The Case for Meritocracy

Introduction

The human race is ill. One story above all reveals the sickness at the core of the human psyche... the tale of the Tree of Knowledge. What does it say about the human race that knowledge is associated with the loss of paradise, with the forbidden, with the defiance of the rightful authority (God), with alliance with the serpent (the Devil), and with the advent of suffering, sin, and death?! Why should we be surprised that Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, described reason as the Devil’s whore? Why was Socrates put to death by Athenian democracy? Why has no genius ever been a king, prime minister or president? Why are intellectuals held in contempt? Knowledge and reason have always been viewed by the human race as distasteful, suspect, unnatural, and likely to lead to trouble.

Of course, the smartest human beings have always taken the opposite view. It’s ignorance, faith and irrationalism that are holding back humanity. The allegory of the Ship of Fools derives from Plato, one of the world’s greatest geniuses, and describes the disaster that will befall a ship if the crew gets rid of the navigator..., i.e., if the fools, contemptuous of knowledge and expertise, put themselves in charge of steering the vessel.

Human history has been subject to three disastrous forces – three Horses of the Apocalypse, we might say. They are: 1) the power of violence (war, military strength... everything that’s sustained by brute force), 2) the power of stories (religion, monarchy... everything sustained by the beliefs people hold, by the Mythos they have chosen to explain their lives to themselves), and 3) the power of money (the universal currency for buying what you want, for getting people to do what you want because they crave the money you can give them).

Human societies have always been ruled by military elites, or Mythos elites (religious or royal), or rich elites. They have never been ruled by intellectual elites.

Humanity could be saved by knowledge, understanding, reason and logic, but these have always been despised by the average person. Plainly, none of these things plays any role in the lives of typical Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, or consumer capitalists. They play no part in prayer, meditation and going shopping. No one in the West says you can be saved by maximising your intelligence; no, you must instead maximise your irrational faith. No one in the East says that the path to Enlightenment is the one concerned with the most rational ontology and epistemology; no, you must cross your legs, close your eyes, and literally try to escape from your own mind – the exact definition of a Mindless ideology! No capitalist says that anything other than buying stuff can make you happy.

In comparison with the three Horses of the Apocalypse, intellectual attributes have never played a decisive role in human affairs. They have always served the Horses, and never controlled them. The intelligentsia have always been advisors, and never those occupying the throne and taking the decisions.

What would happen to the world if Logos people rather than Mythos people were in charge, if smart people rather than military people were in charge, if people of knowledge ruled rather than people of wealth? The world would be transformed. Humanity would undergo a wondrous metamorphosis.

A political system exists that can deliver this New World Order... a world where intelligence becomes the most valued resource. It’s called Meritocracy.

The trouble is that the world hates clever people. Average people can’t understand intellectuals, and can’t relate to them. They love rich people, celebrities, prophets, popes, princes, princesses, lords, ladies, generals, models, actors, reality TV stars, you name it... everyone other than the intelligent. And that’s why the world is so insane.

Isn’t it time humanity left its self-imposed mental asylum? Isn’t it time humanity had no fear of eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and started respecting people of knowledge above all others? It’s God and all the rest of the nonsense that should be forbidden, feared and despised, not knowledge. Knowledge is our true saviour, and provides the true path to salvation. Reason and logic, not faith, meditation and shopping, are the keys to unlock the door of the madhouse in which we’re all currently imprisoned. The latter merely generate more lunatics. Nothing in history has created more insanity than mainstream religion.

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged would be a worthwhile book if it were about the intelligentsia going on strike rather than super-rich capitalist predators; if it were a book defending reason and logic rather than the US dollar. But Rand would have got nowhere if she had advocated the smartest – rather than the richest – being in charge. As it stands, Rand’s work is staggeringly anti-intellectual. It’s nothing but a hymn to greed, selfishness and money. It’s a love-letter to the wealthy elite... which is why they revere it so much.

Isn’t it time we left behind the Ship of Fools, and embarked instead on the Ship of Geniuses? What is the Star Trek vision of the future if not a depiction of a world ruled by meritocrats? You wouldn’t let the religious, the violent, or the rich onboard a starship. With them in your crew, you’d never reach your destination. You’d go round and round in circles, or crash.

