Tag Archives: Freedom

Governance, Politics 2024, Responsibility

ARTICLE V

Leave a comment

There is a genius element to Article V. It’s short, providing for the Amendment process, including the option of what amounts to a non-government, people-driven process. It is time for people to get to work employing this Constitutional stroke of genius.

There are two paths to amendment. The first 18 words describe how two-thirds of BOTH houses of congress can propose amendments to the Constitution. The next 21 words stipulate that upon application of two-thirds of the LEGISLATURES of the States, “The Congress” SHALL CALL a Convention for the purpose of proposing amendments. In either case, the proposed amendments shall be ratified when three-fourths of the legislatures of the States ratify it/them, or when conventions in three-fourths of the states ratify it/them. It does say that The Congress may state which Mode of Ratification shall be used in either case. Americans are not taught much about the Articles of the Constitution, although a lot of time is spent on the Bill of Rights and other hot-button amendments. We should consider carefully what the founders did in Article V.

Article V is the ONLY provision that allows for “re-balancing” our government in the likely event that powers carefully delineated and divided among what seemed to be natural interests in a Republic, became concentrated or ignored as government types trended toward authoritarianism. Wisely, the authors of the Constitution did not trust government. They did their best to send it forth as a government deriving its just powers from the governed. Human nature – and communism, the antithesis of human nature – has come dangerously close to overthrowing the structure of and our existence as, a nation… except that we have a “frame-straightening” tool in Article V. It is referred to as the “Convention of the States.”

Most, if not all of the changes that need to be made to the structure and function of government, have to do with archaic rules and procedures that have become arbitrary and authoritarian in an age of instant and readily manipulable media. In addition, most, if not all, have served to increase the powers of government types, their agencies and departments, while restricting and limiting the freedoms and sovereignty of citizens. The results include near destruction of our fiscal standing and ability to respond to national threats, and to nearly discard the concept of a Constitutional Republic and the majestic nature of American citizenship. Article V provides a way for CITIZENS to petition their State’s legislatures to approve participation in calling for a “Convention of the States” that is not controlled by Congress or any other component of the Federal government. The importance of this CIVIL RIGHT cannot be overstated. 34 states must approve the calling of such a Convention.

There are no limitations on what may be considered for amendment or guidelines as to what must be considered. After 50 to 60 years of diminishing education about the Constitution or about the exceptional nature of U. S. citizenship and our responsibilities as citizens, coupled with severe slippage in moral instruction, religious input or classical philosophy, our existence as an independent nation-state is facing its greatest threat. One element of that threat is how to control the quality and philosophy of delegates from the States to the Convention of the States. Without question, leftists will fight to dominate every delegation, seeing the potential power of amendment as a short-cut to destruction of the American idea and ideals. Those who are in favor of utilizing this unique Article V tool for “fixing” government, must be strongly organized to guide the makeup of delegations that will adhere to the greatest extent possible, to the ideas that underlay the original drafting of the Constitution, itself. What are some corrupting practices that it would be Prudent to correct?

1) Term Limits. Dozens of House and Senate candidates – and Presidential candidates – claim to support “term limits” for elected federal office-holders, but each knows that there is virtually no path for achieving that change if the Congress is to be depended upon to propose that amendment to Article I, Sections 2 and 3. Immediately we hear that… “there already are term limits: they’re called ‘elections.’” While strictly true, it didn’t prevent the worthies in the House and Senate from proposing the Twenty-second Amendment to impose term limits on the office of President. Franklin Roosevelt showed that elections couldn’t be relied upon in the modern era to limit the accumulation of power by elected office-holders. The very same is true for Representatives and Senators.

It doesn’t seem Prudent to create a class of people who CAN’T run for Congress, so a term-limiting that is based on consecutive terms and a stipulated number of terms out of office may be fairer and more practical.

2) Budgeting. Every line item in the ridiculously monstrous Federal Budget deserves SOME oversight and literal forensic analysis. In other words, the actual nature of the work being funded should be analyzed as to effectiveness of achieving the purpose(s) for which the office, title, agency or department was created and originally funded. With somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 such “executive” line items, it is practically impossible to oversee them all. A Republic – a Constitutional Republic – cannot survive or even function according to its covenant with its citizens, when THREE-FOURTHS of its spending is untouchable by the People’s and the States’ representatives. Even more threatening is the flood of regulations that emanates from the “Administrative State” with the force of law, penalty and punishment with virtually no accountability to the People’s and States’ representatives. Standards should be stipulated for retention of ANY federal program.

