Why We Lost Western Civilization

Articles: Winning the Long War:

The simple answer is that the "progressives" incrementally turned public education into collectivist indoctrination. Allan Bloom sounded this alarm strongly and unequivocally with "The Closing of the American Mind", but the standards had already sunk so far that only a few could hope to begin to understand what he was saying.

This article is EXCELLENT and well worth the time to read it.

Some "cheat sheet" on the subsequent paragraph, the article is generally easy to read, don't be put off ...

• ethics -- right/wrong, What we would have learned in Sunday School, from our parents, and nursery rhymes in a free country. Today what is taught is environmentalism, political correctness, re-distribution (robbery, or "fairness") and the worship of man and the state. 
• epistemology  -- the study of knowledge, what is known and what is knowable. Western civilization arose on the idea of perfect and transcendent  forms (Plato) and a rational universe -- typically assumed so because it was created by a God that is reasonable (a God of order). "irrationalism" essentially says; "it all happened randomly, and except for being skeptical and possibly believing your senses when they are not in conflict with "progressive" dogma, whatever you think is as good as what anyone else thinks." 
• metaphysics -- religion/theology being the former name and what most readers of this blog will at least have heard of. If there is a God that is reasonable, he has a purpose for us, so our mission is to find that purpose and do it well as we worship him. It there isn't a God, this whole idea of "finding what you were intended to do" is rubbish. There is no "intention". Life has no meaning or purpose, which is nihilism".

I spent 16 years in state schools prior to ATTEMPTING to read "Closing of the American Mind", and then studying on my own, and then attempting again, then studying some more, and repeating a couple of times. I feel that I now understand a good deal of that book. My "cheat sheet" above would have not been possible without decades of self-study and hundreds of books and articles.

The state educational establishment relative to Western Civilization is much like the Catholic Church was prior to the reformation relative to the Bible. They really don't want you poking around on your own, you are likely to come up with some questions that are going to be VERY hard to answer!

The reason that I often come close to despair is that there are so few Americans that can even really read and understand well enough to even grasp the danger. The advancement of technology is a two edged sword. Will this descent into darkness be a millennium? Could it be shorter because the technology can empower renaissance  as the printing press once did? or will the technology enable "Big Brother" to lock the culturally lobotomized drones in a "Matrix" forever? I certainly don't know, but I know the danger is very real and very urgent. Read ... and maybe weep.

 "Civilization -- all of it -- is currently under the domination of progressive collectivism in ethics, authoritarianism in politics, irrationalism in epistemology, and nihilism in metaphysics. The architects of this calamity have paved the road to the devil's dominion over several generations. Their recent boldness, moving in for the kill on the last, crumbling bastion of principled resistance, America, shows that they believe ultimate victory is at hand, which, in human terms, means we face a thousand years of darkness."

and this gem is so on target it must be seen ... 

Men capable of living independent, confident and self-reliant lives grounded in their own skills, their own interests, and their own minds, are a threat to the authoritarians, mainly because what such men naturally crave -- more freedom -- is precisely the opposite of the desire progressivism seeks to foster in every child, namely the desire of a helpless dependent for perpetual security, to be provided by the all-knowing, all-caring über-parent, Government.

You OWE it to yourself to read this article. You are still alive in one of the brief flickers in history where the level of freedom for this to be seen is allowed! Savor that knowledge before the Gulag!

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Remembering America

America’s honor | Power Line:

The linked article is excellent, just read it all, and shed a tear for a once great country suffering a long road to death, as my mother suffered the past 10 years. Sadly, I'm nearly certain that the final moments of America will not be peaceful with adoring children at it's side.

My Mom was struck down by a dissection of one of her aortas, which medicine did it's best to repair. She lived, but while miraculous that she lived at all, her remaining life was spent in a nursing home and much less sweet than that which had come before.

America was struck down by leaving God behind and deciding to worship at the alter of human "progress". An idea that darkened Russia and Eastern Europe for 70 years, turned the German nation into an instrument of evil, and killed hundreds of millions of born and unborn over the course of the century in war and "peace" (Satan is always at war with life).

Man was given the gift of fire (technology) to be used in his service while man worked in the service of God. We took that gift and replaced the worship of God with the worship of ourselves, our pleasure, and our feeble technical toys.

The opening paragraph is haunting. The stories are somewhat like looking at the Apollo Moon Rocket or Mount Rushmore. We were once great. We rose up and stood as that "Shining City on a Hill" for a season, but no longer. Now we die, and worse, we die with no meaning. By our own hand in slow suicide. No God, no heroes, no purpose, no creed. Just sad pleasure seekers sorry that no more pleasure could be stolen.

Once we knew who and what to honor on Memorial Day: those who had given all their tomorrows, as was said of the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy, for our todays. But in a world saturated with selfhood, where every death is by definition a death in vain, the notion of sacrifice today provokes puzzlement more often than admiration. We support the troops, of course, but we also believe that war, being hell, can easily touch them with an evil no cause for engagement can wash away. And in any case we are more comfortable supporting them as victims than as warriors.

