’s afraid of feeling, but, getting close to anyone in any sense, platonic or romantic, is a very scary prospect for someone who’s both starved for affection and terrified of isolation. I’ve talked before but I feel like in Keith there’s the conflicting impulse to try and not get too attached to people because he’s a defeatist who assumes they’ll leave eventually and he doesn’t want to be hurt when it happens- and also this powerful urge to attach to people as much as possible because he so badly wants to feel loved in any sense.

He’s clingy but terrified of being clingy, can’t bear people leaving but has a massive amount of learned helplessness in that regard. So, yeah, I can see “feelings” read as “feelings of solidarity and companionship with other people” qualifying as Keith’s deepest fear- because it means the world to him but at the same time, precisely for that reason, it’s been at the root of virtually every trauma he’s experienced. So, yeah, I can imagine Keith realizing he really cares about someone in either a romantic or platonic sense being met with a certain pit of dread in his stomach because oh god, what is he going to do when they leave.

Keith is a defeatist about abandonment. I think there’s something to be said that Keith’s trauma has had a consistent presence in his life and a very powerful one specifically when he was very young. There’s a kind of established pattern to Keith that tells him when someone is leaving, he can’t stop it, he can’t help it. Even when he doesn’t want it to happen, even as capable and otherwise confident as he may be- we see this with both of the holograms in the Trial of Marmora.

With Shiro- even when he refuses to give up the weapon, the absolutely heartbroken way he calls after Shiro but doesn’t actually try to run to him or stop him, even though there’s nothing holding him back. With his father, it’s easy for Keith to give up on seeing his parents again. Again, it hurts him a lot, but that reunion that he so desperately wants is relatively easy to overlook just because on some level... he can’t believe it. He can’t actually believe these people would want to come back for him, that he could actually make a decision to stop being lonely. 

There’s rare exceptions to Keith’s defeatist attitude. Consider the way he blew up at Pidge for abandoning Voltron, but, even then, it seeps through: Keith never once actually expresses the real reason he’s upset at her leaving- that he’s grown attached to her emotionally. He tries to make his appeal exclusively out of logic, necessity, because Keith has an attitude that his feelings and value in other people’s eyes is not enough to make them stay. It never is.

This might even be part of why he suggested they shouldn’t try to rescue Allura- after all his perspective was pretty clearly that if they tried they’d fail. Since when has he been able to stop someone from disappearing from his life? And now his friends want to charge into obviously unfavorable odds because somehow they think this time they’ll make it?

Basically, Keith doesn’t even realize he has a pretty warped perspective when it comes to himself, other people, and personal autonomy. He assumes this is actually how the world works, that somehow all the teamwork and solidarity speeches- on some level, don’t really count if they’re talking about him. 

As far as Lance and losing, I think of that in the context of losing a competition and I think about like... Lance has a major insecurity problem but he’s not passively mired in it. Unlike Keith, I feel like this has not been a consistent issue in Lance’s life, or an oppressive one. It’s one that comes and goes, creeps in the back door from time to time- familiar to Lance, and probably a lasting fixture, but offset by friends and family that adore him, input to the contrary, that you’re not a failure, you’re not useless, you have talents and a place here.

Lance talks up a lot of self love, and part of it feels kind of “fake it till you make it”. He seems aware that he’s predisposed to not thinking rationally about this, and we see him kind of argue it out with himself when he is feeling insecure. “They wouldn’t have me on the team if I didn’t contribute something.” The fact that he’s actively trying to hunt for and identify his good qualities.

Even when Laika seems to concur flatly and without hesitation with his insecure thoughts, Lance responds to that critically, “You don’t have to agree with me that quickly.”

He knows it’s here. He knows it’s not rational, or fair. Even with people he considers rivals or is jealous of, he can be fair about them. He’ll bicker with Keith but when given the opportunity to potentially blacken his name to a stranger, Lance instead talks him up, about how cool he is and talented and do you know he flew into an asteroid field that one time, he’s always doing stuff like that.

And I’m a filthy shipper and you know how I’m taking that, but even slicing it from a purely platonic perspective, Lance knows that jealousy sours a bit of his perspective towards Keith and unless actively set off, his instinct is to prop up his friend.

But back to the whole losing thing- Lance is more or less engaged in deep internal conflict with his insecurity. He doesn’t want to give in, he doesn’t want to let it rule his behavior, he especially doesn’t want it to hurt his interpersonal connections. And I feel like the main way Lance tries to fight his lack of self-worth? Is by trying to quantify his achievements.

