Mom, Home Forever

As many of you likely know, my Mom passed away peacefully this past Friday surrounded by her three children. http://rauschandsteelfuneralhome.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=2101088&fh_id=12239

 It has been a long road from two heart surgeries the summer of '03, either of which by all rights ought to have killed her, through nearly 10 years in a nursing home, now to her home in Heaven.

I love to read, think, comment, and sometimes have the lack of humility to think that my insights have merit. Death and eternity always remind me of the foolishness of man, Every, man, ME!!!

Especially me.

My original title for this was "No Wisdom, Just Humility", but it had to have Mom in it.

Pastor Darrel Robinson, the minister at the First Baptist in Barron was wonderful. Wonderful at the hospital the day of her passing. Wonderful during the arrangements and AMAZING in doing the service. He sang the two songs that she had requested beautifully, and gave a message that I know Mom would have loved.

Very simple, very honest, very caring. God has given us Grace in the person of Jesus and lovingly pleads with us to leave our pride behind and walk to eternity with him. It sounds so easy, but for man, it is IMPOSSIBLE without the assistance of God.

Many people say, "if there is a God, where is he"?? We live in a world where we expect "in your face" everything, so we miss a lot of great opportunities to feel blessed by the hand of God.

In this case:

• All of us expected her to be gone TWICE in the summer of '03. While the way we got her back was not the way any of us would have hoped, it was an important reminder that "our ways are not God's ways". Who knows how many lives were touched in eternally important ways by her sojourn though the nursing home.
• The Barron Hospital was full ... but that meant she went to Bloomer where my sister lives, and the rooms and care were much better than we have experienced in Barron. It was a much better place for her to be for her last days and passing.
• Since she passed away Friday the weather has been unbelievably gloomy as it is now and was as we drove to Barron yesterday am. 15 min before her service, the sun came out and it remained glorious through the burial.
• I saved the slideshow that I had done from my iMac to an MP4, but when I put it up on a laptop screen it looked so bad that I ended up redoing it and showing it on my Air at the visitation. When I put it up on the computer at church, it looked just as bad as it did on the Air -- and then I projected it and it looked great. It is the first time I've seen something that looked better blown up to the big screen than it did on the small!

Oh, I'm very well aware that there are "reasonable explanations" for all of the above. I no doubt could do tests and "figure out" what happened with my MP4, but you know, that really isn't the point. "**I** by my own reason or strength" have no answer. Naturally, as is the way of modern man, I could honor random chance. It would be more "scientific".

We have ALL seen "unexplainable things" that felt miraculous to us. Maybe we eventually "figured it out", but that is a bit like guessing the lottery number after the lottery. We don't even understand if we are made of waves, particles, strings, "branes", or something completely different. Oh, and while we are at it, we absolutely don't understand our "brains" wetware, and have even less concept of what our consciousness is.

But most of us believe that we do in fact exist and are even conscious. Often with a good deal of false pride.

So, the fact is that of our own reason and strength we know nothing, which everyone knows in their heart when they stand next to their mother's grave.

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

The past few days has been a time for me to remember that, and to follow "Be still and know that I am God".

The Great Liberal Death Wish, A Night in a 2nd Class Hotel

Malcolm Muggeridge -- The Great Liberal Death Wish:

This is one of those gems that one finds on occasion that restores your perspective. It is all worth a read, but the following are a couple teaser excepts that really struck home.

The following is relative to Dostoevsky "The Devils", which I clearly need to read:

To me, it's one of the most extraordinary pieces of modern prophecy that has ever been. Especially when Peter Verkovensky says, as he does, that what we need are a few generations of debauchery - debauchery at its most vicious and most horrible - followed by a little sweet bloodletting, and then the turmoil will begin. I put it to you that this bears a rather uneasy resemblance to the sort of thing that is happening at this moment in the western world.

I wish I had read the following years ago, America is well down the road to the vast masses converting the "2nd class hotel" to a Bowery Flophouse.

...And it seems quite a toss-up whether you go back and resume full occupancy of your mortal body, or make off toward the bright glow you see in the sky, the lights of the City of God. In this limbo between life and death, you know beyond any shadow of doubt that, as an infinitesimal particle of God's creation, you are a participant in God's purpose for His creation, and that that purpose is loving and not hating, is creative and not destructive, is everlasting and not temporal, is universal and not particular. With this certainty comes an extraordinary sense of comfort and joy. 

