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A Kept Culture
A Kept Culture
By
Cognitive Dissonance
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My thinking on a variety of subjects has changed over time and I expect my understanding will continue to evolve as new information, knowledge and propaganda enters my orbit. Contrary to popular belief this is a good thing because it means my mindset is not as static and rigid as some, though it is most certainly worse than others.
One of the great questions of the ages is why we, and by ‘we’ I mean anyone other than ‘they/them’, tolerate the abuse we receive from the hand of our masters. While the mistreatment is most often handed down on an individual basis, “We the Abused” outnumber the abusers by at least 10 to 1. And I count among that ‘1’ all those who enable, support and carry out the abuse. So why do we tolerate something we can clearly stop if we so wish?
Earlier on in my ongoing awakening, a never ending process of self reflection and discovery, I would sometimes use the derogatory term ‘sheeple’ to describe both a people and a condition. I was grasping for a simple all encompassing answer to a complex problem, and believing that the vast masses were blissfully ignorant while passively grazing upon an array of consumer goods satisfied my need to understand what to me at the time was incomprehensible.
This is not to say some are not exactly as described. In fact at one point in my life I fit the bill perfectly, totally consumed in my naval gazing and mostly oblivious to not only my own lot in life, but those around me. As a single parent raising my boy alone for seventeen years, I was righteously indignant if anyone dared to question my focus. After all, I was doing it for the child(ren).
But deep down I knew that at best my explanation was inadequate and at worse deeply flawed. While at several points in my life I was a ‘sheeple’, the description did not fit all my situations all the time. I lived in, and existed within, a far more complex world than could be described using simple concepts and ideas. Like a broken clock I was on the rare occasion quite accurate, but for the vast majority of the time I was dead wrong. I suspect my view was biased by familiarity both with myself and others who fit the description. But more importantly, it was comforting to believe I understood the problem and that I wasn’t ‘it’.
So I continued to search for an answer to THE question, though this time I was more thoroughly grounded after recognizing my desire for a simplistic answer and my need to absolve myself from blame or culpability. This self examination and understanding led directly to my explorations into denial, both of the self and of the collective.
This seemed to make more sense to me and quite frankly still does as a significant contributor to this issue. Denial is infinitely customizable, scalable and adaptable. One can be in total, partial and minimal denial about a subject or subjects and our denial can ebb and flow as circumstances and conditions, including our anxiety and fear, dictate.
We are never completely denial free unless we can claim to have cleared all the Cognitive Dissonance cobwebs from the mind, an assertion I would not make since I stumble across, and become entangled within, new ones on a reoccurring basis. If anything as I continue to grow I find more, not less, though they are increasingly more subtle and nuanced.
But while denial more completely describes the present state of the human condition, it still falls short of encompassing the infinite variety of daily life within the Insane Asylum. How does one cope with being in a near constant state of loss and grief, of borderline depression, while still ‘functioning’ on a day to day basis? In many respects we are endlessly circling the five stages of loss and grief so nicely described in the Kubler-Ross model, yet clearly on a higher, more complex, level of existence because it encompasses both the individual and the collective.

The JFK Funeral - Collective loss and grief
An example of the individual/collective loss and grief dynamic in play was the days and weeks after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Words fail to adequately explain what the nation on all levels experienced at that time. There were few, other than the very young, who were not emotionally moved either directly by the loss or by the collective pall the country entered immediately afterward. As a child of seven years, while I did not understand what was going on, I was definitely moved by the emotional trauma others were dealing with at the time.
However, Kubler-Ross describes a onetime devastating loss or the recognition of an impending loss and the process of navigating that loss and grief, while I am seeking an explanation of a never ending existence within the loss and grief process because the ‘loss’ relates to, and is an integral part of, our daily living. I am speaking directly to the psychological and emotional consequences of the overall condition of our existence rather than onetime events that disturb our existence.
I suspect using the term ‘loss’ is inaccurate or incomplete, at least in the literal sense of the word. While a Lion captured in the wild and then confined to a cage at the zoo ‘knows’ what it has lost, a lion born into captivity never really is aware of a ‘loss’. But both lions may still suffer from the same neurosis which springs from the sense, the knowing, that something not quite definable (and more importantly unchangeable) is wrong.
