The Have Less Crisis

WSJ Middle Class Squeeze

An excellent but somewhat long article on the state of the malaise of the world economic system.

Since the financial crisis of 2007-08, which Western leader could boast of spreading ownership in any important way? In the U.S. and Britain, the percentage of citizens owning stocks or houses is well down from the late 1980s. In Britain, the average age for buying a first home is now 31 (and many more people than before depend on “the bank of Mom and Dad” to help them do so). In the mid-’80s, it was 27. My own children, who started work in London in the last two years, earn a little less, in real terms, than I did when I began in 1979, yet house prices are 15 times higher. We have become a society of “have lesses,” if not yet of “have nots.”

I think the summary of the state of affairs is stated well here.

The relationship between money and morality, on which the middle-class order depends, has been seriously compromised over the past decade. Which means that the mass bourgeoisie (a phrase that Marx and Engels would have thought a contradiction in terms) start to feel like the new proletariat.

I'm not sure how learned the author of the column really is, but he said a HUGE mouthful there!

First, everyone knows that "morality" is a very difficult term in our current world. What do we "value"? As traditional morals of chastity, truthfulness, thrift, prudence, hard work, honor, trustworthiness, meekness, temperance,  etc. have fallen from favor to become terms of derision hurled at some "hypocrites" who still "bitterly cling" to such. The very concept of "morality" has left the building -- and "money" has become a primary "value" in itself -- of both good and ill. "The Party" TP-D  getting lots of funding for a campaign? GOOD ... Koch brothers providing lots of money for an R? EVIL ... Lots of money poured into TP teachers unions? GOOD ... lots of money for a CEO? EVIL ... and on it goes. "Morals" relative to your POV -- the essence of the "all things are relative" view.

So to Marx, the "bourgeoisie" were the evil -- the owners of capital. The shop, farm and factory owners -- those that hired and fired and "leeched" off from labor -- the "proletariat" who were trapped and basically slaves.

The column goes on.

But pretty much the whole of the developed world is still in the convalescent ward, and no one is sure whether the wonder drug of quantitative easing can yet be abandoned, or even whether it does no more than suppress the symptoms of disease. Despite years of supposed austerity, debt is still strikingly high. It remains possible that banks, or even whole countries in the eurozone, could collapse. And who knows whether or not China’s big banks are bust? 

There is clearly an unmet need for a politics that goes beyond mere grievance-peddling to develop a new way of thinking about what makes a society free and secure at the same time. If this were easy, we would have heard more of it by now, and I won’t pretend to have the answers. But certain basic principles seem like the proper foundation.

He is brilliant up to here, but then goes on to pretty standard ideas, that while good in general, don't really make one feel "he's got it" -- get markets working better, get stock ownership to be more responsible, get a better balance between globalization and nationalism ... not wrong, but not really a clear marching order.

I'm going to throw out a couple of generalities here, but I think the BIG deal of this article is that it does a good job of stating the core of the problem -- We have lost our moral compass and are adrift. Until we fix that, all activity is pretty much just churn! We are also very vulnerable -- to attack from without or within.

I'm working on my review of "Closing of the American Mind" -- hopefully more detail there, but I think the big point is that as the Roman Empire, and to a lesser extent, the British Empire,  found "well fed ease and leisure" is not a meaningful goal for mankind. Everyone has to believe in something and really DO something in service to that belief in order to be happy! "I believe I'll have another beer" is a cynical JOKE ... but right now it is more in keeping with the "values" of Europe, America and Japan than anything else.

 Conquest, exploration, saving souls, moral perfection, defeating evil, "truth, beauty and the American Way", etc ... those have been and in some cases still are worthy goals. Certainly ISIS believes that they are undertaking a "conquest for saving souls" -- their own, and the infidels they convert to what they see as the truth. They are "defeating evil" from their perspective -- but we are "the evil", and we have decided to stop resisting as much as we can.  It seems the Putin also sees himself as restoring Russia to it's "rightful place". I suspect that China is also in this camp.

Real morals and values are DANGEROUS! They MEAN SOMETHING! Because they move people -- and nations, and potentially worlds. The Bible as always has pure truth on this -- "Man does not live by bread alone" -- without spiritual meaning, man dies. "Without vision the people perish" ... this article does a good job of pointing out how we are perishing --- not so much how to LIVE!

We need to figure out what is worth not perishing for, if we truly want abandon the terminally ill patient that is Western Civilization -- that is unless we just want to continue to kill ourselves.