3) Budgeting. Except in times of declared War, the Federal Government should be limited to collection and expenditure of a maximum percentage of 18% of the Gross Domestic Product of the U. S. economy. Further, the Federal budget should be balanced at that level of expenditure.

4) Taxation. Taxes must be neither punitive nor manipulative, and… everyone should pay his or her fair share. This includes people on public relief as well as billionaires. Rather than the huge jumps in rates that our current “progressive” tax tables use, there should be 28 steps: 1 basic and universal rate and 27 marginal rates up to a total of 28% with very few fixed rates for special types of investment. All 28 rates should adjust every two years in order to balance the federal budget, which should also shift to bi-annual budgeting, set for two-year periods.

5) Entitlements. There is no free lunch. There are a hundred “entitlements” baked into federal expenditures. Disingenuously, Social Security is lumped together with various forms of “welfare” when it is, in fact, a set of contracts with mandated investors. With its codified duplicity, the federal government, spurred on by our Citizen and State representatives in the Congress, has stolen the money in the Social Security Trust Fund, and they’ve done so for about 8 decades. As a band-aid of “exchange” for spending that money on all sorts of unrelated expenses, the Treasury deposits United States interest-bearing bonds in the so-called “trust fund.” Sadly, the ability to continue paying out to legitimate S.S. recipients is dependent upon federal taxation AND borrowing from the future. This makes Social Security, one of the largest taxes on American workers, also one of the largest contributors to U. S. insolvency and a target for leftists whenever challenged about “overspending.”

Today, Social Security is grouped along with other “entitlements,” which makes it subject to the calculations of Congress when it ought to be sacrosanct as a regulated “pay-in, pay-out” system of investment for retirement. Workers and, ostensibly, their employers, are forced to “contribute” up to 15% of payroll to Social Security. The government spends the cash – many hundreds of billions – on numerous critical needs, not least of which are the needs of individuals who never paid into the system. Not only do government bonds generate insufficient returns to cover lawful payouts to those who paid in, but requirements for how long one must pay in and what their payouts will be at certain ages of retirement, are changed for political purposes, not for financial ones. For the past 50 years it has been obvious to the clear-thinking that Social Security was at risk of going bust. Some financial changes have been made, including changes to approved retirement ages, but political calculations have never changed. The attacks on Republicans, who are usually the ones who want to make changes aimed at continued solvency of the Fund, never change. There is a political fear of being accused of “taking away your Social Security” that causes even the smartest politicians to campaign on a promises to “always protect your Social Security.”

What should be included among amendments that can reign in authoritative government, is the essential “privatization of Social Security. That is, that the mandate to fund retirements should be a requirement the dollars of which are owned and carefully managed (by regulated financial advisors) by individuals in funds that will grow at more the twice the rate of the Social Security Fund typically has, and will be part of a family’s estate upon the death of the employee/investor. This will place government into partnership with its citizens in the ultimate success and independence of each one and each family. This will change the current relationship which effectively dictates how independent – or DEPENDENT – every worker and family can be. Individual retirement should not be subject to the historic financial idiocy of the Congress.

6) Federal employment and related costs. Working for the federal government in its hundreds and hundreds of offices, agencies and departments, has become a better career than is common – or average – in the private economy. Federal employees are far less likely to be fired for poor or mal-performance, enjoy more time off and better health coverage and pensions than most workers. Little by little, the role of servant and served have reversed: American workers are basically working and going in to astronomical debt for the benefit of public employees, most of whom are also unionized. Those same are able to use forms of police powers to regulate and restrict the citizens they “serve.”

The relationship of federal employees and their employment security and rates of pay and benefits should be limited to a fair ratio to that of typical employees in the private sector. There should also be upper limits to maximum pay for federal employees and executives. Federal employment needn’t be unpleasant or inadequately compensated, but not so richly, either, that it exceeds the economic safety and comfort of other workers. Further, the ability of supervisors and managers to fire poor employees should be no more difficult than is found in private industry.

