Freethinker's corner

Liars or Monsters … April 22, 2013

2013/04/21
“Oh, I read my Bible every day. I’ve read it through more than once.”

As an atheist how many times have you heard the faithful make this claim? More than once, I imagine. As a moral and law-abiding atheist shouldn’t you ask the claimant if he/she, after reading their Bibles “more than once” clear through, still believes it fit to be a moral guide? If they claim that it is a model upon which morality should be based after they have made the claim to have read it, there are only two possibilities:
- They are liars and have not actually read it.
- They are monsters to assert that the Bible is a moral book.
In defense of their “holy” book they will claim that you simply do not understand or that the passages of horror that you cite are taken out of context. The plea that you simply do not understand is a ploy used to impart a supernatural or mysterious quality to the scriptures. If someone tells you that you take scripture out of context what it really means is they have no means of explaining its repugnance away.

How can support for slavery be moral?

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the slave may plainly declare, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.’ If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will belong to his master forever. (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT)

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

And Jesus said:

The servant will be severely punished, for though he knew his duty, he refused to do it. “But people who are not aware that they are doing wrong will be punished only lightly. Much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given.” (Luke 12:47-48 NLT)

Should we stone children?

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear. — Deuteronomy 21:18-21

The Bible is full of atrocities committed by both God and man. It is clear that those that fabricated the Bible were a warrior people bent on conquering or destroying anyone they could. A barbarous people full of hatred and bigotry for all who did not mirror their beliefs. War, murder,genocide, and mayhem are glorified throughout the Old Testament, the foundation of the New Testament. If God was not doing the killing, men were doing the killing at God’s behest.

Christians, really, read your Bible! We need more atheists.
To Die, You Had to Have Lived… April 17, 2013

2013/04/17

The following is a passage from a recent read of mine: “God’s Funeral” by John Higgins

“I really don”t understand why religious people are so defensive. They have the greatest gift that those sorts of people can imagine, an affinity with God, a gift that probably makes them piss themselves with delirium. However that’s not enough for them unfortunately; they need everyone else to believe in it for it to have any validity. Does questioning their belief upset them because they know, in their hearts, that what they have been indoctrinated into all of their lives is clearly fantasy? ¹Is it a fear that we might rumble them in front of others? Personally I believe it is because regardless of whatever crime they commit, they can always go and atone for that crime by going into a dark room, confessing to a stranger and doing a penance of prayers that allows them to be monsters to others but if they say sorry to some man floating up in the sky, they do not have to worry about being immoral.”²

¹Humans have reasoning logical minds. Through repetition, reinforcement, and fear, a logical reasoned mind can be derailed. Though damaged, the reasoning human mind remains intact and because it does, those that have been indoctrinated with information that is in truth fantasy have an inner struggle constantly in progress between the reasoning logical mind and that part of the mind that has been compromised by religion. The instillation of religion by repetition of phrases, reinforcement by association with like-minded individuals, and by constant reminders of the consequences and rewards of belief maintenance, is a very powerful programming process. If some information presents itself that is regarded as a threat to the programmed belief, the believer’s mind exhibits something similar to a flight or fight reaction.

²Holy hypocrites. With this recipe of committing immoralities and begging forgiveness the Christian reveals the true nature of his faith: Faith is an illusion. If you can behave like an average human being 6 days a week, lying, cheating, and stealing, but then on the 7th day confess your “sins” and be forgiven, of what value is faith? What improvements are imparted to the individual as a result of faith? Six days a week the Christian is totally indistinguishable from the general population (except perhaps being a little more annoying), but on the seventh… he/she becomes squeaky clean? This problem with Christianity has been a thorn in the side of the faithful ever since it was proclaimed that only faith was required for salvation. One can imagine Hitler on his knees in his bunker, a gun held to his head, praying for forgiveness. Bingo… ticket to heaven. If heaven did exist, I wonder how the faithful would react, upon arriving at the pearly gates, to the sight of Hitler among the crowd.