Krauthammer's Islamic Presidency

Islam, Ben Carson & Krauthammer| National Review Online:

The article makes a persuasive case that Charles Krauthammer's comments on Ben Carson relative to Islam and the presidency were very ill advised. The article is quite long and detailed, the bottom line is this:

1. Carson didn't say the Constitution didn't allow a Muslim, he said that HE doesn't find Islam consistent with the Constitution. Those that are claiming otherwise are either being frivolous or disingenuous in attempting to smear Carson. 
2. The Presidency is a special office -- it is one of the 3 branches of government in a single person. The basic world view of that person is critical, and since the founders were clear that it required a "natural born American citizen", it does have special requirements. Attention to that person's religion, philosophy, leanings, etc is a critical responsibility for voters. 
3. One can claim that being a "born again Christian" is a "personal faith" -- no creed, congregation or leadership to agree with for better or worse. Not so Islam or even Catholicism. While Kennedy declared the Constitution higher than the Pope, that is a legitimate question for a Catholic seeking to be President. A supposed "Islamic President" would have a LONG list of such questions, which would involve making statements that would make him an "infidel" rather than  a "Muslim" in order to serve under our Constitution. Looking at the treatment of women, Christians, homosexuals, criminal jurisprudence, etc in Islamic countries will give you a start on how long that list would be. 
4. Given the above, the burden really ought to be on any Muslim (or person thinking that a Muslim would make a good president) to answer a myriad of "gotcha" questions relative to their religion as Christians often now are called to do ... eg. "Islam states that the earth was created in 6 days about 6K years ago, do you agree with that?", "Islam states that homosexuals should be killed, do you agree with that?", "Islam states that all governments should serve Allah and operate by Shariah law, what is your stand?" ... etc, etc. 

The difference in the way Christians and Muslims are treated by the ruling elite gives some solid insight into what the game being played really is. Unless one is a practicing Christian, in which case one is forced to declare love for even enemies, human nature is that "Like likes like" -- in which case one is forced to understand why "liberals" like Muslims -- a seeming mystery actually easy to parse. 

The outcry from left and right on Carson's statement gives us yet another marker on how really really bad the state of political discussion has become in this country. Krauthammer is brilliant, but he is not a Christian. Since he is human, he tries to make the Constitution into a religious, sacred "didactic" (teaching) document.

The Constitution is not just a legal document. It is a didactic one. It doesn’t just set limits to power; it expresses a national ethos. It doesn’t just tell you what you’re not allowed to do; it also suggests what you shouldn’t want to do.

As the linked column points out ... hogwash. The Constitution WAS our base LAW -- and since we don't even follow it for that ( "right" to abortion, "right" to gay "marriage", limits on executive power, etc), it's value is more like that of used toilet paper. What it was INTENDED to do is LIMIT GOVERNMENT ... it has completely failed at that. Claiming it tells political candidates how they ought feel about Islamists heading the executive branch is a fantasy that shows how difficult it is for even an intelligent unbeliever to understand the values that founded America.

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Why Do Liberals Love Islam?

http://jonathanlast.com/why-do-liberals-love-islam/

I've got my "simple theory" for at least the leftist overlords -- totalitarians like other totalitarians. Our left LOVED the USSR, they still like Cuba, China has gotten a little too commercial for them but still better loved than say England or certainly Israel.

The linked article tries out a couple other theories ... "relativism" is an all-purpose for both sides of the relationship. While the left holds to "absolute, lock them up if they disagree" relative to white christians supporting gay "marriage", relativism allows them to decide that such rules can be suspended for Muslims -- sure, they might have to avert their eyes a bit when gays are actually thrown from high places or stoned in Muslim countries, but hey -- it allows one to REALLY earn their multicultural diversity chops!

Remember, far left is ABSOLUTE rule of the State, and the State is human, not divine, so "cognitive dissonance" is required. The key skill is to be able to parrot what the party line says in the face of even massive shedding of blood. Six thousand young black men killed in the streets yearly by other young black men need to be completely ignored while marching for "Black Lives Matter" over a couple trumped up justified police shootings of blacks.

From the Muslim side, there are only two political parties -- the D's may support gays, women's rights, sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, but they support it for INFIDELS! One doesn't have to be a very smart Muslim to realize that if enough Muslims can be brought in, enough kids can be had, enough dead or imaginary votes created, it would be EASY to be Muslim nation -- probably already close to having a "Muslim seat" on the SCOTUS, make common cause with the black seat and who knows?

Besides, they sure are not going to vote with heavily Christian, Jewish-loving, strong US loving and flag waving Republicans! Sure it takes a LITTLE cognitive dissonance for them to vote D, but get real!

The other theory offered is the old liberal "we are really nice to our pets" theory.

I think the issue is more that they see Muslims as a new potential mascot group that they can champion and therefore obtain that cheap sense of moral superiority that comes with riding in like a white knight. I think a lot of liberal attitudes towards minorities aren’t actually based on the good of the minorities, but how good it makes the liberals feel to champion them.