I’ve mentioned before that I think it’s very significant Allura skipped the Blue Paladin virtues, and she did so because Lance took the opportunity to try and butter himself up. It’s a small thing and I would not be surprised if Allura and everyone else more or less forgot about it- but to Lance and his internal conflict, that means quite a bit, and would be something that lingers with him.

But not passively, because- well, all the paladins have something! What is he good at? He’s a good shot. He can quantify that- he can practice, he can familiarize himself with his bayard, and best of all, he can do this privately. He’s clever, he can figure this out, he doesn’t need to bug the team, he doesn’t need to make his insecurity everyone else’s problem because at its root, he’s not being fair to himself and he doesn’t want to be That Guy and fish for praise. Is he, in fact, hungry for compliments? Absolutely, but he’ll downplay it, make it a joke, make it “Local Boy Is Gloating Again”

But privately, it’s incredibly important to Lance to quantify his progress. As objectively as possible- and what possible better way to do that than competing?

If he can find his name up on that board, if he made fighter class- then he’s winning. Hasta la later insecurity, Lance is good at what he does, science has spoken. If he can one-up Keith, who was the best pilot in his class, who was the Garrison’s golden boy- he’s winning. 

(And yet, he’s too compassionate to completely enjoy if his winning comes at Keith’s expense- if he promotes to the fighter class because Keith was expelled from the Garrison. The other side, I think, of his discomfort occupying “someone else’s spot” for personal gain, outside of it fueling his insecurity because he’s just a spare tire to these people)

So why would he be scared of losing? Because if Lance puts himself out there, if he competes somehow, and loses- if his objective source of reassurance isn’t so reassuring- then he slips. Then even if it’s a minor thing, even if it’s a fluke, even if he’s gonna get it next time- his insecurity is right next to him slamming pots together chanting “DEATH AND DISHONOR”

It seems like a way bigger deal than it is and even if externally he tries to laugh it off, it’ll eat at him, big time. And he’s slightly resistant reaching out to outside forces because Lance this is dumb it was literally one tiny mistake it was totally insignificant can you not make a massive deal out of everything for once in your life oh my god

I say “slightly”, because- again, even if he’s probably somewhat ashamed- knowing it’s irrational, knowing it’s silly, knowing he is not a seventh wheel- there’s still the fact that Lance seems to have come from a loving supporting family and overwhelmingly, against his reflex of “this is irrelevant and I should probably deal with it on my own” there is a tide of experiences that say people care about him and want to help him. If someone asks him “is everything all right?” that they actually want to hear it, and isn’t just making idle conversation.

It might be scary to Lance, unprompted, to sit down and talk to the team about “so hey I maybe have a chronic insecurity problem.” But if he’s feeling lonely or down or scared, or it comes up, and someone pursues that thread, it takes very little for Lance to open up. I think the trick is just he wants some small outside confirmation that “it’s okay, I’m here and I want to listen” because part of it is, see Lance removing himself from the party when he got homesick in s1e4- he doesn’t want to bring other people down by burdening them with his troubles, since he has a pretty keen sense when other people are stewing in it and usually wants to help others with their problems. 

[rickjsage]

In a prior post I write about circumstances and materials read while also acknowledging that I hold some internal conflict related to current “Authority” of “The State.”  I also write about feelings of guilt and anxiety for having mentally challenged instilled conventional ideas on the moral superiority allocated to State entities, “Personal Adaptation:  Unexamined Assumption To Authority.”

Serious of analogical reasoning (which is a special type of inductive argument whereby perceived similarities are used as a basis to infer some further similarity that has yet to be observed to better understand the world and to make safer decisions) and my discussions with Dr. Gail Bach allows me to further appreciate and diminish some guilt and anxiety for holding mental opposition to Authority.

Covenant Of A Social Contract

Since birth, the concept of a social contract -in one form or another- has been imprinted onto all.  John Rawls bring out the understanding of what moral principles come after the creation of a social contract.  Rawls designs a hypothetical situation in which everyone is equal to each other, the situation is guaranteed a fair outcome, and concludes that what people will generally agree to in this (or say that) specific situation is therefore deemed to be just.

But consider the same appeal with the abstract concept of the familiar government substitute with a non-government agent as the only variation, the moral principles doesn’t sell as well.