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157 to 1

Shulman had more White House visits than any Cabinet member | The Daily Caller:


157 to 1 is the ratio of visits by IRS chief during  4 years of BO administration vs # of visits during 4 years of W administration.

How curious is the press about this rather large discrepancy? Are you kidding? It doesn't PROVE anything, and with BO in the WH, there isn't going to be any interest unless something is PROVEN!!

Investigate? You would have to be a racist partisan political hack to have any sort of suspicion of anything relative to the BO WH. The job of the press is to protect the president!

Obviously  BO just liked to talk to the IRS chief personally. Maybe they golfed together?
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Mom, Home Forever

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

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

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

Especially me.

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

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

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

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

In this case:

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

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

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

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

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

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

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

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

Malcolm Muggeridge -- The Great Liberal Death Wish:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Chilling Drone Deaths Reported Straight Up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So why do I write about this??

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

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

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

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

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

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I Stand for Nixon!!

He’s No Nixon | The Weekly Standard:

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

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

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

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

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The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) Questions Prayers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A Crisis of Authority

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

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

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Remember, You Still Like BO!!!!!

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

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

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

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

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

This nation is completely hopeless.

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IRS: What do you pray for?

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

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

Which universe is this?

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BO Denies Role in Government : The New Yorker

Obama Denies Role in Government : The New Yorker:

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

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

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

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

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BO Strong Union Collaboration

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

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

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

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

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

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


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Republican Hypocrisy, Tax Exempt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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MN #1 !!

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

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

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The Banality of The Chicago Way

The Autocrat Accountants | National Review Online:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Republicans’ Scandal Machine - NYTimes.com:

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

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

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

Here is a little different view.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Stewart, Barack, Trek Into Darkness

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

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

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

Mille Lacs Glaciation Preview

BBC News Ice sheet creeps ashore on Minnesota lake - YouTube:

I've always argued that "global warming" would be easier for humans to deal with that "global cooling". The planet was ice-free for much of it's 4-5B year life and did just fine. We actually live in a very cold period (not the coldest, see "Snowball Earth") relative to the warmer periods in planet history.

There are more extensive and better videos out on YouTube if you want to delve deeper, but I liked the fact that good old Mille Lacs made the BBC.

Try to imagine those ice sheets a mile deep, but flowing much slower, covering pretty much the entire Northern Hemisphere. Somehow I always find that picture scarier than the one of me sitting on my deck here in MN in January, but I guess to each their own.


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Gun Violence Drop Deniers

Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware | Pew Social & Demographic 
Trends:

Pew is a pretty respectable site for public opinion -- regularly used by NPR for one I know.

Gee, down 49% since '93, and in that time we had both extra gun control (Assault Weapons Ban), and the expiration of that ban. If one was interested in saving lives, it would seem that this information would be VERY good news and a tremendous opportunity to figure out what works and what doesn't relative to gun violence.

For starters, we have been a lot tougher on drug crime in that time, there are a lot more concealed carry states (and permit holders), and there have been a lot more guns purchased.

Wow, the public is unaware! Now there is something that I'm sure our media is embarrassed about and is going to work every bit as hard as they do on say "Global Warming / Climate Change" to INSURE that everyone is fully informed about "the real world.

Any "Gun Violence Drop Deniers" are no doubt going to be suitably chastised for not being "reality based".

Don't think any of this is going to happen? Seems absolutely clear that the impulse to "Gun Control" is really  about CONTROL doesn't it?


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Watergate to Benghazi

Eric Boehlert: Benghazi, Projection, and the Dark Obama Obsession:

I'd argue that this "dark obsession" has plagued alternative sides of any semi-successful (at least politically) presidency since Nixon.

Certainly EVERYTHING claimed in this article as applying to those who find Benghazi serious goes 10x for Watergate. Nobody died in Watergate. It's national or international import was absolutely zilch. The ENTIRE issue was the "coverup", and "did the president lie?". A new standard was established by the left in America  with Watergate -- at least REPUBLICAN president re-elected in an absolute landslide could be taken out of office if the proper game of "gotcha" could be executed against him.

So with Reagan we had Iran-Contra. Still no lives lost, but an opportunity for the Democrats to assert that "the will of Congress" had been usurped -- man, they love the Constitution when it seems to be on their side. Iran Contra was still brought up during the HW Bush election in '92.

Is it REALLY that surprising that Republicans eventually learned this tactic?? Slick Willie provided them with AMPLE opportunity, and I suppose that Whitewater was a "low standard" when a former governor of Arkansas and 5 or so of the Clinton's closest personal friends ended up in jail.

Does this columnist really think that there wasn't "war" on W for the whole 8 years???  Does nobody remember Dan Rather losing his job over fake documents?? Not to mention "Plamegate" ... Whitewater was a "low standard"?? Trying to make a "leak" that "outed" a CIA agent that drove to Langley every day and whose husband's "Who's Who" entry mentioned her by name? How many "secret agents" do you know whose husbands write controversial articles for magazines? BTW, "Plamegate" warranted a "special prosecutor" ... so Benghazi isn't even close until we get that far.

