Pander, Cressida, Cause and Effect

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/eidos/2016/05/endurance-and-not-words-troilus-and-cressida/


The linked article is a great little article by someone that clearly knows WAY more Shakespeare than I do or will EVER know (see end note in link). If you liked my little post on Troilus and Cressida, this one fills in a tiny bit more detail on the actual play, but it contains an egregious example of getting cause and effect mixed up.

We can only know this when we endure, when we are unwilling to lie to others or to self in order to “win.” Pander, aptly named, says to the lovers:

Ah, well, the ORIGIN of "Pander" in the modern meaning is through this play by way of Chaucer, but most prominently in English, Shakespeare!  It is SO "apt" that it is the origin of the word!

While I'm in a little whimsicle mood, I never realized that the Toyota "Cressida" might be roughly translated out of the tale as "beautiful but unfaithful" -- maybe a more fitting name for an Italian car?

The linked article is short and worth the read, I was just struck by the cause and effect. I found the following paragraph especially worthy.

If we are not careful, we shall be like these fools: more interested in professions of love, than love. Christianity is odd in that it demands we love everyone, even our enemies. This is hard today and only great saints actually end up doing it, but the striving to do is good. Just as reducing from three packs a day to one cigarette a day is better than doing nothing, so hating a great deal less without achieving divine perfection is good for our community.

I Tell You The Truth, There Is No Truth

A Melancholy Calculation | PJ Media:

The title is a variation of "Everything I say is a lie ..... I'm lying." Covered well on the old Star Trek.

I've attempted to write quite a few posts like this, and will no doubt attempt many more, since I believe that the biggest question of our age is "Truth, does it exist, and allowing that, what forms does it exist in and how are those to be perceived". My short answer would be yes, transcendent -- as in eternal, metaphysical, God, scientific -- as in the best current approximation of physical phenomenon, and emotional -- as in the feelings perceived by humans for each other, God, community, country, etc.

I find this paragraph critical to his thesis.

Perhaps the most evident sign of civilizational devolution is the inability or unwillingness to acknowledge reality, to come to terms with things as they are, and to oppose the suppression of objectivity and its substitution by fantasy, illusion and wish-fulfillment. The resonating dictum of the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides from his fragmentary poem On Nature—variously translated as what is, is, and what is not, is not!—sounds like an empty tautology. But it has relevance for our present historical moment, with respect to the cultural and lexical inversions of contemporary thought and discourse. Apart from its metaphysical implications, which we won’t go into here, the Parmenidean maxim expresses the criterion for survival, the need to separate truth (aletheia) from opinion (doxa) and to recognize things as they are if an individual, a culture, a people is to transact successfully with the existing world. But when thought and action come to be governed by the anarchic principle that what is, is not and what is not, is, a process of social, political and epistemological disintegration invariably sets in. This is the condition in which the West finds itself today.

Today, outside science, there is only "doxa" (opinion), and each personal doxa is supposedly just as valid as anyone else's, but of course, there is the rub. POWER ... of media, of party, of public opinion, of money, etc is what REALLY makes some opinions to be "truth". If you fail to bow to them -- as in believe that men should stay in men's bathrooms even when wearing a dress, well then you have to be bludgeoned into agreeing with the POWERFUL opinions!

It is all well worth the read, I've come to see our present crisis as completely obvious, but I realize that is a minority option -- us cranks enjoy seeing the occasional apparently sentient human in agreement! I'll close with this for those of you not up to reading it all.

When a civilization, or its cultural and intellectual curators who wield the instruments of power and authority, re-interprets reality as merely discretionary, decline and eventual extinction are guaranteed, and the Angel of History will preside over the ruins. When pretending becomes believing, and believing becomes mandatory, and calling out the naked emperor is punishable by law or fine or ostracism or loss of employment or worse, and when the scale of such abuses becomes effectively global, the “lifeworld,” or communal nature of daily life, as we have known it has ceased to exist.

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Impunity In An Amoral World, Shocking!

The age of impunity - The Boston Globe:

Impunity is epidemic in America. The rich and powerful get away with their heists in broad daylight. When a politician like Bernie Sanders calls out the corruption, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal double down with their mockery over such a foolish “dreamer.” The Journal recently opposed the corruption sentence of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell for taking large gifts and bestowing official favors — because everybody does it. And one of its columnists praised Panama for facilitating the ability of wealthy individuals to hide their income from “predatory governments” trying to collect taxes. No kidding. 

