All posts by Prudence Leadbetter

Culture, Governance, Trump

RIGHT PRINCIPLES and DISCERNMENT

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It doesn’t appear that the background belief that the “world” will be beautiful and peaceful if we just all learn to get along with everyone, is valid.  Even in the microcosm, arguing about “partisanship” and worrying ourselves about the lack of “bi-partisanship” fails to illuminate the real basis for disagreement: right principles.

Many of us have principles that we are, if not governed by, at least motivated by.  We used to call them our “conscience.”  We sort-of always know when what we are doing is “right” or “wrong.” Let’s hope.  Still, modern science and technology, and modern anti-religion trends, have brought us to a time of phenomenal toys and enjoyments simultaneous with a culture of drug use and abuse, and hyper-sexuality.  In the face of these multiple assaults on our “principles,” we have clung only to a couple of erstwhile “truths”:

  • The worst sin is “intolerance;” and,
  • Passing judgements is bad.

The automatic corollary, it appears, is that every culture is equally valid and we should not act as though our own were any better.  Nor, it seems, should we make too much of our exceptional comforts, cleanliness and safety, because it’s not “fair” that we have them and so many others don’t.  This leads to so-called “immigrant advocates” who are not advocating for “immigrants,” but for illegal entrants, and to college campuses hosting wild demonstrations fundamentally against the sovereignty and even the Constitution, of the United States.

Is there someone to blame for this?  How did so many citizens of this relatively free, universally educated country, replete with community colleges, colleges, universities, on-line courses and free public libraries in nearly every town and city, come to hate it?  How did a nation so successful and liberal with its anti-poverty and unemployment programs, peppered with Christian churches of many denominations, arrive at a public governance that is virtually at the point of persecuting Christians FOR THEIR BELIEFS?

How did a nation founded on the very highest principles, led by George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, come to despise these leaders because of their economics and practices common to the day?  How has so much ignorance and lack of discernment come to motivate large fractions of our citizens to discard every founding principal in favor of socialism, communism and hedonism?

Why are we spending Trillions of dollars on education when the product of that investment is antithetical to our culture, heritage and survival?  How did this, all, happen?

What does it matter, except that we understand how, so as to not continue practices that brought us to this point?  This premise will generate a lot of discussion, some quite heated, but few actual solutions.  Everyone not consumed by the new liberalism and anti-Americanism, will decry education, lack of religious instruction, rewarding mediocrity and even failure, excessive welfare, stupid politicians, high taxes and sugary beverages.  Oh, and drugs… definitely drugs, both bad and good, including too many analgesic pain killers for minor ailments.  All of the above.

But, so what?  Is there some piece of legislation that will “turn things around?”  Maybe it’s a result of too many immigrants or, at the very least, too many illegal entrants!  That must be it.  Just stop immigration for a while and get rid of these Hispanic gangs – and drugs!  Get rid of the drugs!  That’s the ticket.  Maybe we should be deporting these criminal aliens faster… and keep them out.  And the death penalty; bring back the death penalty and make people truly pay for their most heinous crimes.  We’ve got to get judges to stop being soft on criminals.

It’s also not right that so much wealth is concentrated in Wall Street banks and brokerages, and that there is so much collusion between them and federal agencies and politicians.  Look at how they move back and forth between Treasury and Goldman-Sachs.

Do we think we simple Americans are going to fix all of these things?  By voting?  For whom?  Is there one person we might elect who will carry all of our valid concerns forward and “fix” things?  William Jennings Bryan thought he was one such, and things were a Hell of a lot simpler in 1896 and on, until the first World War.

Donald Trump surely believes he is one such, too, as do a majority of States.  The unprecedented opposition to him shows the depth of socialist statism that he wants to confound and undo.  Believe him or not, we should all wish (and pray) for his success.  The sovereignty of the individual, ostensibly (and once) protected by our majestic Constitution, is OUR freedom and YOUR liberty, the two not synonymous.

If you do not understand the distinction, perhaps we can start fixing “things” by learning what it is.