So we come to Obama. I happen to have read his first book, it isn't very hard to find A LOT of questions that would be asked of him if he had been coming from the "the other side" politically. His "borrowed dream" that he dedicated his life to is anti-colonialism. Righting the "injustice" of the expansion of Western civilization -- the return to tribalism and paganism. His "opposite" would be a "throwback", and "America First" sort that had no apologies for America, Christianity, Western civilization. Based on the treatment of W, I'd argue that the treatment of someone on the right that had a history that was as "anti-progressive" as Obama's is "anti-western civilization  would create an anger from the left to make the "dark obsession" with BO seem positively tame by comparison.

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Dying for Meaning

Suicide Rate Rises Sharply in U.S. - NYTimes.com:

Our nation has been the victim of "progress" driven by "progressives" for over a century now, and the verdicts have been coming in for some time. Financially, jobs wise, morality wise, happiness wise, and even just on the basic will to live.

Suicide rates have been high in Europe for a long time -- and birth rates low. In the cosmic picture, "what is life about"?

In 2010 there were 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle crashes and 38,364 suicides.

So we choose to die at a higher rate than we die even in our cars -- and let's be honest. How many of those car crashes are really just suicides better covered up, as well as a host of other "accidental deaths". 

"Progress" has destroyed the honor of sticking with a marriage that is far less than perfect -- for the kids, or whatever. It has destroyed religion for many, in the simplest sense because religion is no longer seen as a "standard way to live" in our culture -- and for the people in the middle to lower part of the "bell shaped curve" of existence, "doing what the crowd does" looms large. 

The "minimum wage" has been constantly increased as have the government benefits, so "work", SOME work, as having dignity over not working has  been largely removed as a measure of a worthy life. There is no stigma in "Taking a Living" any more, and in fact the government declares what a "Living Wage" is -- there is absolutely no honor in scraping by on that or even less. TAKE! Your labor isn't worth enough to survive in our society -- or you have been "oppressed", and clearly the "oppressors" have won. 

In fact, the very concept of some standard to a meaningful life are now "wrong". ... "he was honest, he went to church, he worked hard, he took care of his family, he was a good neighbor, etc" ... all those "value judgements", or "standards" are "judgmental", somehow small-town hicksville, not worthy to be considered. 

Why would there be any "standard"? Isn't it "better" to give all people "equal standing" for simply breathing? Well, maybe if they don't try to "judge anyone else" ... like if they impertinently stand up for some tired old Christian morality, or some old tired document like the Constitution. THOSE people are worthy of disdain. THOSE people MUST change their views to the way of moral relativity. Everyone else is "equally OK" ... at least. If they stand up for relativism, maybe even better than that!

So we die. Individually and alone by suicide. Culturally by low birth rate and murdering the unborn.  The article has a lot of excuses -- poor finances, drugs, etc, but does ANYONE really believe that?? 

This is very very old and sad news in the waning days of a corrupt and lost civilization.

 "Where there is no vision, the people perish". (Prov 29:18)


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Tax Enemies, One Party Rule

IRS admits targeting conservatives for tax scrutiny in 2012 election - The Washington Post:

I've always compared BO with Carter on the basis of policy, but it is definitely Nixon he is closest to in morality.

First, the practice is no surprise at all, just mildly surprising that the IRS would forget that it it isn't on the list of things to talk about openly.

The IRS, and in ALL agencies of the government save the military (although that is shifting too) are union organizations that vote over 90% Democrat. We currently have, and effectively have had for some time, one party rule. Why would they NOT target Republicans? They would have to care more for Rule of Law than how they feel -- and they are Democrats.

If they valued Rule of Law over temporary political advantage, they would be Republicans. They believe in their hearts, not their minds, and certainly not in som old tired Constitution.

So we OFFICIALLY and OPENLY (for today)  live in a country where you are targeted for your political allegiance. Expect that to be a big story? Not from this side it won't be -- the MSM is just fine with this, in fact, they no doubt feel it is good and proper. Embarrassing when IRS folks get lost enough so they talk about it openly, but that can be fixed and it can be buried again.

To some degree, they need to do this from time to time. It instills fear. If you don't agree with "The Party", then you can be targeted. Keep your head down, lie low, maybe nobody will rat you out!
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David Gelernter: Who is on trial for Benghazi? | Power Line

David Gelernter: Who is on trial for Benghazi? | Power Line:

Just read it. EXCELLENT!

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Ice Cancels Fishing Opener

Ice Likely Ruining The Fishing Opener On Mille Lacs « CBS Minnesota:

For the first time in quarter century, I'm not doing any fishing in MN this opener. For 45+ years I did an opener either here or in WI, where the opener was a week earlier. During that time there was never an issue with ice on any of the lakes that I opened on -- this year, there was, and would definitely have been had I gone to WI.

I listen to MPR pretty much every day, there has been VERY little discussion about all the records being broken this year, where last year, the early and warm spring was a CONSTANT discussion, often with a little quip thrown in of "how hard it must be to be a "denier".

