Ok, apparently hitting the floor restarted my heart!
Whose face do you picture when you think of history’s greatest thieves? If you are an old movie buff, perhaps Butch and Sundance or Bonnie and Clyde come to mind. Maybe Bernie Madoff and his $65 billion Ponzi scheme?
Well, even that staggering amount is paltry compared to history’s truly greatest theft. And the face of the greatest thief might surprise you. If you are over 50 take a look in the mirror. History’s greatest thief is you!
The United States is $18 trillion in debt, an amount that continues to rise at an alarming rate with no end in sight by anyone’s calculation. But that is dwarfed by the $128 trillion in “unfunded liabilities.” Unfunded liabilities are the amount by which future obligations exceed the present value of funds available to pay for them.
To put that in perspective our nation’s unfunded liabilities come out to $1.1 million per taxpayer.
Folks, this is the RED STAR TRIB! Massive endorser and supporter of Wellstone, Dayton, Franken, Klobuchar, BO! This column sounds like **ME** ... only I've been understating the unfunded liabilities as "$40-$60T"! I've lost touch with how bad this really is.
The CBO calculated that for debt in 2040 to equal the historical 50-year average of 38 percent of gross domestic product, Congress would need to cut spending by 13 percent or raise revenue by 14 percent beginning in 2016. Needless to say, neither of those is going to happen.
Is there any way to save the millennials and subsequent generations from this continuing theft? The final irony is that the heroes must be the thieves themselves. It is up to the baby boomers to vote for politicians who will make the fundamental budgetary changes to alter the current path. But this is asking such voters to reject the political pandering that tells them government can keep expanding benefits without paying their full costs.
I wouldn’t hold my breath. The older generations are addicted to receiving benefits without paying for them. The younger generations are being robbed blind and don’t even know it.
I usually try to make my cases in clear points and reason, but this one hits me emotionally and I know the reason.
Sometime in late February early March of '76, forty years ago, I set off on a spring break to Indiana in a snowstorm with two young ladies my age to visit some people we had met in 4-H a couple years prior. (we are supposed to get 8" of snow today)
Five years ago while driving north to snowmobile in a snowstorm with my son and wife sleeping while I drove, I finally realized that I was the most boring young man in human history! I'm a slow learner -- the mothers that allowed their daughters to go along with me knew what they were doing. I then understood a conversation with a young woman about why it didn't work out long ago. Her succinct reason -- "My parents like you better than they like me". (I'm sure they didn't, it just seemed that way to her).
I feel the same way about the full-page Muslim ad as I did about that conversation. Why do our lefty neighbors choose Muslims over Christians? Why do our elites find Muslims "stylish" and Christians to be "hicks"? (bitter clingers)
Muslims share many of the elements of what secular society finds reprehensible about Christians. They are creationists, they hold homosexuality as a grievous sin, they believe that men and women have God given roles, they pray at work or school, they hold an ancient text as more holy than modern secular pronouncements.
They of course go far further than Christians. They make women wear hijabs and blame them for rape. They will kill homosexuals or adulterers if they become a majority. Once they do reach majority, they demand that the government be an Islamic State, by force if required.
The simple answer to "why" is CHRIST. He is, was, and always will be the DIFFERENCE. Islam may be far more restrictive and infinitely more violent than Christianity, but Islam rejects Christ, so the unholy totalitarian left is able to make it's peace with Islam but not Christianity.
Emotionally though, it hurts.
Emotions are like weather -- they pass. It is good to acknowledge them from time to time, but meaning of the sort to live by is a deeper truth. I'm convinced our cats have feelings, but other than Cabbage Cat (a feline philosopher that I consult with), they don't reason much. Many "liberals" are similar ... without the soft fur and purr.
I cover some reasoning on why "liberals" love Islam but hate Christianity here. The embrace of "massive tolerance" for Islam feels somewhat the same as if the left leadership of MN put out a full page ad welcoming the Westboro Baptist Church to make their voices heard in MN. I'm not holding my breath on that ... though it would make far more rational sense than the Muslim ad.
If you want to cover a yet deeper philosophical understanding of why western secularism finds Islam preferable, it is covered in this post ... the punchline is that Islam and Leftism agree that "there is no truth".
So we Christians and believers in the exceptionalism of Western civilization have been jilted for Islam. It isn't new -- they love Communism and Fascism as well. (covered that recently here).
As if Trump needed any lessons on how to get his name in the WaPo.
The WaPo is all bent out of shape about Trump posting and commenting on these pictures. They do at least mention for example the Scott Brown modeling pictures which the MSM had NO PROBLEM putting up all over when they were supporting Fauxahontis Warren! Kelly posed for those pictures and was paid to pose for them, as did Brown -- seems to me that people can judge what they think those pictures do for her credibility on their own! Or is there supposed to be a double standard for women as well as Democrats?
They are very worried about what "foreign leaders will think" about Trump's "attitude toward women". Really? After ALL the Clinton years???? How stupidly biased can you be? Foreign leaders knew EXACTLY what Slick liked -- big hair and oral sex. Didn't we ALL get to find out ALL SORTS of details about that over and over and ... ???
Oh, did you ever read any MSM article on how they worried about what "foreign leaders" thought of that? No, in fact, they tended to report that "foreign leaders don't understand why we care about how he treats women". "Feminists" where FINE with it, as were "journalists" ... one female Time reporter even gushed that "she would be HAPPY to give him oral sex just to thank him"!
Is Trump tacky? Sure, but compared to THE CLINTON'S???? The tawdry population of this area of N America gave up ANY STANDARDS when we let that slimeball keep on ejaculating in the oval office!
We could go to BO's "Dreams From My Father" where he very presidentially says "gotta have pussy", uses the N-word a few times, talks about "booze, weed and blow but no horse (heroin)" and a few other very "down to earth" things like "filtering his mom's white blood out" ... **NO PROBLEM** !!!! I guess I forgot the big "D" next to his name and Slicks as well -- totally different!