Culture, Immigration

POLITICAL WRONGNESS

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Political correctness is suddenly exposing itself to be political wrongness, although one must wonder how many acts of Islamic terrorism must occur to finally reach the tipping point.  Those who prefer to see only groups, rather than individuals, in matters of political power, are unable to see THE group that threatens western civilization when Islam is the motivating inspiration for wanton murder.  Strange, that.

The same who perceive groups as being either Oppressors or Oppressed, tend, irrationally, to declare Islamists as Oppressed and not to be misunderstood or judged too quickly.  Indeed, they seem to enjoy contortion for apology’s sake lest “all” Muslims be judged as Oppressors and not just the brutal savages who committed the most recent murders.  And for them the SECOND reaction is to enumerate the unemployment  statistics in the savages’ most recent neighborhood of residence.

The FIRST is to overcome their personal disappointment that the murders were not committed by a white, Anglo-Saxon Christian.  After all, they reason, WE don’t give a (euphemism for turd) for the words of our own religious background, surely it can’t be that there are people in the world of 2017 who still do?  No, honestly!

What most don’t realize is that we are still fighting the philosophies of Hitler, and that the Second World War is lingering on.  The NAZIs expended great effort, money and propaganda to inflame the Arabs in the Middle East, particularly in Egypt and in the Levant, succeeding beyond their wildest imagination.  While Arabs had little use for non-Muslim Hitler, they loved the idea of killing infidels and racial (Islamic) purity, readily translated into blaming Jews for virtually everything they didn’t like.  The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, were “radicalized” through hatred, intentionally, by the Germans starting in the mid 1930’s, and they’ve never looked forward.

Anti-semitism and the whole made-up “Palestinian” oppression/occupation, were part and parcel of the NAZI plan to keep the southern front active and problematic for the English, in particular, during the War.  And that whirlwind of hatred has only gained strength since.  What a wonderful heritage.  We freely welcome people who have been taught since grade school that Jews mix human (Muslim) blood into their matzos, and expect to turn them into tolerant “Westerners,” or, more stupidly, to expect them to negotiate with us infidels for lasting peace in Israel and Palestine.  John Kerry is convinced of this outlook.

Still, like it or not, there are just two – only two – paths for current events to follow: One is to gradually subsume Western philosophies and become Muslim-dominated theocracies in the grand tradition of Iran; Two is to make a practical, life-affirming decision to disallow Muslim infiltration of Western democracies.  This would include gently or forcibly expatriating Muslims who actively disavow our laws and government (and Constitution) and who preach Jihad in their mosques.

Of course the “civil rights” of every CITIZEN who is harmed or inconvenienced by this new policy will be a concern, and the wailing will precede those actions, continue through them and persist for years afterward.  Suits will be brought but terrorist acts will dwindle to nearly nothing.  Law books will decry the act that made Islamist exclusion the law of the land: “A religious test!” they’ll say.  “Unconstitutional!” they’ll scream.  And so it will appear.

Constitutions, bodies of law and related jurisprudence are brought forth among peoples for but a handful of purposes: 1) Common defense against outsiders; 2) Civil protections of private property; 3) Common, social protections of the individual right to happiness.  There is no way to construe the Constitution as an instrument of the destruction – quickly or slowly – of our own nation and of the protections of our people secured by it.  To argue otherwise is to espouse treason, in fact.  What is the logic?

The World will keep spinning if the United States becomes virtually Muslim-free over, say 10 years, and Muslim-majority nations will continue on their own destinies when slightly more majority.  It is not required by either logic or the Constitution that any number of enemies of the people or of the nationhood of the United States, must be allowed residence here.  The alternative to such clarity is to argue for the acceptable number of enemies so invited.  Prudence dictates that there is no acceptable number.

It is time for Muslims and Muslim nations to be discomfited in this war.  If “the West” and this nation most especially cannot grasp the reality of the enemy within and without, then there is no point in its -or our own –  survival.  And, if such is the case, then perhaps another path, THREE, is available: We could allow Islam and Shar’ia law to triumph, while hoping that believers in all that Islamic mumbo-jumbo jihadists have been spouting, and the words of the Quran, itself, are not taken all that seriously.  Surely they won’t ban bacon.

