Party of Hate

“Doctors” learn this procedure from one another to become “good” at it.

The battle over a “border wall” on the southern, Mexican border is a symptom of larger and more significant hatreds motivating a large minority of American residents.  One hopes, and prays, that those same will step back and reconsider their desire to feed such ugly motivations.  Led by Democrat leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer, Barack Obama and now, Andrew Cuomo, and many others, these new political haters appear to share several common traits:

  • They hate the Constitution as it was designed and written.  The intent of the founders cannot be accepted, in their views, because some of them owned slaves, a grievous custom, without question, but totally irrelevant to the ideas and philosophies they espoused.  In fact, the designers and compilers of the American ideas were ALL opposed to slavery and did their best to help it phase out of American life.  Read Frederick Douglass; he understood.
  • They are deeply ignorant of American and of European history, and of the Bible, itself.  The underpinnings of American culture are ignored by them, even reviled.
  • The institutions of government are trusted by them more than any individual’s motivation, and the seeming ability to legislate or regulate – doesn’t much matter – people to act as their fellow thinkers wish, is so tantalizing as to distort the presence or even the perception of liberty.
  • They view America’s existence as an affront to all non-white, non-European people, and therefore not deserving of defense, even of its borders, and that the history of America should be erased from people’s minds and certainly from educational systems so that America’s evilness and corruption can never again interfere with universal sharing of all wealth or with individual freedoms to play, fornicate and indulge as Gaia intended, under the careful watch of the Smarter Ones.  They’ll identify themselves.

So, politics is not the actions of a free people to choose their leaders and governing philosophies; it is the benign control of wages, prices and production so that everyone is EQUAL, with brownish people being more equal than white people.  Skills-based education will no longer be required for most students, so long as there are enough very smart people who should be compensated for making everyone else comfortable.

The quaint chaos of individuality and “freedom” can be avoided.

The majesty of American citizenship is unique in the world.  There is no system like ours.  Anyone… anyone, anyone who can honestly swear to uphold the Constitution, obey civic law, pay his or her bills and act responsibly, can become an American – an actual, living, breathing, American.  One wishes those born here were held to the same standards, but still, it’s impossible to sign up for a French residency and ever, ever become, well, French.  The same is true for Japan, China, Japan, Korea, or India or virtually any ethnically defined  country.  You might get to live in other countries legally, but you’ll never become one of them.  America, including Canada, is different.  America is defined by the ideas that formed her, and by geography.  That’s it.  No matter how hard racists of every shade attempt to say America is defined by white skin, it has never been so.

This is not to say there haven’t been some terrible ideas held by “Whites.”  There are terrible ideas held by every race.  The tendencies to gain power or wealth or women by whatever means can be devised, legality and justice be damned, is pretty much universal.  The religious / ethical belief structures that lead us to contain those desires, to channel them for greater goods, to construct families that produce good adults from the children they are responsible for… those we are tearing down by every means possible, even through new laws that give status to the most twisted perversions and hatreds.

Hatred of America is readily evidenced by laws – LAWS – that permit partial-birth “abortion” and even infanticide for the most temporal purposes, even convenience.  Since Roe v. Wade was given Supreme Court justification, we have killed-off 61 million Americans while importing 30 million non-Americans to “pay for our Social Security.”  The trouble with Americans is they might become infected with individuality, Constitutionalism, responsibility and freedom!  So, we destroy those who might make America stronger and import, illegally, those more likely to be dependent upon the whims and pleasures of the Smarter Ones, made widely known by their widely parroted self-declarations.

Trump, for all his flaws and imperfections, is trying, almost alone, to restore the mighty engines of freedom.  If we are waiting for perfect, flawless  leaders to arrive before we follow them away from rot and debauchery, we’ll wait forever while the last great hope of mankind is pissed away.

Free Repress

I had a short sit-down with a most charming and intelligent lady recently – very Prudent in my judgment.  We agreed on nearly everything concerning her professional expertise and shared each other’s reminiscences from too many decades.  At a couple of points she had alluded to being “very liberal” without it influencing our discussions, while describing how her work improved individual  performance for business leaders and managers.  At that Prudence suggested that she probably is not as liberal as she thinks.  We never did get into either of our social views, but before parting it became very clear that conservative news sources could never be trusted while “liberal” ones always could.

