I Could Not Have Said It Better

“In this modern day, self sufficiency is a delusion of the ego.”

- James G. Mason, JamesGMason.com

Liberals like me have been trying to communicate the following for years. The philosophy of taxation's effect on all of us, rich or poor, is infrequently understood and many false assertions come from this misunderstanding. Warren is actually speaking (video below) about a type of person, with a particular standard of morality. I think these people she is pointing her finger at are those who never properly learned to share in childhood, and so never learned that because we share we all benefit. They then take for granted, for the rest of their lives that the resources they need to succeed will continue to "fall from the sky," and so "Why share?"

They are the exploiters who often get rich by using our resources and our desperation for jobs. Unreasonably they then scream for less government, as they are under a delusion inspired by greed that they had not been hoisted into their comfortable leather seats by taking advantage of our government.  A government through which we collectively chose to provide the resources they have used. Warren is speaking below about an ethic that is harming us all. This corrupt ethic also brings us corporations in America with little loyalty to their communities, the first corporations to out-source our communities to their economic death.

Elizabeth Warren understands liberal philosophy and has an eloquent description to aid in understanding the core of one of our most pressing economic issues. If she runs for president, I'll support her over anyone in current contention for the office.  See video.

Senator, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Copyright Reserved, JamesGMason.com, 2013

Lost Dreams Storage Rentals Inc.

A lot of people in our country think that because something is legal it must be moral. Far from true. Example is a television show called Storage Wars where the stars are tattooed beer bellied scavengers who take advantage of the unexpected losses and failures in the lives of poor people. The motto of the goods grabbers is “Don’t pay your bills we’ll take your stuff!” Most of the storage unit renters, by economic causes beyond their control, have for reasons of food verses storage rental, become rental delinquents. We have all passed the concrete cubicles in our cars, storage prisons surrounded by electrified chain link fences, that to many represent the always losing and ever struggling Poverty Wars.

The whole context of the show is immoral. The stored goods of poor people are auctioned off to strangers. Anyone enjoying this show is either immoral or just too stupid and ignorant to realize when immorality is practiced right under their noses. The winners of these auctions are happy with glee to forage through poor people’s stuff, 99% of which is thrown out, and the show follows every happy moment except those precious moments when poor people's photo albums are thrown in the trash.

If you consider yourself a moral person don’t buy a storage rental compound because you’ll frequently have to make a moral decision whether to sell off the many boxes of someone’s lost dreams, or put it all outside somewhere, like underneath a carport. But if you consider that anything legal you can get away with must be moral, then go ahead and buy one these poor people’s container compounds, you immoral scumbag.

There are a lot of activities that are legal but immoral - here is a short list: It’s immoral and legal to sell cigarettes knowing full well that most of the population of smokers will be killing themselves slowly. It’s a legal offense to all to immorally dodge one’s fair share of taxes. Billing Medicare for something just because the health care providers say it happened and patients won’t check their itemized billing anyway, is immoral. It is immoral to own a bar or lounge miles outside of town with a parking lot that holds the cars of 50 likely drunk drivers. It is legal and immoral to buy a pedigree dog while thousands of perfectly healthy lovable dogs are put to death daily. It is legal and immoral to sit back while your nation begins a clearly unnecessary war that kills thousands. It is legal and immoral to cut back funding for social services based on political hypothesis.

In the minds of the storage unit vultures someone is going to buy this stuff anyway, so why not us! Following the actions of immoral people does not make a follower moral. Whether someone else is going to buy the possessions or not does not make the buyers moral. In this writer’s mind the owners and the buyers of these auctions are all a bunch of scumbags who don’t deserve anyone’s time. Viewers should stop looking at the Storage Wars show before their children see it and deduce that selling off poor people’s things is perfectly moral. If a town or city or state allows these landlords of despair to practice their cold hearted behavior in their districts then they are complicit in this immorality that effects only poor people.

Here’s an idea to be moral and to have some civic pride. If you have a few hundred dollars and feel like helping someone, go to the nearest furniture prison and pay off one or two back rents for people in delinquency. I guarantee that you will be helping poor people and I guarantee you will feel better about having done that than the pride you felt at your graduation.