->In answer to John Higgins lack of understanding as to why the faithful must be so defensive I must reply that they simply have no other choice. If they had no doubts then there would be no need to be defensive in the face of contradictory information. Instead they would be serene in their knowledge that all is as they believe and it does not matter in the least what any one says to the contrary. The doubts, however, are real. The only way to allay the fear that they might be wrong is to experience constant reinforcement and to eliminate contrary information. In the past they would act quickly to eliminate contrary information by simply punishing the perpetrator of such into submission. Burning at the stake and hanging also provided needed relief. Now, since the laws of the land decree that such punishment is inappropriate, the only way the believer has of eliminating the offensive contradictory information is to persuade the perpetrator to join the fold. Who knows what they might do should Christianity again gain real power?
Destruction! I Will Rain Fire Upon You! … April 15, 2013

2013/04/14

Everyone by law has the right to believe as they desire thanks to our Constitution and its amendments (Despite North Carolina’s recent insanity). Fine. Nevertheless, since I believe faith in a non-provable god is irrational I have elected to be active in its eradication.

Accommodationists think that non-believers should reach out in an act of tolerance and be understanding of religious beliefs. After 911, and similar tragedies prompted by religious zealousness, a lot of people have a great understanding of the destructive tendencies of such belief.

It is time for those who have embraced reason to assert themselves. Usurpation of our government by the fundamentally religious (terminally delusional) should be resisted. No one that serves anyone other than the people who elected them should be permitted to hold public office.

No religious test for office? When an elected official has as their mandate from what they call a higher source rather than the people who went to the polls there should be a religious test. In any case, there is a religious test imposed upon every politician by the religious right. These people ask each politician about their religious convictions without fail. Despite the ban on church involvement in political arenas there is encouragement from the pulpit as to who the flock should vote, so as to avoid god’s holy punishment.

There being an illegal religious test for office already in progress, what is one more test exercised by those who think reason and logic should prevail? If there were not already one religious test, there would be no need for another.

Finding a candidate that does not support, or claim to support, religious principles in the United States is a difficult task. The reasoning person needs to read between the lines to ascertain whether a candidate actually is delusional, or is simply claiming delusion for the purposes of political necessity.

If people were on the whole honest then the detrimental nature of religion would be universally revealed. Mankind has suffered greatly at the hands of religion since it invented the first god. Any small advantages imparted by such irrational belief are outweighed by the disadvantages. I will let the reader do the research on the detrimental effects of religion as such endeavors always prove more profitable than having them presented without such effort. They are more likely to accept the facts if they find them through their own sweat and without coercion. This doesn’t mean that future posts will not present evidence of religion’s culpability. I have decided that I will actively support religion’s eradication, and being silent does not help this cause. Past posts have pointed out many of religion’s atrocities as well as demonstrated how delusional and disease-like the nature of belief can be. I came to my atheism through my own research. I was fortunate that my indoctrination was not deep and the cure not nearly as difficult as some.
I’ll Pray For You! …………. April 10, 2013

2013/04/10

I am presently reading Michael Spry’s book No Santa, No Tooth Fairy, No God: The Need to Challenge Faith in America. He reiterated a point that I have often made as to why friendships break up when religion gets in the way.

There is a need in the faithful, mandated by their beliefs, to spread the seed of religion to all. Frequently they assume that everyone believes and here in the United States that belief they feel they share with everyone is Christianity. As a manner of daily habit they make statements of faith as if were commonplace, expecting blithe agreement. When they encounter even the smallest resistance it comes as a shock leaving them aghast. From everything I have read and from my personal experiences it seems that they, the average believers, are unprepared for even the most timid challenge.