It is my supposition that “We the People” also suffer from the same loss, the same trauma, as the captive born lion does, an inner ache and a growing awareness that something is very wrong with the world and our life within it. Because the reality we live within is the only reality we know, most of what is wrong is not readily apparent to the majority of us since this is just the way things are and everyone else lives more or less the same life as we do. A failure of our imagination is partially to blame for the sense we all have of being trapped with nowhere to go and no way to change.
The other day Mrs. Cog used a term to describe a fictional character from an old movie. She said the character was a ‘kept man’ and I instantly understood what she meant, though it would not have mattered if she had said ‘kept woman’. In so many ways the relationship between the ‘keeper’ and the ‘kept’ is remarkably similar to our ‘kept culture’ and the basis for our dour outlook and sense of impending doom and depression, even if it only lingers under the surface of our awareness. Let me attempt to further explain.
There is always an implicit, and often an explicit, agreement of understanding between the keeper and the kept that pretty much spells out the duties of each party as well as the rewards and benefits of the arrangement. With regard to our kept culture, on a broader scale the general terms and conditions of the agreement are spelled out in grade school, then further defined and refined in college, while the specifics of each situation are expressed by each employer/benefactor. Here is what you ‘do’ and this is your ‘compensation’ for doing so.
While most, if not all, of the power remains in the hands of the keeper, it is to the benefit of both parties that an illusion of equality is inferred between the keeper and the kept in order for the kept to feel they have ‘agreed’ to, and are ‘willing’ to, fully cooperate with the keeper to fulfill the terms of the agreement. You catch more flies (and keep more kept) with honey than vinegar. But make no mistake about it, this agreement can only be abridged or fundamentally altered with the consent of the keeper and not by the kept, thus demonstrating where the real power resides.
On those occasions when the kept strays beyond the boundaries laid out in the agreement or angers the keeper, it is then that the power carefully hidden from view and veiled behind propaganda, public protocols and cultural ritual is exhibited in a manner that leaves no doubt who is in charge. Just as the keeper may afford the kept a credit card or regular cash disbursements in order to further the illusion the kept is free and independent, those liberties can and will be quickly rescinded if for no other reason than as a reminder of who holds the power in the relationship.

To Protect and Serve......Whom?
So too the power of the state, its sharp edges deliberately smoothed by propagandized historical storytelling and mass media assurances, is obvious to anyone looking down the barrel of a gun or being summoned to court. There is no doubt which party is expected to submit when the keepers of the peace and the purse pull you over or summon you for an audit. Ultimately the authority of the keepers is derived from the threat of force, though it is in the best interest of all parties involved to keep this fact carefully obscured behind a thousand sheer veils.
On the surface it would appear the participants never change in these agreements until death do they part. And for some this is the case. But what helps cement the illusion of freedom for the kept, and magnificent benevolence of the keepers, is the seeming ability to change the conditions of the agreement, with each able to leave in order to form a more perfect union with another kept or keeper. But while individual conditions and connections may change, the overall framework remains the same.
This is similar to a formalized agreement between a players’ union (for example the NFL Players Association) and the sport’s organizing consortium (i.e. the National Football League) which outlines the rules that govern the overall relationship between players and league (the Collective Bargaining Agreement). This enables both parties to negotiate everything and anything so long as it follows the general rules and regulations of the governing agreement. So too, the kept and keeper may both change lovers at will so long as they do not switch roles or do anything else that violates the governing agreement parameters. In some ways the keeper is just as constrained as the kept.
Of course the keeper retains a greater degree of flexibility with regard to timing, selection and opportunity, whereas the kept may not overtly ‘select’ a new keeper, but must ultimately be selected by the keeper. The kept may burnish his/her resume (appearance, social and sexual skills, education and training, athletic ability) to increase desirability. But with the market flooded with available (read cheap) kept individuals, ultimately the market is controlled by the keepers. In practice a keeper keeps more than one and often dozens, though there may be a favorite the keeper returns to time and time again.
So while there is some degree of certainty for the kept so long as they remain productive and compliant, there is still a good deal of risk realized from being kept, and most of this risk is arbitrary and unspoken. Needless to say this creates a smoldering sense of anxiety within the kept and over the long term contributes greatly to their neurosis. Essentially being kept is simply another form of slavery, one driven mostly by the willing participation of the kept in service to the keeper. Thus we witness modern day plantation living in all its glory and profit.

