Freya - The Sword - Decoded

DISCLAIMER: I OWN NO RIGHTS TO THIS SONG; ALL RIGHTS BELONG TO THE BAND, THE SWORD. THIS POST IS MERELY FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES.

Lyrics: Freya
A sword of fire and an axe of cold
Vision of the Sibyl has foretold
Armies gather on the battle-plain
All will fall and earth will die in flame

Here on the battle-plain
We will die in flame

In falcon's feathers soaring overhead
Choosing warriors among the dead
Twilight written in the runes of crones
Freya weeps upon her golden throne

Upon her golden throne
We wait for her alone
Call us unto you hall
Take us into your thrall

The battle rages, but they fight in vain
When all is done it must begin again

FROM THEIR 2006 ALBUM,  Age of Winters.

Freya is a Norse Goddess more specifically the Moon Goddess who was always depicted as promiscuous which is why she is associated with fertility; Freya has many of the same features of the other Moon Goddess throughout Astro-theological religions like Semiramis, Diana, Isis, etc. The first line is a reference to the duality of the Sun/Moon dynamic; The Sun being the Sword of Fire and the Moon being an Axe of Cold for obvious reasons.

The next line hints to the Valkyries who gather dead warriors, half of them to be exact while Freya gets the other half; it should be noted further that the Valkyries are the Norse equivalent of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and symbolize the flame. Which explains the next line which states that the entire Earth will die in flame.

The next verse refers to the falcon which is also associated with Freya; as the myth goes Freya had falcon plumes which she possessed that she could give to someone and they would shape-shift into a falcon; but when she take on the falcon form it is to choose her half of the dead warriors for the eternal battle in Valhalla.

The next two line I am struggling to decode but I do know that runes are a type of stone associated with mysticism and crones is a reference to the ancient Greek god Chronos who was the personification of both the planet Saturn and Time. It is from his name that we get the term Chronological which is organizing something in a logical order with respect to time.

This personification of Saturn which is also know as "El" would later be applied to the Norse God Odin. It is also worth noting that the word Saturn comes from the latin word "Sathan" which means adversary and is also the etymology of the term Satan. Now follow this...Lucifer who is "Sathan" the adversary and personification of the planet Saturn (El), was an ang-EL, who fe-EL into he-EL where he became the dev-EL and is widely regarded as ev-EL. Keep this in mind as I bring it all together at the end.

The next two lines are referencing Freya on her throne and the warriors waiting for her; but the final four lines are probably the most important of the entire song, at least in terms of understanding the the story being told.

"Call us into your hall", means to call us to Valhalla; Valhalla is not the Norse representation of Heaven. Valhalla is Valh-EL-la; which means the realm of EL or Saturn. The next line states "take us into your thrall". A thrall was a serf or slave in the Ancient Scandinavian societies, and today the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a thrall as either "a person in moral or mental servitude" or "a state of servitude or submission". To take us into your thrall would be to make us your slaves, in this particular case the slaves of endless war. "The battle rages, but they fight in vain; when all is done they must begin again." Because they have been brought to the realm of El or Valh-El-la they must be adversaries to one another; but Saturn is also the God of Time or more specifically the God of the Time Loop, which is why their battles are in vain for it will loop around to begin again. It is because of this time loop that Saturn is associated with the number 8 because turned sideways it is the symbol of infinity or the time loop which is often depicted as the ouro boros, which is the snake eating itself.

One last important note to make is that Freya and Odin's wife Frigg are practically identical in their personifications which means they are the same deity. And further implies Freya is Odin's wife and that her and the Valkyries are working together in order to stage this eternal war. Sure, you can say that Freya and Odin are polar opposites. But the Earth has two polar opposite point as well, but still remains the same singular planet.

Now just tell me if this sounds familiar at all, two factions who claim to be against each other. Who recruit the population to argue and fight each other, but no matter who seizes the upper-hand the endless war continues.

Interestingly, what is the symbol of the Republican Party in America? Of course it is the EL-ephant=Saturn/Odin; and the symbol of the Democrats the Donkey of course! Which is a specific type of (W)horse=Moon Goddess/Freya. With all that said I do love this song and The Sword puts on a fantastic live performace.