Under the hypothetical “consent of a social contract” and in view that I’m currently assisting others’ tax returns, I’m able to imagine tax collecting States via IRS revamped tax return forms designed with two little boxes that read,  “Check To Continue Government Entity,”  “Ο -YES”    “Ο-NO,”  and where States receive “Ο-NO” checked off forms forgo and return prior withheld income collected.  Imagine that, such an action would bring legitimacy for the amount of individual “Authority” currently surrendered to States.

Being broad-minded, I can consider the above and many multiple non-hypothetical and hypothetical contract accounts.  I can also consider another political philosophy as being pro-authority and anti-contractarian in the strictest philosophical sense.

I can even consider a consequentialist’s attitude to defend the idea of State authority, but with the premise that a contract is not a good way to explain or justify current authority relations: Scenario argument a) to appeal to some more direct consequential considerations, like what would the consequences be if there wasn’t somebody in authority.  Or scenario argument b) known to many philosophers as the “Fair Play Argument,” wherein you and I owe it to others to enter into cooperative social relations and to not be free loaders because of these relations.   An argument that when someone enters a world where invisible social contracts have already been in existence we’re all morality bound to play along as if there’s really “Authority” regardless of belief or attitude.

The notion of “Authority” is complicated and to break away from consequentialist consideration comes the idea of content-independence theory.  Simply put, the theory means you and I should obey the law even when the government is wrong; even if it’s a bad law we’re still obligated to obey it and the government is still entitled to enforce it.

  Social contracts and variations of are puzzling.  As such, these ideas should be scrutinized  under the realm of epistemology.  Are social contracts and the theory of knowledge supporting such concepts justified beliefs or are they merely opinions?

The investigation to better understand distinguished and special Presumption of State Authority should be tackled.

Normally I assume that things are the way they appear unless there is a reason for doubting that.  This presumption applies in ethical questions as well as non-value functional questions.  Cases can be described to us wherein a general consensus of a particular activity is viewed as being wrong, then we as a collective assume that that’s the case, unless there’s some pretty strong reason to think otherwise.

Let that premise be the foundation of all moral reasoning.  It might seem like an obvious methodological political philosophy point about  that we start from common sense moral beliefs.

When evaluating what States ought to do, I think of society’s shared beliefs about what people ought to do.  And yet, I now see this methodological point of view is not appreciated.  How have I come to conclude this?  By way of observing that successful politicians start from very controversial theoretical claims rather than from commonly accepted values.  The common practice of politicians and political philosophers causes a psychological effect in that each may create illusion that States are a ‘dis-analogous’ to that of human actors, as if there’s something special about Statehood.

How can it be that what might be morally forbidden in the case of interpersonal interaction may be permissible when one of the actors is not seen as a person but rather as a State?

The Unwanted Version Of Utopian Upon Assumption

Why do people advocate for governments to do that which people typically wouldn’t advocate for anyone else to do?  Most don’t offer an account for why “The State” is different from all other agents.

Suppose I don’t want people consuming unhealthy substances and I make an announcement to this neighborhood of a list of items neighbors are no longer allowed to consume.  Then suppose I start hiring armed guards to go around looking for neighbors who are consuming the things I declared unhealthy for consumption.  And then I tell my armed guards to collect fines for first-case offenders and to kidnap second-case offenders for future imprisonment.  I’m pretty sure everyone would consider this to be very wrong behavior.  Even people who agree with my policy to not  consume unhealthy foods are not going to agree with my hiring of armed guards.  Yet people commonly advocate for this sort of behavior from governments.  Why?

Holding less anxiety and guilt, I’m going to allow myself to write as if I view “Authority” as this hypothetical moral property.

“The State” is thought to have a kind of special moral status that sets it apart from and above other agents.  This special moral status explains why States are entitled to coerce people in a wide range of circumstances while no other agent would be permitted to coerce people.  That part, that is, the entitlement to coerce other people is known as political legitimacy.  While the other part of authority is generally thought as people being obligated to obey States’ commands even when people would not be obligated to obey similar commands if issued by anyone else.

The not so puzzling question isn’t that people think there’s obligation to obey States and that States are entitled to use coercion.  Rather, the oh-so-puzzling question is that people think there’s an automatic PRESUMPTION of special State moral authority.

There needs to be some kind of explanation of what’s so special about this one agent.  The advocates for moral authority will make the argument that we should obey the law just because it’s law …Not because it’s a good idea.  Now these people (to be considered an advocate for moral authority) don’t have to think that we’re obligated to obey every law without restriction no matter what, but these advocates do think that at least there’s some reason for obeying the law just because it’s a law.