In the end I opined that I wasn’t sure that President Obama was a natural born American, that his released birth certificate was forged in some way and that he was the only person in his administration who ever claimed he was born in Kenya, and I cited a statement on a “book jacket.”  She was able to name everyone related to or near the president in any way as scurrilous in the light of “more than 30 indictments,” for Heaven’s sake.  I suggested that they weren’t connected to Russian involvement with Trump and she listed a couple where people had been working for Turkey (Flynn) who later lied about meeting a Russian, and Paul Manafort, of course.

I was wrong about the “book jacket” reference: the claim was made by Obama’s literary agency in a booklet it used to promote books to large buyers, but Obama, himself, never challenged it until a couple months after declaring himself in the running for the Democrat nomination.  The literary agent lady claimed it was her personal mistake and that Obama himself had never told her personally that he was born in Kenya.  She probably derived the “belief” in his place of birth from the information in the Harvard Law School yearbook that listed the very same Barack Hussein Obama as having come from Kenya.  The very same Obama hadn’t challenged that, either, after having certainly seen it, he being the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review, after all.  So there is some validity to Prudence’ having formed a belief about his Kenyan origins.  Harvard, of course, “corrected” the yearbook entry after the controversy became news in 2007.  Lots of mistakes connected to one little-known individual’s demographics.

The idea of Obama’s grandmother, in Kenya, having been present at his birth, there, however, is not substantiated.  One of Obama’s half-brothers, among others, tried to float a fraudulent claim about a Kenyan birth certificate, which muddied the waters even more.

To the lady’s credit, despite rattling off every “Trump” negative possible in a very brief couple of sentences, there are many questions about Trump’s associates, himself, and even about his relatives – but it seems Prudent to await some sort of proof of the many embellishments certain media layer on to every indictment that has emitted from the Mueller operations.

Prudence would indicate that most of those who voted for Donald Trump don’t like him, particularly.  (See http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2017/11/29/trumpism-is-a-ghost/)  Many obviously do, imputing to him the persona of “one of the guys” even though he doesn’t drink or smoke.  They like the way he says what he thinks, even without the politically correct filtering.  Those who don’t “like” him also appreciate his willingness to throw out his opinions and willingness to call people out for their bad acts, lies and falsities of various sorts.  It doesn’t help that he is reckless in many of his statements to the point of stating his own falsities, but in most cases it doesn’t sound like “lies,” in the sense of malicious mendacity.  Opinions vary.  Still, a majority of states wanted the degree of change Trump would bring, regardless of his “baggage.”  Prudence agrees.

It is obvious, Prudence would indicate, that the creation of Fox News dramatically altered the “news” business, perhaps on a par with the creation of CNN.  The challenge to the amorphous leftism of, first, broadcast networks and then cable networks, caused those outlets to sharpen their stances and to attack “right wing news.”  With so few right-leaning networks, right-leaning politicians have naturally hewn closer to Fox and a handful of independent “blog,” YouTube and “Podcast” sources for “alternative” news and opinion… and confirmation.

CNN and others turned to spend more and more time and content in sharply partisan “reporting.”  The news business is now not just corrupt, it is failing its vital role, guaranteed to it in the First Amendment.  Government types are delighted to be allied with the “press.”  It removes all that “truthiness” pressure.

However, the slippery immersion into partisan defense by most media, is not only destructive of our separation of powers, but an abject disregard… a besmirching of the role of a free press – not “free” to pander but free to be honest, something journalists in many countries die for.  Of all the ills America suffers today, the loss of an honest, free press may be the worst.  For shame, and shame upon the magnates and business titans who own various outlets of partisan claptrap.  Who is watching the watchers?

The biggest watchers, today, are the largest cyber-media monsters: Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others.  In the span of fifteen years, virtually everyone who utilizes the internet for communication or information, has adapted to obtaining both through one of these companies.  It is the most rapid transformation of human interaction… and most rapid concentration of power – power over human knowledge – in all of history.  Only now is the danger and threat of this concentration being recognized.