Bramble's Ramble

                Introduction: For my third and final paper, I have chosen to focus on Ben Bramble’s essay the Six Pillars of Meat Eating.

                Author’s Argument: The objection that Bramble is answering to in Section 3 goes as such “The benefits conferred on us by the pleasures of meat-eating are not trivial. Without these pleasures, our lives would be much worse for us.” Bramble begins building the foundation of his argument against this particular defense of meat-eating, by granting the fact that we greatly benefit from social situations which often consist of meat-eating.  But Bramble reject that meat-eating is a necessary condition in the enjoyment of these social situations; rather Bramble acknowledges the reality that most American restaurants have a lousy vegetarian selection as a result of the prevalence of meat consumption. Bramble further suggests that if vegetarianism was as prevalent as meat consumption then restaurants would accommodate that demand with a robust and flavorful vegetable based menu, without diminishing the benefits of our social interactions.

                Bramble then moves on to the so-called “desire based theory” which states that getting what one wants determines their level of welfare. Bramble replies to this claim with a modification of this theory to be termed “idealized desires”; which means the desires an agent would have if they were fully informed on the implications of their desires. Bramble believes that if people made their eating choices in full awareness of the methodology of procurement for their meat, that most would chose not to eat that meat. With these premises established it leads Bramble to set up the argument which will be the center of my focused objection to his essay. Because Bramble feels he has sufficiently established meat-eating at best as a trivial benefit to humans, Bramble further suggest that eating meat actually does harm to humans. Bramble suggests that meat consumption causes “unconscious pain” by turning us into people who cannot experience more important pleasures like the love of animals. By neglecting our love for animals we cause ourselves to feel sad, guilty, or live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance; which begs us to re-evaluate our decisions. Therefore the argument I object to is laid out as such:

(1)    If something causes unconscious pain, then we are harmed by that act.

(2)    Meat consumption causes unconscious pain.

(3)    Therefore, meat consumption harms us.

(4)    Thus, we should not eat meat.

Focused Objection: My focused objection to Bramble’s argument above against eating meat, can be properly described as a generalization objection. I do not deny the logical progression of the first three steps but his move from meat eating harms us to we should not do it is objectionable. I object to the move because he seems to imply that eating a vegetarian diet is not subject to the same logical progression. In my dissection of the flaws of this particular move I will begin with practices which are considered to be just as, if not even more inhumane than meat-production practices associated with vegetarianism down to even how strict veganism cannot escape the logical progressions of Bramble’s argument.

In Vegetarianism dairy products and eggs are permissible. However, many animal rights activists assert that not only is the way we generally produce these eggs and milk products just as horrid as the meat production in many ways they are even worse. Eric Dietz Goldberg even asserted that cows subjected to a life of milking are repeatedly raped and have their calves either aborted or removed from their care as they stand in small confines of their own feces and waste. Furthermore, animals used for these purposes often live a drawn out life of suffering to extract every drop of milk or every last egg; as opposed to animals used for meat production which live a shorter brutish lifestyle.

Bramble may then respond and say that only eating vegetables grown from the Earth could avoid this objection. However, that reply would entirely overlook the conventional farming technique by which we get most of our vegetables. With these conventional systems of farming, farmers will use large heavy machinery which indiscriminately kills an untold amount of insects and rodents in a gruesome manner similar to that of the much-maligned conventional meat production systems.  Continue further down the line and it is well known that the practice of using pesticides in or on crops is widespread. In fact, 90% of the corn produced in the United States is genetically modified; these GM ears of corn are specifically designed to produce their own pesticide known as Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT). The studies on BT corn have shown that when bugs try to eat it their stomachs literally explode! This is yet another example of gruesome and painful death via vegetarianism.