If humanity wants to arrive at the gates of heaven, only the smartest humans can build the sleek vessels to take us there. Prayer, meditation and the super rich didn’t land men on the moon... incredibly smart humans did, using reason, logic, technology, engineering, science and mathematics. These are all the subjects most shunned by average people. And that’s exactly the human tragedy.

The Tipping Point

Do you think your beliefs and convictions are unshakeable? Do you consider it impossible that you would ever abandon your most cherished beliefs? Here’s a thought experiment for you. Perhaps you’re a Christian; now imagine a new religion coming along and rapidly gaining popularity, so rapidly that within a few years almost all Christians have decamped to it. So now rather than being one Christian amongst many other Christians and socially rewarded and admired for your beliefs, you are instead regarded as a weirdo and freak. People cross the street to avoid you, and snigger at you. You lose friends, and you have no chance of progressing at work. Christianity becomes a huge burden for you, radically obstructing your opportunities, and making life exceptionally difficult. Do you really think you will soldier on as a Christian? Or will you follow everyone else’s lead and change to the new religion?

You will no doubt lie to yourself that you will never change, but in practice you definitely will. People’s beliefs have nothing to do with truth and conviction. People’s beliefs are social, political and economic constructs that change as soon as the social, political and economic conditions change. It’s easy to be a Christian if everyone else is a Christian, but when everyone else changes to some other religion then remaining a Christian is immensely problematic, and few have the strength to hold out.

Consider two examples from history. At the start of the sixteenth century, England was a devoutly Catholic country, had a Catholic monarch, and was totally loyal to the Pope. By the end of the century, the monarch was Protestant, the Pope’s authority had been utterly rejected, the people were overwhelmingly Protestant, and anti-Catholicism was so rabid that Catholic priests were being burned at the stake. So much for the beliefs and convictions of the English. So much for the sincerely, deeply held and unshakeable Catholicism that all of the people professed at the start of the century. When new political circumstances arose following King Henry VIII’s desire for a divorce that the Pope refused to grant, the people quickly lined up behind the new political reality. You’re deluding yourself if you think you would behave any differently from the English. Your beliefs are provisional. Your beliefs will unquestionably change if circumstances change. That, in fact, is why change is possible at all. If people really had unshakeable beliefs then we would still believe in the gods of the Stone Age.

Religions are well aware of how vulnerable they are, which is why they are so insistent that they are the unerring, sacrosanct Word of God that can never be altered by time and circumstances. They threaten you with eternal hellfire if you abandon the truth. Islam actually promotes the death penalty for apostasy. Why? Because if people start leaving Islam and suffer no adverse consequences, what’s to stop everyone else doing the same? The few would soon become a tidal wave.

Islam is itself a perfect example of how a new religion can destroy all other religions in its vicinity. Its prophet, Mohammed, was a deeply disturbed individual. A poor orphan looking for an identity, he found it by appealing to the ultimate father figure – Allah. Lacking a real father, he simply created a supernatural one. By the end of his life, he was the first ruler of all of Arabia, and all of his enemies had been despatched or converted. He himself was regarded by his followers as the perfect human being, the ideal, sacred pattern for all of humanity for all time. He is more or less what Christ is to Christians, though he is not regarded as God.

Yet it’s a remarkable fact that for the first 13 years of Islam, Mohammed only had around 150 followers. Islam made almost no impression at all on the pagan tribes of Mecca. It was only when Mohammed moved to Medina and involved himself first in politics and then war that Islam began to prosper, i.e. it wasn’t for religious reasons that Islam succeeded. The vast majority of Mohammed’s efforts in Medina were devoted to the political and military success of Islam, and through those came its religious success, almost as an afterthought.

Politics and jihad are the real essence of Islam. Rather than Islam being compared and contrasted with Christianity, it should be seen as a rival model to capitalist democracy, i.e. it’s a political, social and economic view of life. As a religion, Islam has almost nothing to offer. It has no complexity at all. It amounts to nothing more than the assertion that there is only one God – Allah – and Mohammed is his prophet, and you must do everything it says in the Koran if you want to go to paradise. Otherwise, you will go to hell. That’s it. There’s nothing else. There’s none of the incredible theological complexity of Christianity.