Guess what. BOTH years were WEATHER, not CLIMATE ... as have been all the 10, 20, and even 100 year shifts in temps, rainfall, snow, etc.

The best that science can tell us is that the CLIMATE of the planet has shifted between periods of warm and cold for at least the last 2.6 million years, and we are in fact still in an "ice age" called the Pleistocene.

The chart shows evidence from antarctic ices cores over the past 450,000 years. If people like to think about the "big picture", this chart brings a few thoughts to mind:

1. Note the scale, 50,000 year increments. The whole of recorded human history is in that rightmost uptick in temps. 
2. Note the semi-regular 4 peaks pior to (I think) even the warmists belief in human effect. 
3. Five isn't a really good number for a persistent pattern over 2.5 million years, when what you have is on 1/5th of the data because the other 4/5ths melted. 
4. Look at the peak about 125,000 years ago. It got a lot warmer than now. The place at which this ice sheet was at was still ice covered, and guess what! The planet survived, and they didn't even have Al Gore to protect it. 
5. Note how "fast" (on this scale, still hundreds and thousands of years)  the temperature drops are after the peaks. We know that the planet has survived both the peaks and the valleys, along with all the life forms we see around us today. Polar bears for example, did NOT evolve in the last 125K years, after it previously got 4° C warmer than now. Folks that claim otherwise are either misinformed or lying. 
6. Note how much of the time it is VERY cold. A few min spent looking at the following http://mclean.ch/climate/Ice_cores.htm will point out that the last 3K years have THANKFULLY been fairly warm. There are mastodons from Siberia dated 7-8K years ago when it was WARMER STILL. My thinking is that was not due to humans driving around too much!! But then thoughts like that make me a stupid "denier". 

Anyway, enough on the bigger picture for today. This has been a cold spring in MN, but NOTHING like what we have seen here around 12K years ago with a mile thick sheet of ice, so we ought to be VERY thankful for just a little lake ice!



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The Gray Lady Spells Benghazi

Official Offers Account From Libya of Benghazi Attack - NYTimes.com:

I include this because one can never be sure how quickly the MSM will find a way to suppress this story again.

I think back to the inverse stories;

1. Watergate, a 3rd rate burglary that killed nobody and the the ONLY issue with the president was the cover-up. The MSM was RAVENOUS and we still regularly hear about it today. 
2. Iran-Contra, a president arming freedom fighters in Nicaragua that proved to be eventually successful in gaining free elections, and much to the chagrin of Bianca Jagger, Jimmy Carter and the rest of the American left, removing their poster child for revolution, Daniel Ortega. 
3. Plamegate -- The special prosecutor investigation into "the leak" of the identity of a "covert" CIA agent who drove in from her suburban DC home to Langley every day, and whose husband wrote a column in the New Yorker, and had her name listed in "Who's Who".

These 3 were all highly serious, and as a regular NPR listener, I often got to hear Daniel Schorr intone of the horrific threat to the republic that all involved. 

Over the same set of years, we had Jimmy Carter negotiating with the Iranians holding hostages, promising them ANYTHING if they could come through on an "October Surprise" that would get him elected. (They released the hostages inauguration day, much to Carter and the MSMs distaste). 

Slick Willie with Whitewater -- much ado about "nothing", 4 personal friends of the Clinton's and a former Governor of AK in prison, **BUT** the Clintons were "completely innocent" in much the same way as Slick "never had sex with that woman" ... but no matter, our entire MSM was anxious to "Move On" from these "distractions". 

So we come to this point. An actual, now clearly proven case where a US President fabricated a cover story to prevent embarrassment close to an election. Four Americans lost their lives ... quite likely because moving assets to deal with the known threat could have jeopardized the narrative that "BO has Al Qaeda on the run because he killed Osama". The guy that produced the film that was used for the fictional cover for this is STILL IN JAIL! (how is that for "1st amendment") 

As we saw during the Clinton years, these witnesses need to be very careful. Accidents, suicidal tendencies, and just good old fashioned massive character assassination are all things that somehow "crop up" when  the "Clintonistas" are on the prowl. 

There is going to be round two in the US MSM and Democrat party to BURY THIS SUCKER ASAP, as they did last fall. "Politicize"? This is the party that politicizes the daily weather report and how many gallons you use to flush your toilet. They have already answered the "have they no shame" question so many times it is laughable to ask it. 

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Leaving America

U.S. citizens ditch passports in record numbers - The Term Sheet: Fortune's deals blogTerm Sheet:

While our leadership wrestles with a large new Democrat voter increase program  (amnesty) -- converting undocumented Democrats to the documented kind, apparently a number of people on the "payment" side of the ledger are leaving.

Buried in this are some numbers:

More than 39,000 Americans have come forward in recent years to declare their secret accounts to the I.R.S. in exchange for reduced fines and penalties, but officials suspect that is a fraction of the total number of people either deliberately hiding or unwittingly not reporting their foreign accounts. I.R.S. data for 2012 shows just over two million tax returns filed in 2012 by overseas Americans, compared with an estimated six million Americans living or working abroad. Only a fraction of Americans with foreign bank accounts are also filing required disclosures known as Fbars, according to federal data.