The future Apple headquarters - Modern plantation living
I could go on and on with further examples of how “We the People” are a kept culture, including an in-depth exploration of the psychology underlying it. But why take all the fun out of it by rubbing our noses in our own excrement. The fact remains we for the most part willingly participate in our own slavery because the perks are too good to reject and the pain is not great enough to compel us to shake off the chains that binds us to our own servitude.
While I certainly understand how powerless the kept believe we/they are, and by extension how powerful the keepers remain, this is all an illusion designed to keep the kept (and in many respects the keepers themselves) mesmerized, seduced and sated. The powerful impression of system rigidity and momentum serves to maintain the status quo.
We rarely consider casting off our own chains because we consider our binds tied to everyone else’s and the system itself, thus exponentially complicating the problem in our minds. We conflate our personal condition with the overall systemic condition and vice versa, thus perpetuating the illusion with very little energy introduced to actually change our lives. After all, you can’t fight city hall……right? The funny thing is you don’t need to fight city hall to reformulate your ‘self’, just the desire and courage to do so.
If ever there was a perpetual motion machine invented, it is the social ‘agreement’ I just described. The small amount of energy introduced from outside the closed loop system to keep it churning is minor compared to the amount self produced by the active participation of both the kept and keeper as well as that generated by the ever evolving parameters within the much larger collective governing agreement. This energy, whether internal or external, is expressed primarily as emotion and when multiplied by 325 million, or 7 billion, is quite frankly the most powerful man made force in the universe.
While we blame the keepers for our kept condition, it is we who are ultimately to blame for our slavery primarily because we expect that we must change the world when all we need do is change ourselves. I often ask those around me, “How do you eat an elephant”, a seemingly impossible task. The answer is, of course, one bite at a time. But in order to do so we must be brutally honest with ourselves and recognize our contributing role in the collective farce and the personal conditions we must change if we are to slip the binds that tie.
The perks that come with being kept will not survive the breaking of the keep. And it is our denial of this fact that greatly contributes to the power of the keepers and of our being continuously kept. Pain must be endured and several steps back must be tolerated, even encouraged, if we are to eventually move forward. Centuries of prior collective experience and memory cannot be erased in days, weeks, even months. Nor can we expect others to blaze the trail if we are unwilling to walk the path, alone if necessary. Stop waiting for others to start the process and take your first bite of true freedom.
11-02-2014
Cognitive Dissonance
As the kept, there is no possibility of an exit. Only a promotion to house slave.

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Peace to you dude - I feel your pain.
I survived my divorce (1996). I went through the classic worst case scenario - oddly in a VA suburb of DC.
I will share some things I found helpful.
1. You cannot help others unless you take care of yourself also.
2. If is not going to matter in five years, it really is not that important. Try not sweat the small stuff.
3. Try not to become evil, even if you are in an evil situation.
4. Time will actually pass - eventually things will sort themselves out - and things will be better.
All the best.
Did it too.
Your statements are true, but I would change #1 to:" You cannot help others unless you take care of yourself first".
It's been my experience as a guy who got custody.....
Thanks. Props to you. It is difficult to find peace. One foot in front of the other, day after day...
"but more like a Mandelbrot pattern repeated down to the smallest example. The keepers are themselves kept by a high echelon of keepers and so on and so on. This plays out going up and down the rungs of the socioeconomic ladder..."
The strain !
We are all cowards, waiting for everyone, else, to solve the problem.
I'm working on it every day. Yes it is painful and very time consuming but if not me then who else? I stand up every day to go forth and educate and encourage action (peacefully that is). There is definately a rising awareness, disgust, outrage or worry.
When on a sustained basis the pain is greater than the perks the fear will subside (or flare) and change, albeit most likely co-opted, will come. Think lowest common denominator, sadly an easily controlled social condition. TPTB are not worried about the herd, just the fearless individual.
"TPTB are not worried about the herd, just the fearless individual."
Something we can agree on.
HL Menken is one of my favorite commentators on the political condition. The following is a quote from a review of his Notes on Democracy.
"Mencken then turns to Democracy and Liberty. He contends that the common man has no interest in liberty: "he is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. He longs for the warm, reassuring smell of the herd, and is willing to take the herdsman with it."
http://mises.org/daily/3359
Brutal but true.
the worst part is a 30% criminal "majority" thinks they can enforce their
slavery terror on free will, called denomocracy statute.