No, I don't like Trump, but SERIOUSLY???? The MSM expects us to get all bent out of shape about HIS antics, when we have been asked to completely look the other way in the past constantly for the Ds?
It certainly isn't hard to understand how the Donald's supporters are ANGRY and support him MORE when the MSM goes after him!
Articles like the linked are a sad commentary on the acceptance of ideology and propaganda in the US today. If we want to prevent a holocaust of the racial sort that happened with Hitler, the FIRST thing is to prevent the rise of totalitarian government. Totalitarianism KILLS!
Especially Socialism as in National Socialism or Nazi, and Communism. These are the ideologies that killed over 100 million people in the 20th century including 6 million Jews.
In order to understand totalitarianism, you must understand that corruption of language is one of it's chief weapons. (what part of "total" is it that you missed?). By controlling language, thought itself is controlled, thus allowing evil to parade in plain sight calling itself "good". The greatest single piece of evidence for that is the appropriation of "left" to essentially mean "good, progress, benevolence, care, etc", and "right" to mean "evil, Hitler, backward, hatred".
This ideological language and thought control is an "inversion", one of the key elements of totalitarianism that I recently covered here.
Ideologues are masters of indirection of all types -- "someone else" is always "the danger", so the article maliciously attempts to smear anyone against open borders into a "Nazi", while an avowed socialist is running for president!
In order to kill millions, you need to dehumanize your targets and devalue life. We already have killed over 58 MILLION babies, so we are WAY ahead of the old National Socialists on that front. To a totalitarian, is it "better" when you kill 58 million indiscriminately than killing 6 million mostly on the basis of race (although not entirely ... Gypsies, gays and others were also killed in Germany).
OK, It's the ONION, but it **IS** funny. Especially because I know these towns pretty well, but not NEARLY as well was my wife or family members in the area know them.
It's short ... just go read it. My guess is that a small set of Hillary supporters would be lying in expanding blood stains and the rest would be whimpering in puddles of their own urine begging for their sniveling toady lives to be spared -- but that might make the piece less humorous.
But this probably seems plausible if you have never been to Humboldt!
On a serious note, if Slick Willie is with them, the women, children and farm animals need to be hidden.
Remember, David Brooks is what constitutes a "conservative" at the NY Times -- and he voted for Obama in 2008!
Apparently he doesn't like Cruz very much -- and thinks he is "brutal". I suppose to a NY Times wealthy highly paid intellectual guy that is on NPR every Friday with EJ Dionne where they cover both the "left and the far left" of politics, it may seem that way.
I wonder how he feels about ISIS?
The opening salvo about how Ted Cruz as Solicitor General for the State of Texas ought to be called "brutal" because he took a case to the SCOTUS and **WON** 6-3 makes one wonder just a bit about the Brooksian universe. Justices in the majority included the BRUTAL Ruth Ginsburg, Sandra Day O'Connor, and that BRUTE, Steven Breyer!!!
Can you imagine an action movie with those three squaring off against a few hundred ISIS guys? Why, I'd feel incredibly sorry for the ISIS guys with that kind of "pagan brutalism, no hint of compassion, gentleness or mercy" arrayed against them. Imagine being attacked by JUST Ruth VADER Ginsburg!
I suppose you would be OK if you were in a population that she doesn't mind having a few more of ... which may well include ISIS I suppose, but woe be to you if you are in a population she doesn't like! To quote her on the subject:
"Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of."
So since Ginsburg, Breyer and O'Connor sided with the case that Cruz brought and won, would that make them "brutal"?
It would seem it would HAVE TO if you are David Brooks and not insane, but for the rest of us, it may just mean that being Solicitor General for your state means that you are the one that appeals cases that federal courts overrule to the SCOTUS if it is determined that they have LEGAL MERIT, and you argue such cases on their LEGAL merits. When the SCOTUS agrees with you, the assumption would be that the case and your arguments were in alignment with the laws of the nation.
The law certainly can be BRUTAL! I find abortion law to be VERY brutal, but Brooks and obviously Ginsburg do not -- well, Ginsburg possibly only finds it OK if it is applied to "a population we have too many of".
To the extent there is any meat to the Brooks hatred of Cruz, I suspect it is here:
Ted Cruz didn’t come up with this hard, combative and gladiatorial campaign approach in isolation. He’s always demonstrated a tendency to bend his position — whether immigration or trade — to what suits him politically. This approach works because in the wake of the Obergefell v. Hodges court decision on same-sex marriage, many evangelicals feel they are being turned into pariahs in their own nation.
I wonder if groups that Brooks or Ginsburg "don't want too many of", or "evangelicals", would ever have any right to "feel that they are being turned into pariahs in their own nation"? Probably not ... I'm sure if they listen to "The Party" and it's media outlets, they can all be "re-educated" to support the views that their intellectual betters like Brooks and EJ Dionne tell them are the right views!
I have no idea who the Republican nominee is going to be -- right now Trump, Cruz or Rubio would seem to be likely. When you argue that because a Solicitor General of a State takes a case to the SCOTUS that wins with 3 justices that nearly all would consider moderate to left siding with the majority proves someone is "brutal", it seems more than a bit on the "I really hate this guy and felt I HAD to come up with something that at least SEEMED objective to support my position" side.
It is very hard to believe that this is what masquerades as "a conservative view" at our supposed "Paper of Record"!
Do I find these images to be "compelling evidence of God giving us a sign"?
No, I find them to be little hints that stir the soul -- like the little chrome or paint touch on a custom motorcycle, the "Easter Egg" in the game or other computer program or movie ... maybe. As always, God is a both a VERY showy God and a VERY subtle God. He BOTH lavishly stacks the deck to show he is there, yet he leaves enough room so that those who are determined to deny him are not absolutely forced (in this life) to admit the "obvious answer". (Although, the more we learn, the harder atheism becomes ...)
