Responding To Senator Ben Sasse's Open Letter

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

Senator Sasse,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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NY Times Confesses Liberal Bias

A Confession of Liberal Intolerance - NYTimes.com:



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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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Unresolveable Super Heroes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clinton Cash, Who's Got The Goods

How the Clintons Get Away With It - WSJ:

I'm not going to run out and buy this book -- I've seen enough articles and even heard enough through NPR and the NY Times to know that the basics are certainly true. The Clinton's STATED net worth is in the $110+ Million range, and the Clinton Foundation BROUGHT IN $214 Million in 2012, followed by $262 M and $223 M in 2013 and 2015 (Wiki skipped 2014 for some reason ...).

On the up and up, the "Foundation" can can cover any "expenses" the Clinton's might have that aren't covered by Slick being and ex-president, various people providing them "services" as part of their relationship, etc. Remember when the $300M wealth of Mitt Romney was such a HUGE issue? That of course being 8 years after the $800 M wealth of John Kerry was a complete NON issue. People that have any level of memory and lack complete and total trust for the media machine might wonder just a bit about some "small" differences in the ways these things are treated!

From 2001 through 2012 Bill collected $105.5 million for speeches and raised hundreds of millions for the foundation. When she was nominated, Hillary said she saw no conflict. President Obama pressed for a memorandum of understanding in which the Clintons would agree to submit speeches to State’s ethics office, disclose the names of major donors to the foundation, and seek administration approval before accepting direct contributions to the foundation from foreign governments. The Clintons accepted the agreement and violated it “almost immediately.” Revealingly, they amassed wealth primarily by operating “at the fringes of the developed world.” Their “most lucrative transactions” did not involve countries like Germany and Britain, where modern ethical rules and procedures are in force, but emerging nations, where regulations are lax.

It's good to be Queen. The only way I can parse the fact that the Clinton's are given a pass is that "The Party" (TP-D) is now the closest thing to a "religion" that something around half of pagan Americans have. As such, the leaders of TP are like Popes and Cardinals used to be  -- "infallible", so they can simply do what they want.

With the rise of the NSA and data gathering the past 10-15 years, I keep wondering, "who's got the goods"?  The ability to run down Denny Hastert over drawing too much money out of a bank is likely just the VERY tip of the iceberg. How many people does TP have in their pocket over everything from sexual matters, financial dealings, substance abuse, having once held some now unpopular position, etc, etc. Owners of the New York Times? Washington Post? virtually every media outlet there is? It makes me wonder.

With Trump running, will he be able to act as the "whistle blower" for half of the American population and defeat the Queen? It will be an interesting thing to watch.

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WaPo Resorts to God Against Trump

Hillary Clinton is walking into Donald Trump’s trap - The Washington Post:

When the WaPo invokes the almighty, you know they are VERY worried!

America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!

GOD? You mean there is a power above "The Party" (TP-D) and it's minion the WaPo? SOULS? You mean like the "eternal kind"? Does the WaPo wonder when those might show up in a baby in it's mothers womb these days? Perhaps only women have them?

But wait! There is MORE!

America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control
Thy liberty in law!

LAW? You mean like the Constitution? The kind you used to have to do an AMENDMENT to in order to create new "rights" like gay "marriage" and "transgender" whatever the hell THAT is out of thin air. Really? The WaPo thinks there is something ABOVE pure popularity and tricky rhetorical schemes?

I know, CONSISTENCY IS NOT AN ISSUE, but this is pretty breathtaking.

They certainly are WORKING HARD for their candidate. How is it again that anyone is supposed to understand this kind of "coverage" from a major US paper as being "news" as opposed to campaign strategy being printed as "news"? What exactly is supposed to be the "difference" between TP itself and the WaPo? Or is Tump enough of a "crisis" that we have dispensed with that fiction?

Yup, she sounds like the wicked witch of the west and pretty much anybody who is a man or cares about men is completely aware she would like to cut the balls off all men that don't bow to her. Seems like a good reason to keep the AR to me!

Consider her slogan, “Fighting for us.” For many men, this slogan would have to be experienced as emasculating. A woman fighting for them? Rightly or wrongly, the slogan rubs the wrong way in relation to traditional notions of masculinity. Her slogan itself reveals a limited conception of who she seeks to represent. This is a potentially fatal flaw in Clinton’s campaign.