 

Culture, Education

GRADUATED CHANGE

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Prudence attended graduation at a well-known college in Boston’s Fenway section recently.  This particular school graduates no chemists, engineers, lawyers or business majors; no biologists, entomologists or astronomers; no materials scientists or agronomists or hydrologists, and no oceanographers.

Their purview is social work, and a healthy dose of “education.”  That is, education B.S. degree-recipients who, I think, they hope will teach the next generation along the lines of ultra-liberals who have been taking over education aggressively for the past 75 years. Fortunately, they sometimes fail and a graduate escapes with her (mostly hers and wannabes, there) internal philosophy intact, her understanding of reality clear, and her intense desire to educate young kids, rather than indoctrinate them, ready to run.  One such is Prudence’s only reason for attending.

Prudence’s eyes were opened, however, to the existence of this and other nests of socialist vipers, who churn out radical “change agents,” as were frequently referenced in the interminable speeches and last-second directives that made not a single reference to God, although the very last instructress managed to say, “… let the Divine …” which was amorphous enough to get through.  That tiny reference was among the last dozen words of last-second directions to the posse of Bachelors and Masters ready to change America.

The otherwise clear, May, day began with breakfast – free food, so to speak, catered in to the College’s Brookline facility.  Being observant was revelationary.  The professors are constantly professing, we noticed.  Tattoos, for example, profess attachment to the odd fascinations running rampant through society where women, sometimes grossly obese versions, have acres of “body art.”  It’s a statement of inclusion… or a test.  After all, if our campus is one of welcoming and inclusion and non-discrimination for students, then it must be for their instructors, too.  See how it works?

There seemed to be a single statement being uttered by a large fraction of both staff and graduates: There is no weirdness on OUR campus – all are welcome.  Prudence has no argument with the “welcom(ing)” part.  In other words, if you are as different and as unusual as you can make yourself, come, attend our college – we’re just as unusual as you!

Every speech underscored the same concepts of challenging the status quo; the difficulty is, today, that the status quo, having grown fairly weird itself, requires ever more strangeness from those who wish to challenge it.  This might explain, in part, the number of strange appearances of students, but it is unnerving to apply the same measure to staff and professors… at least it was to Prudence.

Sexuality is key to both protest and education, it seems.  Prudence needn’t describe sexual appearances and apparent expressions as most are indescribable and likely wide of the target.  But, unusual male-female iterations are more commonplace on college campuses than elsewhere in the world.  Perhaps it’s simply because these are the age groups where “youthful” experimentation is most likely.  Shouldn’t some adults guide these wandering – and wondering – children toward the most appropriate paths of action and belief?

Aren’t we intending to create new adults of our culture and social fabric?  Or is it our purpose to indulge every strange, interruptive feeling and treat it as if it were as valid as reality?  Reality is so restrictive: two genders… huh.  Are we kidding?  I mean, honestly!

Are there any lines a culture shouldn’t cross?  It’s not a trick question.  We used to decry drug use and numerous other forms of debasement.  Why?  Because it makes for a stronger, more nurturing society.

We used to require people to make their own way, no welfare and all the rest.  It inadvertently made for stronger people and children.  Problem free?  Of course not.  Too many fell through the “cracks,” as it were.  Some level of social support was required for simple fairness TO CHILDREN, and civil kindness to the helpless.

We used to require universal education that reinforced moral lessons, some Biblical, without damaging ANYONE, reinforcing shame for bad actions and strengthening the consciences of individuals… and their basic honesty.  These were good, strengthening-of-society kinds of structures.  Phenomenally, we have succumbed not to foreign powers but to our own cleverness, talking ourselves out of our heritage, our very culture, and of shame, itself.

We are so smart.

Murder, for example, now has shades of evil, some not so bad as to require equivalent sanction.  Indeed, abortion-at-will, deemed “murder” by half of the nation, has amorphous codified status and taxation support!  Suicide by drug overdose is a form of murder by drug-pusher, but we, the wealthiest, most sophisticated culture on earth, with more police forces per hectare than any other, has failed steadily for 60 years to clamp down firmly on drug commerce.