"Fbars", love the name!

So 1% of 300M is 3M ... the raw numbers being reported here are in the range to give some idea of just how big a deal the attempts to "soak the rich" can be relative to destroying the tax revenue stream, and how rapidly it happens. It's amazing how many options -- legal, nearly legal, very nearly impossible to trace, etc someone who is worth merely $10M or so has. Health, money, intelligence, talent -- all those things provide options. The tendency of the financially successful is to use those options effectively. How surprising.

This is one where I think BO can claim a lot more credit than in killing Osama:

Expatriations first picked up pace in 2010, when more than 1,530 Americans dumped their passports. Sparking that uptick, tax lawyers say, was a deal by UBS

 the Swiss bank giant, the year before to disclose more than 4,000 American client names to the I.R.S. and pay a record $780 million for selling offshore services that violated U.S. tax laws. Liberty is a concept that "liberals" have a hard time understanding. As in many left countries, no doubt the first reaction from the left here is primarily one of the "how can we prevent them from doing this, or at least make sure their assets are held here, make it more painful for them to move assets offshore,  renounce their citizenship, etc". It is by no accident that the way of the left quickly becomes the way of walls around the country and the gulag to prevent the productive from escaping. First hold their assets, then hold them!

Left vs right is control vs chaos -- and the founders recognized that the primary danger was control, so they did their best to found a center-right nation where government was strongly limited so hold the control impulse in check. We largely destroyed that over the 20th century, but like all reactions, it is a "catalyst" that kicks off the final phase.

Even the first election of BO was a gigantic sign that the control impulse was running wild and thwarting, or  showing the door to the brightest and best that we needed to get back on track, while at the same timporting the least capable to insure the political power of the of the takers. At this point it is obvious, and to a great degree irreversible, at least in the next few decades.

Tax what you want less of, subsidize what you want more of. It always works, and usually in the very short run.

I had heard that BO had considered applying for Amnesty assuming they can get it through, once he left office, but in consultation with Al Gore, he has decided that the tax rates here are too high!


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Elite Jedi Mind Tricks

Opinion: If Clarence Thomas isn't 'elite,' who is? - CNN.com:

When I read a column like this I'm always tempted to break the "never assert malice when stupidity will do".

So LZ doesn't understand that what Thomas was saying was "the LIBERAL elite and the LIBERAL MSM"???

He was talking about BO being POTUS, **NOT** about BO trying to become a member of the SCOTUS!!!!

Supreme Court Justicies are APPOINTED and CONFIRMED by the US Senate. The SCOTUS and the Senate for that matter were created by our founders to explicitly be non-democratic and "elitist" ... in those days, that was called "the aristocracy". The aristocracy are the people that have a lot to lose if the country goes down ... land, money, family name, status, reputation, etc.

The "common folk" don't have a lot to lose in comparison -- so they might vote for policies that are destructive to the nation but they BELIEVE would move their state from "bad" to "a tiny bit less bad". or maybe would just hurt some "rich folk" that they don't like anyway, even if it made everyone worse off. It would negatively effect the rich folk more. A win! At least with the OWS movement kind of logic.

So I'm giving LZ the benefit of the doubt here and saying that he simply doesn't understand that Thomas was talking about THE LIBERAL elite, which DOESN'T include Clarence, and DOESN'T include FOX news ... or a host of others. There are plenty of "elite" only in bank account, business athletic or other success, education, accomplishment, etc that the LIBERAL elite are NOT going to approve as being part of the RECOGNIZED LIBERAL ELITE brand, which is truly the only "elite" that actually counts for POLITICAL power in this country.

Fail to be in that group as Thomas, Rush, Palin, W and a host of others are, and you are effectively "nothing" as you are portrayed to the masses via the MSM news and entertainment. You are always "stupid" ... like Thomas, Palin and W, and usually "hypocritical, out of touch, uncaring" and a host of other negative adjectives.

 John McCain is one that works to be "in with the in elite", but has suffered the pain that comes when the time comes for the elite to actually choose -- as in McCain / BO. Sure, the elite loved high-fiveing John when he was kicking  the uncool W, but as soon as he was actually running for president, they abandoned him like the "in-girls" to the dowdy neighbor girl that a couple may have actually played with and been nice to over the summer. Everyone has known of this behavior in humans since at least Jr High -- so I'm giving LZ the benefit of thinking he missed Jr High, forgot ... or something.

Jedi Mind Tricks indeed.




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Warming to Wealth

Gore Is Romney-Rich With $200 Million After Bush Defeat - Bloomberg:

Good article covering Gore's rise to being worth something like $200M.

The left elite's firm view of vast wealth seems to be "if you say the right stuff, support the right causes, you are off the hook". Fail to do this -- as in "CEOs", "The Koch Bros", or even much smaller income people of the "wrong political, or even religious persuasion", and you must be demonized, maligned, and ideally either figuratively or actually if possible, roasted on the spit of public attack.