It seems completely insane to see folks that would lock someone up for not baking a cake for a gay "wedding" falling all over themselves to defend a group whose religions teachings generally make the Westboro Baptist Church look like really easy going liberals by comparison. After all, Westboro has yet to stone, throw from a cliff, behead, drown or even rape anyone! Let alone threaten to implement laws to make such the standard for behavior!

But then, these are completely insane times. 

The real situation here is exactly the same as the discussion of wealth and poverty. Poverty needs no explanation, it is the natural state! It is wealth that has to be created by systems and actions that are successful. The state of nature is poverty.

Evil is the the natural state of a fallen world, it needs no explanation. Is it REALLY hard at all for any remotely intelligent person that still has some contact with what was once the standards of Western Civilization to look at Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, etc, and not see evil? The rape and child molestation of women and young boys, the abject poverty, the repression, the violent attacks on Christians, destruction of cultural/religious icons, stoning gays, etc?

The claim of "liberals" is that the fallen world is not fallen -- but rather that it is GOOD! Their alignment with Islam is actually consistent because ultimately, the destruction of Western Civilization will bring us to a state of nominalist control by POWER. Might is right is morally arbitrary! -- any claim to what many see as "natural" (Biblical) morality is removed. "Morality" becomes whatever POWER says it is -- Islamic "morality" is no better or worse than any arbitrary morality since POWER literally IS "morality" when evil reigns.

"Liberals" love Islam because it is rule by POWER. The natural state of man is always "like likes like".

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Boehner, Reign of Tears

NY Times, Bye Bye Boehner

Farewell, John Boehner, farewell.

These departures are a little wearying. It was not long ago that we said adieu to Rick Perry. And then Scott Walker. And of course we are gearing up for the moment when the political world says goodbye forever to Donald Trump. 

Good times, all.

The level of snark from the NYTs as The Party (TP-D) approaches absolute power gives one an insight into what other times were like as one party claimed victory.

However, the minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, had expressed confidence that Planned Parenthood would be safe even if the Republicans “vote their alleged hearts out.” We should spend more time quoting Nancy Pelosi.

No mention of the millions of babies murdered, including as the videos showed, some who have their hearts cut out and sold. They see any who have a shred of emotion for those dead babies as beneath contempt. One can hear the echos of Himmler given details of the "Final Solution" ... we should spend more time quoting Himmler! No doubt they felt their oppositions hearts were "alleged" as well.

Boehner was not an appealing guy for the traditional rock ribbed Republican. Preening, seemingly painted on tan and blubbering at inappropriate moments. Both US Grant and Winston Churchill were men that cried -- but it wasn't what defined them.  It defined Boehner -- it was a reign with a rain of tears.

Boehner was what is still "an establishment Republican", looking at all scenarios with shrewd tactical analysis. You know they want to label you a "bomb thrower" and a "crazy", so do all you can to execute maneuvers that hold what little territory you can as quietly as you can.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that this is a losing strategy. First of all, you WILL be called a bomb thrower, crazy and worse -- you have an R next to your name. This is not a time of "reasoned political debate" from TP -- this is a time of VICTORY and abject defeat for Republicans, by any means -- legal and illegal. Folks like BO and often five justices on the SCOTUS don't have any respect for any stinkin Constitution!

When your opposition is confident and entrenched enough that grisly videos of babies being dismembered and sold out in parts are so little a concern that using a line like "vote their alleged hearts out" gives not a moments pause, you know you are living well past the point of tired old words like "morality" or "decency" or "civilized". This is a time of the raw exercise of TP power with all the smugness, leering and cackling laughter that accompanies the victory of evil.

It is hard to shed any tears for the political end of Boehner. Significantly no doubt because of his personality, but also because of the times. When babies are being sold for parts, hundreds of thousands of refugees are storming the gates of Europe, 11 million illegals walk our streets and calls for killing police are ringing out in marches across our nation, it is hard to much lament a powerless House Speaker stepping down because he doesn't want to deal with calls stop spending government money on a non-government organization that sells baby parts.

Listening to the devils at the NYTs cackle though does give one  pause as to how bad it would be to spend eternity in Hell!

Assume Surprise When Adrift

The Week of Walker and Boehner | The Weekly Standard:

Good column that points out some truth from last week  -- nobody expected Walker to drop out this and nobody expected Boehner to announce his resignation. They were surprises -- as is Trump being in the lead challenged by Carson, and Bernie Sanders supplying significant challenge to Hillary. The pundits tell us it was all obvious, but it wasn't. Their lies are an illusion of order that doesn't exist.

Most Americans feel that the country is in generally bad shape and that to the extent we have any "direction" at all, it is wrong. I'd call the problem more one of being adrift at sea on a cruise ship on which everything is still pretty much working -- the lights, the toilets, the AC, the dining halls and especially the bars -- they all are handing out booze and even weed left and right.