Christians, in order to defend the concepts of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation of God on earth (Jesus Christ) had to wrestle with mind-bogglingly difficult philosophical issues, all of which were absent from Islam, which was a simple religion for simple desert tribesmen. Islam was, and is, perfectly suited to people with no education, which is why Islam is a religion associated with almost no intellectual achievements. The only Muslims who ever contributed anything clever were those who studied pagan Greek philosophy!

The rise of Islam perfectly illustrates the phenomenon of the tipping point. It has been reported by scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in a paper called Social consensus through the influence of committed minorities that when just 10 percent of the population develop an unshakeable belief, their belief will always triumph and be adopted by the rest of society.

The question of how and when a minority belief becomes the majority opinion is crucial since this constitutes the dialectical dynamic that propels the world forward. Capitalist democracy can be overthrown like everything else. All that’s required is for 10% of the population to acquire a zealous commitment to meritocracy. That’s the magic number – 10%.

The global protest movements, lacking an agreed agenda, can never succeed because they do not represent a commitment to anything in particular, hence cannot reach the requisite tipping point. The protesters are successful at articulating what they dislike, but hopeless at suggesting viable alternatives around which a tipping point can develop.

The tricky phase for any new movement is finding the ten percent of fully committed supporters. During that awkward time, there is little visible sign of progress and people can become discouraged – which is why they must be fanatics if they are to remain committed to a cause making no apparent headway.

Mohammed succeeded because his 150 followers stayed true to him even when it seemed his cause was hopeless. Had they doubted and abandoned him, Mohammed would have been no more than an obscure historical footnote in the story of Mecca.

Christianity, the most successful religion in history, also began with just a handful of adherents. The Christians were regularly persecuted, making their survival even more unlikely. In many ways, it was just one man – St Paul – who created Christianity. He was a tireless advocate of his religion and travelled far and wide to promote his message. Above all, he separated Christianity from Judaism and made Christianity acceptable to pagans by melding it with pagan Mithraism. This one man changed history. Can you?

Below the 10% tipping point, nothing much happens. Once the target is reached, the ideas spread like wildfire, like the viral successes we see on the internet

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Success breeds success and failure breeds failure. The only failures who ever succeed are those who can cope with failure and persevere. If they have a powerful enough message and remain committed to it, they will eventually triumph, as Mohammed and his small band of followers demonstrated.

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. – Samuel Becket

Look at what has happened in the Arab nations during the Arab Spring. Dictators, supremely powerful for decades, were overthrown in weeks once the tipping point of protest was reached.

Reporting the details of the tipping point study, a journalist for Science Daily (July 26, 2011) wrote, "To reach their conclusion, the scientists developed computer models of various types of social networks. One of the networks had each person connect to every other person in the network. The second model included certain individuals who were connected to a large number of people, making them opinion hubs or leaders. The final model gave every person in the model roughly the same number of connections. The initial state of each of the models was a sea of traditional-view holders. Each of these individuals held a view, but were also, importantly, open minded to other views.

"Once the networks were built, the scientists then ‘sprinkled’ in some true believers throughout each of the networks. These people were completely set in their views and unflappable in modifying those beliefs. As those true believers began to converse with those who held the traditional belief system, the tides gradually and then very abruptly began to shift.

"‘In general, people do not like to have an unpopular opinion and are always seeking to try locally to come to consensus. We set up this dynamic in each of our models,’ said SCNARC Research Associate and corresponding paper author Sameet Sreenivasan. To accomplish this, each of the individuals in the models ‘talked’ to each other about their opinion. If the listener held the same opinions as the speaker, it reinforced the listener’s belief. If the opinion was different, the listener considered it and moved on to talk to another person. If that person also held this new belief, the listener then adopted that belief.

‘As agents of change start to convince more and more people, the situation begins to change,’ Sreenivasan said. ‘People begin to question their own views at first and then completely adopt the new view to spread it even further. If the true believers just influenced their neighbours, that wouldn’t change anything within the larger system, as we saw with percentages less than 10.’

There you have it. A few committed individuals with strong convictions can sway those with weaker beliefs, and take control. As soon as the new ideas are adopted by just 10% of the population it’s game over – thanks to human psychology and the propensity of the weak to follow the lead of the strong.

Crazy religions of the past succeeded because they had zealous advocates who would kill anyone who disagreed with them and terrify the superstitious masses with tales of eternal hellfire. Only the strong can withstand intimidation, and only the strong can set new trends in motion.