-Google, in particular, is succeeding at convincing schools to forego books and other paper media for everything from studies, assignments, homework and testing.  Kids who spend excessive hours on screens for games, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and Snapchat, have been shepherded onto screens for even more hours per day!  Worse, they are being taught from the youngest possible ages that truth may be found on a Google screen.  Except that, now we learn that Google has a very specific view of what truths are find-able on those very screens.  Can democracy survive this evil filtering of facts?

Indeed, not even Constitutional republicanism can withstand it.  Have we the necessary vision and courage to reverse this extra-constitutional threat?

The Fibers of failure

Things just aren’t the same, anymore… have you noticed?  On the other hand, it’s not Prudent to say they ever were – the same I mean.  Strong societies like the United States, remain strong because some things are the same, in fact; to protect ourselves, our grandchildren and their grandchildren, the strong fibers in our culture must be defended and inculcated in our children as well as in ourselves.  There are too many who should understand their presence and purpose but appear ignorant of them.

One such fiber is our Constitution.  Conservatives revere it; leftists unceasingly circumvent it.  Since its adoption the Constitution has held strong, but has no effect on national direction when governance simply steps into the shadows and ignores it.  Most of that determined ignorance includes big tax-funded payoffs to politically significant segments of the citizenry, cementing the synthesis, into the new thesis  that the Constitutional limitation on this or that governing act actually could be interpreted in a different (socialistic) way.  Later there is always the new antithesis  that, couched in terms of “equal protection under the law” and “non-discrimination,” must, “constitutionally” be applied to still more segments until there’s a permanent acceptance of that much socialism by the very conservatives who believe they are defending the Constitution!  It’s a strong, inelastic fiber that’s been stretched, nevertheless, over the past 150 years.

Conservatives believe that pulling back from the severe strains on the Constitutional fiber, is the only long-term solution to the survival of the American idea.

Religion, churches (church-communities) and religious education form a fiber that is perceived as “quaint” by the leftist elements on the East and West coasts and urban pockets in between.  Anti-religion is strong on college campuses, as it is in public grade and high schools.  Being at least agnostic, if not atheistic, is worn as a badge of intellectual status, certainly since the 1960’s;  those still attending are being taught that the Bible and the words of Jesus somehow fit socialism.  In response, churches are failing to define the difference between worldly comforts and holy purposes of life.  Government, under a Constitutional guarantee of non-interference in and by religion itself, has proven feckless and works harder to divest itself of moral responsibility at every level.  This “fiber” is threadbare and undependable.

Family cohesiveness is the core strength of any society.  In no culture has the strength and identity of mores and traditions been separated from widespread, if not complete, adherence to the family “pattern,” until the degradation of “Western,” culture, now entering its seventh decade.  It is quickly becoming America’s greatest weakness and we have repeatedly elected representatives who facilitate it with misguided welfare programs.  Without succeeding generations of “America”-acculturated citizens, there will be no “nation” and worse, there will be no one to defend it.  Electronics and computerized health-care are not substitutes for strong, morally straight families, for only they form the “fiber” of freedom and self-government enabled through the Constitution.

Public education is the second greatest acculturation mechanism and process we have.  By default public schools and teachers are charged with the responsibility to educate succeeding members of our society and culture: new “Americans,” in truth.  Since the 1970’s, certainly, teachers and their unions have cemented themselves into codified bailiwicks where they can teach almost anything without fear of being fired, while rewarding those elected “representatives” who protect their “bailiwicks,” with solid political support.  Unthinking – or lightly thinking – citizens vote for said “representatives” and vote further to “support” public education with tax increases and overrides to prove their great morality in defense of an American tradition.  Meanwhile, “teachers” are increasingly producing less-literate graduates who distrust, if not hate, the United States and the true traditions of sacrifice, thrift, personal responsibility and Judeo-Christianity, while embracing socialism, of all things the most antithetical to American success and strength.  As a culture we are failing miserably to make the fabric of our nation stronger, and we grin as we reward those who facilitate our internal weakness.  This “fiber” is now almost invisible, maintained mostly in private, church-connected schools, and not all of those.