That and she is a known felon, a serial liar and has failed miserably at everything she has ever attempted ... anyone notice that our socialized medicine isn't called "Hillarycare"? We must have done a "reset" on that one!

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Trump, The Right Goes Might Equal Right

The Newly Emboldened American Racist:

With the more or less official naming of Trump as the Republican Nominee, we have entered a whole new level in the art of name calling.

I live in a political bubble. A lovely, liberal, northeastern bubble. The majority of my friends and family are Clinton supporters, and the rest favor Bernie. One or two Republicans I’m close to voted for Kasich in the primaries. I’m pretty sure there are a few closet Trump supporters in my life — and on my Facebook friends list — but as long as they stay in the closet, we’re good.

 "Thou shalt think as I think and I demand that you do or at least hide what you think, lest I cast you out of my "lovely liberal bubble". "Diversity" is a word I define, it does not include your views!" Thus saith the author of the column.

The rest of the article is the expected list of comments from some site that are racist. We need not ask if the writer has gone over to the fever swamps of MoveOn, DailyKos or many others to get similarly nasty quotes relative to Christians, conservatives, less educated, gun owners, etc, etc. If you want to read a snippet of the litany, you can go here.

As I said yesterday, Trump pretty much does as a candidate what "The Party", TP-D surrogates in media and entertainment regularly do for TP. The linked column is one of ZILLIONS of examples! NPR was working hard on anti-Trump output today -- Trump takes on the nasty surrogates directly, something no candidate on the left needs to do, and something no previous candidate at least somewhat from the "right" (from anti-establishment outer space?) has ever attempted.

The natural state of man is Tribalism. My tribe calls your tribe names. We are good, you are evil. We hurl nasty looks, words, votes, fists, rocks and eventually bullets at each other to establish our power to be dominant. Right = might. Without a something beyond raw power that is recognized by all as transcendent, some form of power contest is the ONLY way to "settle things". If the transcendence is earthly, then the "Ubermench" is required -- and you hope he is not named Adolph!

TP has been the mostly settled might=right power since FDR. Sure, "Republicans" existed, but they were largely "me too", TP lite. Goldwater was a failed attempt, Reagan was a successful "semi-alternative" (treated much the same way as Trump by the left), Newt was another shock to the TP system -- again, treated as "Lucifer in the flesh" by the left and many "traditional Republicans". As the column author points out -- as long as the R's recognized TP as dominant and shut up when they were told, TP people were willing to keep a few around AS LONG AS THEY WERE QUIET!

W, McCain and Romney were all "TP lite" -- essentially a "bigger tent TP" that allowed Christians and the slightly less government oriented to kid themselves that they still had a voice. No person of Christian / conservative / "classical liberal" (meaning allows diversity of thought) leaning has been able to "live in a bubble" like the columnist since at least the '60s. We KNOW what the "dominant cultural position" is, and we KNOW they we are supposed to SHUT THE F**K UP! ... lest we be cast our from associations with family, friends, community, job (see Curt Schilling), etc.

Religion and agreed transcendent principles once allowed larger groups of humans to operate as super-organisms similar to bees, ants and termites, but with vastly more intelligence. They explored the world, built giant cities, went to the moon -- that was Western civilization that allowed freedom of thought and therefore actual intellectual diversity and therefore actual innovative progress that was more than just farther application of leftward control.

Without transcendence, the only mechanism to hold groups together is POWER. The left has been exiting transcendence since at least the 50's ("God and Man at Yale") is a good marker. BO was their first "no transcendence" president. Trump is the first attempt from the right to have a candidate that operates from the position of no rules beyond power.

What the author of the column feels is a harbinger what many "Christians / classical liberals / conservatives" have been living with for half a century or so. Abortion, BOcare, open borders, gay "marriage", transgender, Black Lives Matter (and NOT others!), 2nd amendment attacks, massive drug/alcohol abuse + suicides, increases in welfare/dependency,  and what appears to be a permanent declining economy have brought home to more and more that the ONLY slim remaining hope is to FIGHT! If Trump wins, "the liberals in their bubbles" would get a SMALL taste of what it means to be "on the right" in America, but it would be FAR less, because the dominate culture would still be TP for the foreseeable future. It would have just suffered another tactical defeat in the Reagan tradition -- decades away from a total rout, where the tepid forces of "conservatism" start talking like the linked column writer.

