The lying tongue and the stolen mind

By Johnny D. Symon

I've been gathering together a series of personal experiences alongside events that have occurred in other parts of the world recently. I discovered that each experience and event had become all rolled into one.

On the surface level there was no apparent connection, but on digging beneath the surface their roots were unmistakably joined together, and as I mulled over the deeper aspects of their root connection I began to recognize a primary connection to them all. The Jewish Talmud presents this condition as a term named "genebath daath," roughly translating as "stealing another person's mind." I'll attempt to describe this term in greater depth later on in the ed, but first I'll present a few of those experiences and events forming a brief outline of the situation.

Some months back I was holding a conversation with a Kurdish artist friend when, for no apparent reason, he mentioned that the Adobe Photoshop program he used was a pirated version and he asked for my opinion on this. My reaction was immediate because, as with all forms of private property I respect the rights of ownership, I therefore told him that I did not agree with pirated copies of anything. He quickly replied by stating that Adobe's prices are too high, and besides they're making so much money that a little piracy won't hurt them. I told him that irrespective of Adobe's price structure, they employed expert people and equipment to build a first-class product, and all of it came out of their pocket. They pay their taxes, and they pay their people's wages, but above all, they own outright the finished product.

I mentioned an alternative for folks who couldn't afford high priced established software, it goes by the name of open source. I have one open source program myself named Blender, it's a first-class 3D modeling and animation program. I originally downloaded it because I'd intended to learn everything about this art. I could've bought several top-notch pay version apps, but I wasn't sure if I could do those things justice. I'm glad I opted for the free version because due to a whole world of work I've never had the time to fire it up and learn it.

Much closer to home, my very own artist wife discovered only last week that some newsstands were selling a form of tourist guide to the local area with a copy of one of her oil paintings on the front cover. It would appear that an overenthusiastic publisher saw the painting in card form and used it without her permission. As ever, in cases of intellectual property and copyright infringement, the dude responsible for its publishing had to be intricately informed of the legal mechanisms involved.

If someone commissions an artist to paint a landscape or a horse, or anything else for that matter, the painting, once complete and paid for, is the property of the buyer, but the owner of the painting does not own the right to copy and sell it, unless otherwise agreed. The artist can legally sell posters, cards, prints, from the original.

There was another event in my artist wife's experience last week that further emphasizes a point. A distributor had ordered a series of Spanish hand painted fans. It's an art that requires a lot of minute painstaking brushstrokes, the order had to be complete and delivered for the middle of last week. She arrived on time and the order was unpacked and carefully checked over when the door opened and a middle-aged Spanish lady entered. She saw the fans and quickly snatched one up and wafted it violently back and forth, saying, "Qué calor, qué calor!" My wife's agent stared on in astonishment while rapidly removing every fan from sight. Had the lady in question damaged the fan she would no doubt object to the request that she pay for what she'd broken.

But last week's little infringement on my wife's copy and ownership rights was another root that I talked about earlier, and all roots are in fact one, for my Kurdish friend's main artistic tool is Adobe Photoshop. My wife uses pencils, brushes and paints, and she pays for what she uses, many artists conceive an idea on computer, some then transfer the idea into the physical medium of canvas, brush and paint, and I thought to myself, how strange would be the occurrence of a situation of copyright infringement if some artist or other only ever used painting materials that he or she habitually stole from art shops. How could they earnestly pursue an offender, when they produced the work using property that they'd stolen themselves? Surely this would leave them confused and wondering if it was morally right to accuse another of stealing their work, when they'd already produced it with stolen materials. And this thought led me back to my Kurdish friend and his pirate Photoshop program.

Apparently each work of art he produces starts and ends on the computer. His main artist's tool and materials are in fact stolen property. I pondered on a possible future copyright infringement scenario. He sells most of his work Stateside. Would he feel the same sense of legal justification in pursuing an offender as my wife did last week? And somehow I doubt if he would, because the climate of reason when dealing with right and wrong, is unstable. For to understand the ins and outs, the whys and wherefores, of intellectual property, one's own intellect must first be stable and secure, honest and reliable.

But it wasn't just my Kurdish friend who preferred pirated products, because I knew another guy (a hopelessly rich guy) who paid one dollar for a copy of Apple's Panther OS while on vacation in Thailand several years back. And recently I discovered that another friend of mine, a very honest one, is using a pirated version of Windows XP. This lady bought her computer system in good faith, and the software appeared to be genuine, she only discovered a problem when trying to download patches. Thankfully the problem is being sorted out. But my Kurdish friend's sense of personal reasoning might well have been duplicated here; Microsoft are wildly rich ... they wouldn't feel the loss of a few bucks ... it won't make any difference to them. But my lady friend had a father who was a prolific, though wronged, inventor. He no doubt brought her up to respect the property of others.