It all seems oh so French Revolution -- once the passions of the "99%" are ignited, will they spare the elite who lit the fuse? Maybe that is why DHS has 1.5B rounds of recently purchased hollow point and a bunch of military attack vehicles stationed around the country. 330M people, 5 rounds each. Sounds about right -- after the single digit millions that shoot back have been dispatched, they can pretty much just execute the rest.

I suppose that once you decide you are prune the tree of liberty from the roots, you just naturally develop some "Plan B, C, etc".

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America’s Five Make or Break Tests

The Big Five: America’s Make or Break Challenges | Via Meadia:

I respect Walter Russel Meade a great deal, it is a good article. I think it is much simpler than her presents it though. Here are his big 5:

1. Jobs
2. Services Crunch
3. Demographic Transition 
4. Coherence Crisis 
5. Virtue 

 I'd order them like this:

1. Return to God - Religion - Constitution, eg Transcendence. MEANING! What he calls #4, "coherency". He argues that "we can't go back", I argue we have been "going back" to pre-Reformation, even pre-Enlightenment thinking with "progressivism" which I call "regressivism". Read the seminal works of these people -- Rosseau, etc. They want to return to "the noble savage", "the perfect state of nature". We are regressing -- to a PC totalitarianism. To a forced paganism because the cultural connection with the sacred is prohibited. Our suicide rates are skyrocketing, our birth rates are declining. Man cannot create his own meaning and dies individually and as a culture without a meaningful life.  
   
2. Jobs, his #1  -- Which I would state as "Vocation". Somewhere around the '60s America lost the idea of craftsmanship and pride in work. Welfare and ADC were rolled out and the dignity of work was destroyed for the poor -- the hard working far from perfect husband that stuck at a low paying job and was honored for his contribution was replaced by the state, and both the family and the dignity of work suffered mightily. Unions and corporatism replaced craftsmanship, excellence and innovation with profits and salaries. With hedonism highly linked to consumerism declared to be the new "god", lucre became the both the totem and the sacrement of the tribe, and "work" became an evil. We don't need "high paying jobs", we need vocations which are respected independent of salary. We need a life vocation, because there is no such thing as a "living wage".
   
3. Virtue, his #4 -- I'd argue that if 1 and 2 happen, 3 will certainly show up at the same time, but what he says about it is valid. I may have complicated my #1 too much.
   
4. The Service Crunch, his #2 -- I'd claim that this is very much "vocation". We need to return "services" especially "government services" to being quality, efficient, respected SERVICE. Not very highly paid, benefitted, unionized and political contributing "positions". He missed education, I'd put it here -- it is one of the most critical of services, traditionally a "calling".
   
5. Demographic Transition -- I believe if we dealt with 1-4, this would be no issue. Were America still America -- "Under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all", where "justice" means level opportunity, not result, then young, old, hispanics, etc would all operate just fine. Without at least 1-3, #5 is likely the catalyst that implodes the remaining husk of what America once was.
   

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Moscow on the Potomac

When Will America Burst D.C.'s Bubble? | RealClearPolitics:

All I could think about as I read this is the similarity of the current BO Beltway to Moscow during the heyday of the USSR. SIX of the TEN WEALTHIEST counties are DC suburbs!! How is that for "public service"!!!!

This article seems to think that America will "burst the DC bubble". Really? How? When that much power gets connected with that much wealth, I can't imagine any way to return to republican rule of law outside of armed conflict!

In fact, six of the 10 wealthiest American counties are Washington suburbs.
Washington once was the manifest of power. Now you can add “center of wealth” to its portfolio, crystallizing the elite institutional disconnect between it and the rest of the country.

Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/05/05/thriving_dcs_bubble_will_burst_118261.html#ixzz2SZ0rt8Ny Follow us: @RCP_Articles on Twitter

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Q-Blood Let 3 (QB3)

RealClearMarkets - Why Friday's Jobs Report Was Ominous:

If you read this blog regularly, you know a lot of this, but it is a good summary. For the REALLY quick summary:

1. Taking blood out of people makes them sicker 
2. Deficit spending just makes an economy sicker. 

The following conclusion of the article is entertaining, the article itself is somewhere between sobering, ominous and sepulchral. Three bloodlettings for the father of the country, 3 "easings" for the country?

It took about 2500 years and countless deaths (including that of George Washington) before doctors figured out that bleeding patients was actually harmful. One has to wonder how much real-world data it will take to convince the likes of Paul Krugman and Jared Bernstein that Keynesian (spending) stimulus just makes the economy worse. 

Oh, and by the way. The recent five-month decline in the FTE jobs ratio coincides exactly with Ben Bernanke's QE3. And yet, the "market monetarists" keep calling on the Fed to "do more". 

It is a historical fact that George Washington's doctors performed three rounds of bleeding on him before he died. We can only wonder if they referred to the last one as "QB3".

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The Christian Minority

When Christians become a 'hated minority' – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs:

Very well done article by MSM standards, it covers the basics from both sides, it is overly long and it "leans", but it doesn't absolutely hammer just the current left thinking.