One solution to the storage unit immorality is for towns and cities to build their own concrete compounds and charge a not-for-profit fee. Rentals can be restricted to local citizens only. These towns should offer complete forgiveness to any renters who have hit rock bottom. One good rule: never throw out or sell somebody’s stuff. Those towns and cities that do this should receive an award for morality above the call of legality.

To Glenn Beck and the Tea Party new comers:

"Government is the coming together of people to do for one another collectively what they could not do as well or at all privately through the market system or philanthropy." - Abraham Lincoln (liberal!)   

“People” coming together as a “collective,” disrespecting our market system and the failures of “philanthropy?” Does that quote sound like something a conservative would say? No of course not. It sounds socialist and practically communist. In the 1860s the fairly new Republican party was comprised mostly of members with Liberal ideals. And the Democratic party members had conservative ideals. A lot of people who study American history know that, but you newbies to politics choose to not find that out, or you are just in denial. Even your leader Glen Beck didn't know that when he chose the Lincoln memorial for your fall rally in 09. There have been party ideology switches this century in the baby boomer generation, such as the conservative democrats flight to change parties after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (the act that effectively ended legal segregation in our nation). Go ahead ask somone! The quotation above is famous in Liberal circles and was said by Abraham Lincoln (See "Lincoln's Hands," his original manuscript). If you folks, who praise President Lincoln, and think he represented your party today, knew this to begin with, you would not have been making fools of yourselves in front of the Lincoln memorial and in the minds of US historians, intellectuals and liberals, 8 out of 10 Phds, 94% of all scientists, and half of our politicians. It is apparent to me that Tea Partyers and conservatives really only like Lincoln because he freed the slaves (something that Liberals had wanted for for decades). And if they praise Lincoln then that provides cover from the media so that the conservative right doesn’t look as if they are racists. And with President Lincoln in their pockets they can attract more African American members, from somewhere. The racism of the right wing is pretty clear because of the right’s hatred for a black president who is doing less damage and more reform, that helps all citizens, than the white conservative president before him had ever done in 8 years. Where was the tea party while the white President Bush was adding more than 3 trillion dollars to our national debt for two wars that were not even necessary? Where was the Tea Party when that white President Bush gave tax cuts to rich people without even making up for it anywhere else in his budgets! President Bush was a tax and spend Republican. So was the white Ronald Reagan who tripled our national debt. Why were the Tea Partiers not carrying posters of the white George Bush as a black African witchdoctor with a bone through his nose at their tax day march? Answer: deep down inside, hidden from political correctness of our society, a black president is an affront to the sensibilities of a true conservative.

By pretending to embrace Lincoln’s party politics you conservatives are warping history. Don’t you care that students learn true facts about our past? Or does that concern mean less to you than boosting your roles by hiding behind a liberal. A liberal Lincoln who clearly used “big government,” to better the United States as whole, when the states had continuously failed to better themselves and bring fairness to their citizens?

Our government representatives have not spent 234 years passing laws willy nilly for the fun of it. Tea Partiers and other conservatives go ahead and study President Lincoln’s record of laws passed. While you are studying Lincoln’s ideals and ask yourselves which federal government laws existing today used to be run just fine without Lincoln’s ideal of what our government really is? Ask yourselves which federal laws can you honestly say were not even needed before they were created, and why were they needed, and do those problems that cause us to write laws, remain today? What were the continuing failures of small governments and individuals that caused our representatives to come together for nationwide solutions? You can also contemplate which specific laws you want to get rid of now that you think that the problems that they had addressed can be handled well at the local level? Look at your past and find evidence that supports your beliefs that the big bad government can’t do anything right. The truth is our Democratic Republic has a centralized government that does a hell of lot more good for its citizens than a pack of conservative governors running around in circles, mostly ending up where their state had started from.

At your convention last year, 80% of the audience when asked if “you have ever been involved in politics before?” raised their hands to answer no. This ignorance is really making you guys look foolish. Tea Partiers and other conservatives should return to school, take civics and United States history. Perhaps you could make a new website called Government as Seen through Tea Party Tainted Glasses.”It is an established maxim and moral that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him.”