It seems inevitable that this discussion would lead to the suggestion that veganism and more specifically strict vegan farming methods are the solution. In theory, strict vegan farming would be able to avoid my criticism; for by definition strict veganic farming does absolutely no harm to animals. The question I then raise is; in practice, is strict veganic farming even attainable? If even one ant’s leg were broken or one fruit fly got a stomach ache it would by definition not fit strict veganic farming criteria. Furthermore, the definition of Bramble’s notion of “unconscious pain” would be pain that you are not aware of causing or having; and deductively speaking again we do not know what we do not know. So it is possible that someone pursuing strict veganic farming could not ever truly know if they were living up to that incredibly high-standard.

As a final consideration of this generalization objection let us suppose that someone were able to attain a truly veganic farming system; my question would be, what evidence do we have that plant life cannot be harmed? Remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Furthermore, if we go by the assumption of that which can be benefitted can also be harmed we see there is a wealth of evidence to support plant rights. Everyone agrees that plants are living organisms; humans regularly engage in the activity of watering plants because it is known that doing so is in their best interest (benefit). However, we are also well aware that too much water can literally drown and kill the plant (harm).
Within the last few years across the United States there has been the widespread phenomenon of once healthy trees dying; this has been due to the high concentration of aluminum in the soil. The tree senses the toxin in the soil and instead of taking it in and compromising its long-term genetic structure, these trees altogether stop gathering nutrients from the soil and in-essence starve themselves to death; just  further evidence that plants can be harmed and seek out their benefit, but not evidence that we should not eat them.

Scalia's Symphony

            Antonin Scalia rose to the position of Supreme Court Justice in 1986. In twenty-seven years as a member of the only American court to have both original and appellate jurisdiction, Justice Scalia has consistently argued for his method of determination he calls “textualism”. Scalia’s major essay and responses were published in his 1998 book A Matter of Interpretation[1], this book also features objections from Gordon S. Wood (Professor, Brown), Laurence H. Tribe (Professor, Harvard) Mary Ann Glendon (Professor, Harvard) and Ronald Dworkin; who passed away on Valentine’s Day 2013, after a long battle with Leukemia at the age of 81. Textualism can be defined as a process of defining language and deducing the meaning based on “text and tradition” not “intellectual, moral, and personal perceptions”, which according to Justice Scalia would constitute a government of laws not men.

          Scalia opens his essay commenting on how when one begins to study general law it initiates a mental shift manifest in the methodology of analysis of information, and gives full sense to the cliché of “thinking like a lawyer”. Scalia marvels at some of the interesting ways common law can be contorted and combined with other statutes till the desired outcome is achieved. However, Justice Scalia’s job on the Supreme Court is not to judge common law but provide statutory interpretation.

            This is the first key distinction Scalia makes at the beginning of the essay; and it is the difference between common law, used more in smaller courts and most criminal trials; and statutory/regulatory interpretation which Scalia states is the primary job of the Supreme Court. This distinction plays a key role because textualism attempts to objectify, as much as possible, the text within the context to draw a conclusion that is logically consistent, even if circumstantially difficult. Justice Scalia provides the example of the case of Maryland vs. Craig[2]. The case had reached the Supreme Court level because of the appeal to the Sixth Amendment; the case was against an alleged child sex offender and the child was said to be so traumatized that they could not face the accused in court and thus set up a one-way television set for the testimony. That special accommodation directly conflicts with the clear language of the Sixth Amendment “...to be confronted with witnesses against him...”

           Scalia dissented in this case because it seemed so clear that text of the Sixth Amendment had been contradicted. The inherent nature of this case namely, child abuse, exponentially magnifies the emotional public response; however the prosecution did not want to put the child on trial, thus could not sufficiently satisfy the Sixth Amendment rights of the accused. Implied within his dissent is a harsh truth of constitutional and statutory interpretation, that Justices should not allow personal feeling of a case factor in the decision, to the point where the defendant is assumed guilty.

