A Brief Guide To Human Action – Which Leads To Human Freedom

“They say you’re a man of vision.  Is that true?” – Lonesome Dove

I’ll never forget Pa Wilder’s last words:  “Find a woman that holds you as tight as Nancy Pelosi holds a vodka bottle.”

(John Wilder note:  Please read this post all the way through because I think you’ll find this one of the most useful posts that I’ve put together.)

Ludwig Von Mises is was an economist.  His pronouns are dead/buried.  The sure sign of the best economists is that they’re dead, because then they can’t ask to be paid for being wrong all of the time.

One thing that Von Mises left us with was a book called Human Action.  Really, it wasn’t a book, it was him sitting at his typewriter and generating a 400-page doorstop like he was getting paid by the punctuation mark.  I read some of it back in my more libertarian days.  Dry doesn’t begin to describe it – after completing two hundred pages you become as desiccated as King Tut’s armpit.

Thankfully, the main ideas of Human Action are quite powerful and also pretty simple.  And, it won’t take me 400 pages to get to the point.  Von Mises created a model of human action where he states that each and every voluntary human action requires three things:

A Vision Of A Better State:  For example, me having a beer.  If it was Friday, I might consider that having a beer would be a better state than not having a beer.  In most cases, the vision is based not on cold, logical thought, but on emotion.

A Path To Get To A Better State:  It just so happens that there’s a beer in the fridge, so if I got my sorry butt off of the couch, I could walk over and get one.

A Belief That Action Will Really Lead To A Better State:  I really and honestly believe that I could walk to the fridge and get a beer, since I deactivated the trap door that leads to the alligator pit.

How many economists does it take to fix a lightbulb?  Don’t know, they’re still arguing over why the last one broke.

In my example, I started off with a Vision first.  That’s one way that action can occur, but not the only way.  The three necessary conditions can really come in any order.  I might have a pile of lumber and a saw and a hammer.  So, I have a Path.  I have Belief that I could build something out of wood since I’m okay at building stuff out of wood (just okay, not great).  After thinking about it, I decide to build a PEZ® dispenser sized for PEZ© the size of cinder blocks with an articulated carved Anne Coulter head so her jaw can open as wide as a python’s.  In this example, my Vision of a better state (and need for a really big spring) came last.

I’ve found when analyzing the actions I personally take, a truism:  if all three of the Human Action requirements are met – Vision, Path, and Belief – then my action is guaranteed.  Likewise, if even one of them is missing, nothing (and I mean nothing) happens.

This model is useful to use when people that you’re working with aren’t doing what you want them to.  Analyze the situation:  which of the three elements of the Human Action model are missing?

People in business have been using this model on you for as long as you have lived.  Think of a typical car commercial:

  • Vision: Buy a Mustang® so hot chicks in bikinis will like me and want to pat my bald head.  See!  They’re patting the bald head of that man on the commercial!
  • Path: Go to the dealer and buy one, they have tons of them.
  • Belief: Hey, zero percent financing and no credit check.  They’re giving the money away so I can buy one!

All commercials are based on manipulating these three simple elements.  Commercials are attempting to get us to take action – or to avoid taking an action.  Most are trying to get our money, but some are trying to convince us that Steven Tyler from Aerosmith© personally cares whether or not we drive drunk.

Steven Tyler just released two books.  One’s a cookbook, and the other’s an art book:  “Wok This Way” and “Doodles Like A Lady”

Manipulation is the key to this game.  Understanding when you watch a commercial how they’re trying to change our views allows us to be on guard against that manipulation.  And, as I noted before, it is a very rare commercial that wants to appeal to logic.

Emotional manipulation is where the money is at.  The advertisers want us to use their gasoline and love it because, um, it’s more gasoline-y than the competitors?  Because it has special molecules in the gasoline that make gravy in your pistons?  Regardless, look for the emotional manipulation – it will be there.

So, we’ve saved a few bucks because we’ve kept the advertisers out of our heads.  Hurrah!  But who else is using this model?

Well, Big Government, for one.  On January 6, 2021, all the Congresscritters had at least a bit of pee in their pants.  A group of relatively aimless protestors stopped off at the Capitol to share their opinions with their elected representatives.

I was on a witness stand at a trial in Alaska, and the lawyer asked me, “Where were you on the night of November to March?”

The group’s Vision was murky.  “Walk over and complain” might be a good description.  It was certainly more peaceful than most of the George Floyd riots (and more on them in a minute).  The Path was easy – it’s not even a very far walk from their rally to the Capitol Building.  Did they have Belief that their action would allow them to “walk over and complain”?

Sure.  So they did.

But that’s not what the Congress Swamp Rats saw.  They saw a group that, with a slightly different Vision could have easily started a movement that would have ousted our current government via a revolution.  As every reader here knows (and as every Congressional Parasite knows), the rank and file of the Right are the single largest army the world has ever seen.  Even if the Right was pitiful, it could take over forty (?) state governments in 24 hours.