So we live in a world that has no fixed transcendent morals and the Boston Globe is SHOCKED, SHOCKED I tell you! that people try to avoid paying taxes.

You see, in gambling, it is always clear who "the house" is. In a world where morality is no more, "the house" is the government, and while the Boston Globe may be "shocked", the fact that all real morals and obligations have been abandoned and supposedly "replaced" the the "sacred obligation" to pay exorbitant tax rates at the point of a gun, some people still try to avoid paying those rates.

Impunity is not an accidental or incidental defect of American society. It is a system foisted on us by the rich and powerful, and it continues to work its magic. It has enabled Hillary Clinton to come within reach of the presidential nomination without releasing the transcripts of her highly paid speeches to Wall Street banks. The Clintons long ago perfected the art of impunity, becoming rich and powerful by blurring the lines between their campaign fund-raising, public policies in office, Clinton Foundation work, big-money speeches, and off-the-record favors for foreign governments.

The Boston Globe believes that separating people from their money at gunpoint ought to be as easy as killing a fetus in it's mothers womb, taking somebodies property by "eminent domain" under Kelo or changing the timeless meaning of "marriage" at the stroke of a pen.

But some still struggle -- and unsurprisingly, in a country where "money" has become the major substitute for "meaning", the wealthy fight hardest of all. They especially have put the meaning of their whole lives in acquisition of more wealth, so they hold it dear -- as obviously does the government and the Boston Globe.

And they are SHOCKED that when the meaning of life for millions has been reduced to money -- and political power, the politically powerful fight to keep their money (and power), and many seek to convert parts of their power into wealth -- as the Clintons have done.

We have replaced values and truth with money and power -- and we are SHOCKED!

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Divorcing Truth and Bereaved Parents

I often wonder if a major piece in the lack of trust in institutions, candidates, or each other, we pretty much all now have,  doesn't go back to the rise of divorce. That was pretty much THE big sacred lifetime vow that most people made -- "till death do us part" before God, family and friends. Then it became common and socially acceptable to break it.

Nothing is that simple though. In making weekly trips to take my Dad to appointments or just visit since his prostate cancer diagnosis in January, it has occurred to me that the cultural shift that started with FDR, of the government being responsible for care of the aged, was a big enabler. Prior to that, in "good / lucky / typical" families, care of elderly parents was something that children did -- and it helped for both the parents and the children's marriages to be intact. Inheritance was also a factor -- "leaving something behind for your children" was considered honorable by nearly everyone ("honorable" actually used to be a word!).

"Freeing" everyone from their "family obligations" made "I'm spending my children's inheritance" sound like something one could be smug enough to put on a bumper sticker. So far, we haven't added "and spending 20% of my children's and grandchildren's income for FICA, Medicare, BOcare and Medicaid as well!!". It hasn't been added, but it is true. Many fathers also don't feel responsible to care for their children anymore either. The lefty way is that you are "responsible" ONLY to the government -- there are no other "obligations", it has all been outsourced!

Vocation, calling, responsibility, sacred duty, Gods Will, etc" become "hardships, burdens, toil, constraints, even enslavement ...". When life had a purpose beyond individual ease and happiness the world was a different place. As it is put in the old saw about Moses and FDR -- 5,000 years ago, Moses said, "Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the Promised Land." When Welfare was introduced, Roosevelt said, "Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel, this IS the Promised Land."

As meanings become fluid and declared by the state or it's media, people who want to stay in the good graces of "The Party" and be seen as "intelligent, reasonable, "moral", etc" have to be able to change from one "factual statement" to it's opposite on a moments notice.

For example; how may "experts" told us that Ronald Reagan was CRAZY to believe that the USSR was EVER "going away"? Many ... hundreds, thousands even. When it DID go away, how many of those "wise men" lost face and realized that they ought not be making such pronouncements as such "certain truth"? Virtually none -- the "wise men" that are still living are STILL "wise", and the left is constantly working to re-write history to make Reagan  completely senile in his second term!

In a 2012 debate,  BO taunted Romney saying "the '80s wants it's foreign policy back" for thinking that Russia could be a major threat. BO is still "wise", Russia IS a threat, but BO is undiminished by his error. TP tells you what to think.