Supreme Court Justices are not moral arbiters but interpreters of legal language, same as a musician in a symphony interprets prewritten musical language. Within this analogy the Legislator and Constitution (Supreme Law) would be composers of the music being played by the symphony. It is true that the piece of music may have a solo; implying an individual’s interpretation, but a good musician will solo in key with the song so that the two remain fundamentally connected. Likewise judges read legal language and Justice Scalia believes they should stick to the script as much as possible; without the metaphorical solos. The intrinsic purpose of the Supreme Court however, is to be the highest court of the Republic. So it comes as no surprise that the cases they generally receive are not cut and dry decision, and even if we agree with the accommodation that was made in this case it is beyond any doubt a violation of the Sixth Amendment.        

            Justice Scalia goes on to warn about cases of this nature because they can seem innocent and even morally exemplary; but any case has the potential to grow insidiously and be spread into common law and throughout the legal system, to the point where false victims can make allegations without ever facing the accused. The preservation of liberty requires diligence and to contradict the language is in effect creating new statutes, this decision expands the influence of unelected judge’s decisions into a legislative role. Scalia fiercely rejects any type of legislative judiciary view and believes that his job is to officiate and know the rule book, not continually change the game as it goes. Without the core essence of textual intent the document is rendered completely useless, we might as well draft a new constitution every generation if we believe the application of the text to be dynamic.   

            Critics of textualism often say that strict interpretation of the Constitution slows down societal progress, instead of leading for social justice and other democratic ideals. This of course is hardly a coherent objection if one understands the purpose of the language in the Constitution to form a Republic, with certain individual rights guarded from popular legislation; acting as a stabilizing mechanism and underpinning the core values of the Republic.  Innovation of technology through creativity leads the trajectory of a society; the court’s job is to interpret the Constitution along the same lines as was textual and contextually implied. For example, the First Amendment has no mention of the internet or telephones among many others; yet when Congress attempted to pass the SOPA bill[3] the people killed the bill before it could even get to the Supreme Court. Again, Scalia seems to be pointing out the very nature of the role as Supreme Court Justice because if the people believe a bill violates their rights it generally will not make it the whole way to the Supreme Court. That is why the cases they do receive concerning Constitutional or statutory law must stay in tune with the Constitutional language and precedent.

            Throughout the essay Scalia makes the point that because the Supreme Court has such an odd relationship in respect to the notion of democracy, the Supreme Court has the potential to grow further away from the Judicial Review paradigm (which was not bestowed upon the Supreme Court at the conception of the constitution, and many framers were against the court having the power of Judicial Review). Reliance on Legislative History or Legislative Intent in Justice Scalia’s view is insufficient means to take a stance on a vote, and will inevitably lead to an even messier maze of cognitive dissonance and moral ambiguity.

            Justice Antonin Scalia has a very polarizing effect, recently I watched Rachel Maddow go on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and accuse Scalia of “trolling” and just saying outrageous things for the publicity or shock value. One thing that must be acknowledged is his consistency in his methodology of a decision; which is the greatest quality one can look for in a person whose job it is to make interpretive decision, such as a referee. All that can be truly asked for is that a foul in the first quarter is called the same in the second quarter; likewise for judges a violation of a statute is a violation of a statute regardless of circumstance.

                            

Bibliography

"Maryland v. Craig." Supreme Court Ruling, Washington D.C., 1990. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/89-478.ZD.html

House of Representatives. "Stop Online Piracy Act." House Resolution 3261, Washington D.C., 2011.

                http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr3261

Scalia, Antonin. A Matter of Interpretation. New York: Princeton University Press, 1998.

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[1] A Matter of Interpretation. Written by Antonin Scalia. 1998. New York City, NY. Princeton University Press

[2] Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836 (1990).

[3] Stop Online Privacy Act. H.R. 3261. Introduced October 26^th, 2011 in the House.

Education or Indoctrination?

1.)     What is your vision of a great public school? What are key characteristics of a great school?