The following quote sums up a core element of the decline of CIVILization. Part of being civilized means leaving tribalism behind. Civilized people at one time would never allow something called "hate speech" to even be mentioned  -- they would call it out as "tribalism", "uncivilized", "plebeian, "anti-social" or some other term that indicated that those unable to discuss issues reasonably were "less than advanced".

 "There was a time when a person could publicly say homosexuality was wrong and people could consider the statement without anger, he says. Today, people have reverted to an intellectual tribalism where they are only willing to consider the perspective of their own tribe."

The other aspect completely missed was the Bible being about issues FAR more important than any past or present concerns of humanity. Eternity is far longer than human life, history, etc.

From man's view, "justice" in this world is critical ... slavery, poverty, being crippled, deformed, mentally ill,  having your own or a loved ones life cut short by accident / disease / war / crime / etc, abuse,  great bodily pain, ... the list is endless. There is no "worst". To the person to whom the "badness" happens, it is guaranteed to be an injustice of gigantic proportions. "A recession is when your neighbor loses his job, a depression is when you lose yours". Perspective is everything.

So the human perspective is to argue endlessly about what man sees as "progress". Each "right" that is supposedly gained is a HUGE step "forward". We have continued so far "forward" that just recently it was reported the suicides in the US now exceed auto accidents. A life without meaning seems to not be worth living! It is also not worth having children  in such a life, so the west has already dropped below replacement birth rate and is dying.

Does that mean that slavery is good? or that stoning homosexuals is good? or that living with constant debilitating pain is good? Not at all, it just means that in many of the counties where those things are legal, less possible to control or more common, people report higher levels of happiness, less suicides and more meaningful lives than people in the "advanced" countries. How can that possibly be??

I'd argue it is because the temporal human condition is much improved by focusing on the eternal vs the temporal. The Bible is written for eternity, with the objective of us understanding at least the MOST key elements of God. He is sovereign, his ways are not our ways, and our relationship with him is the most critical aspect of our existence here. As they say, everything else is "just details".

If you are paralyzed, or have lost of a loved one in tragic circumstances, or are gay, or slave to alcohol, sexual promiscuity, or an actual slave in Africa or Indonesia, or a host of other conditions, you MAY feel that those conditions are the most critical "problem / injustice / burden" that anyone has ever had to bear.

Or, your perspective might be different, like this young man born with no limbs. From man's view, many lives involve great injustice. Some find a higher way and even the worst of temporal circumstance is suddenly changed into something completely different. Others will rail against god, nature, injustice, unfairness, and the host of earthly ills until the day that they pass to ???

I'm a strong believer that God created heaven with the desire not only that we spend eternity there, but that we begin to glimpse that eternity from this life. Hell was created for Satan, not for us, but if we choose to spend a lifetime rejecting God, we can work our way there ... and be well on our way to glimpsing it from our circumstance in this life.

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As Clueless as Kluwe

Chris Kluwe: When They Come for You:

I wrote a long response to this one on FB, so thought I'd "dignify" this rather foolish column with some elements of that response.

First of all, the following paragraph is completely backward:

TREAT OTHERS THE WAY YOU WANT TO BE TREATED. If we do not make this the cornerstone of our society, if we do not understand that infringing on the freedom of consenting adults to live their lives (in whatever fashion that happens to be) is infringing on the freedom of us all, then we will eventually join other society, culture, and civilization that has ever existed, on the trash heap of history marked "Failure" -- brought there by conflicts those civilizations bred into being, conflicts between those lacking empathy and those desirous of freedom.

The Western civilization that makes the levels of freedom that made it possible for people to debate such issues as "gay marriage" has already committed suicide on the altar of contraception and abortion. Besides being broke, we don't have a replacement population. One can argue the future, but it will absolutely belong to those that show up. That is Muslims, Hispanic Catholics, and potentially African Christians. (one might give Mormons a charitable chance). Their positions on "gay marriage" are important for the next century, ours are really not. We already opted out of that century.

The "cornerstones of society/culture/civilization" are things that have proven true over thousands of years. Marriage, Family and the Christian Religion were key "cornerstones", along with Judaism plus Greek and Roman thought. The ONLY incidence of "gay marriage" was Nero and a few other Roman rulers proudly flaunting their immorality "because they could" and it was not coincidentally very near to the end of the Roman Empire. Nero would have laughed at the idea that it was "moral". He was powerful, and he enjoyed it, nuff said.

In the culture that WAS our civilization, mans life had meaning because it was part of an eternal meaningful existence that included transcendent values that engendered virtues. Faith, hope, love that went beyond physical and involved commitment, honor, civility and many others. Life was not only worth living, it was worth having children and believing that their future was going to be better than yours. People would never have considered it remotely "moral" to saddle future generations with massive debt. It was a world where a sneering profane diatribe by some plebeian sport figure would have never been published in any forum remotely public.

His quote of the Niemoller poem with people that disagree over re-naming the oldest of human cultural institutions to a new purpose makes brings to mind the sagacity of a couple of folks arguing Global Warming while freezing to death in a May snowstorm.