How many times in the 1970's did we hear that "We are out of oil, gas is ALWAYS going to go up in price, and anyone that says otherwise is an IDIOT"! Uncountable -- it was the "standard wisdom", more "settled" than Global Warming is today. Then we heard "It will NEVER go below $2 again" from the great and powerful BO himself, but it did. The people that claimed it would go below $2 were complete fools or liars, but when it DID got below $2, the "fools and liars" remained "fools and liars", and BO remained "honest and brilliant". For the believers in TP, the "important fact" never changed -- TP is STILL right!

The Democrats, media and even BO declared Iraq to be "lost", then BO declared it to be "won" before he lost it. The MOST critical thing about being on the side of  TP is that when you and their pronouncements are "proven wrong", they are STILL right! Past statements simply disappear and the new statements that contradict them -- sometimes multiple times, are now "truth". We live in an OZ where the man behind the curtain is exposed but 80% of the people still believe in the wizard of TP!

Which brings us to Trump -- doesn't it ALL come down to Trump these days?

How many pundits told us "Trump will NEVER be the Republican nominee"! Only he is. Now the SAME "experts" are telling us with the SAME confidence, "Hillary will win by a LANDSLIDE!". That may well be true -- TP is powerful. They own both the virtual and the dead vote, so if it is even close, we may have queen Hildebeast. But I do believe I detect a bit of nervousness on the part of the TP faithful. If we are to lack confidence in Trump because "he isn't reliable", how are we to have confidence in the many "wise men" that are certainly not reliable?

For this world, the most adaptive part of religious belief is that believers have a core transcendent belief that is NOT OF THIS WORLD. "God is good, ALL the time"! That is a FAITH statement, and people WILL live by faith, sometimes in the face of horrible diseases, economic collapses, war, or even having a fight with their spouse and not getting divorced. The strength and weakness of transcendent truths is that they are "true by definition", they can't be "proven false" ... nor true in a "scientific" way. (of course NOTHING can ... scientific "truth" is always provisional on the next experiment.

TP on the other hand claims to be "better" because it's wisdom IS of this world and CAN be shown to be both true and false! However, when it is proven false, that is to be ignored and the NEW "truth" is to be taken as "truth" -- and NOT questioned!

 Eternity provides perspective -- but a little earthy perspective is OK as well.

It appears that there are about 80 million children < age 20 in the US. From age 5-14, 13 per 100K die each year. From age 15-19, 50 per 100K die each year. If we just pick "40" per 100K, that is 40 x 10 per million = 400, so 400 x 80 for the US, or 32,000 new bereaved parents EACH YEAR. Every 10 years, that is 320,000 bereaved parents!

How much do we care about them compared to say "transgenders"? Of maybe the 10 or so blacks killed by police in any sort of "questionable circumstance" each year? Or how important do we think TP being "always right" is to those parents? Is TP REALLY the "ultimate issue"? Do we ever consider their feelings say as much as "Caitlyn Jenner"? No, pretty much, we "think and feel" (to the extent we still know what that is) pretty much as we are told by TP on a day to day hourly basis as long as nothing like personal death, disease, etc collapses the TP view-screen. Even those of us that fight TP can no more escape from it's effects than we can from breathing.

We have largely destroyed the perspective of the eternal, the family, the community, the historical and even the very simplest things like our gender. Most have lost ALL perspective other than the false perspective of TP.

But now, there arises Trump, who challenges the "truth" of TP, and is even willing to challenge the whole concept of "truth" in the same way as TP has done increasingly for years. He says exactly what he wants to say and changes his position at the drop of a hat -- just like TP and the TP candidates. In method, presentation, arrogance, showmanship, derision of his opposition, etc -- in pretty much ALL ways, Trump **IS TP**!!! When there is no truth and no values, ALL that matters is "perception and POWER". TP has made that clear, and the vast majority have no perspective at all to make sense of "what is trump" (in the card sense).

What is truth? Trump or TP? In a world with no truth, does it matter?

Fundamentally Transforming Gender in BOistan

White House stands up for transgender students - POLITICO:

The Education and Justice Departments this morning sent a Dear Colleague letter to every public school district in the country reaffirming the administration’s interpretation of sweeping protections for transgender students under Title IX — including a transgender student’s right to use a bathroom or locker room that aligns with his or her gender identity.

Got that? The "fundamental transformation" of "America" into "BOistan" has just taken another giant step. While I suppose the gays were not included, I can't think of a High School male that didn't have recurrent dreams of the scenic beauty of the girls locker room and shower! Now, all it takes is having the balls to "get confused" for a day and you have the FEDERAL RIGHT!