Answer: My idea of a great school is somewhere where freedom of expression is encouraged and celebrated. One of the great points made during the movie was the fact that children are weeded out to find those who are most suggestible and submissive to the official story of events and the overall ideas pushed on us as students.  Overwhelmingly, the school system is as such. We are given left-brain information, told to hold onto it, and then regurgitate that information verbatim onto an exam paper. School's train children the opposite of what happens in real life; where they are given a test then learn a lesson...in school we are given the lesson the expected to pass the test. My senior year of High School I took an Art class at Tomball High School, I failed that Art class because the only types of things she wanted us to draw were Vincent Van Gogh landscape drawings. Throughout the semester my teacher used scare-tactics telling me that I would fail her class and wouldn’t graduate. I remember looking her in the eyes one day and asked “This is an Art class, right?”; “yes”; “Art is supposed to be creative…”; “yes”;  “what is creative about me drawing the exact same thing as everyone else?” This was supposed to be art, a right-brain activity, and here she is using fear-tactic (left-brained) and trying to make everyone conform to the same hierarchy (left-brain). Isn’t it interesting to see those schools cutting back on their budget, the first place they cut are music programs, art classes, theatre programs etc.; right-brain stimulation. Then generally, people who are engaged in these programs, specifically band are labeled as nerds and geeks.  My idea for reform of schools is to find balance between left-brain and right-brain stimulation. Especially in government, economics, history really anything other than math and science like chemistry, and physics which are largely objective.  Imagine Government classes where we are regularly encouraging kids to debate current issues other than abortion and immigration. Have them debate relevant issues that even mainstream media doesn’t touch. Point out and discuss the rampant voting fraud going on during the election; the differences, or lack thereof, between the “Republican” and “Democratic” nominees for President. We could do this for economics as well, I remember talking on and on in economics class my senior year about the Federal Reserve, yet it wasn’t till after that class I learned that it was a privately owned for-profit business enterprise, unregulated by any system of government. As Albert Einstein once said “It is amazing that curiosity survives a formal education.” The Orwellian term used, the “education system”, when we really dive into it the true motives of this system becomes plainly obvious, it is an “indoctrination system”; and will continue to be as such so long as we reward mediocre teachers with tenure, feed our children fast-food quality lunches, stifle independent thought while rewarding robotic regurgitation, and cut back on artistic (right-brained) programs even more. Another great point made during the movie was that for the price of incarcerating a person 4 years, we could send them to a private school for 13 years. But wait, believe it or not these Federal Prisons are also privately owned for-profit. Now what once seemed a mystifying misplacement of funds now comes into full conscious awareness. “Education” isn’t designed to create large groups of open-minded, critically thinking, emotionally balanced adults. It has been used as a means to further separate rich from the poor, to the point now where having just a high school diploma won’t get you a decent job.  Now we look at skyrocketing prices for Colleges and the overall price of living it’s no wonder the chasm between the rich and poor is growing on an exponential curve while the middle-class is dying. Then we look at those who do make it through this whole system have been in the system from age 5 to 22 and that’s just a bachelor’s degree which now is minimal. Doctor’s, PH.Ds, Masters, and most teachers will have been into the system till they’re almost 30, with close to a million dollars in debt, and relatively devoid of any independent thought. In the end my idea for a good school system is best described again by Albert Einstein “The aim of education must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, can see in the service to the community their highest life achievement.” 

    

2.) Who is responsible for creating and sustaining great public schools? What is your role, and what needs to happen in your community to create more public ownership of your local public school?

Answer: I believe it is the responsibility of the county district to create schools and the states responsibility to provide funds for the schools. But at the core level, it is incumbent upon the parents to cultivate their child’s mind. Unfortunately, what we see on a growing scale is children entering schools and daycares at younger and younger ages. Also contributing to this, is the skyrocketing price of living; forcing both parents to work with no time to raise the children which allows for the state to get ahold of their child’s young mind and mold it to the official version of “education”. The challenge for parents isn’t necessarily to control the school system, but to make it a personal mission to push their children’s education as a continuous process not just while at school. This isn’t to be done in the same manner that the schools “educate”, giving children more worksheets, more deadlines, and stress would be the last thing children need to truly educate. We need to encourage kids to pursue right-brain activities like learning an instrument or drawing and coloring. Get them to turn off the TV and go outside and run around with their friends. Children get more than enough left-brain information during a school day, what we need is to break this cycle of 24-hours of left-brain information from Schools and TV.