Wisdom of the Ancients

I can only marvel at the astute understanding of the very nature of human existence demonstrated by the wisdom of the ancients. Whether deemed prophet or philosopher they had a remarkable grasp of the thought process of the vast majority of the bipedal beast and its mental paradigm relative to other animals.
Their observations of animal life in general cannot be different than what we may observe today. Over time these insights have been incorporated into the lexicon of animal congregation terminology. The choice of terms in each case clearly shows an understanding of the nature of each group. A collection of apes, for instance, are referred to as a shrewdness; a group of monkeys, a troop. Each term suggests an ability to analyze a situation independently and yet act as a unit. There are packs and bands of dogs and coyotes and foxes gather as a skulk. Each canine classification intimates at their ability to act in concert as they track, surround, and subdue their prey. And, of course, my very favorite, the pride of lions as they fiercely guard their territory. Pigs and cattle are moved in droves as they are pushed, prodded, and herded unwillingly to their ultimate demise as somebody’s dinner. None of these terms were chosen to characterize man by any of the early leaders, prophets, nor Jesus Christ in particular. Instead they chose to describe mankind in general and more specifically their followers as a flock. A flock might refer to a large group of birds, one of which appears to be the leader, flying thither and yon wherever that leaders chooses to go. More frequently a flock refers to sheep as in the case of Jesus who thence positioned himself as the Shepherd. Sheep, as an animal group, are most notably known for their habit of following das Arschloch in front of them wherever it may lead. They then stand around idly while they wait their turn to be fleeced all the while babbling vociferously amongst themselves. they have not the wit to choose a leader from among their own kind. Rather, they require a shepherd lest they wander off aimlessly to become a meal for a pack, band, or pride.
As a metaphor based on a deep understanding of the human condition it is remarkably accurate. It makes the biblical point beautifully for the followers of Christ or another wise leader whether one believes such leaders are Heaven sent or otherwise intellectually endowed. There is an obvious inherent danger in relying on this principle of the “good shepherd” to bring humanity to Glory. What happens when the shepherd has ulterior motives beyond the simple guidance of his flock through life? Ancient wisdom saw this dilemma of the good or bad shepherd as the struggle of good vs. evil, Christ vs. Satan. Call it what one will; the wrong shepherd is bound to lead the flock down the road to perdition.
Would that humankind—when defending righteous convictions—functioned more often with the shrewdness of apes; the unified pack action of the canines; or, better yet, the pride of lions.

Good Grief… !

Will the madness never end?
Islamic Jihadists are swarming like cockroaches out of the ninth century in a last ditch effort to rectify the wrongs of the Crusades.
Narcissist dictators around the world strut like peacocks attempting to test our mettle.
Porous borders are leaking illegal immigrants into the country draining our welfare coffers.
California is paying its bills with IOUs—whatever that means.
The lunatic love children and latent Leninites of the 1960s and 70s have aged into positions of power at all levels of our government.
Former leaders of ADA, Weather Underground, SDS, et al. have been elected to Congress or have infiltrated our educational system at every level.
Our government is issuing Monopoly money in a vain attempt to solve economic problems decades in the making.
Propaganda is being designed to put our minds at ease and convince us that the proposed collectivist measures being undertaken are not really Socialism. It is being pumped into our homes 24/7 on full-color HDTV. A feat that would make Paul Joseph Goebbels green with envy if he could compare it to his beggarly street corner loud speakers of the 1930s.
More and more jobs are lost daily. The government is taking over industry after industry along with our banking system as we continue to increase our debt to China and India.
We pretend to to cut our dependence on foreign oil with propeller windmills and “bio-mass” fuels which are little more than burning our trash, wood, and animal dung. A practice well known to the pioneers and Native Americans as they sought dried “buffalo chips’ and sticks for fire making. Then we call that modern “green” technology. To add insult to injury we confiscate the world’s food supply to make Ethanol. This is all done, proclaims the wild-eyed Mad Woman of Shiloh in the House of Representatives, in order to “save the planet”.
But, what do the mainstream media’s mental mastodons focus on incessantly for days into weeks on end? The death of a pathetic black kid, warped and distorted throughout his childhood; the “King of Poop… Poop, Poop, Ee Doop”. His mentally disturbed antics placed him in the public eye and made him millions. He was applauded by and surrounded with xenophiles who encouraged him without negative counsel for fear of killing the “Golden Goose”. They stood by and watched as a handsome black man converted himself through the miracle of modern plastic surgery into an ugly white woman. They did nothing as he slipped ever deeper into killer addictions. Now they’re fawning all over him with hand wringing and crocodile tears and the whole world joins in.
Where are our priorities? Where is common sense? Where is the fear of the real dangers rampant around the globe? Talk about bread and circuses! I’m thinking the first fiddle in the “King’s” requiem will be named Nero.