But such visuals are fun ... and beautiful, and they give that little shiver of recognition of the work of the ultimate creative artist.
The top picture is the Einstein Cross and link takes you to more detail about it if you are interested. It is a visual of gravitational lensing predicted by the general theory of relativity.
The bottom is laminin protein molecule that literally "holds life together".
Both have been become somewhat popular in various Christian circles, but in general I find such things to be a danger if they are taken TOO seriously. The Bible is the Word of God -- it certainly tells us that God created us and holds us together physically, but much more importantly, spiritually and eternally. The creation will all pass away -- only the spirit is eternal.
But while we are here, God has blessed us with little "shivers of eternal awareness" to help light our way home to him.
I've seen Vox show up a few times on FB and other places now, and since I'm about to use a link from them in another post, I thought I'd check them out a bit.
Ezra Klein is the editor in chief of Vox. He is a PROGRESSIVE writer / blogger that worked for the WaPO doing "Wonkblog". He was an associate editor at American Prospect (progressive) and a contributor to MSBC and Bloomberg news ... if you follow the link in his name above you will to go the Wikipedia entry for him. He is VERY left wing.
The NRO article is quite long and exhaustive -- the basic purpose of Vox is "in depth reporting" kind of like National Public Radio. I suppose in their universe, both consider themselves "unbiased" in that they make the sound of one left hand clapping. As I like to say of NPR, "They cover both the left and the far left"!
After the linked article goes through a citiqueing a few Vox stories both positive and negative, it ends up with the following, which I agree with -- since we know their biases, we can likely glean quite a few unintended facts from them even with the bias, and it is ALWAYS good to have a reasonably deep understanding of the other sides arguments!
If you’re going to tell someone what they should think about something under the guise of “here’s what you need to know about” something, it really ought to include . . . everything you need to know about something. That’s nearly impossible, of course, which is why most people trying to persuade you are a little more upfront about it. This new venture isn’t going to do that, but that doesn’t mean it can’t sometimes be a useful resource and a helpful corrective.
I ran into this and remembered that I had covered this in the past at this link. Since nobody read that one, I did some editing and am going to include what I wrote in this post. The basic idea is that in many areas people are "unconsciously incompetent", or basically "too stupid to know how stupid they are, so they assume they are intelligent".
As Darwin put it, "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge". The Dunning-Kruger (DK) study seems to prove it and shows the following:
Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.
If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.
It seems obvious in looking at those that narcissists would be an extreme case -- and also not very likely to be trainable. Obama is pretty much the poster child. A quote from the linked article:
Dunning believes there are two key issues: first, critical thinking skills, applied to your own knowledge, as well as everything else, are vital. But, importantly, if you don't exercise critical thinking skills, they will fade, leaving you with a false impression of your own abilities.
Naturally, the Moose is immune to DK effects because the Moose is AVERAGE, and the problem with DK begins because people (as opposed to mooses) believe they are above average!
I maintain that the BIG problem with DK is "The Party (TP-D) Standard Knowledge". No need to think if you agree with "the 97%" as one recent supposed "expert" did before congress. The left often likes to assert that such loss of critical thinking happens to "conservatives" with the "FAUX News Effect", but considering that most every other outlet plus the universities tend to lean left, they for some reason are never worried that their own "critical thinking" might have a small chance to atrophy.
We see a bit of that atrophy in the author of the column where he says:
That said, spotting an expert outside of one’s field is a task one can become better at. And that’s important, given just how much information, good and bad, is not available to people. For example, is the expert associated with a university (a good sign) or some 'think tank' (a bad sign)?" Again, though, this takes experience and expertise. Groups like think tanks try to give themselves the trappings of expertise in a move specifically designed to fool us into trusting their statements.
So why pray tell does grant money from a government or some very possibly biased other source going to a researcher at a university have less effect on what kind of research they do or the conclusions that they might come to than funding at a "think tank"? As I pointed out in the FAUX link above about "Media Matters", their whole schtick is looking for "conservative" bias. It would be a rare university indeed where you find any of THAT!
In any case, the following is copied from the 09 post that nobody read -- so I cheated!
We **ALL** fall prey to DK, since we are all OFTEN incompetent! In fact, for ALL of us, our areas of incompetence VASTLY exceed those areas where we are competent, and the worst problem tends to be those areas where we are "unconsciously incompetent". We are too stupid to know that we don't know!
If you are more intelligent than the average person, you can commonly "make something up" that will sound plausible to all but the more intelligent or the better trained in some area that you happen to drift into. Even worse, if you couple high intelligence with argumentative ability, you are likely to intimidate even those who really DO know from pointing it out since you will STILL be hard to argue with / convince. (If you are REALLY bad, you will just call them "racist" if they point out where you are wrong!)
A near certain sign of a vast level of ignorance and high level of the DK effect is the belief that "Someone that was "smart" could explain this to me SIMPLY (meaning "simple" to the person that wants the explanation)". Often this comes with the corollary that "If it can't be explained (to the person) "simply", NOBODY understands it very well and all views (certainly MINE!) are pretty much "equal"". The simple answer to this is Quantum Physics -- geniuses like Feynman knew that if you weren't confused, you REALLY didn't understand it!
The core of this idea is viewing ones self as the center of the universe to an extraordinary degree -- why is it that all phenomena ought to be easily explainable to YOU (if indeed to ANYONE)? It is a piece of unfounded faith that shows extreme ignorance coupled with hubris, but remember, it is very possible to couple extreme ignorance with high intelligence. Narcissists are often exactly this case -- convinced they are the only one that really matters, and their special knowledge, opinion and perspective is really the only one that counts! Obama may be the greatest example of this in history!