Our ego will hear of no such thing. Of course we desire freedom. To admit otherwise would dismantle the ultimate lie, that we are presently free. If we were to accept either we are not free or do not wish freedom, aren't we supposed to do something about it? Knowledge often compels responsibility. The solution is to deny knowing.
Perhaps man is simply a herd animal?
Perhaps more than any other, your observation has occupied much of my time.
To be or not to be, that is the question. :-)
Great stuff, as usual. The word "pain" has had sufficient play here. That's what it will take for change to occur. Just as Bill W said "Pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth;" it will take pain for societal growth as well. Massive and instantaneous pain will not be a pretty picture. For the sake of our society itself, I hope that the pain comes slowly enough to cause change from the bottom up in a gradual manner. It can be financial, emotional, or any other type of pain suited to the individual that will cause him/her to move. I'm pretty pained at being boxed in more and more on a daily basis. The police state advances that are being made are making that pain nearly unbearable. We shall see.... Don't know about you, but I'm slow to anger. But when there I'm not a pleasant coon.
Cog said: While a Lion captured in the wild and then confined to a cage at the zoo ‘knows’ what it has lost, a lion born into captivity never really is aware of a ‘loss’.
Since we are like the lion born into captivity, we really have no way of knowing what humans once were or could be, including whether we are naturally a herd animal. Since we do know history is constantly being changed and rewritten and things are rarely as they seem, who could say if our herd mentality is only a product of thousands of years of conditioning? Who really knows what we could be? I would like to think people are capable of connecting on a much higher level, we have just forgotten how. Perhaps this resulted in a bastardization of our potential and flung us into this temporary cattle shoot.
or breeding / engineering.
Looking back at the achievements of some cultures I believe you are correct, but, again.. is this conditioning or is it breeding / engineering that has caused our 'regression'
why one or the other, not both?
We've been fooled, by a leader of a technological-advanced tribe.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” - Albert Einstein
However, the pain of knowing and remembering IS less painful than the pain of knowing and NOT remembering.
The behavior due to the PAIN of NOT REMEMBERING manifests in psychopathy - IMO. We do see lots of psychopathy daily.
Welcome to the Insane Asylum where we are both inmates and staff.
we are free relative to the costs of living within a 84 hour week(7 x 12). half the week we must rest and sustain(mainly run around getting stuffs)ourselves. to not be kept(less kept), i will live minimally and work less and therfor(stating the obvious) have more time to fuck off. pretty god damn simple...
In my opinion by the late 1950's productivity increases in the USA allowed the average American to reduce their work week in half and still maintain their standard of living. So why was this not 'allowed' to happen?
I suspect if given the chance to think about their condition, people might just start asking difficult questions of their leaders. Better to be 'kept' on the treadmill (work, consumer, entertainment, drugs) than actually thinking.
The military knows how to run a tight ship. Idle hands are not a good thing for the narrowly focused hive mind. Best to be cleaning toilets and digging ditches that are later refilled than to sit around and consider the insanity of laying your life on the line for your master's benefit.
Idle hands are the Devil's workshop.
Dat dreamin' get you in trouble, boy.
LOL
well said; i am very good at doing nothing all day and thinking i got a lot done.
bachman turnner overdrive. that is a good day!!! but the day arrives to get shit done! and on those days i get the work of two done in one. then back to being slack jack and have fun doing nothin all day...
the human condition does not know how to be unbusy without a stirecrazyness within. might i suggest it is the very human condition/weakness vs being more of a loner as i am(but happily married to a simular type person- we each have our space and support that!). not to justify my condition, but as an obsevation...
i will sugest something most will think is odd: minimalism is a spirit that manifests from within amoungst other ideals. for example, my dad was raised in the depression and therefor i have those values of waste not, ect. the spirit is what i give it to do its task through my set of beliefs to get to the goals and satisfaction i desire...
The "social compact" probably never was agreed upon but we were led to it increment by increment, and it isn't working, at least on the larger scale. I'm beginning to look for prospects (geographically) "elsewhere"--away from the unneighborly city.