Nothing that happens in this world need shake that feeling; all the happenings in this world, including the most terrible disasters and suffering, will be seen in eternity as in some mysterious way a blessing, as a part of God's love. We ourselves are part of that love, we belong to that scene, and only in so far as we belong to that scene does our existence here have any reality or any worth. All the rest is fantasy - -whether the fantasy of power which we see in the authoritarian states around us, or the fantasy of the great liberal death wish in terms of affluence and self-indulgence. The essential feature, and necessity of life is to know reality, which means knowing God. Otherwise our mortal existence is, as Saint Teresa of Avila said, no more than a night in a second--class hotel.

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Chilling Drone Deaths Reported Straight Up

Holder: Drone strikes have killed four Americans since 2009 - CNN.com:

The BO position is that he is against the death penalty for crimes, he would never "torture" anyone, but he will kill Americans and many others abroad with a drone strike when he sees fit.

It reminds me a lot of the old using a gun in home defense strategy -- "make sure they are dead".

This doesn't work so well in home defense of course, because it is very hard to guarantee kill shots, and "grace shots" are going to be discovered by CSI ... just watch. It is also true that very very few law abiding citizens are good liars. Leave that to to the professionals -- Politicians.

BO is going to fill in the details of his drone policy today, I'm sure the press will at a minimum report it as they did this article -- straight up. This is a good job of REPORTING as opposed to COMMENTARY -- this article doesn't tell you what to think. The administration uses drones to kill people abroad, including Americans -- that is their policy, nuff said in this case from the reporters POV.

If the press is willing to report that way, death is a nice clean thing. Unlike "torture". We all understand the definition of death, but "torture" is a label that is applied to something and we all get to visualize our worst searing horrible pain and obsess over how much we would hate it. Pain we all have some experience with ... death, not so much.

Of course death too can have meaning attached or detached through the magic of press commentary. During much of the time from 2004 on when there was no reason for us to be in Iraq or Afghanistan, the soliders dying there were suffering "meaningless deaths". Kerry even raised it in '04, "who was going to be the last man to die" -- the assertion being that death would CERTAINLY be a "meaningless death".

With the election of BO, that went away. The dead soldiers were "just dead", like folks killed in a car accident, or any of the other "standard ways to go" with little or no reporting. More soliders have died in Afghanistan under BO than died there under W. The loved ones of those soliders are left to find meaning in their life and death as they saw fit -- no longer an issue of national concern.

So why do I write about this??

Because I see an EXTREME danger in how far down the path of just letting an omnipresent MSM either tell us what to think, or not tell us to think at all, and for the majority of people to be just fine with that. The Sheeple are indeed sheeple.

My PERSONAL belief is that collecting terrorists and doing very strong interrogation on some of the high value targets (that some are certainly going to label "torture) is a worthy pursuit. I find the policy of not using any form of coercion any stronger than what we use in training for our own troops (eg. "waterboarding", used in SEAL training)  to be very defensible. Does "extreme rendition interrogation" work? I can't prove that it does, but I CAN absolutely guarantee you that we get ZERO information out of a terrorist killed in a drone attack ... nor from the "collateral damage", which is no longer discussed.

I'm fine with killing some terrorists in drone attacks. If they are AMERICANS and they are high value enough to warrant a drone attack though, then I think they are high value enough to warrant capture. I understand that the decision to not strongly interrogate them for fear of being labeled a "torturer", lowers their value and makes the risk of a capture raid seem too risky, but maybe that is good?? They are after all American Citizens, and at least in the past, that meant something.

Most of all though, what I find "chilling" is the near absolute willingness of the MSM to go with whatever BO says without question, and the near total acquiescence of the vast majority of the American people to be OK with that. EVERYTHING is "questionable", and the once-purpose of the "free press" was to question everything done by BOTH SIDES!

I find the assertion that killing people outright is somehow more "humane" than interrogating them with what some have called "torture" to be in the realm of the laughable -- but it is unimaginable that there isn't at least a national discussion on it.

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I Stand for Nixon!!

He’s No Nixon | The Weekly Standard:

I agree completely with the spirit of the linked column, although I lack the personal connection to Nixon of the column author.

To even compare BO and Nixon in any way is ridiculous!!  In no way does BO even come close to Nixon as a person or as a president!

There is little doubt that Benghazi is more serious than Watergate -- nobody died in Watergate, and last I checked, Watergage was domestic vs international. To attempt to add stature to BO simply because he managed to create a more serious scandal than  Nixon is beyond the pale.