High Dunning-Kruger and great communication skills is especially dangerous. "See Obama". Note, Reagan had great communications skills, but very low DK -- he clearly knew what he didn't know and acted accordingly. Bush had poor communications skills, and I'd argue a low DK problem as well -- he also was willing to bring in expertise that he knew exceeded his and support them. BO has no clue about economics, mideast history, running car companies, what it takes to win against terrorists, or apparently even Constitutional Law, which was SUPPOSED to be his specialty! -- but no matter. He is absolutely convinced he can do all of them because he has a law degree from Harvard and worked as a Community Organizer for awhile!
Very much thought about this and the term "chilling" doesn't really do it justice!
At a town meeting this week, Barack Obama announced a comprehensive program on happiness that will begin immediately. The program, called "BOhappy!", a play on "Be Happy", is far more comprehensive and far more intelligent than any previous program. The announcement received wide support from Democrats and all media that broadcast the speech. Fox news and a number of AM stations inexplicably were suffering technical difficulties, as well as selective internet sources. We were unable to find any politicians to comment in opposition to the program -- it seemed that a great many of them were still out of town from the holidays.
The text of the speech:
My fellow Americans.
We have succeeded completely in changing this nation to be more hopeful in the last seven years through my many "Smart Changes"(tm). In my last year of office, I'm finishing the job and insuring that Hope remains unshaken, and there are no future attempts to undo the Change that I have provided you through my unprecedented intelligence and leadership ability.
Today, the greatest number of people in our nations history are pursuing their dreams of watching TV and playing internet games rather than wasting their time on worthless college degrees or low paying jobs. We are increasingly a happy and contented nation. Abroad, foreign leaders are so confused they are supporting Donald Trump.
But I'm not satisfied, and it is clear that many of you are not as well. I can't in good conscience leave office with my task not fully finished.
Effective immediately, all people over the age of five will be given mandatory wrist bands similar to the FitBit(tm) to be worn at all times. Every hour in which the wearer is awake (detected by attitude/motion), the band will buzz, and if the wearer is happy, they will push the "Happy Button" (tm).
Anyone who is not happy over 50% of the time will be immediately enrolled in Free and Mandatory(tm) happiness training. In the event the person is not able to attend the training or the training is ineffective, they will be introduced to one of a series of "Happiness Camps" in remote areas of the country. Here, away from negative stimuli, all the capabilities of modern science and technology can be brought to bear on the cause of this unfortunate condition,
Typically, in a few months, or at most a year, the unhappy person will be returned as a fully happy and supportive citizen. In some cases though, often after a number of failed attempts, it will be clear that this person can really only be happy by permanently remaining in these wonderful facilities dedicated to the happiness of all. I know that we all want our loved ones to be happy, and now we can rest assured that their happiness is certain!
Make no mistake. As has happened so many times, I'm certain there are racist and reactionary elements in the Congress and at Fox News that will seek to undermine this program, or even make specious claims that it is somehow outside the scope of my office to see to it that Americans are happy! These people are our shared enemy, nearly as dangerous as Climate Change! I remind these ideologically driven relics of the past, that the efficacy of this program is scientifically proven! 97% of scientists currently agree that this program will be 100% effective -- and my advisors assure me that the other 3% will be in agreement in less than a month!
Everyone has sought happiness for millennia. It would be wrong to not insure that even my opponents attain a state of bliss, so earlier today I instructed the Secret Service, Homeland Security and the Capitol Police to immediately transport both Houses of Congress, the SCOTUS, and key State Officials from States that we are able to discern have been unable to achieve the happiness we desired for them in the past seven years, to a specialized Accelerated Happiness (AH ... tm) facility in far Northern Saskatchewan. I have reached agreement with Prime Minister Trudeau that extreme isolation is needed to achieve the results we all desire in as short a time as possible. As I speak to you, your representatives and Supreme Court Judges are already well on the way to lives of total happiness!
Polls tell me that intelligent and reasonable Americans have had more than enough of the constant bickering and discord in Washington DC, as certainly have I. Those days are now in the past. The National Science Foundation (NSF), the American Medical Association (AMA), and the National Security Administration (NSA) have assured me that we have the knowledge, methods, technology and information to absolutely insure complete happiness and support from all three branches of government in less than six months.
We have entered a new era where we WILL all finally be in complete and HAPPY agreement! The old idea of "pursuit of happiness" is another false idea from the past, shrouded in superstition and racism. Through my guidance and leadership we have finally reached the greatest day in the history of our nation!
Tonight, I can sign off KNOWING that well before this time next year, 100% of Americans will be completely happy! It goes without saying that I am deservedly proud of my many accomplishments, but tonight I leave you on the threshold of what people of the past, their minds clouded by superstition, racism and waiting fervently for the advent of my leadership, were only able to dream of!
We no longer "wish" or "pursue". Tonight, we KNOW that we WILL have a Happy New Year! I have again exceeded even the highest expectations of those who supported me in creating an America that my wife Michelle and I could finally take pride in.
Good Night, Happy New Year, and I fully and deservedly accept your thanks for this, my greatest achievement so far!
A society that no longer believes in its core beliefs cannot prevail against rivals who, although less wealthy and far less technologically advanced, embrace their core ideals. A West that rejects (and sometimes is unaware of) its own heritage cannot overcome those who, for religious or national reasons, have a powerful belief in theirs.
Seems pretty obvious does it not? What is it that we are supposed to believe in here in "middle north america?". Global Warming and Republicans are the greatest threat to our "civilization"? You mean the baby killing gender confused cult of shopping? THAT "civilization"?
As the great 15th century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun observed, societies that get rich also tend to get soft, both in the physical sense and in the head. Over the past two centuries, Western societies, propelled by the twin forces of technology and capitalist “animal spirits,” have created a diffusion of wealth unprecedented in world history.