The time when "the remnant" of transcendent thought can "hide out" like the "closet Trump supporters" in the authors circle went past during the BO years. The actions of BO proved that the Constitution that was designed to insure respect for actual diversity of thought has fully failed.

As we increasingly see, "conservative" views are no longer acceptable. There can be no god but TP, and ALL WILL  worship TP JOYFULLY! Trump challenges the dominion of TP and therefore, the powers of TP will attack him with their full might and vigor. #nevertrump people are the "radically lukewarm" of the right  -- they believe that they can bend enough to TP to stay somehow in the graces of the increasingly dominant  and smug TP ... they are willing to continue to "give ground".

As we saw in the '60s, when values are discarded and open warfare ensues, it becomes messy. We see it in BLM now as well as in the anti-Trump forces. In the US, open violence has been the purview of only the left for over half a century. The Trump support is the first small hint of violence from the right --- what the media went berserk over trying to conjure out of the Tea Party movement.

Naturally, the bulk of the people that actually become violent on either side are the less thoughtful and more action oriented. That is always "the wild card". It appears that the left has ignored the unions for long enough that the blue collar masses have realized that they have been had. That is the quarter from which "the bubble liberals" of TP need to fear retribution. If Trump can peel away the "Nixon and Reagan Democrats" -- the "silent majority", they may become a howling answer to BLM, "Occupy Wall Street", "Code Pink", etc.

Then the bubblers of TP actually have something to fear -- rather than just having to disown some Trump supporting friends or family members. One thing about allegiance to TP -- thou shalt have no other gods before TP, for TP is a JEALOUS god!

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Embracing Trump, His Own Media

Donald Trump and His Supporters:

An excellent column by Victor Davis Hanson, well worth reading it all.

Since last night and sitting in the surgery waiting room waiting for my Dad with MSNBC on, I realize that MSNBC, NBC, NPR, the Comedy channel, late night TV, etc do what Trump does. They do the name calling, derision, personal attacks, etc -- day, after day, drip, drip, rip rip. -- But of course they do it ONLY to Republicans, Trump does it to EVERYONE!

Think Sarah Palin -- everything from her clothes, to her family, her downs syndrome child, pictures of her in her high school B-ball outfit, was "out" front and center. The "gotcha questions" flowed, Saturday Night Live was all over her. She was made into a laughing stock.

We could go on forever W, Reagan, Dan Quayle, McCain-- case after case. THE MEDIA **IS** DONALD TRUMP from the left! They deride, demean, they RIDICULE! Perhaps Trump read "Rules for Radicals"?

...  I love the 5th rule -- "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule." I strongly suspect that many of our media friends are well aware of this one. Immediately during the Bush administration from the media to the late night talk shows, the ridicule of Bush and Cheney became universal. Sometimes it had some basis in truth, most times it was simply a caricature that was used to denigrate them. It worked extremely well with 80%+ of the population, the dark side IS very strong at a minimum.

Consider this paragraph from the linked article.

Tomorrow Trump could declare there to be 57 states, or address vets as Corpse-men or tell his legions to bring a gun to a knife fight — and none of his supporters would find him clueless, half-educated, or incendiary. If Trump brought one of his wheeler-dealer Manhattan real-estate cronies to a rally and the man’s court-ordered ankle bracelet went off, no one would bat an eye.

Some may read it and not realize that ALL of those are Obama -- and in general, few know and nobody cares. So the next paragraph has a double meaning. As I've said a few times, Trump is NOT "new" -- BO is also a "post truth, post rules, post wisdom, post values" -- he is ANOTHER version of NO RULES!

In other words, Trump is a postmodern creation, for whom traditional and time-tested rules do not apply. He is neither brilliant nor unhinged, neither ecumenical nor just a polarizer, not a wrecker and not a savior of the Republican party, but something else altogether. He does not defy conventional wisdom. There simply is no convention and no wisdom applicable to Donald J. Trump. For years postmodernists have lectured us that there is no truth, no absolutes, no timeless protocols worthy of reverence; Trump is their Nemesis, who reifies their theories that truth is simply a narrative whose veracity is established by the degree of power and persuasion behind it.

