five of the respondents were from out-of-state and 311 were from North Carolina, . . . [and] The average age of the protesters, according to the UNC researchers, was 53, with 25 percent under age 36. Sixty percent were female, and the racial breakdown largely matched the 2010 Census findings – 79 percent were white, 17 percent African-American, 6 percent Hispanic and the rest were Asian, Pacific Islander, Indian or other.

But, if it’s not outside agitators that are propelling citizens to the capitol to object to their recently elected legislators’ agenda, then it must be buyers’ remorse. And that raises the question how it happened that all over the country (not just in Wisconsin and North Carolina) people were persuaded to put demagogues into office. Were they deceived or did they “buy a pig in a poke”? Likely both.
What seems to have happened is that the powers that be, the people who amassed lots of money by selling off our natural resources for private gain, determined that their sucking at the public teat was about to end and, since economic strictures were obviously not enough to make people mind their own business and let the exploiters go about theirs, their obedience would have to be coerced by restricting their rights.
“Civil disobedience” would be a nonsense phrase, if there weren’t a prior assumption that citizens have an obligation to obey, to do what they are told without question, just as if “big daddy” were still in charge. Civil disobedience would not be an issue, if public officials honored their obligation to be governed by the people who elect them.
For some reason, that election and governance are part of a process doesn’t register with some people. Perhaps it’s simply a matter of not “getting” relationships. Whatever the explanation, there is no reason to keep people in public office, who can’t do anything but tell others what to do. Letting them pile on prohibitions is not an option, either. There’s much work to be done dealing with the vagaries of nature and rule-making is not going to do it.

I think we are sometimes too quick to dismiss inconsistency between behavior and expressed intent as a lie and then insist that the lie be “fixed.” What if that is a waste of time, because in the ulterior universe there is no true or false, just impulsive response? It would make as much sense to argue with the mosquito about lunch.

Exploiters exploit. It’s what they do. They are directed by ulterior motives for the simple reason that they are unaware. “How” and “why” are inexplicable concepts. Oh, they can supply an answer to a question, acting as a prompt for a response, but the answer is likely to be irrelevant, or a mere conflation of events, as in “I went to the store because the sun was shining.”

IN the early 1970s, a team of researchers dropped hundreds of stamped, addressed letters near college dorms along the East Coast and recorded how many lost letters found their way to a mailbox. The researchers counted each posted letter as a small act of charity and discovered that students in some of the dorms were more generous than others.

and concludes, after reporting on the disposition of flyers left on cars:

These environmental cues can shape and reshape us as quickly as we walk from one part of the city to another.

without, apparently, considering that both experiments involved littering by the experimenters, nor that the response of drivers is likely to be different from people who actually walk. Most walkers, except perhaps the hikers on Mount Everest, don’t litter nearly as much as people who drive in cars.
Blaming the environment for how people act is a new one on me. On the other hand, people just dropping what they don’t want is probably attavistic behavior and may have to be consciously restrained, or carefully unlearned.
Then too, “a place for everything and everything in its place,” depends on a person having a sense of place. Which, also apparently, some people lack.

a) it acts as a prompt to repetition, to try and try again
b) it produces a guaranteed/secure result
c) it promotes longevity
d) it discourages envy
e) it deceives opponents assuming one aims for success
f) together with attention-seeking behavior, it provides cover for crooks

To deceive is to rule. Ergo, just as power has to hurt, rulers have to lie.
Does that mean those who rule themselves have to lie to themselves? Just a question.

Perhaps that is the signal characteristic of the cons — disdain for all of existence, including their own. If so, then it’s pretty useless expecting them to have concern for the environment and other living things. The irony is that people with this attitude can live a very long time. Perhaps the belief in vampires has some experiential basis.

1) Nature is mechanical or machine-like.
2) Matter is unconscious.
3) Laws of nature are fixed.
4) Total amount of emergy and matter is always the same.
5) Nature is purposeless.
6) Biological heredity is material.
7) Memories are stored inside the brain as material traces.
8) Mind is inside the head.
9) Psychic phenomena are impossible.
10) Mechanistic medecine is the only kind that works.

Looks like ten preconceived notions derived from the preferences of the cognitive brain. The cognitive brain likes to think it is in charge, the “captain of my soul.”
I suppose I should explain that I knew the “science” of economics is based on false assumptions. That the hard sciences suffer from the same problem comes as a surprise.