Soft in body and soul -- the current essence (such as it is) of the tattered remnant of a once great civilization. The linked article could have been trimmed a good deal in my opinion, but it is generally well done. It closes as follows ...
Ultimately, we can only confront the challenge from authoritarian forces – whether in the Middle East, China or Russia – when we once again embrace our cultural values as important and worthy of protection. Our opponents – and that’s what they are – may be fundamentally weaker than us, but can count on the advantage of belief in their destiny. To save ours, Western culture needs to stay, not be put away.
For those that don't understand the title reference, a bit of comic relief ... because when you have a ringside seat for the end of Western civilization, a little laughter is REQUIRED!
OK, COSMO was the ONLY article that I could find to anchor my "random neural firing of the day". On my way home from workout and running a couple errands ... a little slowly as the rain changed to snow during my workout and it is white now, I was treated to a conversation on NPR about how racist MN is.
Turns out it is MORE racist than Mississippi and Alabama BECAUSE, some of the statistics -- like gap between white / black on test scores, gap in income, prison population, getting arrested, etc are WORSE in MN, but PR believes that CAN'T be true, because MN is "progressive". I'm not going to spend time on this (little things like if MORE white people are earning more and there is a LOWER percentage of black people, it seems like the numbers might be skewed), but "whatever". For the blacks in the conversation it was ALL due to white racism, and to the progressives, it HAD to be something else, but they were at a loss to explain it ... such is the left.
Somebody commented on a post on FB that "gender is fluid, and it is WRONG to try to make it fixed", and my brain fired, did a Google, and here I am.
Is it not ALSO wrong to try to assert that sexual orientation is "fluid"? Is not the idea of counselling to change from gay to straight one of the "new abominations" (the old ones are all now legally protected classes!) I could swear that in the same universe that I'm currently occupying people recently said things like "a person that is gay is exactly the same as people that are heterosexual, only with the orientation to being gay -- and it is ALWAYS going to be that way for them! It is COMPLETELY FIXED and they MUST act on it, or they are not true to themselves!
NOTE:: This is completely different for alcoholics, who we are told also are "made that way", but for them, nobody that I know suggests that "They MUST drink, to not drink would be a LIE! They would not be being true to their NATURE!" ... Just for the record, my belief is that we ALL have "tendencies", to A LOT of stuff, good, bad, or indifferent. Our genetic tendencies, our upbringing, our choices, chance, etc and a whole set of factors make for "behaviors" to arise from "tendency". While some tendencies are VERY strong, "compulsions" even, WITH THE HELP OF GOD (or "higher power" it you must), we all have hope of being "more than our tendencies".
We used to have "GLBT" ... which was Gay, Lesbian, BI-sexual, and Transvestite ... and they have completely the same "rights" as the tired old "H" for Hetero ... and boring "He made them male and female". (although exactly what "Bi-sexual marriage" was or is (since it IS a "right"), is not really defined).
But already we now have "GLBTQ" where "Q" is typically either "Queer" or "Questioning". A "definition from proximate link:
"Queer retains that critical edge against regimes of the normal of assimilation and privilege," Octavio R. González, an English professor at Wellesley College told USA TODAY Network.
I'd have to say they have possibly arrived at the best "definition" of what it means to exist in the broad swath of N America between Mexico and Canada today. "Critical edge against regimes" -- I certainly feel that against the TP (The Party-D) regime of BO! ... "the normal of assimilation and privilege". Hmm, I'm guessing he doesn't mean "the normal" of universities, the MSM, entertainment, government bureaucracy and the domination of TP, but what does he mean? "White people"? or just heterosexuals? I'm not in favor of the current regime, and I definitely don't want to be assimilated into TP, so maybe I'm "Queer"??
As you might guess, Q is not likely to be the last letter ... "A" is either "asexual" as in not having any, or "allies" meaning whatever someone comes up with (assuming it isn't something weird like Christian heterosexual), you are "allied". There is also "I" for "intersex" which at one time covered the tiny percentage of people who really do have crossed sexual organs, but now apparently includes people like "Bruce/Caitlyn" Jenner who are modifying themselves ... as opposed I ASSUME to "transvestite" who are dressing only, or "Queer" which is "defined" above ??? ... I think I'll go with Young Frankenstein on what it actually means.
There are a lot of letters left in the alphabet ... when there is no truth, only relative opinion, then truly none of us can "know" anything relative to the ever changing "culture". There are a lot of letters left in the aphabet and we will probably run out, or have to use each for multiple meanings like we already are for the A and the Q. Your first reaction might be that I'm being facetious here, but remember, Facebook has 51 genders!
The words of Lewis Carroll explain it well:
"‘When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.'
‘The question is,' said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things."
‘The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that's all.'"
Consistency is not an issue, WHO IS MASTER is the issue! So there are more genders than letters in the alphabet, and they are FLUID, but sexual orientation is FIXED ... genetically, and it CAN'T BE CHANGED! Thus saith "the masters".
Wonderland was a very reasonable place compared to whatever the current madhouse we exist in might be called!
I'm hoping that the 27% that haven't figured out "hate speech" are black, in nursing homes, or some other "special class" (gay, transexual, muslim, etc), because if you accidently say "niggardly", or something else in total innocence in the wrong crowd, you can at the very least lose your job if not be actually prosecuted.
Just over one-in-four Democrats (27%), however, favor prosecuting those who don’t agree with global warming.
So ONLY 1 in 4 Democrats are willing to say to a pollster that they believe those willing to present evidence contrary to Global Warming doctrine ought to be PUNISHED -- as NY State is doing with Exxon. They may not want to admit it to a pollster yet, but I'm sure the real numbers have to be a LOT higher or there would be some outcry in favor of that tired old concept of freedom of speech.