("reifies" - makes real) The lawlessness, disrespect of any truth, absolutes, history, etc is the same for BO ... and Hillary or Bernie for that matter. No rules means no rules. "The Party" (TP-Democrat), being dominant in media, entertainment, law, education, and most of all in the massive government unionized bureaucracy, completely expects that they will be able to continue to destroy civilization step by step. Respect for life (abortion), Christianity, Patriotism, Marriage, Private Property and Gender have all been heavily damaged already.

When truth and value are so damaged that very few even consider them real, and a single political voice (TP) is so powerful that the majority of people assume that TP is itself "truth", there is really no "rational" option to combat the decline other than to select a champion like Trump that can manipulate the media directly and GET COVERAGE!

The media treat him like a cobra rising from a basket — terrified that if at any moment they stop their music, the smiling serpent might strike and bite them in the nose.

The media treats Trump like they treat a mass shooting. They believe their world view is so dominant that the nation MUST rally to their side if they just "report the facts". So far, the result of their Trump coverage is pretty much the same as the results of their mass shooting coverage. The public support for both Trump and gun rights goes up as the media continue to report what they are certain MUST have the other result.

There may be a limit to fooling "all of the people all of the time" after all. The economy sucks, the position of the US is tumbling, the future looks at least completely uncertain if not horrible -- and for a huge swath of people, the answer to "are you better off" is a LARGE and PAINFUL NO!!!

Is it a majority of the electorate? That remains to be seen and many twists and turns are possible. In some ways, a 3 or even 4 way race between Hildebeast, Trump, "Some establishment Republican" and Sanders might be the "most representative" of the choices that 20-30% segments of the population want.

So far, the biggest loser is the conventional wisdom.

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Degree, Ideas, Shakespeare

The included quotation is from one of my most favorite books -- reviewed multiple times in the Blog, "Ideas Have Consequences",  it is an quotation from Shakespeare as you can see. I've gotten back into trying to understand the bard, with the help of Issac Asimov's Guide To Shakespeare. The reason I'm using that book is because it is very clear to me (and Asimov) that the only people in the modern world that can understand Shakespeare are those that study him AND have a reasonable understanding the historical, legendary, and mythological underpinnings of the works.

Other than the Bible, Shakespeare is one of the biggest creators / interpreters of the meaning that made Western civilization work. His work was intended to appeal to both the common man of his day ("1600 England"),  AND to the aristocracy that funded him. Our problem is that even our (largely technically) "educated" have LESS understanding of Classical Greek and Roman literature than his lower class audience in 1600.

The following quote is included as an "artful means" to make the argument that the chapter it is in opens with ...

"... those who seek to do things in the name of mass are the destroyers in our midst. If society is something that can be understood, it must have structure; if it has structure, it must have hierarchy; against this metaphysical truth, the declamations of the Jacobins break in vain". 

(The Jacobins are the radical reformers of the French Revolution -- the folks with the guillotines) 

Troilus and Cressida, Act I Scene II
O! when degree is shak’d,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
The enterprise is sick. How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark! what discord follows; each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong—
Between whose endless jar justice resides—
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, a universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce a universal prey,
And last eat up himself. 

The play Troilus and Cressida was written about 1600 but set against the Trojan war (1200 BC) with all the heroes of Homer (850 BC oral, 500 BC written) -- Ulysses, Achilles, Helen of Troy, Agamemnon and sundry references to gods and goddesses and historical references both real and legendary.  Prior to the late 1800's when a German named Heinrich Schliemann went a digging, Troy and the whole story was assumed to be a myth -- but he found it, so historians are sure it is based on history rather than pure mythology.

As you read the Shakespeare and the Greek and Roman mythology for that matter, you see timeless human questions played out -- "the Gods", fate, chance,  betrayal, friendship, love, honor and hatred of parents, children, peoples, order, disorder, etc.

In 1600, they considered the BASICS of a "Classical Education" to know the time of Troy -- 2500 years removed from their time, to be REQUIRED if one was to consider themselves "educated". Even the "peasants" knew more of ancient history than the typical college educated science, humanities, etc "educated person" today.