 But we are adrift and nobody seems in charge -- and there is no plan to get moving because there is no proposed destination.  To the degree there is "action" it seems to be deciding that some of the folks from steerage ought to be moved up to the suites with balconies -- where to move those residents is less certain, it is all a bit murky.

But other than some discussions over who ought be in what cabin and maybe how all the dining and drinking options ought to be free, there is a general unease about just how long a drifting cruise ship is "sustainable". The occasionally visible but not convincing captain just keeps saying things are fine -- but we ought to be worried about the ocean temperature if anything. He believes the ship could be entirely powered by wind.

When there is no plan, everything is a surprise. No plan, no direction, being adrift is not "sustainable" ... everyone knows that, and they know that SOMETHING is going to change it at some point. They just have a hard time imagining what it is that is worth the effort of doing something other than

But for now, just enjoy the boozy drift and wait for the next surprise. It's life in the "Lost Zone" of Central North America 2015. Eventually we will bump into something!

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Until Certain Danger Meets Uncertain Danger

John Boehner’s successor inherits a diminished role. | National Review Online:

The power of the executive has risen to monarchy, the power of the Congress has shrunk to nothing. The transfer of very little power from Boehner to "whomever" is a matter of little significance now, and it will remain to be unless something very big changes the course of what used to be America. A couple very good lines in this column ...

When they write the history of American democracy, we’ll be obliged to admit the embarrassing truth that we lost it because it’s so much easier to pay attention to one man than to a congress of them.

I'd argue that stronger House Speakers could have kept us afloat longer -- the example of Newt is discussed in the article. People can pay attention to a few people, and some real contests between real leaders. Sure, the conservative side is always hobbled by the tilt of the media, but at least every one knew who the evil Gingerich was!

The close is sobering -- it agrees with the unknown but certainly painful future that I see.

Congress no longer has the power to return the president — and the presidency — to its proper role. That power, too, is now in the hands of the president, which is why it is unlikely that our national slide into autocracy will not be reversed until the current political equilibrium is disturbed, which is to say until certain danger encounters uncertain danger.

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Throw Out Baby Jesus, Keep the Bathwater

Atheism starts its megachurch: Is it a religion now? - Salon.com:

 "“The church model has worked really well for a couple of thousand years,” Dodd muses. “What we’re trying to do is hold on to the bath water while throwing out the baby Jesus.”"

For ages, man has uttered the aphorism "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" ... man has finally become so lost that rather than keeping the baby -- the center, the sacred, the important, the motto is changed to purposely keeping that which is unclean, unuseable, and defiled.

The Atheists are working on a church -- here is what they have against the "Unitarian Universalist Community Church" :

“The Unitarian Church has this idea of ‘radical tolerance.’ It respects everything. It’s all good. Well that’s fine on one level, but at some point it becomes a little diluted.” Dodd was looking for a more robust secularism.

This is pretty much all the information one can get out of the article. Their problem with the Unitarians as stated in the quote was not enough "robust secularism" ... but it seems that the direction the "Sunday Assembly" is going is toward avoiding in your face atheism.

As the atheist church becomes more church-like, however, it seems to be deliberately downplaying its atheism. Where the Assembly once stridently rejected theism (at April’s Assembly, Jones poked fun at the crucifixion), it is now far more equivocal. “How atheist should our Assembly be?”, Jones wrote in a recent blog post. “The short answer to that is: not very.”

Hard to define yourself purely by what you are against. Certainly those that "poke fun" at those who think differently from themselves are widely respected in secular culture depending on what it is they poke fun at -- the Bruce Jenner Halloween costume was so open mindedly received!

Either way, Sanderson Jones is confident that the model will spread. “We have the most natural human urge to do this,” he insists: to organize ourselves around institutions of meaning. I am inclined to agree that “Live Better, Help Often, and Wonder More” is a lovely motto to build around.

We live in a "Goldilocks Universe" tuned precisely to our existence ... to unimaginable numbers like 10 to the minus 128 needing to be "right on" for us to be here. Amazingly, on top of that we have this common urge to "organize ourselves around institutions of meaning" -- or, as we did for thousands of years, worship God.

The atheist looks at a universe impossibly built for his existence and declares it a matter of pure random chance against all odds. He then realizes that he has a "soul hole" -- something is missing, his life lacks meaning. So he postulates that against all odds, on top of his impossibly random universe, random selection has put a "God shaped hole" into his consciousness -- meaningless and randomness has most strangely selected to imprint a drive for him to seek some sort of "meaning" for his life in this universe that he has decreed to be meaningless and random.

So he grabs his bootstraps and pulls. The futility brings tears to my eyes ... and I'm sure to Christ's as well.