Are you one of the strong? Will you join the movement to change the world?

The elite will of course attempt to suppress any new opinions that threaten them, but in truth they have already lost. The tipping point against the elite has already been passed. No one respects or trusts them anymore. The only ingredient lacking now is what will replace the old system. That’s where meritocracy comes in. No one else has any realistic and practical ideas so if you want a new society, shouldn’t you join us?

Ten percent is the golden number – the number that changes the world. Be part of that ten percent. Be a hero. Let future generations talk about you.

No one can rationally condemn merit and no one can rationally condemn a fairer distribution of wealth. Ours is the logical and inevitable dialectical upgrade of democratic free market capitalism to serve the people rather than the elite. Meritocracy puts the people in charge, and the most expert people in the positions of power. No one – no individual or corporation – is ever allowed to become too rich or powerful. No privileged elites and dynastic families are allowed to develop. Equal opportunities and education are the unmovable core of meritocracy.

Join us. Step into the future. The hour of deliverance is surely coming.

So, will you be one of the ten percent who will change the world? Be a hero.

It’s time to make your stand in life.

It’s time for you to be an agent of change.

It’s time for you to make a difference.

The Revolution

Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, the world revolution is here. The fate of all of us is being decided. Everywhere, people are showing that they no longer accept the old ways. The transformation of the world is already in progress. The real issue is this... what are you doing about it? What’s your contribution? Are you someone who watches from the sidelines, or are you a person actually making a difference? When in years to come your children and grandchildren ask you what you did when the Revolution happened, will you be able to tell them the truth, or will you have to lie and pretend you did heroic things when in fact you stayed at home gorging on junk food as you watched it all on TV?

Now is the hour when the heroes are separated from the cowards. Which are you? If you’re like most people, you’ll say, Sure, I’m one of the heroes, and then do absolutely nothing. Because doing anything is hard, and being a hero is far beyond the capabilities of most sheep-like human beings, who will do something only if everyone else is doing it. That’s why social media is proving so crucial – it gives the other-directed masses group permission to take to the streets. Protesting has become a social activity. There will come a time when you will seem like a freak if you’re not protesting. Social media is therefore the deadliest weapon the elite has ever faced. It’s the social glue that brings even the sheeple out onto the front line. The tipping point is coming. When it does, everything will change.

The Power Question

For a few to be immortal, many must die. – from the film In Time.

For a few to be super rich, many must be poor.

Who has all the power in the world? Is it the People? The elected representatives of the People? Or is it the banks, corporations, bond markets, dynastic families, hereditary monarchs and the super rich?

It’s easy to find the answer. You just need to follow the money. The flow of money is the flow of power. Dollars are the amoral units of power, and are overwhelmingly held by the amoral (or indeed immoral) super rich. The closer you are to the money flow, the more money you can divert into your own pockets, hence the incredible wealth of bankers. The further you are from the flow, the poorer you are. The public good, merit, morality, fairness, justice and rationality play no part at all in the money flow.

The more dollars you have, the more powerful you are. The fewer you have, the more you become invisible. If you are poor, no one sees you and no one listens to you. You are power deficient, hence irrelevant. Isn’t it time to be seen and heard? Isn’t it time for the public good and General Will rather than the private good (of the rich) and particular will (of the rich) to shape the power equation and dictate the money flow?

Money is a proximity phenomenon – the closer you are to its source, its flow, the better. So, the rich ensure they are in closest proximity, while the ordinary people find themselves very far away. Those who are furthest of all from the money require State handouts, charity, or must beg in the street. They are held in almost universal contempt, yet their central problem is nothing but being too far from the money flow, and that can happen for all sorts of reasons. African Americans, for example, have never been allowed near the money in any significant numbers, hence have never stood a chance. Jews, on the other hand, went out of their way to be close to the money, and succeeded spectacularly. Most of all, the rich control and vet who gets near the money. You are permitted to come close only if you’re a member of their privileged cartel. Otherwise, the whole system is rigged against you. In a free world, the People, not the rich, not the Zionists and WASP Freemasons, must be in charge of who has proximity to the money.

1% (the rich) command and 99% (the poor) obey. Isn’t it time for genuine People Power rather than the fake version served up by dumbocracy? Then the People must take the money of the rich – or we’ll be their slaves forever. In this time of global financial trouble, anyone who does not advocate a vast and unprecedented redistribution of wealth from the rich to the People is an Enemy of the People. Any defence of the rich is an attack on the People.