When you figure out a safe and habitable place for the long haul, please let me know. I haven't figured it out yet. There just doesn't seem there is any place to hide.
because it takes a village and shared vocations whereas one is justly rewarded for his/her efforts. the assumption is we are equal which we are not. the marketplace takes care of that. but someone excels and gathers more wealth, then the problems begin. how do we share /allocate that wealth? let the entity gain power from this earned wealth? he or she just worked smarter and/or harder. enter the governing body to keep order and create laws, hmm, now we are at the crux of the problem. humans will find ways to take that earned wealth and keep and or redistribute it to like minded populus ensuring there own power. c.d is sugesting to go to the tall grass(where danger lurks-above post) and forge you own village, albiet very small. find like minded peoples that work the fringes, and most of all find happiness doing so...
Well said new game. A few here on ZH over the years have laughably mistaken Cog's thinking out loud for an approval of redistributing wealth. Called him a pinko commie lol.
Every task or decision I make that removes a dependence on the (rigged) money meme is another step towards physical freedom. The real battle is deprogramming myself to attain internal freedom. That will take a lifetime that I will gladly spend working towards. I don't think most people see it that way.
mrs cog, i just got back from being in the outback(up north-MN), wandering trails, enjoying the natural beauty and avoiding other humans. I am thinking clear for a while. I live in the country but still must join the herd for some dolla. the writings of you and your husband give me the clarity i know is out there, other wise i would find it by trial and error, because there are a hell of a lot of people thinking just like us, but have not linked the cause and effect, but know the solution(s)...
Social order, just like water, flows the path of least resistance. When we are young and entirely dependent we are conditioned into the ways of our culture. Since it is the only thing we 'know', the flow is almost always in that direction.
I once heard or read something that still lingers in the back of my mind. The subject was youthful rebellion and the older person speaking was somewhat sympathetic to the plight of the young social rebel. But then he cleared up all doubt about the possibility of a significant revolution in this country when he said "If by the age of 30 you aren't firmly embedded in the establishment you are a fool and a loser."
In other words, have your youthful fling with being contrary to the herd. Go ahead and get it out of your system. But eventually you will either join the herd or suffer the severe consequences. What he was saying is you cannot change the system from within and the path of least resistance is the path nearly everyone takes. Go with the flow.
This is why so many are willfully blind to their, and each others, corruption. The perks of joining the herd are in almost all cases much better than the pain of rejecting the herd. It takes a courageous person to be contrarian and walk the path alone.
Thoughtful article Cog.
The truly maddening thing about being captured is that no matter what you may think or do, you simply cannot, without resorting to being an outlaw, escape the clutches of the State.
Legal tender laws, (amongst many others) force you to comply to pay taxes on income and property no matter if you choose to live on a limited system of barter and wherever you are, you are always under the jurisdiction of the State.
You can minimize your engagement but you can never be free of the State and it's kevlar clad .40mm enforcers.
Protect and Serve...The State.
Movements for social and political change require a galvanizing number of martyrs to raise public consciousness and a mass rejection that threaten the status quo and force it to enact reform and that reform will become watered down and almost meaningless as the process progresses.
Who wants to volunteer to be a martyr for a slice of bread rather than the full loaf?
That's pretty much how I see it.
"Who wants to volunteer to be a martyr for a slice of bread rather than the full loaf?"
And right there is the illusion because we believe we are getting more than if we were to withdraw. In reality our present day lifestyle is killing us on all levels, be it physically (health), financially, psychologically and emotionally.
Just as we willingly reduce our caloric intake to lose some weight now in order to regain our health and vigor later, so too if we were to willingly endure some socioeconomic hardship now we might just get to a better place later. The reason this never happens is because the masses are mesmerized by the illusion.
It always, always boils down to Fear.
The saying, "he who has nothing, has nothing to lose" is the revelation so many are missing. The lie is that one is self- identified by one's various possessions ( in all shapes and forms). The herd re-inforces the lie to an extent that it seems true. From that point of view, if one loses one's possessions, it would seem one loses one's identity. Is this not death?
No it is not death, but one's ( programmed) psyche believes it is death and should be feared as a matter of survival ( ah but whose survival?).