It isn’t Prudent to limit the ideas brought forth in the “Convention of the States” to those of any one patriot. The Convention itself, however, is our last best hope to save the future of the United States of America.

Crime, Culture, Education, Elections, Politics 2022

THE PAINTING CALLED LIFE

1 Comment
Listen to the Artist

Politics is more than pointing out the lies of others, Prudence indicates.  So too is how people and societies organize themselves and their governing structures and technology.  Even more, so too is religion and ideologies of various kinds: much, much more than pointing out the lies of others.  There are larger pictures to take in and analyze and critique.  After all, do artists lie?  Are they, then, no longer artists?

Life is art… or at least the creation of an artist – an artist who tries to teach his/her subjects how to expand and beautify the painting in which they reside, on ever better canvas and frame, and in brighter, truer colors.  Life is the basis of the greatest artist’s greatest work.  Eventually life takes us to the edge of the canvas and what we call death results, but death is not the basis or the subject or the purpose of the painting.  Death dealt for selfish, craven reasons before the edge of the canvas is reached, destroys not only a bit of life but the integrity of the painting.  It’s source and perpetrator must be expunged, cleansed from the art that is life, for it/he/she has no place here.

Details of the art of life can be studied and understood a little better, and a little better, and a little better, still.  Important to the beauty of the multi-billion points of life that comprise the fulgent artwork of life on Earth, is freedom to act in concert with the artist’s intent.  Were there no options, no imagination, no whimsy, no beautiful choices, then the painting would be dull in color and harmony, smaller and devoid of love, the one color that is always the hardest to mix or apply, and the most vivid.

Holding the whole creation together is the love of life.  Here and there, created in love but, somehow, twisted to love death, itself, bits of life, humans, develop the love of death and the “art” of dealing death.  They claim to abhor terrible, brutal, violent death, yet do nothing within public policy to put a stop to it.  On the other hand, the same people use public policy to accelerate hidden, “life-saving” death, like abortion and vaccination.  That’s where the art of death exists, first from euphemism and then, only in unseen places, by terrible, brutal violent death.  In either case, the very presence of death-lovers amidst the beautiful artwork of life causes the artist’s paint to bead up, unable to blend or enrich the near-perfect painting alluded to; it leaves blank, colorless blemishes.

Freedom, or the absence of freedom, is like that: devoid of color, particularly vibrant colors of creativity, joy and charity.  Humans are designed for and have evolved to flourish in an environment of freedom – we’re “tuned” to what we consider to be beautiful and harmonious – and there are “rules” for being free.  Without the rules, which are not limitations, in application, but better described as guidance, humans can easily slip into license and corruption, both mental and physical.  Where this tendency has begun to concentrate we can see that the inherent beauty of human evolution has been dulled, and created still more areas where the artist’s paint has beaded up, failing to mix and blend and enrich the entire picture.  We have names for these “rule-breakings.”

The first name describes corruption of the heart; we call it hatred.  It has many manifestations, but all of them must be taught, it turns out.  Every cultural tradition seems to include an identification of the “first hater,” which is the same as saying the “first liar.”  Lying to other humans is an act of hatred: hatred of the inherent beauty of another human.  It declares that the hater who is doing the lying has no respect for the value and integrity of another person… or even of a country full of other persons.  Hatred is very easy to spread around when haters don’t even realize they are hating others, and when they may not even realize they’re telling lies!

So, the simplest form of heart-corruption is lying, but it’s not always a matter of lying to others: humans can be led to lie to themselves.  That’s an environment wherein there is neither much debate nor alternatives based in pure truth.  A small initial lie, like “this drug will make you happier,” can lead an inherently beautiful human to tell him- or her-self that he or she is not worthy of the beauty that others still enjoy.  Nothing good flows from that belief.  Even worse, rather than trying to convince such “lost” people of their inherent beauty, political forces try to make reinforcement of the new self-lie much easier.  It’s called respecting “civil rights” but it is an ugly perversion of the beauty of human life.  It also seems to be contagious, tending to infect younger and younger, beautiful humans.