AN OPEN LETTER TO BARNEY FRANK

Homophobe?! HOMOPHOBE!? You have the temerity to call a judge of the Supreme Court a homophobe? You ignorant, arrogant pervert! Your kind is not “feared”. They are despised and detested.
Your kind has perverted their own sexuality and attempted to pass it off as an alternative lifestyle.
They have perverted our language by calling themselves “gay” which seems rarely the case.
They have perverted our sense of decency by promoting their cause cavorting in lewd street demonstrations.
They have perverted the development of our youth by promoting their foolishness in our classrooms under the guise of tolerance and diversity.
They have perverted our right to freedom of speech by creating something called “hate speech”. Yet we must accept all manner of profanity and filth as constitutional.
They now attempt to pervert the sanctity of marriage, the very backbone of our culture. The family system of a man, a woman, and children upon which our culture was built, has grown, and has thrived since the Dark Age.
And you…, you were instrumental in the perversion of our rational system of lending money only to those with a reasonable expectation they have the ability to pay it back. This on the pretext everyone is “entitled” to a home. Now you grandiosely cast aspersions everywhere but upon yourself. Like the farter in the elevator who immediately shifts their eyes accusingly on those standing nearby.
It is not a phobia that motivates attempts to preserve the culture which built the world in which we have been privileged to live. It is anger. Anger over the destructive forces of perversity rampant in the land. Perversity perpetuated through tolerance of the irrational. Perversity through political correctness, moral equivalency, and so-called diversity.
If, indeed, homosexuality is denigrated and loathed it is because of what it has slowly and steadily foist upon our culture. I would counsel you, sir, to pray, and pray hard, that the Muslim world is unable to achieve their avowed objective of world domination. As so curiously observed by Achmedinijad; there are no homosexuals in Iran.

IS “CONSERVATIVE-ACTIVIST” AN OXYMORON ?

A friend of mine recently lamented on the “Last of the Righteous” (“Letzte der Gerechte”); I have been giving it considerable thought since his email. Putting aside for the moment the more obvious reasons for the seeming demise of conservative thinking such as so-called “political correctness” and a clumsy if not inept Republican administration; I am concerned as to what actions or non-actions have contributed to this phenomenon. And, what actions, if any, could be taken to reverse the situation.

A study of the objectives, strategies, and tactics of the liberal movement indicates their objectives are as clear today as they were at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. At that time the proletariat—no doubt still smarting from their serfdom in the feudal system—had their cause taken up by lazy intellectuals like Karl Marx, et al. ( I am reminded of the comment attributed to Reich Marshall Göering: “When I hear the word ‘intellectual’, I reach for my revolver”.) Marx, neither a member of the elite nor willing to put his shoulder to the wheel as a worker, lived off the largesse of friends and mentors while he stirred up trouble among the working classes. He spent his life beating the tattoo of how “unfair” was the system which permitted the success of those with ideas for products and methods to provide goods and needed services to growing markets. The laboring class was with rare exception bereft of the wit to pour piss out of a boot even though the instructions were printed on the heel.