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Not With My Kids

Brooklyn Public School Battle: Progressives Are Opposing Integration | National Review Online:

"Liberals" are quick to apply the hypocrite label to any Christian that fails to live up to the moral code of Christ -- one wonders why they think Christ died on the cross if people could just live up to Christian morals by self restraint? Hypocrite is a label that the MSM never applies to "liberals" -- they never signed up to have any morals, so how could they be hypocrites?

They did however create A LOT of POLICIES and LAWS, all often screaming loudly of "equality" and "fairness"!  ... and since government is the closest thing they have to a god, one might think that "all" might apply to "liberals" as well. But one would be wrong.

The linked article is a short read -- Brooklyn has wealthy and poor citizens living in close proximity, though certainly not "integrated". The city would like to integrate a school -- the fight is joined.

Liberal policies have real outcomes -- often outcomes that are detrimental to all, but especially to those upon which the supposed beneficial social experimentation takes place -- destroying marriage and freeing women to copulate more widely was deemed especially liberating. Apparently some collateral damage has been found ...

Though children in some multi-partner-fertility families thrive, Cherry has observed that multi-partner fertility is associated with high levels of father abandonment and child maltreatment. Boys with absent fathers are far more likely to engage in aggression, rule breaking, and delinquency than boys living with both parents, and they are also far more likely to face multiple suspensions.

Liberals often like the idea of their policies being forced upon others, but are loathe to see fruits of their policy darken their doors. 

NIMBY -- "Not In My Back Yard"

NWMK -- "Not With My Kids"? 

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The Historical Hockey Stick of Capitalism

Perhaps the most powerful defense of market capitalism you will ever read - AEI | Pethokoukis Blog » AEIdeas:

BS (Bernie Sanders) and the Pope gets thrown around making people believe that market capitalism is somehow "bad". The large point they totally forget is that if you want to spend a lot of time complaining about how vast wealth is distributed, you FIRST HAVE TO HAVE VAST WEALTH!

For most of history, 90%+ of people had NOTHING -- little or no shelter, regular hunger and often starvation. They didn't even IMAGINE "leisure goods", sports, travel, entertainment, etc. -- in fact, even the rulers could not have imagined the technological wealth of the common man today.

The reason for all this is Reading, Reformation, Revolution and Revaluation.

1. Because of technology (printing press), people learned how to Read and write. 
2. Because they could read the Bible, the Reformation happened and the hold of the centralized Catholic Church was broken. 
3. Since the church had acted with centralized monarchy type governments, the literacy and ability to operate outside of centralized catholic doctrine allowed government to be made less oppressive. There was a Revolution from far left wing (control) kings, queens and bishops, to center right (less control) liberty -- the US was the biggest example. 
4. Because the masses could now read and write, and the strict centralized hierarchy of Church - King - Peasant had been broken, there was a Revaluation of the worth and potential of the common man which vastly increased the productive work force. 

The effects of this DEcentralized  power and economics and the Market Economy (Capitalism) broke out the strongest and earliest in the US, then in Europe, and in just the last 30 years we have seen it reach Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, China (BRIC) and beyond ... causing the curve in GDP per capita in the graph.

It is really not surprising that the Pope thinks going back to the bad old days is a good idea. Perhaps he will move to restrict reading as well "for the good of all" -- best to have "those in the know" make all the decisions! The common man might get confused!

The motivations for BS are probably just the old human standards -- lust for power, envy of those who make more than he does, wishful thinking about how things might work if he was in charge and in his case, just being a cantankerous old coot.

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Hillary Able To Display Facsimile of Empathy

Campaign Staffers Making Progress Conditioning Hillary Clinton To Replicate Emotions - The Onion - America's Finest News Source:

This is AMAZING progress! They were never able to get this far with John Kerry, and Obama still just lapses into meaningless self referential reveries when they attempt  to get him to recognize the presence of other humans.

We may yet have a dictator that can feign concern for others!

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Hillary Supports Stoning Gays

Ben Carson Caused a Firestorm with His ‘Muslim President’ Comments. Critics Should Look at This Map.:

Oh ... and cutting off the hands of thieves, killing those that leave Islam, women wearing burkas, etc. She disagrees with Carson that Sharia is not compatible with the Constitution and US values, so one has to assume that she thinks it IS. Right?

That is what Sharia law says, and unless you are somehow a "Muslim" that repudiates what your religion teaches, then that is what you believe. Only in the mind of the left or the insane could such a "Muslim" exist.

The left in this country believes that there is some Constitutionally mandated "separation of religion and life". They have no understanding how anyone can live by any religious tenets at all beyond the pablum of "do unto others" and "judge not". Naturally, they don't follow those either -- and believe that the "golden rule" is really "vote to have things taken from people at government gunpoint and distributed to serve the state". Oh, and on "judging", they believe that anyone that doesn't see the world as they do ought to be put in jail -- but hey, nothing personal!