At some point, societies develop a means of “enforcing” the rules of freedom so that the greater “good:” the maximum number of humans being able to survive, grow, create and have successful families and children, is assured.  Except for those whose freedom is stripped from them for varying degrees of failing to follow the rules of freedom, the enforcement paradigm works fairly well until a fresh lie is introduced: enforcement “hurts” too many people.  The political/police enforcers are quickly led to still another form of hatred-lie: “hurting so many of our fellow humans is not who we are as a people” and that ending a lot of enforcements is the “right” thing to do.

Now the artist’s beautiful painting becomes even more dull and hard to look at by humans who are still mostly beautiful… and hard to understand, as well.

Soon, because political power and re-election trumps everything, confused humans are led to hate those who refer to rules of freedom as being anti-freedom: the worst of all sins.  The defense of “freedom” for those who are already in the business of lying, readily morphs into the defense of licentiousness, at which point every person or institution who defends adherence to the “rules” for freedom, is identified as an enemy of “freedom” or of “democracy,” neither of which is defined.  The evil intent of anyone opposed to them, however, must be virulently opposed.

We can Prudently see, now, that hatred is more than the first name of rule-breaking: it’s the only name of rule-breaking.  It manifests as lying, and therein lies the complexity of hatred: the myriad kinds and styles of lies that are told to us and by us.  The struggles between truth and lies describe most of human history.  Prudence thinks humans have become LESS truthful over the centuries that have led us to today.  Certainly this is true for the United States.  Can we keep excusing lies from various groups, agencies and institutions simply because the liars believe what they are saying?

The great painting called “Life” is still beautiful, but becoming less so at a frightening rate.  The single metric of suicides teaches us that increasing numbers of humans no longer perceive any beauty in living.  The great lie of abortion has blazed the trail… no – blazed the 8-lane expressway toward death as a “solution” to the problems of life.  Great, ugly swaths of the painting have beaded-up, unblended colors that look muddy rather than vivid, because of abortion.  Will truth ever overwhelm the hopelessness of abortion?

Nearly as much of a blemish on the painting called “Life” are the compound lies of transgenderism.  Here, the merchants of Death convince very young people to commit “suicide of the self,” even as they convince their parents that those same merchants are “educators,” preparing their children to be successful citizens of the United States of America.  Each child was born to be a certain person, a certain soul, and to conquer the challenges for that person, male or female.  Instead they are coached to either become sex objects at grade-school ages, or to “kill” their selves by undoing their sexual being with a grand pretense that it is possible to believe two diametric ideas simultaneously.  It is a means to living a lie, also destroying reproductive viability.  As it has spread through education in many states and countries, the painting has become duller, with sharp edges between vibrancy and death and dullness.

The elements of vibrant, vivid paint, including the color of love and not of death or hatred, still exist, and there are yet a few million of the artist’s apprentices still active and available.  We who are given the opportunity to co-create our painting – which represents a lot of faith on the part of the artist – often lose sight of the harmony and natural beauty that we have taken for granted.  For a hundred reasons we insist on trying to blend ugly, dull colors, believing that our odd intentions will render a better beauty than that created for us by the artist.  Yet our ugly paints keep beading up and leaving growing patches of ugly dullness amidst the original beauty.

Still, we push on, insisting that we know better than the artist of our life painting.  As the blemishes expand, those stuck in the ugliness try to blame the co-creators of beauty for the contrast, as though reducing the overall quantity of beauty and harmony would make everyone feel accepted and grant equity to all.  To their dismay, however, the rules of freedom don’t allow for it and, to the purveyors-of-ugliness’ horror, those are the rules of beauty, as well.

Biden, Culture, Economics, Education, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Politics 2022, Religion, Responsibility

WHERE THE GLOBALISTS STRUCK FIRST

Leave a comment
No need to run for office.

A year from now, or 5 or 10 or 50 years from now, the sacrificial role that Ukraine has played in the direction history flows, will be understood far better than it is today.  The forces of freedom and integrity are fortunate that Ukraine is where the globalists struck first.  Ukrainians… not so much.

This chapter is not written, yet, but it is taking shape.  The average American is poorly informed, generally, but right now, dangerously so.  We don’t understand the Ukraine invasion no matter the details portrayed on our screens: the awful deaths and explosions.  We don’t recognize the interplay with China; we don’t recognize the interplay with Iran; we don’t recognize the “cat’s paw” role of North Korea.  We don’t recognize the far, far leftist swing of the Biden administration.  We don’t recognize the damage already done to America’s standing in the world and the inroads into our sovereignty that Covid-19 fostered.