This column doesn't go into campaign finance laws directed at stopping conservative speech, anti-Chrisitian laws relative to praryer, crosses, ten commandments, etc.
Free speech was never free -- but we failed to pay the price to keep it, and now it is GONE -- the only thing going on now is "how big is the punishment" for "unapproved speech" -- loss of job, boycotts, being arrested, jail, or eventually death.
The 20-27% need to get their minds right -- before somebody else makes their minds right by some level of force! Freedom of speech is HISTORY.
Houston has decided that male and female should continue to have separate bathrooms and locker rooms -- and so it is now is some hick backwater with a three term lesbian mayor, worthy of being boycotted and pilloried.
What part of THOU SHALT completely follow and bow to today's aggrieved group is it that they failed to understand? As the linked article put it:
Yet, progressives are so wrapped up in the notion that social change can only be achieved through politics and regulation, that when they do lose a vote, they act like the social order is crumbling and the nation is careening towards a theocratic nightmare.
Boycott Houston!
After gay "marriage", I no longer predict how far the destruction of culture will go, I only know that it will continue. We lost marriage, a cornerstone of culture, it would be no surprise to lose gender next -- ALL culture must be destroyed, and that does mean ALL!
For a "progressive", there is nothing that is sacred except today's hot new idea of "progress". In a world of complete moral relativism there can be no culture, because culture must endure from generation to generation to exist. Fads, fashions, memes, mass movements, manias, causes, etc are not culture unless they take hold and survive for multiple generations. We have lost our culture and gained a lot of "flavor of the day".
When "progress" is primary, culture cannot endure, and since human reality is one of living in a working culture, there is no human reality of existence and life slides to the abyss. So more and more people simply pass away -- naturally as a result of their actions, in killings as they rebel against the meaningless world, or by their own hand, alone in their despair.
In the real world, our sex is determined at conception. Females have two x chromosomes, males have an x and a y. While there is something less than 1% of the population that have somewhat ambiguous sex organs (formerly hermaphrodites, now supposed to be called "intersex"), even the vast majority of THOSE are properly wired prior to birth to one sex or the other. Females and males have major differences in the brain (the human difference), not just sex organs. One of these differences is the corpus callosum which connects the right and left halves of the brain. In computer terms, men have a dial-up connection, women have a terabit bus. Girls interact earlier and more with others ... we could go on and on.
Once, all this was completely known to science, like the Vostok ice cores that clearly show four previous warm periods like our current now 10K year old period in the last 500K years. However, like the ice cores, something even as basic as our gender is now on the path to being hidden away in the name of "progress" so a another harmful scam can be perpetrated.
Jeremy Bentham, a founder of "Utilitarianism" ... "the greatest good for the greatest number" assumed that doing away with class distinctions and religion to focus on what he saw as a very simple and easy "moral" (in his mind) of the "greatest good" would clearly produce a wonderful utopia. As all attempts to ignore the wisdom of the ages and God, it has produced a hellish chaos.
Why? A very significant problem with the definition of "good" -- science can say nothing at all of a value judgement like "good". The Bible ... and really Buddhism as well, make "humility" the greatest good -- "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God". People might like to think it is "happiness" -- as in the "pursuit of", but if we still believe in science at all, pursuing happiness for yourself guarantees that you will not find it. Happiness is what sometimes happens when you follow the purpose for your life -- but in a random universe, life is purposeless, so there is no happiness.
Humans only live in the context of a culture. We have destroyed ours, so death is winning -- in abortion, in drug and alcohol addiction, mass killings, suicides ... the list will just keep growing. We gave rejected God, and therefore rejected wisdom -- and we are dying.
Buried in the news is the 3Q first GDP picture ... a very tepid 1.5% growth as reported. In reading the story though, it sounds like the greatest 1.5% growth possible -- not to worry, the BO economy should not be maligned!
"“The church model has worked really well for a couple of thousand years,” Dodd muses. “What we’re trying to do is hold on to the bath water while throwing out the baby Jesus.”"
For ages, man has uttered the aphorism "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" ... man has finally become so lost that rather than keeping the baby -- the center, the sacred, the important, the motto is changed to purposely keeping that which is unclean, unuseable, and defiled.
The Atheists are working on a church -- here is what they have against the "Unitarian Universalist Community Church" :
“The Unitarian Church has this idea of ‘radical tolerance.’ It respects everything. It’s all good. Well that’s fine on one level, but at some point it becomes a little diluted.” Dodd was looking for a more robust secularism.
This is pretty much all the information one can get out of the article. Their problem with the Unitarians as stated in the quote was not enough "robust secularism" ... but it seems that the direction the "Sunday Assembly" is going is toward avoiding in your face atheism.
As the atheist church becomes more church-like, however, it seems to be deliberately downplaying its atheism. Where the Assembly once stridently rejected theism (at April’s Assembly, Jones poked fun at the crucifixion), it is now far more equivocal. “How atheist should our Assembly be?”, Jones wrote in a recent blog post. “The short answer to that is: not very.”
Hard to define yourself purely by what you are against. Certainly those that "poke fun" at those who think differently from themselves are widely respected in secular culture depending on what it is they poke fun at -- the Bruce Jenner Halloween costume was so open mindedly received!
Either way, Sanderson Jones is confident that the model will spread. “We have the most natural human urge to do this,” he insists: to organize ourselves around institutions of meaning. I am inclined to agree that “Live Better, Help Often, and Wonder More” is a lovely motto to build around.
We live in a "Goldilocks Universe" tuned precisely to our existence ... to unimaginable numbers like 10 to the minus 128 needing to be "right on" for us to be here. Amazingly, on top of that we have this common urge to "organize ourselves around institutions of meaning" -- or, as we did for thousands of years, worship God.