"They", already came in the form of reality. Those that believed 100% in the non-teleological survival of the fecund decided that not having kids was a highly "adaptive" course of action, thus passing the most natural of judgement on our civilization while remaining as clueless as Kluwe.

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Benghazi, Truth Leak??

http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/05/benghazi-whistle-blower-hicks-internal-review-let-people-off-the-hook/?hpt=hp_t1

Wow, it made a side headline on CNN, FINALLY!!

The MSM lack of curiosity about Benghazi took "in the tank" to new levels in the opposite direction that their incessant coverage of the Valerie Plame affair during the W administration showed their stripes in the other direction. We get to see both the "yin and yang" of media bias with way too much regularity.

In the following, someone that knows points out a few of the facts relative to Benghazi ... but not the obvious "why". This MAJOR screw up that caused the loss of life of four brave Americans and has 700 our our finest retired Special Ops folks demanding answers was a political coverup of MUCH more import than Watergate!

Hicks said that despite being the senior diplomat in Libya after Stevens was killed, he wasn't consulted at all before Rice went on Sunday talk shows to discuss the attacks.
Rice contradicted Libyan President Mohammed Magariaf, who said the same day that "this was an attack by Islamic extremists, possibly with terrorist links," Hicks said. "He describes what happens. He tells the truth of what happened. And so, you know, Ambassador Rice says what she says, contradicting what the president of Libya says from Benghazi."

This violated "a cardinal rule of diplomacy that we learn in our orientation class, and that rule is, never inadvertently insult your interlocutor. The net impact of what has transpired is, the spokesperson of the most powerful country in the world has basically said that the president of Libya is either a liar or doesn't know what he's talking about. The impact of that is immeasurable. Magariaf has just lost face in front of not only his own people but the world. And, you know, my jaw hit the floor as I watched this. I've never been ‑‑ I have been a professional diplomat for 22 years. I have never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day." 

That "affected cooperation with the Libyans," Hicks said. "I firmly believe that the reason it took us so long to get the FBI to Benghazi is because of those Sunday talk shows."

The day after Rice's appearance on the Sunday shows, Hicks says, he asked Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones, " 'Why did Ambassador Rice say that?' And Beth Jones said, 'I don't know.'"

A Little Surprise for An Attacker

Another Thing to Thank the NRA For | Power Line:

The excellent little video alluded to in the title is at the end ... at least if you are a guy, it won't be very painful to page down to it!

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The Horror of Attempted Heterosexuality

Ed Driscoll » Dispatches from the Department of That Which Cannot Be Said At Any Tme:

Oddly, although Howard Kurtz could not speak of the horror of Jason Collins having had a girlfriend,  "The View" happened to be playing on a set right in front of me while I was doing 30 min on a Precor. While I was not paying close attention, it APPEARED that it was "Gay Day" and they had some ex-singer from an apparent boy band on, and they were talking about throwing their bras at him and flashing him in earlier years ... but, he is gay now,  somewhat disappointing to the girls on The View, however, as good liberals, they are totally great with it outside the fact that it would have cut into what they were thinking when watching him in their past.

Seems like a lot of girls kinda like gay guys in somewhat the same way as vampires -- they are sometimes cute, and I guess they assume that the gayness works kind of the same as the no blood would work for a male vampire. A bit like "synthahol" on Star Trek.

Anyway, they seemed to be discussing some connection with Collins, which sounded like he had this "girlfriend" for like "8 years" ... or something, "a long time for a woman of that age, thinking that she was going to marry him ..." was a View girl talk concern I think.

So apparently, this is something like being black. If you are black you can talk about whatever race-wise  and it is A-ok, but not if you are white ... unless you are TOTALLY certified as having 100% in-liberal club handshake hope to die creds. Which I think Howard used to have, but he must have missed some memo or something. Similarly, if you are gay, then it is OK to talk about things like the horror of attempted heterosexuality, but not if you are into sex with the other sex.

This is quite difficult for me,  because I thought that Bi, confused, trans, and probably a few other things were A-OK too if you had the liberal brain. Just to show what a backwoods hick I am, I have hard time understanding how one would for example distinguish between a "bi-marriage" of say two guys and 4 or 5 women and polygamy, which is definitely double liberal sinful. I'm thinking Polygamy is really bad because Mormons do it, and apparently with only with one wife at a time, so that is BAAAD!!

They don't seem to talk much about the Bi-marriage, but when they go for "marriage freedom", it is ALWAYS  GLBT, and I would swear that the B was for Bi and the T was for Trans ... which is a whole other deal. Lots of times in engineering it is the "boundary conditions" that are the most difficult, and may even make one have 2nd thoughts about the feasibility of something. The idea of "Bi and Trans" in marriages seems "boundary" to me ... you have a great "gay marriage" and then somebody decides to change sexes. etc.

But thinking like "guys being guys" (I guess like only conservative guys, cuz liberals would never think this way), they could just "liberal sinfully" leave out the gay part and have a couple small legal polygamous marriages. I guess liberals would never do that -- leave out the holy gay thing and all, because it would be like sacrilegious for them, sort of a Taboo, like cannibalism or something.

Anyway, enough confusion for today.

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