Now we are in a race to legalize ever purer and stronger pot despite its risks (there aren’t any, according to pot users) and to arm first responders with Narcan.  We’re smarter than we even realized.

The largest “industry” in the United States is welfare of a thousand titles.  Statists have found that the philosophies of the most rock-ribbed, self-made American stalwarts can be purchased with enough dependency, as recent “conservative” outcries against threats to Medicare makes clear.

The higher education “industry” is nothing if not opportunistic.  With TRILLIONS of dollars flowing from the Federal and state levels, colleges have justified turning out an army of social workers to soak them up.  Here and there people in need are truly helped, but the lion’s share of those dollars goes to the army of concerned, compassionate care-workers and, especially, to the army of administrators who make sure they are not wasting any money.

Somewhere, and here and there, are schools, churches and other institutions that respect and promote the concepts of self-reliance, absolute personal responsibility, honor and sublime integrity.  They must struggle against an onslaught of socialist control of budgets and information.  Is the ultimate success of the ultimate anti-God philosophy certain to overwhelm what made the U. S. great?

That future depends upon the ignorance of a majority of Americans.  How smart did you say we are?

 

Race

RACE? AGAIN?

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Prudence says that America needs some fresh thinking about race.  Anthropologists can “describe” some 300 “races” using markers like blood-type concentrations, in a process that tries to use physiology to delineate human “types” or races.  It is largely a waste of time for most people since it cannot relate social activities, social actions, with physiological differences.

RACE is a construct for both safety and control within societies.. except, lately, a construct for hatred.  The most visual markers are employed – like skin, facial distinctions, hair, eye-color… virtually meaningless attributes in terms of how people ACT, but crucial when differing groups come together.  No training or understanding is required to distinguish physiognomy.  That is a matter of belief.

Prudence has thought long about the power and dangers of belief.  It can exist and guide the actions of millions of people without paying any heed to reality… to truth.  Just as faith is the engine for maintaining religious traditions, there are many other belief structures to which individuals can adhere that effectively replace reality with constructed, believed paths of action that guide whole lifetimes.  Belief can be so self-fulfilling that it becomes its own evidence of “truth.”  It’s commonplace.

Less common is honesty.  An honest person can be taught the error of his or her beliefs and it is this very effect that has held the United States together through slavery, Manifest Destiny, the Civil War, destruction of Native American culture, waves of immigration and the Great Depression.  Beliefs have changed, honing more closely to reality little by little… until the 1960’s.

It was under the aegis of “The Great Society” that we changed the role of government to one of, essentially, social engineering – unionized social services that Lyndon Johnson and other hubris-laden socialists believed could change the nature of both rich and poor people for the better.  Change has certainly happened.

Blacks, who were making sure, but uneven progress in the 1950’s, have regressed in the inner cities where federal and state policies have re-enslaved them for 3 generations.  Why such conditions continue, even as the drug trade flourishes in that population, seems a great mystery to progressives.  It must be the fault of Republicans.  Our incoming president has mentioned conditions in the inner cities, but no policy changes have been described.

It’s all a matter of belief.  Progressives have long held the belief that the most generous “safety-net” possible, especially now that welfare has been federalized, will cause people WE have taught to be irresponsible for themselves, to become responsible, self-sufficient citizens.  We have placed them in a system where the only way to “get a raise,” requires careful cheating – things like getting two EBT cards or SNAP allowances beyond one’s entitlement.  Or, to sell some drugs, perhaps.  There should be no surprise that blacks hate whites.  They believe that whites have kept them from opportunity, that we discriminate in a thousand ways, that we are racists and on and on.  Some of it is true.  But the policies that have done so are not those of most whites, who feel guilty about black’s condition, and who act a little nutty because of their guilt; they are the policies of progressives who believe socialism will make better humans than God has… despite all reality to the contrary.

One might infer that Prudence indicates that progressives may not be truly honest, else they could learn the error of their beliefs, lo these past 50 years.