We are truly governed only by our consent.  Seizing power in America would be trivial if people on the Right had a Vision, a Path, and Belief that didn’t include a government more intrusive than if Google® was a proctologist and more bloated than 1977 Elvis.

That’s exactly what happened when the Berlin Wall fell.  The people suddenly had a Vision:  sexy American girls in bikinis, CD players, and not having to drive crappy commie cars anymore.  They had a Path:  tear down that Wall.  Once they had Belief?  The Wall didn’t last an afternoon.

As another Floyd, Pink Floyd© tried to metaphorically tell us, The Wall is built in our mind, brick by brick.

Communism is the noble struggle of the proletariat to overcome the problems that are only caused by communism.

Anyone who thinks the “assault” weapon grab has anything to do with “mass shooting” has bought the emotional propaganda that Big Government (along with Big Business and Big Media) is selling.  Big Government wants the guns off of the street because they are the only real threat that Big Government sees to itself and the privileges that it has given itself.

That’s why the George Floyd riots were so important to Big Government.  What were the protesters protesting for?  More Big Government, more handouts, and more government control – this time not only of our rifles that are rarely used to shoot anyone (484 people a year in the United States for all rifles, compared to 1,476 for knives and other pointy things), but also our speech, our national heritage, and even our thoughts.

The BLM riots weren’t stopped because they’re everything Big Government wants.

I started carrying a pistol after a mugging attempt.  Now my muggings are more successful.

The biggest trick the Devil tries is to convince you he isn’t real.  The biggest trick that Big Government tries is to convince you that you have no power.  But if we have no power, why are there more troops in Washington D.C. than in Afghanistan?  Big Government has set the Right as the enemy.  I assure you, they are more afraid of the 80,000,000+ people on the Right than they are of the Chinese.

Now that you know their intentions, what else is Big Government, Big Media, and Big Business trying to make citizens feel?

Does this change your Vision, Path, and Belief?

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

47 thoughts on “A Brief Guide To Human Action – Which Leads To Human Freedom”

  1. “if Google® was a proctologist”. That is a big finger, similar to the your number one sign I create for government.

    When a commercial came on and my kids were watching I taught the the correct answer to the question, “What are they trying to do?”. Get my money, and I would say only a fool and his money are soon separated.

  2. I’ve been reading your blog for a month or so now. I think this is my second comment, which isn’t a comment but a question: In light of what you wrote here, how big do you think the market might be for a guidebook by an ex-lefty to current righties about how the left has won and how you righties could too? Just listen to me. Would anyone buy that? Would you? Because I’ve already gotten that book half written and I’m tired of seeing otherwise good people repeatedly shooting themselves in the tattered remains of their feet.

    2. Your problem is the same one most Right thinking authors have – getting somebody to print it. The censorship is real. I wish you luck on your coming educational experience.

    3. My daughter is trying to learn editing as a paying gig. I am learning book covers.

      If you’ve got useful gander-sauce info (like Hollaback’s “heart mobs” I am interested.)

      In order to reach the trapped gullibles and useful idiots, we need both a moral and an emotional (rhetorical) hook. If you can help provide these, I’m willing to help you.

      ~ Codex at TempestInATeardrop.com

    4. I think it’s an excellent idea – and the response before my comment is very strong. So, you have a Path and a Vision . . . need Belief?

      1. Actually, I kind of need a Path too. I’m trying to find one where I work full time at incredibly unfulfilling work (take that feminists!), care for sick DH & parents & two houses, and then finish a book in my spare time. So far as Belief — people have told me I’m a good writer. I made a living once for a whole 30 months as a writer. I think I’ll always feel pretty stupid inside. I keep catching myself doing stupid things! LOL.

  4. Corollary 1:
    If you stab their eyes out with icepicks (vision), and break their knees with ball peen hammers (pathway), it doesn’t matter what whacktarded contralogical and contrafactual beliefs the communist morons (but I repeat myself) have. They’ll never get there.

    Think of this like the Fire Triangle of thwarting the idiots, both in power, and the ones who wish to be.

    100% success rate, forever, guaranteed.

    As I think on that, this also explains the Sick Call mantra in boot camp:”… sick, lame, and lazy; blind, crippled, crazy…”

  6. “ If you stab their eyes out with icepicks (vision), and break their knees with ball peen hammers (pathway), it doesn’t matter what whacktarded contralogical and contrafactual beliefs the communist morons (but I repeat myself) have. They’ll never get there.”

    ^^^^^….whoever you are, you’re awesome. : )

  7. Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. (sign at local church)
    The faculty lounge freaks are already on the way out which is why they are trashing about in the sulfur swamp on the Potomac.
    The globalist bankster money changers will leave them to be the face of the intentional wipe out global soviet gulag reset.
    The rest of the world has huge gut busting laughs at their domination schemes in a hollowed out fundamentally destroyed country that they long marched through.
    China has already won with the BRI and BRICS and they weren’t going to be some border less vassal state to begin with.
    I’ll never root against America or traditional Americans but I will cheer on the demise of the mental midget regime currently occupying the district of cesspool.