Finance and wealth creation have been, and should be, strong fibers in the fabric of industrialized societies, of which the United States is one, like it or not.  Both are tightly connected to honesty in our legal structures, honesty in our contracts, honesty in our “money,” fair debt creation and destruction, and private property.  In short, the economics of the Bible, both old and new testaments, like it or not.  Proto-socialists rail against “unfair” wealth “distribution.”  They are simultaneously right and wrong.  Wealth is not “distributable,” per se, and “fairness” is irrelevant, but the accumulation and possession of “wealth,” is certainly uneven, leading to strong feelings of envy and raw hatred of the “greedy.”  These feelings are political minefields and rich fodder for politicians whose beliefs are fundamentally anti-American… or anti-family: same thing.  But back to “money”:

  • Financially, the federal government is a failure, unable to maintain its own household within a budget and even to create an honest budget through anything close to honest legislation.  Because the Congress can, and the U. S. is in a global position to enable it, the federal government borrows more than it can (ever) repay, every fiscal year.  Despite these well-known facts of financial incompetence, American voters continue to elect “representatives” who believe – and require by legislation – that more and more of every American’s personal financial security should depend upon or be in the hands of, the federal government.  This “fiber” is a misconstrual of the “strings” that federal intrusion always includes – strings that could strangle us.
  • Debt is a tool of growth, investment, liquidity, defense, achievement, construction, infrastructure, public health and more, much more.  Yet it is also a weapon, threatening and weakening whole nations, indeed, every nation.  Instead of leading the world economically, proving the superiority of free enterprise and freedom itself, the United States has succumbed to banking globalism and to the blandishments of socialism, under which “investments” are made in daily necessities for large fractions of our population.  Economically there is no “R.O.I” – return on investment – where debt is incurred in the furthering of dependency.  The U. S. carries a “current” debt liability that is approaching annual G.D.P.  Our productivity cannot generate sufficient surplus to even “service” that debt (pay the interest on it) without borrowing other debt to do so, given the nature of our entitlement budget and bloated pension commitments.  Weapon-wise, debt allows international banking to FORCE the U. S. to borrow to meet its commitments for interest payments.  Every dollar of debt is a dollar of weakness, not strength; of obligation, not freedom.  Our “representatives” are doing this type of budgeting “for” us since it’s too complicated for us to understand.
  • Money is real.  That is, “money” has intrinsic value: gold, silver, platinum or other “hard” currencies, or the notes that stand for a set value of real money so long as those notes may be traded for real money on demand.  We don’t have “money” any longer, although we have currency that we are still willing to work for, sell for, buy with and “save up” for those rainy days.  Written on the notes in our pockets are official dictates that this or that piece of paper shall be accepted as “legal tender” in all transactions, public or private.  Someone famous and/or important has his or her name printed nearby affirming the quality of the banknotes we hold.  They are no longer U. S. Notes, they are Federal Reserve Notes, a private bank with a public name.  Instead of having the U. S. Mint simply print U. S. Notes when we need more liquidity in the economy, we incur a debt to the Federal Reserve bank, and others, including foreign countries – debts we have no hope of repaying in principal, while our obligation to “service” those debts is unending.  The government prints U. S. Bonds, however, which are accepted as good instruments for the loans their purchasers are making to the United States.  The question, is, therefore, if the bonds are good, why not skip the growing interest cost and just print our own money?  Hmmmnnnhh.
  • So, our money is not honest.  It is, instead, merely confidence notes that we and most of the world, accept.  Federal Reserve Notes may be exchanged at any so-called bank only for other Federal Reserve Notes… not for gold or silver or anything of intrinsic value except, if inclined, for modern pennies, the content of which cost more than 1 cent.  Melting them down for the intrinsic metal value is a crime, of course.  More and more we exchange our “cash” for magnetic bubbles on a hard drive, trusting the federally regulated “bank” to protect the record so that we may access it at gasoline pumps, hardware stores and websites that will trade books and electronic gizmos for a share of those magnetic records.  We are now a couple of layers of separation from real-value-money and yet fully confident that “our” money is both safe and safely “ours.”
  • Our entire economy is based on, and priced on, debts and interest.  Think about it.  Our rush to “cashless” commerce carries a very high price, whether one makes use of credit cards or not.  First, the merchant/ restaurateur who accepts your card, must pay the transfer or remitting agent a fee for that privilege – a fee based on a percentage of the transaction amount, including taxes.  This may be 1.5%, 2%, 3% and occasionally more depending on total flow of “credit” transactions for that single location or for the total transactions for a chain of locations.  Many card-holders use “Rewards” cards to obtain fractional cash-back or “miles” or other goodies marketed as though free, simply as a thank-you for using the card.  In reality those “rewards” raise the fees to the vendor/merchant for the privilege of accepting the card.  Those costs are recouped entirely from the cost of goods sold – there is no free lunch.  Later, the card-holder receives a bill from the “credit-card company” (bank) for all the stupid latte’s, Big Macs and smoothies he or she has enjoyed during the month preceding.  Smart card-holders pay that bill in total the minute they receive it, but a large and growing percentage do not, allowing some of the balance to carry over to the next billing cycle, incurring upwards of 20% or more interest!  Some even pay only the minimum suggested to keep the collection process at bay – this figure leads to maximization of the total interest the cardholder will eventually pay to the bank that has, in effect, loaned  him or her enough money to buy lunch… or gas… or movie tickets… or even subway rides.  As above, so below, when it comes to debt-consciousness.  In effect then, our entire retail economy and large segments of wholesale purchases carries a “vig” of 2% or more on average; that is, 2%, say, on about $6 Trillion in retail sales and 25% or more than that in wholesale/raw-materials sales.  The interest cost on costs of goods, is approaching $200 Billion.  Where does that money go, one wonders? We’re all paying for it.