From the Shakespeare:

"Degree' -- Difference, distinction. Fair lady vs worthless harlot. Immortals vs mortals, etc. Today much of our society screams that "there are no degrees or distinctions" -- all supposed "merit" is "privilege". All outcomes are to be made the same ... "inequality" is the 2nd biggest issue of our time (Climate Change the first).  The Golden State Warriors may as well replace Stephan Curry with any old college player -- there is no such thing as "degree" -- your "betters" have told you so! Fortunately, they have told you there is no such thing as TRUTH either.

"Force should be right, or rather right and wrong" ... might is right. TP has the votes to repeal gender, marriage even life itself for the 60 million unborn dead so far. The gods have spoken!

"Power into will" -- or in Nietzsche, "Will to Power".  All of life CAN be reduced to abolition of degree between "mortals" through will and power. See North Korea today. Remember the USSR or National Socialist Germany. Shakespeare knew all about POWER. Shakespeare had been sponsored by and was friends with Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southhampton, who was aligned with Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex who ended up being executed by Elizabeth I -- in fact, Cressida going bad may have been an allusion to Elizabeth I.

As I now try to parse through Shakespeare I realize yet again the inadequacy of my own knowledge and the height I need to climb to recover even tiny pieces of the wisdom of the ancients. We once KNEW THIS! It was "so simple a child could do it". We had a much greater grasp on what it meant to create and operate a working personal character, family, church, community, culture and nation, but we lost it ... here is a little metaphor from one of the cheesier original Star Treks -- at about 2:30 McCoy has encountered "the teacher" and returning Spock's brain is suddenly doable.

  I covered a bit about our shared plight of having lost the owners manual to the starship of western civilization, grabbed a bottle of pure grain alcohol (we didn't want to try to identify "degree" between beverages), and turned the controls of the starship over to natives from the jungles of the Amazon -- why not? Everyone is equal!

What could go wrong? ... hey, I just met this girl named Pandora. She has a box that seems interesting, so we are going to crack it open tonight and see what is in it. I hope it is "new stuff", new stuff is ALWAYS better -- "progress" you know.

Some Frankness From Thomas Frank

Thomas Frank on How Democrats Went From Being the ‘Party of the People’ to the Party of Rich Elites - In These Times:

I loved this quote ... isn't it wonderful to see how the DC wing of TP ("The Party"-D) thinks?

I live in Washington, D.C., and I spend time around Hillary-style Democrats. They really think that they’ve got this thing in the bag. And I don’t just mean her versus Bernie. I mean the Democratic Party winning the presidency for the rest of our lives. From here to eternity. They can choose whoever they want. They could nominate anybody and they would win. They think they’re in charge.

I tend to agree with them -- they have brought in enough illegals, made voting with no ID nearly the national standard, and through organizations like ACORN and just the fact of 90% of the people tabulating the votes being union government employees, that all counts are suspect. As Stalin said "The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do". TP counts the votes -- or contracts for the machines to count the votes.

The main thesis of the article is:

According to Frank, popular explanations which blame corporate lobby groups and the growing power of money in politics are insufficient. Frank instead points to a decision by Democratic Party elites in the 1970s to marginalize labor unions and transform from the party of the working class to the party of the professional class. In so doing, the Democratic Party radically changed the way it understood social problems and how to solve them, trading in the principle of solidarity for the principle of competitive individualism and meritocracy.

There is that left wing word again "meritocracy" -- oh how they hate the idea that people are blessed with different abilities and can use them wisely or foolishly to obtain different economic result! TP moved away from PRIVATE sector unions in the '70s and focused on the massive growth of PUBLIC  sector unions. Automation, global trade and non-competitive labor had pretty much destroyed vast swaths of American industry by that point already, Steel being a great example. TP cares about POWER not people -- they go where the power is, and it was certainly with the professional class.

But Frank seems surprised that TP operates as it does and clearly took action when BO took office to benefit it's major constituency, the upper 10-30% (Frank wants it to seem more elite than it is, it's more than 10%)  -- government workers, teachers, university professors, lawyers, financial people, fortune 500 professionals.

This is not only because of those evil Republicans, but because Obama played it the way he wanted to. Even when he had a majority in both houses of Congress and could choose whoever he wanted to be in his administration, he consistently made policies that favored the top 10 percent over everybody else. He helped out Wall Street in an enormous way when they were entirely at his mercy. 