The Old World Order is dead. It’s time to push it into its grave.

The Same Old Story

You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. – Barack Obama

What did Obama do when he got into power? He appointed the same old players, tried the same old politics, and got the same old results! That’s democracy for you. Only a madman would keep trying the same old failed formula. Democracy is no longer tenable. It’s time for meritocracy.

The General Will versus the Particular Will

A rational State of the type envisaged by Hegel, composed of many rational people, will reflect a single General Will – the Will that reflects the best interests of all the people, not just some (in which case it would be a particular will).

All sane political systems have attempted to reflect the General Will, but humanity has always succumbed to the particular will of particular groups, and most usually the ruling elite – the Old World Order.

The General Will is associated with left wing movements, and the particular will with right wing ideology. The clash of these two wills drives the central political dialectic of the human race.

Always, the same questions arise: who are the rightful rulers, and how should they rule – 1) in their own interests (the Old World Order), 2) in the interests of God (Islamic theocracy, for example), or 3) in the interests of all the people? Democracy and communism both aspire to this last ideal, though both have dismally failed to overturn the rule of elites. In democracy, plutocrats pretend to rule in the interests of the people. In communism, the members of the Communist Party were the new elite, and alarmingly like the old elite. As George Orwell said in Animal Farm, The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Intellectuals

Thomas Kuhn spoke of science progressing by way of two modes: normal and revolutionary. Normal science applies when a successful paradigm has been established. Everyone falls into line with that paradigm, and it defines the establishment view. However,

anomalies eventually build up which the prevailing paradigm cannot explain, thus leading to the need for a new paradigm. At this point, radical, anti-establishment views are tolerated, and these compete with each other. They must of course offer more explanatory success than the current paradigm. The most successful, or most popular, of these becomes the new paradigm, and, once it is bedded in, normal science can then resume.

There are two types of intellectual. One is the philosopher and the other is the sophist. We define philosophers as those who are not guided by paradigmatic thinking, and sophists as the careerists who are only too happy to operate within a paradigm. They have little interest in the truth. Their career is what matters to them. Those who support us are the philosophers and those who oppose us are the sophists.

Sophists are either positive or negative towards an idea depending on how well it fits in with the prevailing paradigm – their mental schema. If they are hostile to it, they will try to discredit it, and will think only of ways of attacking it. They won’t expend any effort trying to defend it. People project their own schema onto everything, and automatically dismiss anything incompatible with it.

Sophists are conventional thinkers. They are ill-informed, with nothing positive to contribute. They will find endless faults and flaws with radical ideas (which are always facilely criticised from the perspective of the prevailing paradigm, which has the establishment backing it up). Their criticisms are frequently ridiculous and ignorant.

Plato said, Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses. Sophists can never see beyond the shadows.

Nietzsche said, As soon as you feel yourself against me you have ceased to understand my position and consequently my arguments! You have to be the victim of the same passion!

Sophists literally cannot understand what we are saying. Their mental schema is radically different. They’re on a completely different wavelength. We always terminate discussions with such people since it’s invariably a dialogue of the deaf. Such exchanges are a monumental waste of time.

The Dysfunctional Society

If people are in a dysfunctional system, they act in dysfunctional ways. If people are in a greedy system, they act greedily. If they are in a stupid system, they act stupidly.

What must we do? We must create a rational, creative, idealistic society and then people will act rationally, creatively and idealistically.

It’s time to build the Meritocratic State. At the heart of this State will be psychology. There are many brilliant psychological and sociological theories that are never given a chance to change the world because they enjoy no support politically, religiously or economically. It’s time to give these ignored theories their day. We must start explicitly designing society, not allowing it to grow organically, with minimum State interference, which invariably means that the people don’t learn and evolve, and go on reflecting the errors and delusions of the past, and sustaining the entrenched elites who have institutionalised their power and belief systems, and brainwashed the masses.

To create a new society, it’s necessary to know that the current society is rotten to the core. The greatest philosopher for exposing the fallacies and insanity of society is Nietzsche, the most incendiary philosopher of all time. Everyone should read Nietzsche, and then we shall be ready to create a society of supermen.