The Marxist objective was and is the redistribution of wealth according to the precepts of those intellectuals who thereby gain their power from a grateful proletariat. Little if anything has changed today. The ne’er-do-wells, nitwits, and knot-heads still covet that which others have achieved through hard work and thoughtful actions. Leftists of today busy themselves seeking out that which appears to be inequitable—ergo, “unfair”. They deny or refuse to recognize the difference between opportunity and entitlement. Thus the collectivist objective remains consistent and the working class numbskulls remain the pawns in the ongoing economic chess game.

The tactics, however, shift and change as strategic expedience dictates. It vacillates between obstructionism/violence and subterfuge/chicanery depending upon the strategy of the moment. When confrontational activism through strikes, civil disobedience, and violence ceases to be effective the strategy is changed to a more subversive/passive form. Following Chicago’s 1886 Haymarket Riot, realizing the dangers and downside of civil disobedience as a strategy, the decision was made by the radical elements involved to subvert the educational system instilling into the mush-filled heads of our youth the essential “unfairness” of the Capitalist system. A more recent example of this strategic shift is seen with the former Weatherman Underground “terrorist”, William Ayers. Why are we all surprised that after his failed attempts to overthrow our system through violence he disappears only to emerge on the scene 40 years later as an “educator”? And, where else  but the University of Chicago, a veritable hotbed of radical thinking? We have just elected to the Presidency one of his cohorts. Much has been made of Obama’s bad judgment in the choice of his associates—terrorists, radical preachers, and unsavory real estate con men, among others. This misses the point. If he had an equal number of associates who were not of this ilk it might present a different picture. He might be forgiven for his naivtè. But, this is not the case. It seems that all of his early associations are at best questionable. One must presume they all had, at the very least, shared objectives. By his own off-hand remark to “Joe the Plumber” caught on videotape, Obama is focused on redistribution of wealth with the objective of making things “fair”.

He achieved this position through empty rhetoric—utilizing oratory skills unheard in recent times. Whatever one may say in defense of George W. Bush’s skills; oratory would not be numbered among them. Thus if Obama’s objective is, as it would appear from his early associations, that of a collectivist society; then he will have achieved his activist goal through passive means. That is, by oratory, persuasion, and obfuscation of his true objective.

Conversely, an individualist/conservative society, one which functions on individual agency and a free market capitalist system, stands or falls on its merits. If you develop and well manage a product or service that people want—you win. If you create something nobody wants or don’t know how to manage the process—you lose. Everybody, including the government, minds their own business. Those less fortunate in intelligence, acumen, or physical capacity are dealt with through the charity of those who have managed to succeed and wish to share that success with others out of gratitude for their own good fortune. It is a free will culture where everyone must wisely administer their agency. It is essentially a passive process which does not readily lend itself to activist methodologies.

How does one impose on others the imperative necessity to exercise their free will? It would appear therefore it is possible to achieve activist objectives through passive means. Paradoxically, it is difficult if not impossible to achieve passive objectives through activist means. In short; how does one impose a conservative point of view upon the electorate in a manner like unto that which radical liberals are able to impose theirs? What manner of civil disobedience would be required to force the adversary to take responsibility for their own actions and sustenance? I have a hard time visualizing an activist conservative mob carrying placards reading: “Think for Yourself!”  “Hard Times Mean Hard Work!”  “There’s No Free Lunch!”  “Take Charge of Your Life!”           …“God Bless America!”

How are we so hoodwinked?

It is imperative that every thinking person be aware of what is and has long been transpiring in our country. We are being scammed from every direction; the so-called news media, advertising, Hollywood numb sculls, and any and all who distort facts and warp the information we receive to promote their objectives. They do it through the misuse of linguistics. Having spent over sixty years in advertising and marketing, I am reminded of a technique which often came into play when promoting a product of dubious purpose or value. If we didn’t have a real story to tell, we could always; “baffle ‘em with BS, and dazzle ‘em with opticals.” It is one thing to sell a cheesy dust mop or a Ginsu knife knockoff; it’s another thing altogether to sell a political agenda through spurious methods.