When an atheist makes his or her viewpoints on the validity of religious belief generally known he or she is taking upon a risk. People that have been of his/her acquaintance for many years and are faithful believers will express shock, dismay, and finally pity. The ardent believer will make numerous attempts to correct the “faulty” behavior. With resolute determinism they will quote Biblical passages. They will point out that the population at large is mostly in agreement with their religious message. They will make statements about the immoral nature and hopelessness of an atheist stance. Never do they cite evidence supporting belief. Never do they do more than offer logical fallacies. From the Loaded Question fallacy, the Ad Hominem attack, Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Nature, to Anecdotal experiences or examples, the adamant believer never gets around to substantiating their position with ‘real world’ facts. A lot of times it comes down to “How can so many millions of Christians be wrong” or “Who are you to question the beliefs of so many Christians”. They can become very emotional in their appeals. Appealing to emotions is one of the avenues used in proselytizing the un-churched.

Faced with logically sound arguments and possessing no real ammunition to refute them the average Christian soon becomes resigned to the reality that you, the atheist, will never come to realize your error. Even the articulate believer, versed in the methods used to counteract the facts, offers no real facts of their own and often begin blowing billowing clouds of unconnected, unreasoning, scientific-sounding jargon in hopes that you will not examine it too closely. Many atheists, befuddled by such nonsense, do not argue further, and then the articulate believer proclaims to have won the day.

The atheist and the believer, though they may have been close friends for many years, then part. The believer is nearly always the initiator of the severing of these ties, announcing upon departure that he or she will “pray” for his/her friend with the hopes that someday he/she will turn to God. The Christian has no choice. If he or she truly believes they will feel the truthfulness of what their atheist friend has to say and sense the weakening of resolve. A need to flee will be initiated in order to protect the faith.

Religion has been compared to a virus, a mental virus, which appropriates its host. More like some parasite it commandeers its host and assumes its identity. When threatened it controls the primal fight or flee mechanisms that have developed through evolution to protect an animal and uses them to protect the faith. Like a frightened animal, the overwhelmed Christian, faced with contradictory data, feels a need to get away, to flee to the safety of those also likewise compromised. By encapsulating themselves, staying separate from the general population, they find comfort and encouragement from their peers. This revival, this reinforcement is why it is so hard for some to break from such groups.

I have experienced departing friends first hand. Realizing that everyone perceives from their own perspectives I present this example for the readers assessment. I had a friend from childhood to adulthood that happened to be a Baptist. He made more than one attempt to shape me to the Baptist mold. I even began to attend his church, this back in the mid-1970s. My grievous error was to question the moral character of the pastor. I simply disagreed with what was going on in the church. They had put me in a study group which was no doubt meant to assimilate me into the faith most completely. At the time I had considered myself matured enough in the faith and was slighted that they thought I needed such assimilation. Needless to say, after my conflict with the image my friend had of his “beloved” pastor, I left the church. Subsequent encounters with my former friend were tense. After I had publicly declared my atheism, he sent me an anonymous email, which I knew was from him nevertheless, and in which he stated that he could not understand my change in behavior. He was aghast, as Christians are wont to be upon discovering an atheist in their midst. After that, chance meetings were indifferent. He would acknowledge my presence but engage in no meaningful conversation. Whether he is still praying for me I do not know. If he is still on hands and knees begging his divine master to bring me home I am sure he will receive the same results as all Christians receive in return for their prayers.
Sandwiches Don’t Kill People, People Kill People ….. April 8 2013

2013/04/07

Did anyone think it would come to this? A child fashions what he calls a mountain out of a sandwich and because it resembles a gun the child gets suspended from school? Children, using their fingers to form a gun and shouting bang bang, suspended from school. Someone told they cannot wear an army hat to school because it is suggestive of the military?

How do these school officials intend to sanitize children from weapons? Everyday on the news there are reports of shootings. Movies have people using guns as if everyone carries. Have the school boards gone bonkers? Do they intend to remove every single reference to a firearm from the school. Will your child at some point, having committed an infraction, come home with his/her hands removed?

The zero tolerance policy was not meant to be used to eliminate just the suggestion of a gun, or a gun imitated in play by children. It was meant to eliminate the presence of an actual weapon for any reason on school property. The imagination can be used to convert anything into the shape of a weapon.