Watergate was a tiny scandal, but a huge triumph for the left wing media and the Socialist Workers Party. It had little to do with Nixon the man, but everything to do with Nixon the hated (and historically justified) villan of the Alger Hiss trial.

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The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) Questions Prayers

IRS's Lerner Had History of Harassment, Inappropriate Religious Inquiries at FEC | The Weekly Standard:

I'm still working on the name, but it has become obvious to me that the "Democrat Party" by virtue of it's unionizations of teachers and government workers is already the "Socialist Workers Party" (SWP) of the US and has been for some time. This ought to have been obvious to me for a lot longer, but it took the Walker / union fight in WI added to the current IRS scandal to make me realize what has happend.

Our nation is under SWS rule and has been at the federal and state level for some time. Our children are propagandized into the party through the SWP party members that call themselves "teachers".  SWP members get preferential treatment, and in some quarters -- much of government, education and media, you must be a SWP member to get a job. We are still at the phase where the favors of being a SWP member and the punishments for speaking out against the official policies of the SWP are not totally in the open, but they are increasingly obvious.

Lois Lerner questioning the content of people's prayer life is not new! It dates back to at least the late '90s when she was trying to intimidate religious organizations for SWP in her role at the FEC. The FEC is one of the main SWP organs to control political speech in the US. Part of that activity is the intimidation of Christians who attempt to spread their noxious hate speech over the airwaves.,

Here is a transcript of late '90s proceedings where she (Q) is grilling Oliver North (A). (O) is counsel for the awful Christian broadcasters:

Q: “What did you mean in paragraph 2, about thanking -you and your wife thanking Pat Robertson for kind regards?”
A: “Last time I checked in America, prayers were still legal. I am sure that Pat had said he was praying for my family and me in some correspondence or phone call.”
Q: “Would that be something that Pat Robertson was doing for you?”
A: “I hope a lot of people were praying for me, Holly.”
Q: “But you knew that Pat Robertson was?”
A: “Well, apparently at that time I was reflecting something that Pat had either, as I said, had told me or conveyed to me in some fashion, and it is my habit to thank people for things like that.”
Q: “During the time that you knew Pat Robertson, was it your impression that he had - he was praying for you?”
O: “I object. There is no allegation that praying creates a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act and there is no such allegation in the complaint. This is completely irrelevant and intrusive on the religious beliefs of this witness.”

Apparently, praying for someone has a long history in the minds of the SWP as being subversive!

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A Crisis of Authority

Best of the Web Today: A Crisis of Authority - WSJ.com:

Taranto hits the long ball. Worth the time to read it.

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Remember, You Still Like BO!!!!!

CNN Poll: Likability helps Obama survive brutal week – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs:

 See, we found out over the weekend that the WH Chief of Staff knew about the IRS Targeting of conservative groups for some time prior to it coming out ... in fact it is even linked next to the nice picture. Note, they NEVER said anything to BO, I mean, why would they??? He just reads the papers after all. Who is it that the IRS reports in to at the top anyway???

**BUT**, what is really a headline is "most of you still like Obama". Sheesh ... this is NEWS??? Isn't the issue of "who likes him and not" more appropriate for High School hallway talk than for the leader of a once powerful and important nation?? How about "What did he know, and when did he know it"??? ... Oh, and BTW, Nixon not knowing about the break-in at Watergate prior to it happening was GOOD. BO not having any idea of this before, after, or even after the info had gotten to the WH is **BAD**!!! He is supposed to be IN CHARGE OF THE IRS!!!

Independently of how well liked he is. He is not running for anything!!!

The IRS, an organization that IS under his control, no matter if he chooses to admit it, wants to know what people say in their PRAYERS ???? and we are supposed to be focused on how popular BO may be at least in a poll taken by CNN????

This nation is completely hopeless.

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IRS: What do you pray for?

IRS: Tell Us What You're Praying For - Ricochet.com:

My imagination isn't good enough to make this up. What one prays for is a subject of government questioning and the media IS NOT outraged??

Which universe is this?

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BO Denies Role in Government : The New Yorker

Obama Denies Role in Government : The New Yorker:

The truth and the fiction are pretty darned close here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/19/obama-irs-targeting_n_3302449.html

He IS claiming that he found out about the IRS scandal only from the news media.

REALLY?? People are taking COMFORT from the President of the US only finding out about very significant things in the government for which he has sworn responsibility for.

I know I'm wrong -- because the media is without bias, but it just seems to me that were a Republican claiming this there might be a bit of coverage.