I'm sure kids are WAY more "mature" these days, but I can only imagine the "I dare you" on both sides of the genders. I'm pretty sure there would have been a handful of girls in our HS that would have really enjoyed a few showers with the boys. Or from the male side, you want to see a girl you find to be especially attractive naked? All you need to know is when her gym class is and "get confused", simple.

The irony of this new "right" being found under the  imaginary "privacy clause" of the Constitution is simply too much. Privacy? Oh, we HAD to have gay "marriage" so the government wasn't "peeking in your bedroom"! Yup, consistency is definitely not an issue.

Can this be Trumped????

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NY Times, NOT Pimpin4Paradise786

Corrections: May 10, 2016 - The New York Times:



That is a heck of an editing error! Does that handle for an imam give a NY Times editor pause? Apparently not!

Because of an editing error, an article on Monday about a theological battle being fought by Muslim imams and scholars in the West against the Islamic State misstated the Snapchat handle used by Suhaib Webb, one of the Muslim leaders speaking out. It is imamsuhaibwebb, not Pimpin4Paradise786.

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Jobs, Reality Distortion, Dilbert, Trump

Donald Trump will win in a landslide. *The mind behind ‘Dilbert’ explains why. - The Washington Post:

I think Scott Adams has as good a handle on the Trump phenomenon as anyone, the whole article is worth a read.

Steve Jobs famously aimed to create “reality distortion fields” to meet his needs and achieve his ends. Trump employs similar techniques, and apparently can be similarly thin-skinned when his “reality” is challenged. “The Master Persuader will warp reality until he gets what he wants,” writes Adams, noting that Trump is “halfway done” already.

I once worked with a guy that had one of those fields. When you were in the room with him you REALLY believed that the stuff he was talking about was extremely possible to do, AND, you believed that YOU could do it! When he left the room, everyone looked at each other and said "What the hell did we just sign up to do?.  The problem, as I often point out is that we are NOT rational, but rather we are rationalizing entities! Emotion drives our decisions -- science now knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you lose your emotional sense, you can't decide what to have for dinner, what to wear, or ANYTHING. If you have ever dealt with depression or someone that is depressed, you have gotten a tiny bit of insight to this -- "nothing sounds good to me", "what difference does it make?".

“The most important thing when you study hypnosis is that you learn that humans are irrational,” Adams tells Comic Riffs. “Until you understand that, hypnosis is hard to do. … For me, it was this great awakening to understand that humans are deeply irrational, and it’s probably the greatest influence on me in terms of my writing.”

Guess what, Trump understands this, but Hillary does not. It is kind of surprising, since Slick Willie certainly DOES understand it as well -- but then it is never really clear to me that he actually wants Hildebeast to win the presidency.

I don't watch much Fox, but I noticed the Meghan Kelly hairstyle change and wondered what was up (I didn't like the new one, I guess I like the WRONG kind of hair style in a woman!)

“Do you think it is a coincidence that Trump called Megyn Kelly a bimbo and then she got a non-bimbo haircut that is … well, Trumpian?” Adams writes. “It doesn’t look like a coincidence to this trained persuader.”

The summary is pretty much here -- and I think Adams is on to something. I can't imagine a SINGLE "Alpha Male" voting for Hildebeast ... nor any that even have a "dream" of being alpha anything. The symbol for Hildebeast has always been pretty clear!

Writes Adams: “Identity is always the strongest level of persuasion. The only way to beat it is with dirty tricks or a stronger identity play. … [And] Trump is well on his way to owning the identities of American, Alpha Males, and Women Who Like Alpha Males. Clinton is well on her way to owning the identities of angry women, beta males, immigrants, and disenfranchised minorities.

The key will be the dead and virtual vote. "The Party" has a LOCK in those areas, and they are NOT affected by emotion or even "hypnotism" ... but if it is a "landslide", they can only stuff the ballot box so much and get away with it.

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Wife Cheated, Dating Hooker

The earthquake and the aftermath: Charles Krauthammer:

Charles, like many, is in a real quandry trying to understand the Trump victory.

More fundamentally, Trump has no affinity whatsoever for the central thrust of modern conservatism — a return to less and smaller government. If the establishment has insufficiently resisted Obama’s Big Government policies, the beneficiary should logically have been the most consistent, indeed most radical, anti-government conservative of the bunch, Ted Cruz.

So some guy marries the "good girl". She turns out to not be all that "good" and sleeps around. News at 11, he complains about her and starts dating a hooker.