There has even been the suspension of a child for carrying a nail clipper. What next? Those pencils can be very sharp. Let’s eliminate pencils, pens, and rulers from the schools. A piece of chalk can be held and pointed as an imaginary gun… it must go.

Keeping a child safe is important, I agree. However, unless you wrap him/her in cellophane and wheel him/her into school on a hand truck, there is always the potential of an accident of some type occurring. You can’t protect them from everything. You certainly cannot insulate children from the daily news.

This zero tolerance policy meant well, but it has been interpreted by ignorance into a veritable nightmare. As they have interpreted it there are no gray areas. No lenience permitted for the behavior of a child. If it looks like a gun, it’s a gun, whether it’s made of bread and peanut butter or not.

Now there is talk of armed guards in the schools. Armed? With what? There is zero tolerance being enforced in the schools. Maybe they will be carrying pillows around to gently beat the children into compliance. If you bring a gun into a school there is always a chance of it being misused. If the school board can be ridiculous, so can I.

No student should be suspended for play acting unless it disrupts the normal functioning of the school.
Judgment Day? … April 3, 2013

2013/04/03

I was once asked what I would say if after death I found myself standing before the christian god. At the time I said the wrong thing, but… I’m like that with ‘should have saids’, which is why I would not make a good debater face to face. I admit that lack of skill, as I have never had any sort of speaking experience.

Many atheists might answer the above question with “Why didn’t you provide any evidence of your existence?”

In my opinion the question is ridiculous in the light of information we have today invalidating the entirety of the christian religion. If there is a god it isn’t one we have any knowledge about. There is no evidence that anyone will ever be standing before an angry god. To even entertain the possibility presented by the proposed scenario is granting something the issue does not deserve.

I think the answer should go something like: “I don’t expect to be standing anywhere after I die. I don’t expect to know that I’m not standing anywhere. In fact, there will be nothing, not even blackness, after I die, for the recognition of blackness would be something.” Nothingness is hard for the human mind to grasp. Existing has always been preferred to non-existence, save a few depressed folk. This fact, that of desiring life over death, is what started that god thing in the first place. No one wants to die, after all, that is an unknown. What people have to realize is that it is not an unknown. Death is simply that, death. To be an unknown implies that there is something after death, and that simply seems, from the lack of any evidence, simply not true. When you understand the human motives for developing religion, and the penchant for a fear of the death, then you can realize it’s all wishful thinking, relax, and accept the reality of nothing after death. That is a calming thought. No judgment from an immature deity, no condemnation, no hell, just nothing. Like a long sleep, without dreaming, and that sounds downright restful (but no need to rush).
Anonymous Coward … April 1, 2013

2013/03/31

Why do Christians think that when a man says “I’m an atheist” that he doesn’t mean it? How can it be made clear that nonbelief in a deity or the supernatural is not an invitation for proselytizing? I realize these people might actually believe they are being kind and are possibly even serious about saving my non-existent soul. But enough is enough.

Just before Christmas last year I received a packet of brimstone, fire-belching Christian tracts which I displayed on a past blog. On Wednesday March 20, 2013, I received yet another packet, just in time for Easter. The perpetrator whoever he or she might be does not even have the courage or decency to include a return address.

Perhaps they think it is an amusing game. Perhaps they think they will rile me into accepting their lord and savior. I do find it amusing, to think that there are people who still believe in this crap. What year is it? 2013? Yet they live so far in the past holding to concepts written by bronze age know nothings.

So…who could it be? It’s stamped from the Cleveland post office here in Ohio, whereas, our local mail is supposed to go through Akron. That seems to eliminate my one suspect, one I will call Tim. He’s a baptist, but is otherwise is a fairly intelligent fellow. I think he would know better. That leaves an unknown.

Well, at least these tracts won’t land in the hands of someone who has not been inoculated against the god virus. There’s always a good side to everything.
Intelligent Deception … March 27, 2013

2013/03/27

Ignorance has its intelligent proponents. Its major difficulty is how to convince people something is right, when it is so terribly wrong. The proponents, of course, do not think what they are supporting as being terribly wrong. If they were convinced of this and still promoted it they would be in another category: Liars for Jesus.