General Semantics, it would appear, is a discipline better suited to esoteric philosophy and mathematics than to a system for communicating with a populace speaking in sentences liberally interspersed with “like”. “Like Dude, it’s hard to, like, imagine they could, like, understand, like, the whole, like, concept of, uhhh like, time-binding uh, totally, like whatever.” General Semantics’ creator and early adherents; Alfred Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa and others, in their attempts to give us the tools and the understanding of language and how it affects us emotionally have instead generated a nightmare of misuse of their information and theories. What has occurred is akin to giving six year old boys guns and live ammunition with which to play “cops and robbers”. Sooner or later it will come to a bad end. Our whole concept of reality is being turned upside down as politicians and social activists use the theory of Non-Aristotelian logic to twist language and the meanings of words. They do it to alter the way we understand and feel about the world around us. Politicians and activists of all stripes have taken the theories and perverted them to advance their various agendas. They have replaced common sense, which General Semantics holds to be irrelevant, with what amounts to total nonsense. We end up with triangulation, moral relevance, and a denial of soul and Spirit. The theory maintains “the map is not the territory”. That idea has been inverted and is used in the rhetoric directed at the uninitiated and poorly educated proletarian public precisely because they perceive things in just that manner—the word is the reality. Thus by renaming “welfare programs” and calling them “entitlement programs” what was originally conceived as a charitable effort ceases to be community largesse and becomes a “human right”—whatever territory for which that phrase is a map. It is all a sign of the beginning of the end of the life and culture we have known and loved. (cf. Isaiah 5:20–21)

Minds and emotions are continually manipulated for the purpose of obtaining tacit agreement to concepts barely understood. I have spoken often of what I call the “hamburger hoax”; showing a beautifully staged photo of a hamburger and then presenting something which in no way resembles the photo on the menu board. Somehow we find that acceptable. Too many are then distracted from the resulting fallacious images and ideas by gulping down the placating pap that comes through the TV in the form of sports events, reality shows, and the likes of “American Gladiator” and “Wipeout”. If the perpetrators cannot find a way to repurpose the words or their meanings, they simply undertake to remove them completely from our lexicon. We all stand by as religious symbols and ideals are removed from the public view by the secularists who prattle on about the separation of church and state while pretending their beliefs and ideals are not a religion. How long will it be before the emerging socialist government we are allowing to overtake our country decides on a “final solution” for Christians, as did an earlier socialist regime obsessed with negative feelings for the Jews? Will they then build a Colosseum and unleash the lions for the public amusement on NPR’s “This American Life” and title the program “Our Roman Heritage”?

Memorial Day; it’s not about Johnsonville brats.

God has blessed America in that there are still enough of the right kind of men… and women… around to do the job necessary to protect all that has been achieved by the sacrifices of so many to whom we pay homage today. Now if only it were possible to rid the nation of all those who don’t seem to fully appreciate what we have here—that would truly be a great blessing.

My mother had an expression she used a lot when I was a kid. “If you give people enough rope, they’ll eventually hang themselves.” It was sort of a corollary to something Goethe wrote: “Sometimes not getting what you want is preferable to getting what you want.” Or words to that effect. Those leaders with the wisdom and understanding who do know what is going on along with these brave young men and women not only must deal with our external enemies, but also the enemies within. They seem to have been barely able to keep those internal antagonists in check just enough to allow all the arrogant and misguided liberals to have sufficient freedom of speech to continue the carping rhetoric along with the pipe dream of their Utopian agenda.

My point is this. There are times when I think the only way for the liberal ignoramuses to learn a lesson is to give them what they want. Pull the troops out of everywhere. We might with equal wisdom cease sending our resources all around the globe trying to help the ungrateful masses who seem only to resent us as a result. Then we’d see how they dealt with the ensuing mayhem. It would be interesting to observe how fast they changed their demonstration signs from: “Bring our troops home…” to “The government isn’t doing enough to protect us!”.