HW Bush, W Bush, the Republican congress from 2000-2006, and then the House from 2010-2016 and Senate from 2014-2016 -- they ALL "slept around" with "big government", more regulation, not standing up to BO, raising taxes, etc, BIG TIME!

So if the very core of your supposedly "virtuous conservative party" is corrupt, and make no mistake, the core of the Republican party hated Cruz worse than Trump, then why does anyone believe you ought to cozy up to them YET AGAIN if you are a "conservative"?

Maybe "conservative" DOES mean "stupid"!

Cruz being embraced by Walker, and VERY tentatively by the R "establishment" during and especially after winning Wisconsin is what I believe was the kiss of death for him. It had me tentatively thinking that he was done -- but he wasn't.

When you prefer another candidate, it is VERY easy to imagine that things are going to turn out your way.

When you DON'T like a candidate -- like Charles here, it is really easy to fall into thinking that everyone that does like him is "stupid".




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34707 Island View Lane, Emmetsburg, IA 50536

That is the address of the lake place.

If you have the Google Maps application on at least Mac and type that address in, it will give you the satellite view of the IA property as of summer of 2014. You can see the neighbors house south of our lot with big "U" dock with lift and cover in center, our dock is in, and the brother in law's camper is on our lot and their is a camper on the lot to the north of us.  It looks MUCH different now, with a shed taking up the northern third of the lot!

For some reason, Google Earth and the web version seem to have older shots, so properties out in our area of the development don't show up everywhere.













If you have the right browser or IP camera viewer you can go to 69.66.197.8:83, enter "guest" for ID and "guest" for password, and you ought to see something like the following if everything works right. It's a little wet down there now and there seems to be some drops on the camera lens. This cam is a "temp", I'm playing with a higher resolution model that has zoom and remote panning to allow different things to be viewed. HOPE to get that installed the end of the week.

The place is MUCH more fun this year with the dock already in (thanks to the IA Bruellmans for getting that done!) and of course the shed operational from the summer get go.

Argument With My Sowell

An Unmitigated Disaster - Thomas Sowell:

Regular readers know that there are few men whose wisdom I respect more that Thomas Sowell, but then you also know I'm something of an iconoclast, so disagreement is to be expected!

Generally, I agree with him that Trump vs Clinton is some level of "disaster", but where I differ is that electing BO TWICE was already a level of disaster that makes future disasters pale in comparison. America WAS an optimistic forward looking nation for all but a brief time in the late '70s when Jimmuh put on his sweater and told us that the world was too short on energy to have Christmas lights!

BO did him one better -- he convinced most Americans that we were no longer exceptional, and to focus on "security", "fairness" and Global Warming as our main concerns.To the extent we have "mood' now, it is resignation, feeling

If nations cannot have confidence in American commitments and American leadership, we are not likely to get their cooperation. And the stakes are life and death.

Sowell argues that Trump might cost us this, but one can't lose what is already lost. BO has MORE than proven that the US is untrustworthy and useless as an ally. Iraq, the deal with Iran, the Chinese building bases in the South China Sea,  his failures in Afghanistan and Eastern Europe being stark examples. It is "possible" that a Trump or Clinton could hurt our standing more, but the horse has left the barn ... anybody that trusts us today is a fool.

It is just barely possible that Trump is crazy like a fox on places like South Korea. If they want to be defended, they can damned well pay a hefty price -- if we don't at least THREATEN to leave them on their own, we likely can't get much of a deal. I can believe that Trump is looking to make a deal with S Korea and other places, and that is fine with me!

Oh, and we ought not to elect Trump because they might use him against us for a long time? Hell, they are still using Hoover, McCarthy, Nixon and now W against us and I don't expect them to stop. They are even still out trying to cement that case that Reagan was senile in his second term and did all sorts of supposed "damage".

If Republicans start worrying about what the Democrats will make up / hold against us, we may as well just give up right now. I can GUARANTEE that NOTHING will turn out to be BO's fault if you listen to the media, nor will ANY Democrat, past nor future be expected to shoulder and blame. That is what the media believes that Republicans are for!




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NY Times Reports Iran Nuke Deal A Sham

The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru - The New York Times:

The linked article is not a bad read. The punchline is that America's foreign policy is being run  by a wanna be novelist who has mind melded with a community organizer and are purposely misleading everyone else about what they are up to.

It opens with the drama of said novelist (Rhodes) trying to manipulate the press on the day of BO's SOTU address when  "our friends" the Iranians have taken a couple patrol boats and ten sailors.