-- Abraham Lincoln, chiding the editor of a Springfield, Illinois, newspaper

Sales Reps Invade our Doctor's Offices

Author, 1978. Washington D.C.. "Little did I know at
this time, I would be loathing this organization a
few decades later." 

BigPharma 😡 #dvertising

Ask yourselves, why was it ever necessary for a pharmaceutical medicine company, to hire a salesperson, never mind tens of thousands to visit your MD's office?

Medicine never needs advertising, demand is expressed by patients, and met by the doctor.

The Opioid Crisis Reached Deadly proportions after #BigPharma #Advertising ran amok. NO PHARMA COMPANY ever had to promote medicine. 

WRITE ABOUT THAT, #LIBERAL #Journalists! PLEASE? 10's of 1000s of pharmaceutical sales people are fanning out right now, to every town in the USA. But the mainstream media NOW depends on their dollars to stay-afloat! 

Write the FDA and the FCC: no advertising of controlled substances must be allowed in public media. Like it used to be.

Addendum, 4/2015: Below is a letter I sent to the brand new customer contact form online at Middlesex Hospital's website, in 2010. I addressed it directly to the president and may have been one of the first letters to be received through the new interface. In the following year, at my very next visit to one of the hospital's associated Doctors' offices, I heard an interesting statement from a Nurse when someone else brought up the subject of free samples: "We're no longer allowed to see those pharmaceutical people in here anymore . . "  Later the president would learn more about who I was, on an unrelated healthcare matter and I can honestly state that today he would toss that electronic letter in the trash knowing it was from " . .that James Mason." I'm waiting for the Boat Show of Pharmaceuticals to come to Hartford. :-) 


Denial is strong when we are compelled by accessibility to depend on one hospital. No one will admit to living near a bad hospital, or even a hospital with a problem – that would be cause for community wide fear and distrust. That is why your hospital will never get the full truth from the great majority of your patients.

On Wednesday, December 15th, between of 11:05 a.m. and 11:20 a.m., I witnessed 5 sales representatives exit the building through the lobby of Middlesex Primary Care in Essex while I sat nauseous waiting to be seen. The door kept opening, the freezing air kept blowing in. A sales person seemed to be crossing the threshold every couple of minutes.

I felt like a second priority in that office. I thought that if one of these sales people has been sitting with my doctor for even one minute that might have been mine, then I was being ripped off by big faceless unaccountable corporations at my doctor’s office. Corporations so deep in competition they have to send out armies of young pill pushers with gifts to sit waiting in lobby chairs intended for patients. Is my doctor capable of researching his own drugs? Can he not make the decision to prescribe a medication based on his own qualified opinion? If my doctor’s practice has been tainted by the influence of corporate sales representatives, I should be entitled to know.

This letter represents an opportunity for Middlesex Hospital to live up to its own published policy. From your own web page titled Standards of Business Ethics and Conduct: “It should be remembered that the appearance of a conflict of interest may be just as damaging to the system’s reputation as a real conflict, and the appearance is often difficult for the individuals involved to discern.”

Most importantly I want to trust my doctor. When he gives me a prescription order I want to know he is behind it with his full confidence. I want to trust that he is not giving me a particular drug because its maker supplied him with pens and clipboards and passed him (under the table) tickets to Hawaii. I would also like know that the health care professionals treating me are not a bunch of sell-outs.

Last year by general agreement, arranged by a private standards company, with no consequences, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, not the people’s laws, issued an unenforceable edict that drug companies are no longer supposed to give influential gifts. But little has changed. Some pharmaceutical companies have ignored the new standards. And the rest of these companies have realized that a gift unseen is no gift at all, essentially fooling the public and hospital administrators.

I don’t bitch about something without having an answer to the problem. Here is a solution which can stop the conflict of interest, and the appearance of conflict of interest: Stop all daily sales representative traffic. Hold a monthly conference (like an indoor boat show) where sales representatives can swarm in with all their goodies like parachuters on D-day and have great access to the health care professionals of your hospital. Agree on one rule: for instance gifts to walk away with should be no larger than a football. Hospitals and health care products companies can collaborate to make this monthly event a great day. Convince the drug companies to foot the bill (it would really be in their interest). Lilly can set up a carousel for the children. Roche can hire a band. Glaxo Smith Kline can supply food, and etcetera. A fun day for all with unmatched corporate sales access that the patient does not have to see. Imagine the capitalism, United States corporations winning over clients because they have a better product than the other corporations. That sounds familiar.