For those of us old enough to really remember the buildup to WWII, we clearly recall the pacifists, anti war isolationists, the America First Committee, et alii, who kept the government’s hands so tied on any kind of preparedness that our soldiers were training with wooden guns while the smug French placed their confidence in the infamous Maginot Line. The public, more worried about from whence their next meal was coming, bought into the propaganda spread by the Father Coughlins and the German-American Bunds. It took Pearl Harbor to wake them up. Back then, however, they finally got the picture and rose to the occasion with a true understanding of what was at stake. Nearly everyone then loved and appreciated America and believed in the idea of Duty, Honor, Country. I am not at all certain that would happen today with way too many Americans.

It is sad to me that the crop of nitwits I see currently running for Congress, and even some for President, are out there promising people things they can in no way deliver. They are neither kings nor dictators. They apparently have no clue as to what is really transpiring and the voting public is even more in the dark. The real tragedy for those whose sacrifice we honor today is not that families gather to enjoy a backyard barbecue; but rather that we are slipping dangerously close to losing that for which those brave men and women gave their last measure of devotion, even their very lives.

Corruption of our educational system

Having just read a disturbing post by Askmom regarding the teaching of her daughters hygiene class, now corrupted to a sex education class; I am moved to post an excerpt from a full length rant on which I am working. This rant I have chosen to name, “The View at 80”. A perspective from which one has a better vision of what has transpired to get our nation and our culture to the point at which it appears to have arrived. It is a point not unlike that at which Rome found itself in its latter days. The problem begins well before the Civil War even unto the days of the Industrial Revolution. Many aspects of our current situation are but collateral damage in the war between the burgeoning working class and industrial capitalism. To reverse the process, or even to stop it is akin to the Hindu Zealots attempting to stop a Juggernaut. It is virtually impossible. In the attempt they will be crushed into martyrdom. Excerpt follows:

…by 1950, while everyone was busy raising families and enjoying the fruits of a lifestyle and culture their fathers never knew. In 1965, 100 years after the spread of the teachings of Marx and Engels, a festering pustule broke open on an unsuspecting society which by now is embroiled in Viet Nam on a desperate attempt to stem the tide of socialism/communism from the outside not realizing radical left-wing ideologies had been growing and putrefying in our colleges and universities over the past century. Our response was talk of tolerance, understanding, and political correctness. The result—a thousand political activists, all products of our institutions of “higher learning” which had been infiltrated over the ensuing years. [by collectivist followers of Marx and Engel, et alii. ] Institutions now disgorging by the thousands; activist lawyers (neo Lysander Spooners), pseudoscientific environmentalists (neo-Thoreaus), free love feminists (neo-Virginia Woodhulls), left-wing journalists (neo-Benjamin Tuckers), and homosexual any of the above (neo-Walt Whitmans). The enemy is among us, they look, talk, and act like us because they are us. Years of conditioning by advertising psychology has dulled our ability to question anything we see or hear in the media which has expanded to literally everywhere. Product ads on our clothes; fashions set by the lowest common denominator of taste all because it sells. We are treated to every kind of sleaze under the banner of free speech. Rock and Roll, Heavy Metal non-music, or worse yet, “gangster rap” fills the airwaves. If it is on TV, in a magazine or newspaper—wherever, we believe it’s true without a question. It sounds like nonsense when one points out that the hamburger just removed from the foil steam-wrapper looks nothing at all like the picture on the menu board. Nobody challenges it and it really doesn’t matter if they are that gullible. But—and herein lies the problem—the same attitude obtains as they listen to the political rhetoric or to some Hollywood celebrity promoting a half-baked, bleeding heart cause. For all our talk of freedom of speech we’ve become delusional with all the Politically Correct bunkum and balderdash. And, it may well be our undoing. All manner of obscenity is foist upon the public, but vehement criticism of it is deemed hate speech and thereby forbidden by law. So much for freedom of expression if it goes against the secular agenda… .

One must wonder exactly what the “feminist movement” has accomplished for the betterment of women and the American family—the very cornerstone of American culture.