The enlightened one, mostly thru diligent discipline, discovers that the "self" identity is false. That, indeed, the concept of Self is false! Mind you, he actually realizes it is false thru direct experience of its illusory nature, not thru some (un)reasoned belief. Once the truth is experienced and known, the fear is cast aside (like Santa Claus in one's youth). He is liberated from the shackles of fear and is energized with love. The paradigm of his life view shifts away from the fearful lies which has separated him from the spectacle of the beauty of the integrated universe, of which he is a part presently, and will always be a part in one form or another (the eternal existence so often spoken about but rarely understood).
If /when the human collective consciousness awakens to this truth, these problems of "human nature" will get resolved. Not before.
The root of all evil is each and every individual fear based identified Self. In other words, 99.9% of humanity. You and me! " Let he without sin cast the first stone".
The difference is that sometimes the herd is worth joining. When the herd is truly interested in the welfare of each of its members, seeks justice, liberty and the proper rule of law in its affairs amongst both its own membership and with others, and offers respect and deference to people who earn it through living meaningful, constructive lives, then I am definitely interested in joining up. I am not sure if our culture has ever offered membership in a herd with those attributes in the past, but the herd we have today certainly ain't it.
beware of the lions outside the herd. they lurk in tall grass, where you and i venture.
i'd rather be in the tall grass. it sure beats following a stinky ass in the herd...
"The perks of joining the herd are in almost all cases much better than the pain of rejecting the herd. It takes a courageous person to be contrarian and walk the path alone."
Especially when the members of the herd will spit on you and defile you for walking alone.
MSM is 100% of the problem...
Either newly printed money goes to the people at the top that do not contribute to society or it goes to the people at the bottom that work hard and contribute their effort towards building a better future for all. One or the other will always have the money printing press and use it for good or use it for evil. There is no in between. The time to choose is now. Freedom and wealth, or impoverishment and enslavement. Either we the people take our money printing press back from our captors that enslave us or we submit our species to poverty, enslavement and degradation for all time and space.
The middle class makes the mistake of viewing money as an asset. Fiat currency is actually a claim. The claims are being passed out to the rich and the poor in staggering amounts for little good reason. Not only isn't the middle class getting their share of the "free" claims, they think their own savings, built through long term spending discipline, is a building of assets. It is not. It is a pile of claims, competing with the trillions of others out there, for a tiny, tiny piece of the real pie. When the middle class figures out they have been duped all these years, things are going to hit the fan.
Oooooooh, that was good. Perhaps a bit too subtle, but good.
The cash is Federal Reserve Notes. Notes are debt instruments, sometimes called loans. The cash has been loaned to you. This means you don't own it but are supposed to return it to the owner. Because the value keeps declining, it is a storage of diminishing utility.
I heard the most absurd tripe on public radio today when a rising star in the financial world was asked to define money. It was on Harry Shearer's "Le Show" which is usually pretty good. She then went into the wonders of the US Treasury being able to print what ever the country needs so the deficit doesn't matter. When asked why we have to pay taxes if the gov. can print what ever it needs was a bit of a non answer.
PS, always a good read Cog.
Yes, Cog Dis's pieces are always good reads, even if hard. Even if it feels like our brains are getting an enema...
Cog Dis (if he has not done so already) could probably have a Field Day writing about writing how our Federal Reserve Notes fit in to our slavery.
* * *
FIAT$ (and really all currencies) are indeed a claim. Paper. Which at some point has to be "spent" to realize any "value". One of the beauties of owning gold is that you have already been paid! (FOFOA wrote that little gem)
Gold is an asset. It is not a claim on anything, and nothing has a claim on it (though TPTB will beg to differ, if they decide to try to put their grimy hands on your gold). Currency used to be convertible to gold or silver, so it, in essence, was an asset. In 1913 the inspiration was born, 1933 started the task of converting our currency to a claim, and 1971 finished the work, in fully converting currency to a claim, and not an asset. But people are trained and coached to continue to believe that our money is an asset. It's going to be interesting when everyone, most likely all at once, figures it out.
"Gold is an asset. It is not a claim on anything, and nothing has a claim on it "
Then why do I have to stake a claim in order to mine it?
Watch Deadwood.
It limits people shooting you in the face to just claimjumpers who think they have enough 'juice' to get away with it.
This was thought to be a considerable improvement over less formal arrangements.
Lovely, CD, thanks.
"one bite at a time..." yes,
but we should target the fortified Keep in the center, and thought-direct our energy towards it.
Castle Keep, 1969