The Manhattan Mosque Controversy

Time and again popular desires of the masses conflict with the constitution. Recent polling revealed that more then 60% of the public are in favor of stopping the Muslim community center in downtown Manhattan. If there is any question that Americans can be very ignorant it is exemplified by this controversy. The plan for a new mosque and community center in downtown Manhattan must go forth.

There are many right-wing Muslim haters that see the plan for the new community center in downtown Manhattan as an insult to a somehow sacred ground because the mosque is two blocks away from ground zero. There is also a new angry right-wing out there, which includes the new Tea Party faction. This angry new faction claims to honor the Constitution and thinks that the current government doesn’t follow the guidelines set forth in the Constitution. “Obey the Constitution,” the Tea Partier’s signs read. The mosque controversy will be resolved soon, and it’s allowance by local government will leave a bad constitutional taste in the mouths of the Muslim haters.

The first amendment to the United States Constitution is the most important amendment of the ten amendments that make up the Bill of Rights. The two clauses in that amendment that speak to religion are as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . "

This is widely interpreted to mean that no governmental body is allowed to fund or intermingle with religious entities or interfere in any way with the free practice of religion. The Manhattan mosque and community center must be allowed and must remain as a matter of Constitutional principle that honors with freedom our great country.

As for the Muslim haters, keep in mind with 1.7 billion worshipers Islam is the second most popular religion in the world. The 9-11 hijackers and all of those jihadist Muslims that share their violent philosophy represent, at the most, less than .05% of Muslims. Hating and fearing all Muslims due to 9-11 is like blaming all Christians for the actions of Timothy McVeigh, a devout Christian murderer who destroyed the Oklahoma City federal building, or Eric Robert Rudolph the Christian abortion clinic bomber and murderer.

Our ignorance as a nation never ceases to amaze me.

A Liberal’s View on the Differences Between Liberals and Conservatives

I should state here that because I am a liberal it is difficult to examine the differences between liberals and conservatives without being biased against conservatism, and I apologize for this almost inescapable context.

There are distinct differences between conservatives and liberals. Most of the behavioral differences seem to be philosophical in origin. The causes of particular behavioral traits can only be speculated. Parenting, environment, emotional life events and perhaps even the organization of the brain can all be contributors in the differences between liberals and conservatives.

As neurology relates to behavior U.C.L.A. has provided some evidence resulting from studies using magnetic resonance imaging, in conjunction with imaging, to observe levels of emotional response in subjects. From a New York Times Magazine article, 2007:

" our most compassionate (or even cowardly) feelings are as much a product of the brain as ''rational choice'' economic theory is. They just emanate from a different part of the brain -- most notably, the amygdala, the almond-shaped body that lies below the neocortex, in an older brain region sometimes called the limbic system. Studies of stroke victims, as well as scans of normal brains, have persuasively shown that the amygdala plays a key role in the creation of emotions like fear or empathy. . . . as The Times reported not long ago, a team of U.C.L.A. researchers analyzed the neural activity of Republicans and Democrats as they viewed a series of images from campaign ads. And the early data suggested that the most salient predictor of a ''Democrat brain'' was amygdala activity responding to certain images of violence: either the Bush ads that featured shots of a smoldering ground zero or the famous ''Daisy'' ad from Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 campaign that ends with a mushroom cloud. Such brain activity indicates a kind of gut response, operating below the level of conscious control.”

That the amygdala reacts with greater compassion and fear in those identifying themselves as liberals makes some sense when considering liberals are known to be concerned with elements of society that may harm the vulnerable. In addition to empathy, fear of those elements can create a healthy drive to change the harmful. In this editorial I will focus only on the evident philosophical differences that can almost predict the behavior that would arise from these two frequently opposing and distinct personality traits.

Conservatives and liberals have a lot in common. Both hold family of great importance. Both have faith. Both are patriotic and want what they feel is best for their country. Both see hypocrisy in much of the actions of the other. Both feel the other is morally corrupt and each blames the other for what is wrong in society. Many liberals and conservatives accept as literal fact what they are told is true, often due to biased and selective news presentations on both sides helping to cement dichotomous views of the world. Both tend to exaggerate numbers in their favor. Both experience righteous indignation and can be zealot on an issue.