Shouldn’t the explicit goal of all governments – the central criterion by which they are judged – be the improvement of the quality of the people? Yet governments are judged successful if everyone has a job (no matter that the vast majority of jobs kill the brain and destroy creativity), and a little square box for a house, plenty of shops to buy junk from, and plenty of crass entertainment to transfix the sheeple.

Providing bread and circuses remains the game of all governments. Isn’t it time we moved on? Isn’t it time for reason and creativity?

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We shall never make spiritual and rational progress until we are free of Abrahamism (the Devil’s religion), free-market capitalism (the Devil’s economic system), and plutocratic democracy (the Devil’s political system where the rich pretend to rule for the benefit of the people). It’s time for humanity to cast out the Devil once and for all. Jehovah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Allah, St Paul, St Peter, St Augustine, Luther, Calvin and Mammon – they all have to go. Get rid of them all. Liberation and enlightenment can come only when the children of light have prevailed over the forces of darkness.

Abrahamists believe that God provides meaning to the world. What they are thereby saying is that God is that in which meaning resides. For the one and only time, we agree with them that God is meaning. That’s why you yourself must become God in order for you to realize the meaning of your life. If you let some other God do it for you then you have accepted their definition of meaning, and not your own. You have therefore not found the meaning of your life. You have found only your enslavement to someone else’s definition of meaning. They control you. They are your master. You have proved yourself the consummate slave.

All Abrahamists are slaves. They are an insult to themselves and to the universe. They haven’t understood a single thing about life.

Of course, becoming God in a system of ontological mathematics means that everyone arrives at exactly the same meaning of life, the universe and everything... that of perfect reason and logic, and complete understanding of the nature and operations of existence via absolute knowledge of ontological mathematics.

Child Abuse

Nothing is worse than child abuse because it ruins lives forever. Emotionally, no child ever recovers from it.

Abrahamism is based on the most horrific emblem of child abuse ever devised – a father standing over his son preparing to cut his throat. Imagine the infinite terror that the little boy felt as he realised he was about to be murdered by the man he expected to love, cherish and protect him. Could he trust his father ever again? Could he ever love him again? Their relationship was over from that moment. The boy would have escaped from him at the earliest possible opportunity. How could anyone live under the same roof as someone who had held a blade to their throat? If they could do it once, what would stop them doing it again? All they needed was to hear that voice again – the voice that urged and demanded murder... the voice of the Terror God.

Can we doubt that Abraham was also a paedophile who sexually abused his son? He plainly had no interest at all in his son’s welfare or rights. To him, Isaac/Ishmael was just an object, to be disposed of at will.

Abraham was obsessed with his relationship with God and didn’t care that he had no relationship at all with his son. He was more than prepared to sacrifice his son to his deity. The son’s sacred life was of no consequence to the father.

Any adult attracted to Abrahamism must be considered a latent paedophile and murderer since no decent parent could read the story of Abraham without extreme revulsion. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are paedophile and filicide religions. Can anyone be remotely surprised by the endless child abuse perpetrated by Catholic priests? Can anyone doubt that similar crimes by Protestant pastors, Jewish rabbis and Islamic imams are waiting to be uncovered?

What is the primary function of parents? It’s to love their children, to provide them with a safe and stable environment in which they can realize their full potential. An anxious, fearful, distrustful child cannot prosper.

The State cannot love a child in the manner of its parents, but what it can do is provide a safe, stable and rational environment for everyone. That means that the State cannot be ruled by privileged families (the Old World Order) seeking to promote their own interests and do down others. It must be ruled not by people at all in the strict sense, but by a system, a Constitution – a set of rational laws that enshrine the General Will, which are seen to be fair and just to everyone, and to serve equally everyone’s interests. Those people who lead society should be servants of the General Will and the Constitution, not servants of their own self-interest, as they are at present.

Every citizen has the right to know that he is subject to a set of rational laws that apply without fear or favour to everyone, with no one receiving preferential treatment. Only meritocracy enshrines an absolute commitment to equal opportunities. Only meritocracy reflects the General Will and the Commonwealth.

The Most Bizarre Story Ever

The Jews say that Abraham was ordered to kill his Jewish son Isaac. The Muslims say that Abraham was ordered to kill his Muslim son Ishmael. Hold on a moment, does this mean that Abraham attempted to make a human sacrifice of both Isaac and Ishmael? If not, then either the Jews or the Muslims must be absolute liars. If the would-be victim wasn’t Isaac, then the Jews are liars, hence cannot be the Chosen People. If the victim wasn’t Ishmael then Mohammed is a false prophet and the Koran is a lie. So, which is it?