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BO Strong Union Collaboration

SMOKING GUN: Obama Met With IRS Union Chief the Day Before Agency Started Targeting Conservatives | The Gateway Pundit:

“For me, it’s about collaboration.” — National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley on the relationship between the anti-Tea Party IRS union and the Obama White House

Isn't that special. The head of a union of the government employees that collect our taxes and decide who gets audited and doesn't is happy about the "collaboration" they have with the White House. 

Let's see. The left and the WH are so incensed about the SCOTUS ruling on  "Citizen's United" that the president finds it appropriate to scold the justices during the STOTU address. Mr President, the power of the Supreme Court is EQUAL to your own at a MINIUM -- when they are making a determination based on the Constitution, they OUTRANK YOU! (as do the PEOPLE BTW, he is our EMPLOYEE!!) 

However, it is perfectly acceptable to have government employees that are supposed to be working for ALL of us in unions that support only Democrats and have the POTUS and union leaders "collaborate" on activities!! 

Dear god, why don't we just start calling the Democratic party "The Party" and get rid of the fiction!! If you are a member of "The Party", then you have privileges, if not, you will be harassed and possibly imprisoned!


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Republican Hypocrisy, Tax Exempt

House Republican Hypocrites Rage About The IRS While Demanding An Audit of the AARP:

This column is an interesting read on how the "liberal" brain operates.

The largest point here is why is the Government doing ANYTHING to regulate POLITICAL SPEECH!!! The whole purpose of the first amendment is for political speech to be FREE OF GOVERNMENT CONTROL!!!! This column is an object lesson in why that is a very good idea!

How in any sort of rational sense at all can "liberals" argue out of one side of their mouth that "we can't go back to the 1800's", so government MUST be gigantic, intrusive,  and horrendously expensive. Oh, but political speech??? Why THAT should be funded at say 1950 levels BY THE GOVERNMENT who would provide very strict controls so it was "fair". Uh, "fair" TO THE GOVERNMENT???  I'm sure ... but to anyone else?? Very hard to say.

So we have Elected Republicans  OPENLY suggesting that various liberal groups ought to be investigated due to specific things they have said or done  UNDER EXISTING LAW (which is SUPPOSED to apply equally to ALL of us!)  ACORN, AARP, NAACP, Media Matters. These are avowed liberal groups that are ALREADY Tax Exempt, are supposed to follow existing law,  and everyone knows EXACTLY where they politically stand and how they advocate constantly. So Elected Republican Representatives openly asked for the IRS to insure that these groups follow existing law. Hypocrisy?

They ought not do that? The alternative would be to step back and allow the IRS to execute completely one-sided enforcement of political speech regulating laws that ought not even be on the books??? It is pretty damned clear why BO and the left hates "Citizens United". It is a fly in the ointment of effective government control of political speech! If enough people are aware of what is being done to them, it might still be just barely possible that BO and company would be in trouble. Political speech that is not in agreement with the "progressive" progrom must be stamped out!!

OTOH, we have the IRS INTERNALLY and SECRETLY targeting "Conservative Groups" for audits, gathering information on their members so that they may also be audited, and preventing many other groups from even getting their tax exempt status. (the Rochester Tea Party Patriots were rejected)

Let's see. The IRS is an agency of the US Government that is supposed to be acting on behalf of ALL the people! Strange though it obviously is to the "liberal" mind, that meant that people were at least formerly allowed to have freedom of DIFFERENT speech!! Meaning, the 1st amendment was not created to allow "Free Speech for those that Agree with the "liberal" position"!! Apparently, a concept that is alien to the authors of this column.

Note the similarity in how "liberals" (actually STATISTS) see the 1st and 2nd Amendments. They see them as GOVERNMENT rights!! In the 2nd, the MILITARY has the right to have guns ... not "the people". For the 1st Amendment, individuals and groups have a right to "obscene" or "offensive" speech (as long as it doesn't make any of the Federally selected special groups feel bad ... women, blacks, gays, muslims). However, POLITICAL SPEECH needs to be "fairly regulated" by the government! The Fox guarding the henhouse really doesn't do it justice.

Were we arguing about if a Democrat Representative ought to be able to ask for a specific Conservative group to be investigated -- say the NRA. (oops, not tax exempt) ... but find one, have some elected Democrats stand up and ask the IRS to do an investigation of if they are following the law, and THEN, if Republicans think THAT ought not be allowed, it would be hypocrisy!!