"Now, from the flat screens, a challenge to that narrative arises: Iran has seized two small boats containing 10 American sailors. Rhodes found out about the Iranian action earlier that morning but was trying to keep it out of the news until after the president’s speech. “They can’t keep a secret for two hours,” Rhodes says, with a tone of mild exasperation at the break in message discipline."

If we lived in a real world everyone would know what is obvious -- the idea of "hard liners" and "moderates" in Iran is complete fiction. Here is Leon Panetta, who served as both CIA director and Secretary of defense under BO when asked about said fiction:

“No,” Panetta answers. “There was not much question that the Quds Force and the supreme leader ran that country with a strong arm, and there was not much question that this kind of opposing view could somehow gain any traction.”

We won't go into the "background" our chief of foreign policy has other than a Masters Degree in Fiction and smoking a lot of weed -- just like our President.  But at least according to this NY Times writer, he DOES have power!

On the largest and smallest questions alike, the voice in which America speaks to the world is that of Ben Rhodes.

If you ever wondered about the veracity of the Iraq Study Group and 9/11 Commission, wonder no more ... FICTION! He did fiction well, so he was a great person to work with BO -- the fictional leader! 

“The idea of someone with a masters in fiction who had also co-authored the Iraq Study Group and 9/11 Commission reports seemed perfect for a candidate who put so much emphasis on storytelling.”

Readers of this blog already know the following paragraph, but now the NY Times concurs: 

The way in which most Americans have heard the story of the Iran deal presented — that the Obama administration began seriously engaging with Iranian officials in 2013 in order to take advantage of a new political reality in Iran, which came about because of elections that brought moderates to power in that country — was largely manufactured for the purpose for selling the deal. Even where the particulars of that story are true, the implications that readers and viewers are encouraged to take away from those particulars are often misleading or false. Obama’s closest advisers always understood him to be eager to do a deal with Iran as far back as 2012, and even since the beginning of his presidency. 

So Congress, Israel, the UN and the American people were purposely misled by the BO administration, and now the NY Times is even willing to report it! Still, it seems that nobody cares. 

So when Panetta talked to Israel about the nuclear deal, here is what they wondered if BO could be trusted to stop a nuke from being produced. He after all as SAID that he would take action many times. It is one of his "red lines", and we KNOW how much he can be trusted on those!  

“They were both interested in the answer to the question, ‘Is the president serious?’ ” Panetta recalls. “And you know my view, talking with the president, was: If brought to the point where we had evidence that they’re developing an atomic weapon, I think the president is serious that he is not going to allow that to happen.”
Panetta stops. 

“But would you make that same assessment now?” I ask him. 

“Would I make that same assessment now?” he asks. “Probably not.”

So Leon Panetta, past head of CIA and SECDEF and lifelong Democrat does not believe that BO would act to stop an Iranian nuke and the freaking NY Times is willing to print it! And STILL, nobody cares! 

Iraq is his one-word answer to any and all criticism. I was against the Iraq war from the beginning, I tell Rhodes, so I understand why he perpetually returns to it. I also understand why Obama pulled the plug on America’s engagement with the Middle East, I say, but it was also true as a result that more people are dying there on his watch than died during the Bush presidency, even if very few of them are Americans. What I don’t understand is why, if America is getting out of the Middle East, we are apparently spending so much time and energy trying to strong-arm Syrian rebels into surrendering to the dictator who murdered their families, or why it is so important for Iran to maintain its supply lines to Hezbollah. He mutters something about John Kerry, and then goes off the record, to suggest, in effect, that the world of the Sunni Arabs that the American establishment built has collapsed. The buck stops with the establishment, not with Obama, who was left to clean up their mess.

 See, BO was all about "Hope and Change", and he was an "outsider" before Trump came along. If it wasn't for BO, Trump would be horribly inexperienced. Compared to BO, Trump with his years running business as an executive is a model of solid experience! Compared to Slick Willie, and even Hildebeast, Trump is a pretty much a paragon of virtue. 

One thing we are certain of, NOTHING is BO's fault! With BO, the buck NEVER stops! All of this was known in general (not the details) by anyone paying attention. What is new is that the MSM is apparently a TINY bit concerned that they too were played for patsies -- although not all that concerned. They have loved the stench of BO from the start.