A conservative tendency is to value one's self, more so than he or she values others. On reflection at end one’s life, a liberal will be most satisfied or not, with the way that he has treated others and his family in his life time, the good that he has done for other people. A conservative will be most satisfied, or not, with what he has done for himself and his family in his lifetime.

A conservative wears rose colored glasses to see the past, forgetting the negatives and imagining a past society of Norman Rockwell appearance, of traditional conservative values where Donna Reed is a good housewife and Marcus Welby is the family doctor, where kids are good and wars winnable, and centralized government plays a minor role in the order of society. A liberal is likely to view the past with red flags that remind of poverty, sickness, inequality, and businesses run amok without regulation or labor laws.

A conservative is less likely to have an open mind when facing something new or something changing when preconceived judgments take priority over critical thinking and general intellectual curiosity. A good example of this is the David comparison. Suppose a liberal and a conservative are viewing Michael Angelo’s statue of David at the same time. The liberal is more likely to be impressed and intellectually satisfied with the nearly perfect depiction of the male human body. Quickly drawing on past lessons of shame and humility the conservative is instantly embarrassed at the full nudity before his eyes and would chose to hide David from the eyes of children.

Their differing views on entitlement programs such as food stamps are stark. A conservative will say “teach a man to catch fish and he'll fish for a life time. Give a man fish and he'll never learn to fish on his own.” While a liberal would say “teach a man to fish, but show him where the fish are and give him fish when he is without.”

Conservatives believe in “trickle down economics,” the socio economic hypothesis that tax breaks for the few wealthy will cause unselfish generous spending that will fall upon the many poor and provide jobs and happiness. Whereas a liberal subscribes to “a rising tide lifts all boats.” That providing more economic advantages (lower taxation) for the less affluent citizens benefits all – lifting all boats. This redistribution of wealth is a major point of contention between conservatives and liberals. The conservative believes that a wealthy person deserves every dime they have. Where the liberal sees that the poor have to spend every dime they have to survive.

There are foreign policy differences. While both sides exhibit patriotic behavior the conservative position in the world is jingoistic, arrogant, and proud and the good ole’ U.S. of A can do no wrong. Extravagant spending on the military is unquestioned and given priority in every budget. We have a spiritual manifest destiny guiding our place in the world because God has blessed our country above others less well-off then we are. When we act militarily we were right to do so. The U.N. is a socialist plot toward one world government. Immigrants take our jobs and are changing our way of life and we should close the borders completely. The liberal takes a more humility garnished pathway to foreign policy, realizing that we are one of many nations, one no more deserving than the other. Though a liberal is not shy about funding the military, a liberal leader is more likely to dispatch our military to end suffering such as genocide, starvation, or to keep peace. A liberal sees the U.N. as what it is intended to be, a peace orientated democratic body providing a neutral ground for nations of the Earth to settle differences.

Conservatives and liberals have distinctly differing views of what is justice and how it is hindered or progressed. Liberals speak for the weak and oppressed and want change and justice, even at risk of chaos. Conservatives speak for institutions and traditions and want order even at cost to those at the bottom. A liberal would be more likely than a conservative to come to the defense of the prosecuted or incarcerated. A liberal might argue that the founders of the United States wanted to place great emphasis on protecting the innocent from the tyranny of bad criminal justice, including unlawful incarceration. Conservatives continue to place greater importance on prosecution and increased incarceration than on the defense of the prosecuted.

Of course there are large and many governmental differences between the two dichotomous and alike thinking groups. Many conservatives will claim to be in favor of smaller governmental size and less governmental control over society to promote liberty and the general welfare. Some conservatives go so far to suggest that the government should only be in charge of the defense of the nation. While a liberal would more likely be more optimistic about the abilities of the people through government to promote liberty and the general welfare by a necessary and lawful amount of intervention into society.

Do liberals and conservatives need each other like night needs day, like ying needs yang? Just like a force needs an opposing force to define it’s properties, liberals and conservatives need each other to define each other when each is judging and evaluating the other.