What we have here is proof positive that our government is WAY too intrusive, and just HOW FAR we have slid toward one party rule. 90%+ of those IRS union employees vote Democrat. They KNOW where their bread is buttered. It is completely UNsurprising that they would be strongly motivated to reduce the political speech of those seeking a smaller government, with or without prompting. It is also pretty hard to imagine that even if pushed rather hard by Republicans in government, that they would be anxious to prosecute groups whose political leanings they agree with.

The ONLY solution here is to GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF REGULATING POLITICAL SPEECH!!! Exactly as the 1st amendment says!!!!

Sadly, what the left is trying to use this incident for is to ADD to the speech regulating powers of the IRS. Guess whose favor the IRS is going regulate???

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MN #1 !!

MN Has Most Expensive Gas In The Nation « CBS Minnesota:

When you live in a state with Mark Dayton as a Governor and a failed comedian as a Senator, it isn't often that you can brag about being NUMBER ONE!!!

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The Banality of The Chicago Way

The Autocrat Accountants | National Review Online:

Steyn touches on what I think is the real point of the information that has leaked out through the MSM about the federalizing of The Chicago Way (TCW).

What is the TCW?? Like all effective measures, it is very simple at it's core; "Reward your friends and punish your enemies".  One could just call it "The Mob Way", "The Non-Christian Way", or the "National Socialist Way". It is as old as any sort of government organization, and it was the SPECIFIC reason that the US Government was created as LIMITED.

So what do we really expect from a giant unionized bureaucracy where 90%+ of the employees vote for one party?? Why would they NOT protect their turf and the turf of those who feed their fine bureaucratic beast??

The core argument from the MSM and the BO administration is "this is just the way government works"!! On Benghazi, of course agencies cover their ass and want friendly leadership to be re-elected! It is human nature! It is like covering for the successful coach that likes young boys too much -- only in this case, we have aligned the system so our natural impulses are truly OK!

After you have held a series of anesthetizing bureaucratic chairs, it is completely natural to recuse yourself from an activity, yet forget when you did it and have no documentation of it! Who would question you?? If you were paying attention, it would be evidence you thought you were doing wrong -- life ought to be a gauzy drift. What was the issue again??

Oh, someone did seem to care or have other ideas. Why would it be "bad" to have them audited by the IRS??  "Bad"? What is that? The IRS is to protect the people -- from things like incorrect SCOTUS rulings like "Citizens United", or when the soon to be dead party of old white men and religious zealots fails to provide enough operational cash.

Does one really need to listen to the MSM and the IRS very long to realize that auditing organizations that do weird and unpopular things like "educate on the Constitution" is completely reasonable? Why would anyone even care about this??? Is the novo-hist ride of life in the US not smooth enough so that the populace can't just settle back and enjoy the ride?

Which brings us back to TCW. "Reward your friends, punish your enemies". Every chief  and king since the dawn of civilization has understood that calculus. It is the base calculus of earthly power. Executed properly and ruthlessly enough, it can be complete power. It was the calculus of power that Christ died on the cross to break, and the government practice thereof the nation of America was created to explicitly resist. Why WOULD some people fight against living where things are easy, morals are loose, and your acquiescence is all that is needed to drift along?

The enemy is not so much evil, but evil couched as banal. It has always been so -- since the apple in the garden.
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Seeing Different Worlds

The Republicans’ Scandal Machine - NYTimes.com:

 "There are no “things like this,” beyond a coincidence of bad timing. But they do have one thing in common: when bound together and loudly denounced on cable television and in hearings, they serve to obscure the real damage that Republicans continue to do to the economy and the workings of government.

The sum of current information from Benghazi, IRS, Gun Runner, appointment of Czars, AP records, BOcare, attacks on the 2nd Amendement, and on, is "no things like this" ... get your eyes back on the evil of the Republican menace -- they still control the House, dammit!!! They are the ones doing all damage, BO is doing all good. That is all you need to know!!!

This is the NY F&*ing Times !! This is supposedly our "Paper of Record". I listen to NPR, the view from there is pretty much identical!!!

Here is a little different view.

I don't care which side you are on, and in today's world,  you ARE on a "side", if you want to have ANY semblance of understanding of the "real world", you MUST make sure your media diet is balanced! I can't do it, no Blog will do it, and to some degree it is nigh on impossible since we are ALL extremely biased. But without at least attempting it, you are a UNWITTING slave to the world view of others. You are doomed to not even really know what you are thinking!