Why is Jerusalem so special to Muslims if the Jewish religion is a Satanic lie? Why did Mohammed go to Satan’s city? Why does Islam revere Jewish prophets if they say that Isaac, and not Ishmael, was the boy almost sacrificed by Abraham, hence, according to Islam, are liars (and thus definitely not spokespeople for God)? Why are all of these key questions ignored by Muslim scholars?

Mohammed changed the identity of the boy in the Abrahamic story from Isaac to Ishmael in order to validate his Arabic version of Judaism (which is all that Islam is). However, by doing so, he immediately invalidated all of the previous prophets, who all identified the boy in the story as Isaac and not Ishmael. So, when Mohammed referred to himself as the Seal of Prophets (the Last Prophet), he was making himself the last in a line of proven liars – by his own logic! Islam is a comically silly religion. The trouble is that it has turned into a black comedy, and no one’s laughing.

The Money Game

The top 3 million Americans (1%) own 33% of the nation’s wealth – 32 times more than their fair share. (Some estimates put it as high as 42%, and growing.)

The bottom 150 million Americans (50%) own 3% of the country’s wealth – 16 times less than their fair share.

The next 149 million Americans (49%) own 64% of the country’s wealth – 0.3 times more than their fair share.

In other words, 1% are having a ball, 49% are doing slightly better than OK, and 50% are in hell. Where’s the Revolution? How can you treat half of your population with contempt in order to allow 1% to live like kings? Why do the 50% tolerate it? It’s the 49% who are the accomplices, the enablers, of the elite 1%... those who help the 1% to put their boot on the neck of the 50%.

Imagine life as a 100 metres race. 49% of the people are more or less at the starting line, but 1% are 32 metres up the track. Their 100 metres race is only 68 metres long! As for 50%, they are 16 metres behind the starting line. They have to run 16 metres before they even join the race (many don’t get that far: they never start.) Ask yourself a very simple question – who will win this race and who will lose? Is there any doubt? The race is rigged from the beginning. 1% are sure to win and 50% are sure to lose. As for the 49%, they need to break every world record imaginable to beat the 1%. They have to be one in a million! Do you fancy those odds? So why are you taking part in this race? Isn’t it time for a new race where everyone lines up at the same starting line?

Meritocracy is based on the absolute destruction of the rigged race of life, via the introduction of 100% inheritance tax, i.e. an overwhelming advantage can no longer be passed on by rich parents to their children. All children, no matter the wealth of their parents, must begin at the same starting line as everyone else. No parent can rig the race. The 1% can no longer dictate the outcome of the race.

Many people claim to be meritocrats but when you mention 100% inheritance tax to them, all of the blood drains from their faces. You know what that means? – they’re not meritocrats!

Democracy literally means people power (demos – people; kratos = power). It was designed to stop rule by the rich elite. Look at democratic America. Who runs it? The rich elite – the top 1%!!! Why haven’t the dumb democrats worked out that the elite have conned them yet again?!

*****

There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning. – US billionaire Warren Buffett

There’s a sucker born every minute. – P. T. Barnum

Is your name on the Suckers’ List? Isn’t it time you removed it? Fight back!

*****

Between 2002 and 2007, two-thirds of American gains in wealth flowed to the top 1% of households, and that top 1% held a larger share of income than at any time since 1928, just prior to the Great Crash. In other words, extreme wealth always presages a crash, and the reason is simple – the extreme wealth came about by excessive greed on the part of the top 1%, leading to an unsustainable boom that automatically gives birth to a disastrous bust.

50 million Americans have no healthcare. More than 45 million Americans are on food stamps. More than 24 million can’t find a full-time job. 14 million are unemployed. The degree of inequality in America is on a par with Rwanda – yet America is supposed to be the richest and most powerful country on earth. America has failed, democracy has failed and capitalism has failed.

It’s time for a change – and that means an entirely new political vision... Meritocracy. Only the irrational would persevere with a failed and discredited political, economic and social system.

As Einstein said, Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.

The Market

Free-market capitalism has demonstrated that the market controls the economic, and hence