Any explanation that can be conjured up to excuse piracy and the illegal ownership of another's property is an empty and false one, for it strikes deep into the heart of human freedom, and it's encompassed all around with a bright shiny bubble named morality.

Alan Johnston, a journalist for the BBC, who spent nigh on four hair-raising months, against his will, having been kidnapped and imprisoned by members of the Army of Islam and several Ham-asses of Hamas, has just been freed. And again, any explanation conjured up by those evil and spiritually sick terrorists shall be empty and false. They claim to believe in Allah, yet Allah says "thou shalt not steal." Graver still is the fact that since God created man's spirit that dwells within him, the spirit that is made in God's image, those terrorists had stolen from God himself.

I mentioned in an earlier ed that the Biblical commandment "Thou shalt not steal" is primarily an edict against the act of kidnap. Alan Johnston's kidnappers had stolen both from man and God, thus proving that their professed faith held no water, they were simply infidels. To take someone against their will is to steal from God, and it proves that even they have scant regard for property, both physical and intellectual, of others.

But kidnap is a form of chain-reaction theft. To steal someone against their will, as mentioned above, is to steal both that person and the spirit within, therefore two entities have been stolen from. But there's more, because if you steal someone's husband or wife, you've stolen from that spouse too, and you've stolen a parent from their children, and a son or daughter from their mom and dad, and a grandchild from their grandaddy or grandma, and so on and so forth.

Therefore any future penalty exacted on those terrorist kidnappers, irrespective of whether or not they released the innocent man, shall equate as a judgment for multiple crimes, not a single one.

Consequently, the subject of property and ownership, in all its forms, boils down into one simple and neat little package, and this package is labeled "respect and honor." Unless one studies right down to the nitty-gritty all aspects of right of ownership, inevitably we'll seldom understand how to regard another person's property. One jot or tittle of infringement leads to another, and a major casualty will be our intellect and the spirit that enables it. We lessen ourselves, we dishonor ourselves, through the use of pirated products. And kidnappers face far greater music in the future than even they fear or suspect.

If politicians announce personal tax cuts, then quietly devalue the national currency, they've committed "genebath daath" ... they've stolen your mind, and stolen your property. If a preacher preaches many a sermon against sexual promiscuity and/or perversions, while practicing those things behind closed doors himself, he's stolen your mind and is no different to a cheap confidence trickster. For we all must practice what we preach, and deal fairly and honestly with our fellow man. To waste someone's time is an act of theft, even if it's only a few minutes, for God knows the life-span of that person and we don't.

As announced by government spokesperson, "Wholly Joe" José Blanco ... Joe White ... the Spanish Socialist government are preparing yet another new law that's designed to hit property owners: If someone owns a property that is lying empty most of the year, the government are looking for local informers to enlighten their local authority, resultantly that property will be seized by the State and rented at a nominal rate to immigrants. No payment will be offered to the rightful owner!

The politicos behind this strange and immoral scheme no doubt regard themselves as kind benefactors, whereas in reality they're simply lowdown thieving scum. They prove that the right to own property in Spain, whatever it is, and wherever it is, is no longer respected. It's a dark cloud that all foreign residents should take note of before the storm breaks.

So whether it's a person, persons, or national/multinational companies, their property must be regarded with respect. It's not ours for the taking, the pirating, wasting, killing, or kidnapping. "All property is theft," sure, but only if it's stolen.

I mentioned at the start that I planned to explain in greater detail the term "genebath daath," and it's turned out that I already have. In fact it's explained itself. If someone pretends to pay you the 200 bucks he owes you, but he only hands over 190, he's committed the above offense of stealing another person's mind. And all of us therefore should be enlightened souls by now, for if we are then already numerous verses both in the Old and New Testaments concerning property and honesty, will be pingponging around in our minds.

We all know right from wrong, and must learn to apply the right stuff to the letter and stop applying that process involving the theft of another person's mind. When we make statements, assurances, promises, etc., to another, they receive our property and it becomes theirs. But if our statements, assurances, promises, etc., are deliberately false, we've stolen that person's mind, not only their trust.

From Martin Buber's "Tales of the Hasidim" ...

"On a certain eve of the Day of Atonement, before praying 'All Vows,' the assembled congregation recited the psalms in noisy confusion. Rabbi Pinhas turned to them and said: 'Why do you exert yourselves so much? Probably because you feel that your words are not mounting upward. And why not? Because you have told nothing but lies the entire year. He who lies throughout the year, gets a lying tongue. And how can a lying tongue shape true words which mount to Heaven? I, who am talking to you, know all about it, because I myself had a hard time with this matter. So you can believe me: You must assume the burden of not telling lies. Then you will get a truthful tongue, and the words it shapes will fly to God.'"

© Johnny D. Symon