The left is convinced that there MUST be "a  BIG majority" of Muslims (somewhere) that believe as they do -- that you can call yourself a "Christian", but follow none of the Bible, maybe darken the door of the church on a holiday or two a year, and otherwise "do what your heart tells you".

The same heart of which the Bible says in Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?"

Consistency is NOT an issue for the left!

But what IS an issue is POWER. So deep down, they like Sharia a lot better than a Constitution or certainly the Bible. Sharia gives the state total power -- and once the state has total power, they assume "good things will happen" ... like in Nazi Germany, the USSR, China, etc ... their "enemies" will be killed, and they see that as "the good". Or they just don't think much -- always possible.

I like Ben Carson, but we can't have another president with no executive experience of any kind like we have now. Ben would be "better" than BO, but after BO, we need someone with A LOT of capability -- we need the political equivalent of Aaron Rodgers, and I just don't see any candidate with anything CLOSE to that potential. Walker was the only (remote) shot I saw. He is gone, so the situation is grim.

Only in the current surrealistic fun-house of America could someone be attacked for saying what is obviously true -- no practicing Muslim could possibly take an oath to support the Constitution -- let alone the depraved and rotting "values" of current America. Even crazier, the ones that attack him are not asked to explain how it is in their fevered imagination that they believe that a practicing Muslim COULD take such an oath!

If you want to understand the "values" that those attacking Carson apparently espouse, go take a look at the linked article. Sanity has left the building.

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Age Of Rodgers

Aaron Rodgers, Maybe the Best Ever, Makes Packers the Best Right Now | Bleacher Report:

When you live in Minnesota, you know that the warmth of summer is short and fleeting -- it makes summer special. People from Florida or California think we are idiots -- we may well be.

When we look back on life, most of us have moments of pure joy to look back on -- getting married, birth of a child, winning the big game, special degree, promotion, big fish, etc -- for a usually brief moment, the universe shone on us and "all was right with the world". As we age, we all realize that our lives are very much "lived in Minnesota". Death touches us -- grandparents, parents, friends, maybe even touches us closer -- spouses, children, near death diseases for ourselves or those close to us -- we meet the Reaper. We know that life is fleeting -- so usually, and wisely I think, we make like those of colder climates and resolve to live while alive.

Those of you that read this Blog know that this is NOT my strong suit -- I know it intellectually very very well, but my emotional makeup is that of the skeptic, the questioner, the cautious one who attempts to look at all sides of all issues. Accepting the gifts that life hands me for the moments in which they are present and being joyful and grateful for those moments -- as opposed to attempting to hold on to the fleeting, protect against the unforeseen and imagine all that can go wrong!

So we come to the linked article, "Aaron Rodgers, Maybe the Best Ever, Makes Packers the Best Right Now".  If you are a Packer fan, go read it ... over the top, yes, but you will get a smile for sure. A sample ...

As long as Rodgers stays healthy, two things are certain: Rodgers is better than anyone at the position playing now, even better than Tom Brady. And the Packers will be the best in the conference because he is the Escape Pod, whisking his team away from all flaws.
This won't change all year. 

We are in the era of Rodgers. God isn't a Packers fan. If anything, she's a Rodgers fan.

I'm blessed to be a Packer fan. It was random for me to be born in NW WI, and with my makeup, it is a certainty I would have become a fan of whatever team was prominent in my area -- my sense of tradition and loyalty to where I was planted is wired in. So being a Packer fan was a gift.

As a youngster, of course it was a dim awareness, but central to the idea was the known fact that the Green Bay Packers were the ultimate football team, Bart Starr was the ultimate QB and Vince Lombardi was the ultimate coach. Such things were obvious -- and they really were obvious to most everyone, even many who didn't like the Packers. On Lombardi at least, it seems the world decided it was indeed true.

Then, from the time I was out of Jr High until well into my IBM career, the Packers sucked! It was a soul crunching truth -- the assumption was that "small market teams" had no hope at all. The age of Dallas, Pittsburg, San Francisco, New York, -- certainly the Vikings fans were certain that tiny Green Bay would ever return to anything even respectable, let alone great! It seemed that my lot would be to always pine away for the "glorious past".

Then came the '90s ... Ron Wolf, Holmgren, Favre, Reggie White, a 3rd Super Bowl trophy and another Packer team in perennial contention. Then Rodgers, a FOURTH Lombardi Trophy, and here we are.

As the article says, "if he stays healthy" -- one of the many things that makes it hard for me to truly bask in the joy of what is happening right now. Much like MN summer or life itself, the very next play could easily be his last -- he has already had a couple concussions. But that is ALWAYS true ... for all of us. We kill the joy of the gift with that sort of thought.