The once-strong thread of thrift and sacrifice has disappeared, leaving all of us – and our supposedly “rich” nation, indebted for life, our children’s lives, their children’s lives and the lives of further generations than they.  What an inheritance.

Suffice to say that our nation is adrift.  One political party/movement: liberal, progressive, socialist, Democrat, is prostrating itself before the twin altars of unrestricted abortion and legalizing drugs and other crimes, and the altar of outsiders: non-citizens unwilling to provide for themselves or to follow our most basic national laws.  The other is tripping over its shoelaces trying to remain relevant to media that share the liberal, progressive, socialist, Democrat viewpoints – and philosophies – while trying to overcome 60 years of feckless education (also liberal, progressive, socialist, Democrat-leaning) that has separated 3 generations of Americans from their history, heritage and founding majesty.

Politicizing, even codifying, every feeling and hatred, has not rendered ours a happier or more cohesive society.  Indeed, it is not even “fairer.”  Politics that channels hatreds requires the aggravation of envy and jealousy; it requires the accentuation of differences between groups rather than between individuals.  So-called “identity politics” leads to identifying each group’s enemies and resisting, if not attacking them.  Civility as a tool for nation-building is not simply unemployed, it is mocked.

When differences between individuals is dealt with – usually in small, civil steps – what usually develops is an understanding of how much more similar  they/we are, than different.  Individuals don’t usually hurl epithets at unrelated, unconnected individuals, it takes a mob mentality to do so, and then it is done in order to or because of some perceived membership in a mob-hated group.  Civility, and civilization itself, takes work, commonality, leadership, both individual and social.  A Constitutional Republic like the United States is based on individual, not group responsibility; it is based on self-control and individual responsibility, not group control or group responsibility.  Keep this distinction in mind.  One need not be Christian to appreciate that the New Testament was a covenant with individuals and not with tribes or peoples.  Ours is a “Christian” nation in that our Constitution enables individual success and failure, and individual responsibility to one’s community, family and self for the consequences of one’s actions… and, perhaps, to God.

Here We Are

It is just a few days until Christmas and I’m driving with great Prudence, yet still able to observe the full moon in its apparently circular beauty, yellow-orange and huge.  Flying across its face are dark gray clouds.  There still being some waning daylight, the clouds seem darker than they really are, making the moon’s reflected light seem friendlier than ever, and it made us think about it all.

Some astronomers are faithful to some view of God or an Intelligence behind the design of the “Universe” of which we are aware.  Some are faithful only to mathematics and physical laws… of which we are aware.  All, however, are evidently in agreement about matters of life on earth, and our so-far unique circumstances that allow for the benign environment life has enjoyed for millions of years.  And, it has a lot to do with the Moon.