Yet even with all of that, our greatest failure is not comprehending the expanded, vital and increasingly crucial role of the United States as the last and only impediment to global communism.  You may be shaking your head at the wild conspiracy theories that seem completely im-Prudent, but we’re working only from the statements of very powerful people who are in a position to guide and facilitate the imposition of the “Great Reset” you ought to have heard of by now.  What does that reset consist of?

The number-one component of the globalists’ plan is the end of nationalism.  Yet nationalism accounts for the greatest progress mankind has ever made in virtually every arena from health care to nutrition to family and personal safety.  Donald Trump became president on a platform and promise of “America First,” and it is an ideal that resonates with Americans.  We believe in our nation; we believe in the exceptionalism of our nation’s history, founding and divine purpose.

Barack Obama became president on the premise of a flawed and somewhat illegitimate nation, forever soiled by slavery and racism – soiled in a way that cannot be eradicated – and, specifically, as Obama made clear in foreign speeches, no more exceptional than any other nation.  We elected him out of guilt as much as anything else, as if to say that it was high time we had a “black” President, and that perhaps race relations would become even better if we did so.  Where Trump fought the leftists to secure our borders, Obama had loosened enforcement of immigration laws, the essential definition of nationhood: borders.  The Obama administration saw the rise of “sanctuary” jurisdictions, both cities and states.  The very nature of self-declared “sanctuary” status is the rejection of United States’ national authority over matters of national concern: borders, immigration, citizenship and the myriad matters ancillary to those concerns, not least of which is law enforcement and public safety.

Inherent in the concept of nationhood and of patriotism, itself, is that of abiding by true and just laws.  For citizens of the United States this starts with fealty to the Constitution and to the principles of rights enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, neither of which documents implies hatred for another country, particularly England, but which declare independence from England’s misapplication of rights normally enjoyed by English citizens, even under a monarchy, however tempered.  The U. S. was founded on the basis of ideas and ideals to which belief in God, or Providence, impel humankind.  Based on the Bible, and particularly the New Testament’s instructions on how individuals should relate to God and to one another, the U. S. Constitution established a framework of civil decency and authority, individual sovereignty and responsibility, and individual private property, within which U. S. citizens could and do perfect themselves.  Neither the founding documents nor the government they spawned take the place of the Bible, or of God or of the individual’s relationship with God.  A system of government like ours requires that individual citizens carry both the burden of freedom and of responsibility, and it works best, if at all, only when individuals have the moral guidance of a well-informed “conscience” such that most governance is from the self.  This means that only when both citizens and legal residents of our nation share essential beliefs in what is legally “right” and “wrong” can justice prevail for everyone.  Only then can civil society – and civilization, itself – succeed and produce progress in living standards and both individual and public safety.

Americans have both the benefits of Freedom and the obligations of defending Freedom and all that is implied under our Constitution and Declaration.  Our civic responsibilities are NOT LIKE those of any other nation.  We are exceptional.  We are not perfect.  Back to nationalism.

President Trump was often accused of being a “nationalist” as though that linked him to NAZISM in some way.  He obviously was not – is not – a leftist, which generates the abject hatreds aimed at him, and he certainly is not a NAZI, as in National Socialist, another stripe of leftism.  The fact that there are white supremacists who have adopted NAZI symbols and gestures does NOT mean that they have anything to do with conservatism, nationalism or “the right.”  To be pro-American nation is not on the left-right spectrum.  To claim that is merely a means by which leftists make it seem as though the right were evil and that, therefore, being “good” is to be some sort of socialist giving out “free” stuff from the government.  Otherwise, one is a “hater.”

Not having recognized nations simplifies the plans of super-rich oligarchs who meet in Davos every year: the WEF, or World Economic Forum.  There are two major elements of their “perfected” future for mankind: Far, far fewer human beings on the earth, and global governance and economics, such that no one will “own” anything and that will enable us to be happy.  It also requires the dissolution of organized religion, since an individual with faith in a higher purpose than survival will not accept simple worldliness.