He could have done anything he wanted with them, in the way that Franklin Roosevelt did in the ‘30s. But he chose not to.

He didn't do what FDR did because what FDR did failed miserably. It prolonged and deepened what would have been a bad recession, much like 1982 into the Depression. BO's "FDR lite" of STILL massive government intervention, regulation and cronyism have made a "recession" into the "Great Recession". BO got away with what he could get away with to not make the disaster as obvious as it ought to be. It is STILL easy to look at the 1930's, late 1970s and 2008-2016 as times of TP taking control (they took Congress in 2006) and the economy being bad.

The big overarching problem of our time is inequality. If you look at historical charts of productivity and wage growth, these two things went hand in hand for decades after World War II, which we think of as a prosperous, middle-class time when even people with a high school degree, blue-collar workers, could lead a middle class life. And then everything went wrong in the 1970s. Productivity continued to go up and wage growth stopped. Wage growth has basically been flat ever since then. But productivity goes up by leaps and bounds all the time. We have all of these wonderful technological advances. Workers are more productive than ever but they haven’t benefited from it. That’s the core problem of inequality.

First of all, productivity is NOT improving. The OBJECTIVE of the left is the story of inequality! A more and more privileged government crony elite class and an ever more dependent and controlled mass "proletariat". The left is about CENTRALIZATION OF POWER in the hands of the VERY few, ultimately THE ONE! Left is control, right is chaos, the US was supposed to be "center right".

If policies of merit and competition are allowed to work, one gets the US 1982 - 2008. If the policies of the left are allowed to work, the result is East vs West Germany prior to '91, North Korea vs South Korea today.

The biggest question I have is whether Frank is a "Useful Idiot" and doesn't know that BO (and FDR and Carter before him) are doing exactly what is intended, or if he is simply a propaganda shill for the TP. I guess it really doesn't matter ...


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Laughing At Alzheimers or Transgenders

Was Will Ferrell’s Reagan Comedy Really Mocking Alzheimer’s? - The Daily Beast:

Mocking Alzheimers?  -- as the linked article points out, "How unfair"! ... and a lot of people "didn't even read the script"! It's reminiscent  of how the prudes didn't like federal funding of "Piss Christ" or Mother Mary done in elephant dung. What a chilling lack of tolerance for "art".

One thing Hollywood wants to get across -- with the help of Bill O'Reilly no less is the false narrative of Reagan falling into Alzheimer's early in his second term. That has been thoroughly debunked, if you follow the link to Power Line off this post, you can verify that.

It is instructive that the media also has created the meme that "Reagan laughed at AIDs" -- based on some staffers and media people having uncomfortable laughter dealing with the issue in the early '80s.

We ALL live our lives according to SOME "story line" which fits with our World View. We have no choice, we have a VERY finite human brain that is WIRED to deal with "narrative" through the filter ouf our World View.

In the narrative of TP, Reagan was an idiot, thought he was acting in a movie, out of touch, etc, etc" for his whole public life -- Alzheimer's being what killed him is just another "fact" to reflect back into the already created narrative that makes him a character for derision.

Our American educational system and media machine has destroyed the ability of the vast majority to even begin to think critically -- so we are prey to any Obama, Trump, Hillary, etc that shows up!

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Hillary Leaves Reservation, Finds Trump

Today’s Cuckoo Land Report | Power Line:



So HILLARY said; "I have a lot of experience dealing with men who sometimes get off the reservation in the way they behave and how they speak."



Hmmm ... was that Slick Willie that "left the reservation"? Oh, WAIT, she had to apologize ... she said RESERVATION! ... BEEP, ... "Hate speech".



So she apologized, she is of "The Party", no harm no foul. Naturally if TRUMP had said the same thing, that would be yet another really stupid racist thing he said. But never mind -- that isn't the reality we live in. Trump had the same reaction that I did ...

He continued: ‘That’s a very demeaning remark to men in my opinion. Was she referring to her husband? I think she was referring to her husband."

We as a nation of course have slipped the surly bonds of any reality whatsoever -- but as PL commented, visiting a couple Indian Reservations would be a SUPER idea for those enamoured with how well it works to be "taken care of" by the government. For extra credit, they could visit a couple of housing projects in Chicago (IN DAYLIGHT -- preferably shortly after sunup when the locals are largely unavailable.  VA hospitals would be good (and safer) as well.