The linked article makes some claims of his historical significance, and while I believe that what we are seeing at this moment is indeed the greatest example of what an NFL QB can be, he will not be remembered (by others) unless luck and fate hold out for some period of time and more trophies come to Green Bay. While Rodgers definitely pushes the envelope of possible artistry in the QB position, it is WINS that make "the greatest of all time".

Which brings us to the TRUE JOY ... the joy of POTENTIAL and anticipation, the joy of the child anticipating Christmas. While each game is a delight to be savored, the potential is so awesome that it makes one fearful to consider it.

He is 31. He claims to want to play to 40. As we saw in Seattle last January, the list of things that can go wrong is indeed infinite -- although I sincerely doubt we will ever go down again due to conservative play calling during the age of of Rodgers. I'm not going to guess a number of potential added Lombardis ... zero of course is the "smart number", but also the joyless number.

When Mr Rodgers takes the field, the number that comes to mind is ALL OF THEM!
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Pied Pontiff of Poverty

The Left Has Its Pope - Thomas Sowell - Page 1:

Not one of Sowell's best efforts IMHO, but then I hold him to a VERY high bar. It's a bit like a game when Rodgers doesn't break 100 QB rating ;-) Here is a very impressive nugget though:

Any serious look at the history of human beings over the millennia shows that the species began in poverty. It is not poverty, but prosperity, that needs explaining. Poverty is automatic, but prosperity requires many things -- none of which is equally distributed around the world or even within a given society.

The natural state of man is poverty, with equality being maybe the only sop to a life that is pretty much equally  "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". Everyone else is in the same boat, isn't that wonderful? A lot of folks seem to believe that Hell will be OK because everyone is in the same boat ...

So we developed social organization, which right off the bat means inequality -- somebody rules, somebody "keeps the order" ( using or at least threatening violence), labor gets specialized to tasks with different rewards, etc. Technology adds to the inequality -- some invent technology, some build and sell it some are experts in it's use, some never figure it out, some get addicted to it. Once humans have anything, inequality is guaranteed -- but the alternative is the "state of nature" -- poverty.

The rise of man is based on the rule of law and technology, but then you have those who don't like the fact that rising wealth means rising inequality -- when the income was zero, everyone was equal, the greater the income becomes, zero will remain zero and the natural wage for the very bottom is zero. Any wealthy nation will have significant inequality, the more wealth, the more inequality since zero remains zero.

So along come those that have no understanding of where all the wealth came from, and seek to redistribute it -- the socialists, communists, etc. They find that the goose laying the golden eggs is "doing it wrong", so they kill the goose to be able to use and distribute this wealth as they see fit. It is a very old story.

As I've pointed out before, this Pied Pontiff is not a Biblical man ...

Matt 25:28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Remember that "talent" in the Bible is a measure of money -- but like all scripture what it really shows us UNIVERSAL TRUTH. Think of the knowledge of reading -- without that, even the knowledge you have is likely to be "taken" -- because you can't write anything down and read it later, or just refresh and deepen what you have.  The servant that knows how to EARN in the parable is given more. The one who does not, loses what he has -- in the real world, to inflation of nothing else. 

The current pope was infected with "liberation theology", the more general version of "black liberation theology" espoused by BO's old pastor Reverend Wright (Reverend Wrong). Like all attempts to make the Bible say what it doesn't, these are heresies, profitable to destroy men and nations. 

Capitalism is the "Goose That Laid the Golden Egg" and the wise servant from the parable of the talents. It is the wisdom of EARNING vs the evil of theft and sloth! 

Matt 25:21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’

Or, in a more recent example, we have the parable of the lost pontiff's own Argentina ...

A scholar specializing in the study of Latin America said that the official poverty level in the United States is the upper middle class in Mexico. The much criticized market economy of the United States has done far more for the poor than the ideology of the left. 

Pope Francis' own native Argentina was once among the leading economies of the world, before it was ruined by the kind of ideological notions he is now promoting around the world.

What ruined Argentina is ruining Europe with Greece being one of the coal mine canaries. We see what is happening here in "Central North America".

 Let's not follow this Pied Piper into the sea of Socialist destruction!

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The Question Nobody Answers

The Question Candidates Won't Answer | National Review Online:

Readers of this blog know that the US is brokest nation on earth financially and there is no plan that is even REMOTELY viable in either party to address it.

The most likely "solution" remains the standard solution of governments through all of history -- massive inflation, debauching the currency so that tens of TRILLIONS of real debt piled up with valuable dollars can be paid off with worthless paper. Maybe some of it with a picture of a woman on the front! A few 100 trillion with Susan B Anthony, Harriet Tubbs or some such fine fine lady on the front ought to make everyone feel better about seeing a million dollars buy a loaf of bread!

The article isn't really all that much help -- means testing would be a tiny start, but let's face it, nobody is even going to propose that until this pig piles into the mud a whole lot deeper than it is already.