The Executive Secretary of the W.E.F. is Klaus Schwab.  He is smart, capable and very rich, much like every other member of the Forum.  There are strange people among them, including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, George Soros, every major bank in the world, major industries, major securities trading exchanges, huge international companies of all sorts, particularly in energy and food distribution/production.  Also, unsurprisingly, major pharmaceutical companies partner with the forum, too.  There are heads of state or relatives, but none of the executive or managing Board members are popularly elected.  No one has granted them power: they have created this shadowy “world management system” through self-selection and financial influence.  It is more than Prudent that we grasp what the existence of this “Forum” and its growing bureaucracy means to the residents of Earth.

We have seen in the United States, for all of its magnificent founding, how government types congregate in the “deep state” where their full-time jobs are developing and enforcing tens of thousands of regulations, most of which are unknown even to our elected representatives.  Almost to a person, this invisible “state” believes in its ability to “run” things better than individuals… right down to whether babies should be born or weird gene therapies should be mandated for all humans.  To this group, elections are side-shows.  The “voice of the body politic” is not loud enough to affect their far-more-important-work-than-that-of-any-elected-official’s – representative, senator or president.

We have about 150 years of experience with how inefficient and often criminally so, the process of “federalizing” problems is.  One need consider only health care – a most personal problem – as it becomes increasingly “federal” and politicized… one of the base principles of communism.  The nearly immeasurable waste of resources and the dishonesty connected to the NIH, the CDC and the NIAID agencies, and even the “independent” FDA, should be a lesson to Americans that dumping problems onto federal bureaucrats is the same as foregoing our fundamental rights.  We think we are a “free people,” but our freedoms have been diminished faster through federalized health care than by any other mechanism.  There are hundreds of federal mechanisms.

Our Constitution is under assault almost daily; the morality that enables it to guide our national identity is under assault almost hourly.  The process is made worse as rapidly as our shared beliefs crumble, our shared morality dissipates, our institutions shift leftward and our shared freedoms are politicized.  We have become a nation of rules rather than of law.  Yet our Constitution is still defended in the courts to a great degree, and it still protects individuals to a great degree.  However, as the globalist W.E.F. inserts itself into governance in almost every nation, the erosion of our very nation accelerates.  The Constitution will simply be collateral damage.  We need only observe the elimination of the southern border and the laws that ought to be protecting it, to realize that there are people in our “elected” government who are accelerating the dissolution of our nation.  Nationalists have their irreplaceable place.

The United States of America, then, in its exceptional position and DUTY, is the only significant stumbling block to a global, uber-socialist government.  That anti-nationalist, W.E.F. oligarchy will not be bound by the quaint rights and responsibilities of our famed Constitution.  It will govern more closely to the habits of Communist China.  “You won’t own anything and you’ll be happy,” said Klaus Schwab.  Think about that.

The concept of private property, owning the fruits of one’s labor, having rights of possession even under rental or lease agreements, has been the greatest spur to progress in all of history.  Globalism and anti-nationalism cannot succeed where capitalism – if properly regulated to prevent the effects of the worst of human nature – is allowed to flourish and fuel the dreams of billions of free people.  It is no coincidence that the nature of capitalism has been allowed to create the oligarchy we have, today.  For the success of globalism, the image and understanding of capitalism must be destroyed along with nationalism and individual sovereignty with rights granted by God.  Today’s youth, almost to a majority, view socialism as a superior economic system to our increasingly putrid capitalism.  Thank you, public education and essentially communist universities.

Thank you, also, to our socialist-infiltrated governments of the “United” States.

Can we regroup and re-educate quickly enough to stave off the globalist revolution?  Are there enough Americans left who will refuse to trade freedom for some hollow “safety?”  Has America enough courage left to throw out the snakes, eels, alligators and constrictors who have settled in to “Deep State Swamp,” from whence they are sucking from us our livelihoods and our independence?

Is resurrection possible?  God save America.

Family, Health Care

OPEN HEART

Leave a comment

OPEN HEART

Prudence’ closest friend mowed his “lawn” today, which is to say he mowed grass that grows amidst various other plants where the lawn has long been hoped-for, dug and raked for, struggled for, fertilized for and never really found.  The pilot of that little electric mower is anticipating his cardiologist’s scheduling a visit to Massachusetts General Hospital where a date will be set for open-heart surgery to correct near blockages of at least 4 arteries.  That kind of operation is a big, damn deal and carries a lot of risk, having one’s heart exposed and worked-upon while machines handle the pumping and breathing the “lawn” mower would normally handle for himself.