Along with earth’s distance from the right sort of star, it is blessed with a “satellite” moon that is large enough (about ¼ of earth’s diameter) and massive enough (about 2% of earth’s, gigantic among known “moons”) to not only generate significant tides but to form, in effect, a binary planet system.  By some manner, the formation of the Moon caused a tilt to earth’s axis resulting in seasons as we whirl about the Sun each year.  Our friendly moon also has protected us from objects too numerous to count that hit her instead of earth.

Earth also was formed from the right kind of rocky, metal-laden bits and pieces – the remains of stars that died billions of years ago – such that our core is a molten mix of iron and several radioactive elements that both maintain heat and convection and which happily generate a strong magnetic field that, fortunately, protects us from the worst of our right-sort-of-star’s radiation, allowing mutation to occur not so frequently that already living things could not take advantage of them over generations of evolution.  All in all, cool.

Amidst all of this rare good fortune – so rare in conjunction that its calculation of probability needs more zeroes to the right of its decimal point than this page could hold – somehow evolution produced humans who became abruptly smarter a couple hundred thousand years ago, including the ability to worship, the only truly exclusive ability amongst all the higher orders of fauna.

True agnostics, among whom all honest scientists should reside, are able to consider the possibility  that there is Intelligent Design given the quantity of evidence for it; atheists, on the other hand, are committed to denial in the face of evidence, mainly out of fear that there might be a “God,” so-called, and they seriously don’t want that to be true.  Skeptics, though, want to argue every tiny point about “Intelligent Design” or any other name for God, since they can’t see it, touch it, taste it or hear it, and lacking tangible proof prefer to remain on the sidelines, watching the game.  Besides, if there were such an all-powerful Being, wouldn’t He make Himself known?

The answer to that question is, of course, yes, He would… and here we are.

Humans tend to assume that if there is something to be learned that we can learn it – something to be known, we can know it.  On Earth we know a great deal but very little beyond.  Without experience to fill out our observations, we remain quite ignorant and reduced to speculation, which we are very good at.  Currently the hot speculation is about “life” on other planets in other solar systems in “our” galaxy and, naturally, in others.  Telescopes of various kinds reveal that most stars have planets and we can observe basic parameters of some of them.  Automatically we can speculate, estimate by orders of magnitude, that there are billions and billions of planets… surely some are enough like Earth to have sentient life, both more advanced and less advanced than we are.

Is it reasonable that “God” or the “Intelligent Designer” of the universe has devoted some care and attention to them, also?  Do they have souls?  Can they go to “Heaven” when they die?  In the 1950’s Prudence’ close, close friend read a science-fiction story about humans – probably Americans – who had abandoned their original starship mission in an attempt to arrive at an inhabited planet while “Jesus” was still there, just missing him more than once.  The title and author escape us but it may have been Heinlein, Poul Anderson or some other science fiction artist of the period.  The concept is a natural extension of our speculations, though, is it not?

The facts and phenomenal good fortune of our existence on Earth have granted us the ability – perhaps the right – to believe and to worship, to discover mathematics and to learn to speculate outside of our individual spheres of subsistence and procreation.  At the center of the “Are we alone?” question, lies “Are you there God, it’s us, humans?”

Still, it is interesting that humans are wired to worship, and that “religious” traditions around the world share many concepts and traditional accounts of the origins of everything and of the sources of knowledge of all sorts: from outside of Earth, always “up.”

Unfortunately, learned humans tend to create comfortable pathways along which to speculate – form theories.  Many of these same consider religious beliefs – religious explanations for the origin and operation of “things” – to be mythical and therefore unreal.  After all, those ancient peoples had no science, no rational means of discovery, so the speculation goes, and therefore everything they believed was baseless.  Maybe.

Now and then something is dug up that belies a lot of speculations and the learned humans file it away in the basement of a university school of misunderstandings so as to not threaten their speculations.  Speculators like to be in control.  Consequently, they prefer the most complicated explanations they can conceive of – explanations that require incalculably tiny probabilities of sequences of “natural” events – to explain everything.

One could speculate that these rationalist humans are simply worshiping the wrong truth.