And so:

forcing someone to do something that they otherwise wouldn’t have a reason to do besides the threat of another,

forcing someone to do something that they otherwise don’t want to do,

forcing someone to do something that they have a reason to do,

and forcing someone to do something that they want to do,

are all ideas of coercion under idiosyncratic mentality.  Meaning, the word “coercion” isn’t used in ordinary English.  The word “coercion” is used as a tool to imagine using some form of threat towards other including physical violence.

“Authority” is a very peculiar alleged moral phenomenon.  As with most good questions I’ll ponder at something that looks peculiar thinking what in the world could possible justify that, or why should I believe that such a property actually exists.

In setting up this question involving presumption, the premise of the conflict starts with “Absolute Moral Principles“, i.e., a difference in moral status can never be justified.

Thanks to chapter 4-7 of Michael Huemer’s “The Problem of Political Authority,” I now have a different start of this “Special Moral Status” with understanding there’s a presumption that certain kinds of behavior are unjustified.  Philosopher Michael Huemer is not stating the premise of coercion is never justified, instead Huemer points out this premise starts with a presumption.

“The presumption” element is the value that brings wonder to challenge “State Moral Authority,” and is the element I finally connected to my own conflict with many beliefs.

There is a presumption that people are moral equals, so it becomes the burden of States to explain why it holds this unusual moral position that seems to set itself above all other moral agents.

Political philosophers distinguish between Philosophical Anarchism and Political Anarchism, but these names are misleading because both views are philosophical and both views are political.

Philosophical Anarchist is usually defined as the view that you don’t have an obligation to obey the law just because it’s the law.  That no acting State officer is entitled to coerce other people just because s/he represents a State.  And that a State agent is entitled to coerce people, but the reason for such authority cannot be based on the mere premise of representing a State.

Political Anarchism is usually defined as the best society without government.

Notice these are distinct thoughts.  You or I can believe that the government doesn’t have a special moral status but still think that the best society would include one with a government.

From my early years at University I hold a strong understanding of Mr. Robert Nozick’s Theory of Justice (published in 1974’s “Anarchy, State, and Utopia“) that seems to advocate from both hands of philosophical and political beliefs.

Articles on economic systems written by Mr. Bryan Capan, as well as Mr. Michael Huemer’s “The Problem of Political Authority,” explain with strong confidence how anarchism can theoretically serve society well.

The psychological connection to “Authority” is also a puzzling phenomenon.  Authority’s power derives from the concept of a social contract.  The traditional version of a social contract written by John Locks claims that in someway human beings agreed to have a “States” and agreed to obey “States.”

I’m not gonna lie, my exposure and study of Adam Smith and modern-day influencers prevented me from really exposing myself to the works of John Locks.  I thought why bother when Adam Smith is to John Locks as Lady Gaga is to Madonna.

Today I know that the conceptual terrain provided by John Lock’s originality better clarifies the main problem with this traditional theory is the alleged social contract doesn’t satisfy the conditions that would be imposed on any other contract in any other content.  Nobody can show you or me the actual contract with everybody’s signatures on it.  Nobody remembers an event representing John Locke’s theory, whether before the 17th century, during the 17th century, and to present day.

Even if someone uses the argument that we agreed implicitly (taking on the actions that would manifest an actual contract) by the mere fact that we behave in such a way does not imply you and I are in agreement to a social contract.

Most who use the implicit argument use government services or living within certain territory to solidify a social contract.  There are other arguments involving implicit support of social contract, but with some thought you might (as I have) believe arguments as being kind of cray-cray.

  John Locks’ “tacit consent theory” brings about this view that it is possible to enter into implicit consent without ever knowing it.  However, that theory does not bring justification as a pillar leading to the creation of social contracts.

Controlled And Totalitarian

Imagine trying to sue somebody by claiming that Person X agreed to pay a thousand dollars.  Now imagine the way you plan to argue the claim is by saying to a judge that person X agreed to pay a thousand dollars by living on your land and that you as the land’s owner you would have offered the person you’re now suing the opportunity to leave the neighborhood if s/he didn’t pay a thousand dollars to you without you even mentioning it.  And that by not making the term of a thousand dollars known that’s how you’re arguing  Person X believed to have known of a thousand dollar obligation.   I mean really (even with a Wrington, UK 17th century historical context), any person in any other context claiming to have such a contract on that basis …Well that person would be laughed out of court.