Oh, we have the case of a Catholic school talking about "two genders" being investigated as a hate crime.

When it happened at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, the school was so spooked it called the Los Angeles Police Department. Both the police and the university’s Bias Incident Response Team are investigating the stated belief that only two genders exist, male and female, as a hate crime.

Perhaps ISIS, Putin, Some "ill" from the Hermit Kingdom, or SOMEONE will just put us out of our misery. It is obvious we richly deserve it!



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Perspectives Of A Russian Immigrant (No. 14) - IBD

Perspectives Of A Russian Immigrant (No. 14) | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD:



Nice to see someone else explain "The Party" (D) once in awhile!

The social mobility of individuals pursuing their potential, which is so unique to the USA, is being replaced with three groups of citizens: those who are part of the bureaucratic machine, those who have connections to the machine and the masses. 

It is ironic that people who think that the U.S. Constitution is outdated support the vision of the Democratic Party — the party promoting government bureaucrats and desperately looking to suppress voices of the opposition.

Those that are "part of the machine" and "connected" are members of The Party -- TP!



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Perspectives of a Russian Immigrant (IBD Series 2)

A Russian Immigrant Sees U.S. Making Same Mistakes As USSR | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD: " ibdeditorials.com."

I ran into this on one of my old blog posts -- I'll likely put up a few of them at least, it looks like they may all be a good read by a woman that emigrated from the USSR in 1980.

“Authors writing about socialism need to know what socialism is. The author of this article would rather just go into a tirade about the problems in our country … and automatically jump to the conclusion the problem is socialism. Huh? What? Where is the socialism you’re talking about?”

An old Soviet joke goes as follows: “A Soviet and an America journalist argued about whose society is freer. The American declared, ‘I can stand in front of the White House and yell that our president is a fool!’ ‘Big deal,’ responded the Russian, ‘I can stand in front of Kremlin in Moscow and yell that your president is a fool too!'”

This joke is at least 40 years old. But today in the U.S., very much as it was in the USSR, a rodeo clown’s livelihood is in peril because he dared to make a joke about the president. One can measure level of socialism by the number of lives wasted, humiliated or destroyed by a centralized government that is pursuing its agenda and control.

I covered the Rodeo Clown incident a bit here.  She has an excellent list of some of the techniqes used by socialist / centralized / command and control nations. I'll bring a few here, but the whole set is worty:

• Polarizing society by dividing people into groups by ethnicity. 

• Controlling speech, enforcing political correctness and attempting to suppress opposition media.

• Intimidating opposition through Justice Department investigations of journalists, IRS intimidation of groups and individuals who oppose government policies, and information collected on citizens that becomes quite handy. 

• Controlling people by making them dependent on government for basics such as medical care, property rights and income. 

• Applying separate standards in medical and other services for government employees and acolytes vs. the rest of society.

The control spreads ... Curt Schilling losing his job is a current example.  I liked the following quote:

A prominent Soviet physicist, Lev Landau, defined the USSR’s system as “a dictatorship of bureaucrats.” It amounted to socialism, he said, “because the means of production do not belong to the people, but to bureaucrats.”

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Medicine, Coded for Disaster

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/how-government-killed-medical-profession

Pretty much all institutions, crafts, professions and pursuits go through a number of cyclical forces. At a high level we have things like centralized control vs decentralized, process vs art/craft, public / private, big factory "assembly line" sorts of approaches vs skilled craftsmen --- we could go on.

Writing computer code went from a highly individualized "art" prior to say "the 1970's" and then became an increasingly heavyweight "Design - review - Code - review - Test - review, with tracked "defects" at each phase with plenty of "metrics" to make the "Waterfall" a one shot through a supposedly constantly improving process. The process got way too heavy.

Then came the Internet and Open Source and it all blew up to free-lance "super coders" throwing source across the net with abandon  and rapid cycling new versions constantly. "Design" largely died and even "specifications". The coders took back control of software -- and it went pretty much back to being an "art" rather than a "profession".

Medicine has been both an art and very much a profession for at least hundreds if not thousands of years. It is the most personal and intimate of "personal services", with the level of trust required in your dealings with your doctor exceeding all other relationships in your life when the combination of trusting in both their care / concern / focus / wisdom / confidentiality / character AND highly skilled technical expertise as a package in a single person.