Ah, the "Jimmuh Solution" ... always good to go back and see the wisdom of Billy Carter's dumber brother!

Hey, I'd like to be a millionaire! Wouldn't you ???

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An Allergy to Political Alternatives

The Republican Party has an allergy to facts - The Boston Globe:

The specifics of what are in this column are really not all that important -- what is important is the assumption of the author, the editors, and no doubt a good many of the readers of the column that there is one truth, and "The Party" (TP - Democrat) is its prophet. Naturally, listening to infidels makes those faithful to TP become uncomfortable. A sample ...

I seethed as one candidate after another offered more heartless and uncompassionate plans for how to treat illegal immigrants.

Here is the "money paragraph" ...

It’s one thing to marvel at the unprecedented and stupefying levels of GOP know-nothingness on display this election season — the misstatements, the untruths, the exaggerations, the falsehoods, and the straight-up lies. But these vaccine comments represent a legitimate public health menace. And it’s indicative of the allergy to facts, data, and evidence that is the real story of the GOP debate, and indeed of the Republican nominating contest — and we need to be talking more about it.

Politics, branding, advertising, sales, mythology, story telling, etc, etc are ALL much less about anything like "facts" than they are about convincing others. Marxists believe that history is "wired" by "something" (they believe in no god) so that the "progress" to communism is inevitable. "Progressives" likewise believe in "progress" -- due to "something", we are guaranteed that history is somehow getting "better". We certainly don't know what that means -- having seen something north of 100 million people slaughtered in the 20th century due to the more "progressive" forms of government -- National Socialism, Communism, etc, but their faith is not shaken.

Certainly TP would like to tell everyone that "it has the facts" -- they were confidently sure we were out of oil in the '70s, even more sure the USSR would be around forever, Reagan would be an economic disaster, the age of big government was over, if we liked our healthcare we could keep it, red lines in Syria, ISIS was the "JV team" ... and on it goes.

The point here is more that those in the dominant political party -- TP, with the media like the Boston Globe and the universities generally on their side ACTUALLY BELIEVE that they have the "facts". The real truth is that there is NOTHING about the future that is 100% predictable, even that the sun will appear to rise tomorrow AM (see major meteor impacts, gigantic solar eruptions, etc) ... precisely NOTHING in this physical world is certain, so anyone that claims otherwise is doing politics, branding, story telling ....etc.

The author of the column ends it this way ...

We joke about this stuff, but after a while it’s no longer funny. The Republican Party is dominated by candidates who are proudly, even boastfully ignorant. Rejecting the clear science on vaccines or climate change is practically the price of admission even to be considered a legitimate presidential candidate. Playing on xenophobic fears of immigrants by lying about the economic costs and threats to American workers — pro forma. It reached a point Wednesday night when a candidate actually saying something true was an event worthy of note. 

But make no mistake, the descent of the Republican Party into dishonesty, lies, and cravenness is no joke. It’s a national crisis.

Sadly, I'm guessing he doesn't realize that a whole bunch of the things he believes are "true" are -- politics, marketing, myths, etc ... he is a TRUE BELIEVER!

I'm a true believer too -- in Jesus Christ. All other information is highly questionable, often inaccurate and in many cases downright false. Often intentionally so, but also often just because people have "good intentions" that don't work out. They (for some reason) were certain that if they raised taxes a lot on cigarettes they would drastically reduce smoking, but were equally certain that they could massively raise taxes on income and profits without having the taxes cause a reduction in income and profits. They believe taxes behave according to their wishes!

The author of the column is obviously a TP true believer -- he would find my statement about taxes having the effect of reducing income or profits to be as foolish as the idea that just because Global Warming predicted more hurricanes and we got less that it somehow reflects badly on Global Warming being "settled".

The point here is I have a Religion -- Christianity, and so does he -- "THE PARTY"! It turns out that the discussion on vaccinations is an old one -- and in fact the LEFT tends to be more inclined to have concerns, (I covered it here) ... if you really want to go off to the left wing tinfoil hat set, see GMOs. Unlikely the MSM will ask Hilly or BS any such questions though.

What the left has is a STRONG allergy to political alternatives. BO has been the farthest left since Carter -- it remains to be seen if any of the Republican alternatives even has a ghost of a chance as being as much of a turn back to the right as Reagan was. No doubt this columnist thought the '80s were a "disaster", but there are a lot of very real people and very real numbers that would call that view into strong question.

That is the difference between politics and what science USED to be (before it entertained the idea of being "settled") ... politics is NEVER settled, even after you start rounding up people and shooting them to get them to agree with you -- see USSR. The author of this column apparently doesn't understand that, and THAT is the dangerous problem -- because people that make politics their religion always end up shooting the infidels sooner or later.

The American difference is that here, we SHOOT BACK!
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