FIRST, be aware of what your overall World View (WV) is. You DO have one of these in some combination of their many many forms  ... you just may not be aware of it, or in fact, even think you hold the other view, but really do not:

1. (WV1) Religious /  Rational / God / Order driven -- You may or may not even go to church and have this, or even really think that you "believe in God" (I'd argue you really do, but that isn't the topic today).  The idea that the universe was created by intelligence, has a purpose, is "cared for" or operates under reasonable and constant "laws" that came from that intelligence, and has a purpose at some level.
   
   The universe can be understood by reason. "Under God", "Pray for Me", "Endowed by their Creator" would all be phrases that resonate with this sort of view. Much of "Republican" would see the world this way. When you believe the above, since the universe is ordered and reason counts, you are painfully aware that consistency matters -- since you are a human, that is really really tough, and you screw up a lot. One of the big reasons these folks tend to need religion is that they value reason, consistency and morals, but they fall short of their own standards.
   
   Sacraments / Symbols -- Baptism, Holy Communion, Cross, Flag, Family, Constitution, Right to Bear Arms, sacredness of human life, human history, real rational science, responsibility, liberty, opportunity,   ...
2. (WV 2)  Random / Post Modern / State as God / Humans infinitely perfectible -- The standard Democrat / "progressive" / "liberal" view. A big random wind blew through the junkyard of physics equations and created the 747 of a universe that we live in.
   
   There is no purpose save maybe "being happy" (as in YOU, or people you like being happy), so likewise there is no real morality. HOWEVER, since this universe is random and reason may or may not be in play at any given instant depending on how you feel about it, the key freedom that you have is;  CONSISTENCY IS NOT AN ISSUE!!! This aspect allows you to constantly be "correct" -- even, and to some degree ESPECIALLY when you are on both sides of an issue, but the side you are on is always the "right one". Just look at the MSM news, or a "current opinion poll".
   
   Sacraments / Symbols - abortion, weed, gay sex, peace symbol, gay rainbow / "equal", "mother earth", "Heil Hitler" -- or whomever is current locus of state power, "settled/political science", "progress",  fairness, security, ...

In the past, I've waxed on and on about these items, and in some respects, every novel in history, the Bible, all governments, all arguments, and all my blog entries are really just variations on the above at different levels.

What Civilization (as in Western Civilization, a bunch of shared ideas that applied to many nations) and American Culture (those aspects of Western Civilization that were distinctly American) used to provide for us was a set of consistent and reasonable values all driven from WV1 that were codified in written laws and the vast majority of people at least loosely agreed on; "Ten Commandments, Constitution, Apostles Creed, Rule of Law, Contracts, Golden Rule, etc".

**NOTE**, the political "left and right" DO NOT correlate to WV1&2. I see the WV as the Y-axis and left/right, or "Control / Chaos" as the X-axis. MANY of the WV2 folks are hard over on CONTROL and want the State to demand that you see things their way -- as in BOcare, "Hate Speech", Auditing your enemies, etc. In fact, I'd argue that the reason that the NYTimes sees no "scandal" here, but rather only a temporary smokescreen for Republican evil is just that -- they are angry that their (and the governments) level of control is yet insufficient to stamp out the voices of the apostates.

So we fight. It takes not much thought to realize that WV1 reached it's pinnacle in say "1900" in the US, and has been in decline ever since. WV2 hit a pinnacle in Stalinist Russia, Hitler's Germany and Mao's China ... along with lesser states like Cuba and Venezuela. North Korea is it's current poster child.

Islam is an interesting case where WV1 with Islam as the specific religious view  is combined with the far left of Control /Chaos. Powerful and dangerous. The following is how I see Politics and "Religion" (WV) mapped out in the past and current world. Green is optimum, yellow is desirable  red is some combination of undesirable and unsustainable.  WHICH religion certainly matters -- I'd argue that you can't have Islam in the upper right quadrant.

Without some view of a transcendent purpose and timeless values, the upper right quadrant can not be maintained and at least for larger nations there is an inexorable pull to either godless or fundamentalist tyranny. We either need to believe the same things on our own, or we will end up at least stating that we believe the same things by force.

So why is it again that we don't just "all get along"???

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Stewart, Barack, Trek Into Darkness

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-may-13-2013/barack-trek--into-darkness?xrs=playershare_fb

Jon is having a little trouble covering the BO these days. I wonder if since the administration has shown incompetence and malfeasance at this point, if Jon would admit that "those of the tin foil hats" might have a point??

Nah, he won't go that far, but occasionally he does take a minute out to pay attention tot he real world.