The atheist looks at a universe impossibly built for his existence and declares it a matter of pure random chance against all odds. He then realizes that he has a "soul hole" -- something is missing, his life lacks meaning. So he postulates that against all odds, on top of his impossibly random universe, random selection has put a "God shaped hole" into his consciousness -- meaningless and randomness has most strangely selected to imprint a drive for him to seek some sort of "meaning" for his life in this universe that he has decreed to be meaningless and random.
So he grabs his bootstraps and pulls. The futility brings tears to my eyes ... and I'm sure to Christ's as well.
OK, I assume that the PL guys are being a bit light hearted on this one given the excess of attractive femininity in the picture, but I gotta admit that I'm concerned. Power Line is my favorite general "not too out there but reasonably conservative go to blog". I've always found the Power Line Blog to be very well reasoned -- it is run by lawyers, lawyers who believe you need a written basis for law (the Constitution), and the need to run a nation on laws rather than the whim of the masses de jour.
If I sound dismayed, it’s only because I am. Conservatives have spent more than 60 years arguing that ideas and character matter. That is the conservative movement I joined and dedicated my professional life to. And now, in a moment of passion, many of my comrades-in-arms are throwing it all away in a fit of pique. Because “Trump fights!”
As I've covered in this blog many times, conservatism to me IS principle, and it is A LOT older than 60 years ... it is at least back to Burke, and really to the Torah and the Ten Commandments. It is the search for and the willingness to acknowledge, be enlightened by, and directed by THE ETERNAL!
"Character" is a more fluid matter because of the fact of our humanity. To have standards is to live with some level of hypocrisy. A lot of good NFL football teams set out on the standard of the perfect season culminating in a Super Bowl win. In baseball, the perfect game is a goal for every pitcher.
The last perfect game in baseball was thrown by Felix Hernandez in 2012, the last perfect season in the NFL was Miami in 1972. The last perfect human life was Jesus Christ, AD 30ish -- absolutely unique, we separate history upon his perfection ... Before Christ (BC) and Anno Domini (AD) meaning "in the year of the Lord". To be a human that holds to high standards is to be some level of hypocrite. To the conservative, that is how improvement happens -- to the "liberal", the focus is to change everyone else, ultimately by force.
As the Goldberg article points out, it is not clear that Trump possesses any principles whatever beyond "win baby win", and his character is best summed up as "he's a fighter" -- certainly commendable, but the question of "for what"? must be asked. Money? That is clearly his track record. Fame? Power? Ego? None of these are inherently bad, nor disqualifying -- but to be a conservative, things like "smaller government", "rule of law", "sanctity of life", "religious freedom", "individual freedom", "the family", etc have to show up somewhere and at least compete strongly with the more common human motivators.
"Make America Great" is indeed a worthy objective, but the meaning of that for a conservative is a return to the lost principles that both once made "America" and then made it "great". There is no America without shared ideas -- America was a nation founded on ideas rather than mere territory or ethnicity. While the territory still exists, "America" is now only a reference to a glorious past.
Goldberg must have more faith in himself and in other humans than I do. Desperate people not infrequently even commit suicide. I'd like to completely believe that was impossible for me, but I'm not sure I know the pain that drives that permanent solution to a temporary problem -- I'm quite certain that their pain made them decide it was "the only option". I pray to never be put to that test.
That is roughly how I look at the Trump phenomenon among the thinking conservatives. These are desperate times and that makes for desperate people. The America that we once knew is GONE -- no respect for the Constitution, no respect for the separation of powers, government expanding and worming it's way into all aspects of life, the young and the old corrupted -- the young by indoctrination, the old by being bought off with "benefits". "These are the times that try men's souls" ... and for some, the goal of "winning at any cost" seems worthy. They have reached that dark night of the soul where truly ANYTHING is better than going on at the level of depravity we now see.
One of the major failings of "progressivism" is the giving in to the human temptation of "We HAVE to DO SOMETHING!". Wisdom says that often God has a plan that you may have driven you to panic, but a much more important maxim is "FIRST, do no HARM!" ... because you still believe that there is a plan beyond man's plan, so even though it appears there is no hope, God is still in his heaven. Lose that faith, and the human desire to do something --- ANYTHING, including elect a Trump, suddenly seems "good". (or the parallel analogy, take your own life)
"Progressivism" worships man -- and action. Conservatism worships God -- and ideas. "Progressivism" looks at man's navel, and at the earth -- matter. It is basic idolatry, the worship of man and material.
But all conservatives are human as well as conservative -- so when the chips are down, the temptation to fall to what is natural to fallen man is great and sometimes irresistible to many, really ALL without the help of God! That is one of the dangers of "secular conservatism", it sounds good on paper, but in the long dark night of the abyss, it often turns out to be like Alcoholics Anonymous without the higher power. The human reaches for the bottle -- the action. The Trump!
I see the name itself as another proof of God's earthly intervention and eternal sense of humor. From the dictionary ...
trump -- any playing card of a suit that for the time outranks the other suits, such a card being able to take any card of another suit". trump up -- to devise deceitfully or dishonestly, as an accusation; fabricate:
When I consider God's power and the fact that we know he has a sense of humor -- for we are created in his image, such things give me that little shiver of awareness. It isn't just the odds against a "Goldilocks Universe" that the atheist need compute! As I once answered a response to that linked post, I see (VERY loosely, as an ANALOGY) our existence as a "Matrix" (of a far different sort than the movie) that is "running on God".
I can very much understand the Trump temptation (covered one aspect here), but temptation is still temptation. We must resist it with the help of God (or some other higher power) just like an alcoholic resists the bottle! Trump appears to be a solution, but he is a "Trumped up" solution -- devised deceitfully and dishonestly. We know that to be true because has no ideas and principles that he points us to, except his own image.