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Left Republican Apocalypse Analysis

The Four Horsemen of the Republican Apocalypse - Bloomberg View:

I cover this one for a couple quick reasons:

1. Again, we discuss the "demise of the Republican Party" ... we certainly did after Goldwater and after Nixon as well. The Republicans have been a minority party since FDR. I too believe that at some point "The Party" (D) may succeed in wiping out the minority opposition, but it will be due to first amendment issues -- "campaign finance", "coordination", "fairness doctrine" types of attacks as we have seen in Wisconsin, not who they nominate. 
2. He points out that Trump is a "celebrity candidate" -- he doesn't mention that Arnold and Jessie both WON against all the pundits assuring us it could not happen. 
3. He never mentions Republicans making lots of promises if they got both houses, and then disappointing tremendously. 
4. The dream of Rubio was stillborn due to his "gang of eight" mistake. It may have simply been a rookie mistake, but it was a bad one, especially as he was snookered by Chuck Schumer who is well known as one of the most slithery of snakes in the leftist swamp. 

The theory that if "the right guys had got out quicker" Trump would have been prevented, is shaky at best. An "outsider" candidate was likely to win the R nomination this year because the party pissed off the base so badly. When the "establishment" tepidly embraced Cruz after WI it did more to enhance the appeal of Trump to the elements of the base energized in anger.

The people who have run the Republican Party into the ditch are John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney and John McCain. Trump is a symptom, not a cause!

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Responding To Senator Ben Sasse's Open Letter

Ben Sasse - AN OPEN LETTER TO MAJORITY AMERICA TO: Those who...:

Senator Sasse,

First of all, thanks for writing the letter. As we see in the protestors at Trump rallies, in Black Lives Matter, and many other places in this country, we are approaching the time of violence being seen as a solution. If we don't start talking, violence will almost certainly be one of the answers to our crisis.

I'm a 59 year old Christian father of two boys, blessed grandfather of one beautiful granddaughter, married for 31 years, 34 year career in computer software, raised on a dairy farm, now retired and trying hard to write about what I believe matters in my blog and pieces of a book.

You mention the political parties, Washington DC, and what a third party candidate might look like. I believe that American problems always start with IDEAS. We are a country based on ideas, not territory, race, or cultural origin.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I believe the origin of our current problems are in that sentence:

These truths -- What is truth? Possibly the majority of people today think of "truth" as either empirical, the scientific "truth" of numbers and experiment, or as power. The "might is right" of the ballot box or bullet. Many believe that there is no such thing as truth.

created equal -- Our founders thought equality of OPPORTUNITY was the obvious meaning of that term. Today, possibly more than half our nation thinks it is equality of OUTCOME, and even believes that it is the responsibility of government to define and insure that equality of outcome.

endowed by their Creator -- We were founded on TRANSCENDENT values. Not "situational", not "whatever polls say".  "Ideas Have Consequences"  is a book that every educated American ought to understand, because it provides the definition of transcendent truth and the consequences of not having it. The phrase makes clear what our founders knew about our nation, best stated by John Adams: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other".

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness -- A nation that has slaughtered 60 million babies in their mothers wombs has certainly abandoned the protection of life. We could talk of the loss of liberty forever, but the simple fact that everyone talks about "what is happening in DC" vs what THEY are doing in their families, community, churches and states tells the tale.

Sadly, I believe that our founders made a grave mistake in adding "the pursuit of Happiness" to the Declaration. Happiness is a side effect of meaning, and without maturity and meaning, it is not possible. As with most of "my thoughts", this too is stolen, the book that makes it most clear and concise in my experience is "Happiness Is a Serious Problem"

Our nation lost it's way long ago. In recent times, the failure to remove Bill Clinton from office showed that the presidency could be held by a person of no moral character. The election of Barak Obama showed that the office could be held by someone who had no demonstrated competence in leadership or executive function. Being able to campaign and win became the only qualification for leading the area of North America founded on ideas that are no longer known or understood.

George W Bush was the last president of "The United States of America". What we are now is unknown -- and either Trump or Hillary clearly meet the "standard" of "no standards".

We don't need a "candidate to campaign 24/7", we need A NATION! Right now, we don't have one, because the one we had was founded on IDEAS, which our people no longer understand, let alone believe, and a Constitution, which apparently we will demonstrate yet again that we do not follow, with the case of the North Carolina law that specifies males and females using the proper bathroom.

We need a "Movement", a "Revival", a return of the spirit that was America to sweep the land and restore the bulk of our heritage, and yes, maybe correct a few glaring errors like "pursuing happiness". I fervently believe that such a revival may happen -- it may well form a new nation rather than the old one. It may well be that the coasts demand a centralized government, massive dependency, open borders, the exclusion of God from the public square -- in short what is seen as "progressive" by many today.