Much like religion, a government that seeks to entirely control your life cannot allow this sort of relationship to NOT be mediated by government and kept under strict control of government. The linked article gives a lot of detail of how we have slid into the hole we are now in, and how it is nearly certain to get MUCH worse.

Before long, these codes were attached to a fee schedule based upon the amount of time a medical professional had to devote to each patient, a concept perilously close to another Marxist relic: the labor theory of value. Named the Resource-Based Relative Value System (RBRVS), each procedure code was assigned a specific value, by a panel of experts, based supposedly upon the amount of time and labor it required. It didn’t matter if an operation was being performed by a renowned surgical expert—perhaps the inventor of the procedure—or by a doctor just out of residency doing the operation for the first time. They both got paid the same.

"Process" attempts to convert humans into plug compatible "parts". That was bad enough with programmers -- in which the best are able to produce 10-100x the "output" of the "average".  Measuring that output is exceedingly difficult -- "lines of code" are often used, but most assuredly "more is NOT better". As in writing, the tightest, best performing, most free of problems, easiest to understand, extendable, maintainable ... etc, etc makes programmers FAR from "plug compatible".

Doctors, having MUCH larger requirements relative to knowledge, skill, judgement, decision making, diagnostic acumen,  very personal communication / interaction, etc, etc are far far less "compatible" than programmers. I did a blog post discussing the difference between the pilots that crashed a plane in Buffalo a few years back and "Sully" Sullenberger who dead sticked an Airbus into the Hudson with no loss of life. Paying doctors "all the same" is insane  -- as is thinking that converting medicine into an "assembly line" with a bunch of "codes and process" is somehow going to "improve" it. What it does is shift power and renumeration to bureaucrats and devalues the unique skills of doctors.

So what we end up with is this:

In other words, we’re about to experience the two-tiered system that already exists in most parts of the world that provide “universal coverage.” Those who have the financial means will still be able to get prompt, courteous, personalized, state-of-the-art health care from providers who consider themselves professionals. But the majority can expect long lines, mediocre and impersonal care from shift-working providers, subtle but definite rationing, and slowly deteriorating outcomes.

The best doctors will end up in the private system, and a lot of solid doctors the next echelon down will just leave medicine because it is no longer a profession and they are professionals. What 90% of the population is increasingly left with is best described in this from Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".

“Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it—and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn’t.”

57 One Way Streets To Perdition

Thoughts from the ammo line | Power Line:

I've covered at least very nearly all of these, but the litany is important, I highly recommend reading it. As you read the following paragraph, context is important -- the ex-wife of the person BO was running against (Jack Ryan) was 7 of 9 ... Jeri Ryan. Men have done strange things when involved with even less good looking women.

In Obama’s 2004 race for the U.S. Senate – which was the springboard a mere 105 “Present” votes later for his Presidential campaign – first his primary opponent’s, then his general election opponent’s SEALED divorce records were broken into and unsealed. In one case, some extremely minor mutual push-and-shove “abuse” and, in the second, some consensual but embarrassing sexual hijinks spilled out into the world. Obama prevailed. What are the chances that someone could catch such a lucky break? Twice?

I'm with Ammo Grrril on  the basic reason that BO's records all need to be sealed.

I’ll tell you what I think: I think he got into college as a foreign student, one born in Africa and raised in Indonesia. I’m not a “birther.” I do not believe he was born in Africa. I believe he was, in fact, born in Hawaii. But I believe Obama is the original “birther”; he lied and said he was born in Africa to get into college, just as he did in the bio his booking agency used. A bio he let stand for 18 years, uncorrected. I also think the old Choom Gang slacker had mediocre grades. And I’d bet my favorite gun that every lawyer on Power Line kicked his ass on the LSAT. Prove me wrong, Barry. Let’s see the records.

The book bio factoid above is absolutely true -- but of course, nobody cares. We are on a lot of one way streets and BO is a Democrat. Nuff said! Good God, Hillary Clinton is running for for president and Mr blue stain is still around! We live in a world where well over 50% of the population is purely following the script laid down by The Party and it's media / propaganda arm.

Nothing but One-Way Streets. No wonder we’re on the road to perdition and can’t even make a U-Turn.

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