This article points to one of what I hope comes through in this Blog; I am ignorant, "the experts" are ignorant, all mankind is ignorant. It could not be otherwise -- we are alive, yet we can barely describe what "life" even is beyond "a really special chemical reaction". We believe we are "intelligent", but the "we" that we perceive as our consciousness is even less understood than "life" -- is it chemical, electrical, quantum, ????, spiritual, or more likely "all of the above"! The question of "the ghost in the machine" goes back at least to Descartes.
In 2006, a Columbia University neuroscientist, Stuart J. Firestein, began teaching a course on scientific ignorance after realizing, to his horror, that many of his students might have believed that we understand nearly everything about the brain. (He suspected that a 1,414-page textbook may have been culpable.)
Looking at a map can make one think they might understand the territory, but the reality is that even a very detailed map carries very little information about the reality of the territory (is it hot? cold? wet? crime ridden? loaded with bugs? ... etc). We are wired as humans to "the illusion of understanding" -- lest we cower in a cave in abject fear unwilling to face the (mostly) unknown world outside and the second to second prospect of mortality (see brain hemorrhage, heart attack, simple choking, etc).
So, as the students above, we VASTLY overcompensate -- we think a thick textbook HAS to cover most everything about the brain. We think that "a bunch of studies, many of them in agreement" on climate MUST correctly predict the future of climate. We especially want to be "more right than others" ... "less ignorant" ... the problem of accumulated "knowledge", much of it mere "data" is that it has a horrible tendency to actually make us LESS aware of our true condition.
Presenting ignorance as less extensive than it is, knowledge as more solid and more stable, and discovery as neater also leads students to misunderstand the interplay between answers and questions.
People tend to think of not knowing as something to be wiped out or overcome, as if ignorance were simply the absence of knowledge. But answers don’t merely resolve questions; they provoke new ones.
Again, modern man is WAY behind the ancients. It was completely covered in Proverbs 9:10, no special classes required.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
The ancients realized the state of their souls and the fragility of life -- that of being most unholy and uncontrollably near an eternity judged by an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God.
For thousands of years, Western Civilization worked because it was based on:
The fear (best read "awed respect") of a perfectly just and KNOWABLE (to some degree) God.
That God had created an ORDERED and KNOWABLE (to humans) universe.
Man had been given DOMINION over that universe.
These were powerful beliefs that properly placed man -- as potential master of the physical, servant of the eternal, blessed with the ability to know both the universe and God. The base for western thought brought thousands of years of relative "advancement", and since say "1300", fairly rapidly so.
But, as in the original Eden, the snake was busy. Did God REALLY create all this? Maybe not ... and if not, maybe he doesn't exist at all. If he doesn't exist, is there REALLY "truth"? Certainly not "ultimate truth" ... and whatever feels good seems a lot more like "human morals". Oh, and BTW, why does man have "dominion" -- is man not just an animal, and therefore no more deserving of a place on the planet than animals? While we are at it, maybe "the earth" is really "divine", and man should "serve the earth"?
So now we have mass confusion. Our natural desires to "be as intelligent as gods" make us want to fake that we are not ignorant. Meanwhile, our hopeful promethean reach much exceeds our grasp, and we are lost in a random meaningless universe. Unsure of our place -- even relative to the dead rock of the planet, or the clearly less intellectually capable life forms that share it with us.
We have traded legitimate and actually beneficial "ignorance" (humility, wisdom, the fear of God) for a false sense of "having figured it all out", while our spiritual state is beyond lost -- not knowing even OF God, and having lost all contact with our created place in the universe.
Proper ignorance (humility) is indeed bliss! In fact, it is WISDOM!
But now he is going to jail -- I'm sure it will be nice jail. He ONLY failed to do any work by telling his supervisors that he was a CIA Spy for FIFTEEN YEARS! Those government jobs that pay $206K a year must REALLY have some awesome responsibilities considering he was shirking for 15 years and nobody was the wiser!
Supposedly though, he only defrauded the government of near $1 million ... but $200K X 15 is a lot closer to $3 million -- I suppose "close enough for government work".
I love what he did with his time ...
When Huvelle asked Beale what he was doing when he claimed he was working for the CIA, he said, "I spent time exercising. I spent a lot of time working on my house."
He also said he used the time "trying to find ways to fine tune the capitalist system" to discourage companies from damaging the environment. "I spent a lot of time reading on that," said Beale.
The article is worth a read -- your tax dollars at work. Two presidential administrations from opposing parties, both houses of congress switching parties (twice) ... no matter, the administrative incompetence and downright fraud rolls on ...
And those on the left will tell you that the answer is MORE GOVERNMENT!
“Being a cat in Istanbul is like being a cow in India,”
The article is a bit on the long side unless you are REALLY a cat lover. File under "interesting tidbits".
We brought our kitties down to the IA place for this week -- it was a rather difficult car ride with a lot of distressed kitty noise, and last night our smaller grey "Misty" was vocal enough for me to spend some extra late night time with her that I hadn't planned on.
Cats and Dogs are one of those cases where we can understand "why don't we all get along"? A large reason is that we have quite significant differences in likes and dislikes. Some love dogs, some love cats, some love both -- and we can do the inverse with hate.
For those that love, it is very hard to understand those that hate, and vice-versa. As Spock might say, "It is not logical" -- which it isn't.
The best we can hope to do is "respect the differences", but our feelings will not do that -- the haters and lovers of the two favorite pets have a feeling in their gut, and while we can cover it up and behave civilly (usually), there is a wiring difference that means that our "tolerance" for the inverse is not really at a felt level.
Perhaps if we ponder a bit on this reality we can begin to understand our humanity more, and maybe understand why it is that there is a need for transcendent religion that holds out the potential to step beyond the felt reality of our humanity.
How can we think and feel so differently on something of seemingly such slight significance? The fact that we can and do is a simple proof that "being more human" is never going to be enough to achieve peace on earth.