Most of all, we need to understand what it is that we once were, and what it is that we are seeking to be! Protecting this broken immoral shell of a once great nation from Jihad, getting the books balanced, restoring education, and putting fresh politicians in DC seems a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I have made a personal shot on arriving at what an agenda for restoration might look like here.

Again, thank you for the seed of dialogue. Somehow, we must save at least a remnant of the light that was America, even if it is a new nation made up of what is today "Red America". We need humble ourselves and pray mightily while following the words of Churchill in England's finest hour and Never, Never, Never giving up!

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NY Times Confesses Liberal Bias

A Confession of Liberal Intolerance - NYTimes.com:



Well, not at the paper, that would be a BIT much! But at universities.

I’ve been thinking about this because on Facebook recently I wondered aloud whether universities stigmatize conservatives and undermine intellectual diversity. The scornful reaction from my fellow liberals proved the point.

“Much of the ‘conservative’ worldview consists of ideas that are known empirically to be false,” said Carmi. 

“The truth has a liberal slant,” wrote Michelle. 

“Why stop there?” asked Steven. “How about we make faculties more diverse by hiring idiots?” 

To me, the conversation illuminated primarily liberal arrogance — the implication that conservatives don’t have anything significant to add to the discussion. My Facebook followers have incredible compassion for war victims in South Sudan, for kids who have been trafficked, even for abused chickens, but no obvious empathy for conservative scholars facing discrimination.

The article is a worthwhile read only because it is a "progressive" from the NY Times making many of the same obvious observations that myself and a number of conservatives have been making for DECADES. At the end he seems to believe that liberals will simply realize that having percentages of conservatives in the single digits in the university is just unacceptable for finding "truth".



Readers of this blog know there are a few issues with his analysis:

1. In an empirical universe (matter is all there is), then "truth" is at the very most provisional (inductive) and limited to items that data can be gathered on. Moral "right and wrong" are purely "convention" and can be changed at any time. 
2. In such a universe, Christians, believers in the Constitution, and most conservatives certainly ARE "wrong". EMPIRICAL "truth" DOES have a "liberal slant", because liberalism assumes that "man is the measure of all things" and Science is the closest we get to "ultimate knowledge". 
3. In an empirical universe where moral issues are decided by "might makes right", any level of discussion of such things is VERY frightening to those who hold the faith that "God is Dead" is "settled Science" (or at least settled thought). If you keep "idiots" on your faculty who dare disagree, it is going to confuse some impressionable young minds! As NPR points out, not supporting a woman's "right to choose" just isn't negotiable -- so you you really can't have a practicing Christian out of the closet on your faculty! 

The fact that such an article can appear in the NY Times is however surprising and a positive sign! 

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Unresolveable Super Heroes

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/05/08/captain-america-civil-war-directors-explain-the-movies-political-meaning/

Western civilization used to have Theologians and Philosophers. Even in the time of Plato there were at least "provisional answers" to the big questions of life. People that cared at least knew the form of the argument and what it meant to choose one sort of answer vs another.

These days we are looking at such questions in the context of imaginary superheroes and deciding them to be "unresolvable".  Are we to take this as "progress" from our multi-thousand year history of religion and philosophy?

“We wanted the movie to raise questions — political questions,” Joe Russo says. “They’re unanswerable questions. We certainly don’t want to provide any answers in the movie. And Cap and Tony — you could absolutely say that they represent different political points of view [on] … the question of security vs. individual freedom.” 

“Which is unresolvable,” interjects Anthony Russo ...

Ok, so when "unresolvable" questions come up how do they get "resolved"? Or have we turned superhero movies into and exercise in navel gazing?  

“Because you’re using power, somebody is going to feel disempowered. And there’s going to be a reaction.”

Ah, our old friend "power" -- "the great resolver", once you no longer have HIGHER powers! If there is a "reaction", is the "resolution" based on who has the most power? It pretty much is in movies is it not?

When you give up transcendence, then the only arbiter is POWER! Brute force is just one brand ... being more clever, trickier, able to get more people on your side, etc are all just other forms of power.

There is no way to convince others peacefully unless there is a higher standard that you can both agree on and point out how various actions are moral or immoral relative to that standard INDEPENDENT of who has the most power.

In the world we live in, people don't realize that however, so we may as well discuss theology and philosophy in the context of superheros!