As such, it remains unclear how “The State” can claim that we agree just because we’re living in a particular area.  Now States might be able to make that claim if it actually owned all lands … But then again that would mean States  would not need to appeal to any agreement based on condition that they hold property rights.  The only way that claim would work is if you and I have no account on how “The State” owned all this land and would therefore have to assume “The State” has all this political authority.

So if States already had this alleged authority then it can pass a law that says that they own everything.  But if States don’t already have authority then it can’t make such a claim.  Guess what, there’s no other account that anyone has been given such moral right to authority.  No other person has ever shown right to demand that everybody leave their own land if people don’t want to have the establishment of a government.

Incidentally, there’s a case to be made that the government doesn’t make obedience to the law on condition you and I are using government services when -say- there’s a guy living in the woods by himself yet the government still impose laws on him and other who live with that same lifestyle.  Should anyone happen to be up in the woods alone smoking Huana-Jane that person could still be arrested for that.  Therefore, the government does not make for obedience to law conditional on use of government services.

In fact, there’s no connection at all for the government to claim that we own it the same amount of taxes and have to obey the same laws, or will allow States to do the same things to us (or for us) regardless of independent decisions.  Whether we send your kids to public schools or not we’re still paying some tax for the allocation of others to use public schools.

So, with that same logic it doesn’t look plausible that you or I agreed to pay the taxes by sending kids to public school – similar to other government services.  These sort of social contract theories, which tries to make use of the concept of either implicit or explicit action as grounds to claim real consent does not work within the realm of logic, reason, or historical context.

Since the late 90’s I’ve been somewhat aware of my “showdown” mental attitude towards authority.  The last 10 years I’ve been dealing with this growing wonder for why I feel entrapment by way of an invisible social contract. It’s today that I start not being overly anxious when I’m itching to really reflect on this and many other “so-called” legitimacy.  And I’m grateful to the many minds who helped guide exploration of another perspective.

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The Gaze Of Presumed Political Authority

Symbol: Anarcho-Capitalism

Reference To Post:

Freeman, Samuel. “Original Position.” First published Tue Feb 27, 1996; substantive revision Tue Sep 9, 2014.  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  Accessed June 2016

Dagger, Richard & Lefkowitz, David. “Political Obligation.”  First published Tue Apr 17, 2007; substantive revision Thu Aug 7, 2014.  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/political-obligation/  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  Accessed June 2016

Edmundson, William A. (DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780195396577-0194)  “Philosphical Anarchism.”  First published July 24, 2013; substantive revision October 8, 2015.  http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396577/obo-9780195396577-0194.xml  Oxford Bibliographies.  Accessed January 2017

Gordon, Uri.  “Anarchism and Political Theory: Contemporary Problems.”  First published 2007.  https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/uri-gordon-anarchism-and-political-theory-contemporary-problems  The Anarchist Library.  Accessed January 2017

Mack, Eric. “Robert Nozick’s Political Philosophy.”  First published Sun June 22, 2014.  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nozick-political/  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  Accessed December 2016

Greenwood, Bowen.  “Tacit Consent: A Quiet Tyranny.”  First published Sun January 1, 1995. https://fee.org/articles/when-equal-access-means-zero-access-for-all/  Freedom For Economic Education.  Accessed January 2016

  Reference To Post “Personal Adaptation:  Unexamined Assumption To Authority“:

Huemer, Michael. “The Problem of Political Authority.” http://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/1.htm Accessed January 2017

Capan, Bryan Douglas.  “Humane Studies Review.” http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/Anarjus and http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/nonviolent.pdf   Accessed Years 2014-2017

Finnis, John.  “Aquinas’ Moral, Political, and Legal Philosophy.” First published Fri Dec 2, 2005; substantive revision Thu Feb 23, 2017.  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas-moral-political/  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed March 2017

Nozick, Robert.   ” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, November 2002: Volume 76, Issue 2.”  https://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/Nozick.pdf

Davis, John.  “Rawlsian Individuals: Justice, Experiments, and Complexity.” Published Version. Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. 46, No. 3 (September 2012): 729-743.  https://www.routledge.com/posts/8417?acr=jei  Accessed January 2017

  The Presumption of Special State Moral Authority: How Presumptions Can Be Dangerous And Inhibit Deeper Though In a prior post I write about circumstances and materials read while also acknowledging that I hold some internal conflict related to current "Authority" of "The State."  I also write about feelings of guilt and anxiety for having mentally challenged instilled conventional ideas on the moral superiority allocated to State entities, "