For the Intelligent design proponent the problem is clear. How to prove something which cannot be proven. These people fully believe that what they are doing is providing support for the truth. Yet, in the past when they have attempted to prove the correctness of what they believe they have found it impossible to do so.

Think-tanks are formed, like the Discovery Institute, in an attempt to come up with proofs for that which cannot be proven. After much consideration it seems as if their solution to the problem is this: Complexity. No, not irreducible complexity, though that concept has its supporters too, just complexity.

The Discovery Institute decided after much debate to fabricate enormously complex proofs for intelligent design concepts. The complexity is such that the average joe could not, but also would not, attempt to understand these explanations. The average Joes and Janes are the targets of these con-men. Through many large events, drawing crowds of thousands, these masters of deception have bilked willing yokels out of millions of dollars.

Experts have unraveled their complex but obscure proofs and found them gibberish.

William Lane Craig is another deceiver that cloaks his “proofs” in unintelligible longwinded, and quite never-ending speech. The only plus the man has is that he is an expert debater who could probably convince some poor gullible slob that up is down and down is up. Although supposedly winning most of his debates it is through obfuscation and deception that he has done so. If the person you are debating doesn’t have a clue about what you are talking what chance do they have of responding? Craig uses various bombastic tricks he has honed over the years to confuse and outclass his opponent.

In the end, deception is all they have left. If their god truly does exist, that god has left them blowing in the wind. Not a shred of evidence exists to substantiate the reality of their god, including Jesus. The only thing they can resort to is attempting to prove that which cannot be proven, with demonstrations of deception.
Spurning a Label…. March 25, 2013

2013/03/24

Religion has, as its main motivation, the fear of death. There are other reasons for religion such as the transference of respect of and belief in one’s parents ability to protect you, care for you, to an even more magnificent and powerful “parent” after childhood. Fear, however, of death, and the desire to be immortal, are the mainstays of religion.

Many people within the faith, however, are no longer of it. Again, the motivation for silence, and at least feigned devotion of a deity, is fear. Fear of what others might think. Fear of the repercussions of rejection of belief. Some of these “In the faith but not of it” may talk to fellow attendees of their church and not even realize they are talking to a fellow, non-believer.

Fear of rejection by friends, family, and the public in general has kept people en masse from publicly voicing their lack of belief in a supernatural deity. Agnostics sit happily on the fence, afraid to declare atheism, because the faithful over the years have been extremely successful in stigmatizing the label.

Others, in an effort to distance themselves from the mainstream religions, yet not draw the ire of the faithful, label themselves in ways so as not to offend. Many even invent their own brand of belief, with one sole follower, themselves.

There is a group that is growing, a group that atheists, agnostics, and other ‘labeled’ non-belief systems are at once a part, but also separate from:
the Nones. There is a growing segment of ‘nones’ that spurn all labels. They do not profess faith, yet they declare they are not atheists. Though many accept or at least do not resist the label ‘secular’, they accept no other denotation. These people conduct themselves in a secular fashion in all of their daily dealings, proclaiming no faith, and accepting no labels.

Why would these people reject the label atheist? Again, I assert it is because they are afraid. They are afraid of the backlash from wearing the label ‘atheist’. They are afraid of losing friends and being rejected from family. As a result, they assume a position which they think is less threatening to religion, one which might be considered neutral.

Unfortunately, even though these ‘nones’ may desire to simply be neutral, they are forgetting that religion has no gray areas, only black and white, on or off, ‘for us or against us’. The devout look upon these ‘nones’ as undeclared atheists. They do not harass them because the ‘nones’ do not affiliate themselves with power-blocks, groups, which might stand up for non-believers rights. They, the religious, look upon the ‘nones’ as they do the general population, to a degree. They see them as simply wayward children, needing proselytization. Having only black and white horizons, these devout may see the ‘nones’ as off, but not having declared as off. Atheists, on the other hand, have made such a declaration, even to the point of telling the believer that their deity is imaginary.