  8. I’ve had a ridiculous amount of education, including law school. The 2 most useful classes I’ve ever taken were typing in high school, and a class in the 8th grade that examined how advertisers manipulate you. Changed my whole way of viewing the world. They never lie; they are the strongest proponents of the “truth in advertising” laws because they know if people believe everything ads say is the truth that it must not be a deception…

    Makes me wonder why the study of advertising deception isn’t a required series of classes, like ‘Civics’. Wait, ‘Civics’ isn’t a class any more? Hmm, must be a coincidence.

    1. I don’t know but I’ve been told that once upon a time in the 40s or 50s American schools went through a brief period of teaching high schoolers how to recognize and resist communist propaganda. But then it was discovered that said high schoolers had become highly resistant to American advertising and the educational system called the whole thing off.

  9. * Satan’s Biggest Hit — convincing you it doesn’t exist.
    Yes, OK… but could there be more to the story?
    Stay tuned for continuing up-dates!

    And this, too, shall come to pass…

    * Satan’s Other Biggest Hit — convincing you it is a victim, and needs special protection.

    How about this for a stretch of an extrapolation?:
    * the bumblebrats in worshington district of cesspool are re-branding their PuzzlePalace©.
    Today and for evermore, our HonorableBetters© proclaim it to be — TheImperialCity©.

    And because any imperial city worth its paperwork-shufflers needs defending against TheLittlePeople©, TheImperialCity© needs a GreatWall (but GreatWall cannot be copyrighted because somebody else already has one).

    An aside:
    A wall defends against folks walking-up, marveling at the wall’s ability to stop walking folks from going any further, then walking away, utterly convinced nobody could ever find some way around the wall, or over the wall, or under the wall.
    Or stopping outside supplies from getting inside, thereby denying sustenance to those cloistered inside the wall.

    Fortunately, Americans are among the most imaginative creative accomplishers in the known universe.
    For every obstacle, Americans can find a way around it.
    (Or develop an alternative… instantly obsoleting the obstacle, but that is a discussion for another day…)

    By daring to write such blasphemy, do I sound like I could deserve the popular BOLSHEVICS curse ‘NAZI’ thrown at me?
    Nope.
    I am not nor ever have been a member of National Socialist Worker’s Party.
    But an awful lot of folks tossing the ‘NAZI’ labelling are ‘GlobalSocialists’.

    And therein lays the rub.
    Remember the part about ‘the most imaginative creative blahdiddy blahblah blah’?
    GlobalSocialists live in an imaginary place of ‘everybody is TheEnemy©’.
    And what is their perpetual task?
    GlobalSocialists vs their worst nightmare, National Socialists.

    If an enemy doesn’t exist, one must be created to JustifyOurExistence.
    Fortunately, the GlobalSocialists hive-mind inerroringly causes them to seek the company of other GlobalSocialists… and hide behind walls.
    Why ‘fortunately’?

    I haven’t a clue.
    The GreatWall looks mighty impenetrable…

  10. John – – You are too genteel and generous in calling the vermin “Congresscritters”….

    They should be correctly identified as Congressswines…..

  11. Ha, nevermind “Under Prussian”, “Wok This Way” takes the cake. Kudos sir!

  12. “I assure you, they are more afraid of the 80,000,000+ people on the Right than they are of the Chinese.”

    More like… “than they are of not doing what the Chinese tell them to.”

  13. It is an excellent post. Nothing better to say, as a Wilder binge-read (2 posts + Bombs and Bants) were my prize for getting all the art done.

    Off to hit the rack.

  14. “Seizing power in America would be trivial if people on the Right had a Vision, a Path, and Belief…”

    And leader(s)

    1. The best leaders help with the Vision – but the people of East Germany didn’t have a leader – they had a Vision.

      But, yeah. We really do need leader(s).

  15. I’ve been reading you for quite some time (coupla years?) and this is the absolute *BEST* column you’ve written. Kudos. I’m going to be passing it along.

    1. Thank you very much – this one flowed when I wrote it – editing was really light.

      Again, thank you.

  16. Bravo Zulu, brother. You’ve done the country a good service, if they’d only read it. I’ll pass it along. Be blessed

    1. You as well. It’s long past time that we remember that “consent of the governed” actually means something.

      And thank you.

    1. Some of them certainly would.

      Which would make it easier to identify the ones to cull, and easier to do, because they wouldn’t be able to pull their pants up or hold anything frightening or harmful.

      Perhaps this is a good time to point out that there’s a 100% correlation between people who died from COVID, and those having opposable thumbs?
      You could look it up.

  18. I continue in my life long hobby of digging ditches. My son would describe it more as a Sisyphean torment.

    My current fascination in ditch digging is needed to solve a ponding problem next to the house. So I have a vision, path, and belief in the project. However the project is stopped because I lack the will to finish. It is a messy job that makes my body hurt.

    So conservatives have a vision ( normally provided by Rush), path (vote), and belief. But what is missing is the will to fight with news sources, paying for advertising, and sponsoring candidates, because that effort hurts due to the energy required. Fortunately, several of the people commenting have the will to fight for the idea.

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