‘Nones’ are walking a tightrope, even more so than agnostics. Resolutely, they are attempting to align themselves with no one. Distancing themselves from those who actively pursue the right to believe as they wish, they render themselves inert to the cause of unbelief. Like the non-unionized worker, who refuses to join a union and promote worker’s rights, the ‘none’ allows the declared non-believer do all the work that is involved in fighting for the rights of non-believers. They want the rights, but refuse to dirty their hands by doing the work. About the only good they are to the cause is that they present a face of neutrality to religion, which may someday, hopefully, become the norm. Otherwise, they are dead weight, and nearly as bad as accommodationists.
Right to Work? …. March 20, 2013

2013/03/20

What do “Right to Work” laws do?

Right to work laws allow individuals to work within a unionized company without paying union dues. Unions refer to these individuals as “free-riders”. The union is still required by law to represent these employees. By lowering the amount the union takes in for its various functions the right to work laws weaken the union’s ability to act and to bargain. This has the effect of lowering wages in those states with right to work laws.

Such laws are supported whole-heartedly by business corporations that desire the demise of the union and its higher wage rates. Individuals who support these laws have been fooled into thinking that such laws benefit them. To understand why such laws are not beneficial to the employee we have to examine the differences between unionized and non-unionized workplaces.

If unions did not exist is there anyone who thinks wages would be as high as they are? Sure, more people might be working, but these workers would be earning only a fraction of what they deserve. Every worker would be subject to the favoritism of the owners and managers. Yes, those that benefit from such favoritism would object to unions. Any worker could be dismissed for the the most minor of reasons, or no reason at all. Does anyone doubt that at some companies the workers would be treated as slaves? Sweat shops would abound. Everyone would be at the mercy of the whims of the rich and ‘entitled’.

Money would probably be worth more. However, that would be because there would be so little of it to be had. The rich would be richer, the poor, poorer. Whenever the business owner gave a few crumbs to his downtrodden workers it would be hailed as a benevolent act of kindness, though in reality it is given with the thought in mind that it might deter an outright rebellion. Keep them happy, would be the motivation, or at least not angry.

When a non-unionized business is unionized the relationship between employee and employer does change. The owner is then obligated to deal with a group rather than the individual concerning wages and benefits. Adverse financial effects could occur if an agreement to working conditions is not met. What the membership wants is a fair wage for work done. It is not in the interest of the union to make things so difficult that the business cannot continue (Not that this does not happen at times). Favoritism goes by the wayside, at least where management is not concerned. Seniority becomes an important quality should layoffs be necessary.

In the presence of unions, even a non-unionized business must provide an adequate incentive for the retaining of quality employees. Wages everywhere are higher in the presence of unionized businesses. Companies are only going to payout what they have to.

Having worked in both unionized and non-unionized settings I prefer unionized. This is despite the fact that the union leaders themselves, at times, play favorites. Gung-ho union supporters are given extra attention to their grievances as compared to those who merely are members for the sake of enabling them to work. In union atmospheres you must be careful to remain in the good graces of the union leadership.

The only detrimental effect of a union, as I see it, is that, in most cases, the worker who excels is given no more consideration. There usually is no extra reward for exceptional work. This can lead to employees doing only what is necessary to get by and to an attitude of not caring about the future of the company. Of course, I have seen lots of that even in non-unionized businesses, but the individual is usually soon gone, unless they are one of the “beautiful people”.

Unions, as I see it, exist only because of the tendency of human greed. No, not that the unions are greedy, but because the wealthy are extremely reluctant to share the wealth. If all business owners had always been generous, providing good working conditions at fair wages, what need would there be for the existence of unions? The very thing, unions, which the wealthy abhor, are the result of what the wealthy have done.

Unions are a necessary entity. If ‘Right to Work’ laws endanger them then ‘Right to Work’ laws should be fought wherever they exist. Those individuals that support ‘Right to Work’ laws are either rich, or have been duped.