In any event, since learning about those blockages, every significant task carries with it the possibility that it may be an experience that won’t be repeated.  “Oh, no,” friends and loved-ones say, “bypass surgery is routine, now.  They do them all the time.  So-and-so had it and he / she is doing great.”  Probably, but contemplating one’s chest prized open disallows such simple reassurances and even remarkable records of success don’t set worries, or, better, reflections aside.

More than 76 years of good health can lull a person into planning out what a good length of life should be.  First he would look at what his own father’s age got to be despite setbacks and bad habits, and then add on a number of years because of being more careful than the old man was, and more active and more something or other than one’s ancestor, and therefore entitled to a few more years.  But no amount of calculation will actually place the length of one’s life into one’s own control.  There’s no bargaining.  Who do you bargain with?

So, the not-so-old guy begins thinking about other actions, responsibilities, habits, projects unfinished and kisses not bestowed or received, that may be the result of the probable operation.  It’s automatic, and he has to decide a thousand decisions.

Am I satisfied with what I’ll leave for people to remember?  That’s a hard decision.  Maybe if I sell an extraordinary number of raffle tickets for the next drawing… maybe they’ll remember me better.  “Yeah, we’re going to miss the old dude: he sold a lot of raffle tickets.”

Will I leave my wife feeling glad she gave her life to me, the guy who doesn’t take vacations, instead of that other kid she grew up with?  Will she wish she had done something more exciting with her loyalty?  “Yes, I loved him, but he was such a stick-in-the-mud, always doing some work or project or helping his Club.  It was like pulling teeth to get him to take a vacation.”  Hard to decide if I am satisfied with how I was as a husband and companion.  But it’s too late to change it, if things go South.

Still, the neighbor down the street has a college buddy who’s 85 now and he had six bypasses 20 years ago and he’s still walking 3 miles a day and doing great.  So, nothing to worry about, it’s a routine procedure, now.  Maybe.

Not-so-old guy has always said he “wants to die healthy,” but it’s hard to figure what that really means anymore.  The line always got a chuckle.  But the concept was that he’d do whatever he felt he needed to do until all the home projects were done, new bathroom installed and the house painted, business sold, great-grandchild born somehow (the usual way, one hopes), and then keel over with his second heart attack.  Such plans are mere wisps of cloud.

Did I sell enough copy machines?  Obviously the answer is no, and always would be; can’t sell too many in that business.  But, the ones I did enabled a reasonable life, kids through college and the ability to help people through Exchange and otherwise.  We haven’t wanted for anything important but we’ve never had a lot of money, either.

Our son and daughter are wonderful, handsome and beautiful in turn, and very strong where it counts.  Each created two wonderful children of their own about whom not enough good can be said.  I envy them their long futures and their brains and good looks, but not necessarily the state of the United States and the world, the way my generation is leaving them.  Freedom teeters on a knife-edge and many will die when it is next attacked.  At least these grandchildren have their heads on straight. 

The man who is starting to count his years in limited terms has been fortunate in a thousand ways, with one of the greatest having been alive to know granddaughter, Allison Paige Hawkes, daughter’s daughter and guiding light for so many of us and many dozens of others we never got to know – or meet – until her funeral.  Her beauty and strength were boundless as she resisted the grasp of cancers for 20 years.  What a treat it seems to me to have known her and been loved by her.  She didn’t waste a minute that was granted.  Me, I’ve wasted a lot of them, but there’s no regaining even one; an old person hopes that he did enough in the minutes he didn’t waste.

A lot of minutes have been spent on home projects in, literally, every room in the house.  Some were big projects, like making one room out of two and leveling the ceiling across the whole master bedroom space, and like moving the kitchen into the dining room and making the kitchen into the dining room with new hot water heat, new ceiling, new French doors at the other end of the living room, like two new 24” bay windows, new picture windows in the east walls of the living room and dining room, lots of plumbing and electrical work, complete renovations of the other two bedrooms, and like new front steps and entry-way with sidelights, pillars, curved ceiling and piece-made wooden fan over the front door, new back steps, ramp and back and cellar doors, plus a whole new kitchen door entry off of a new brick patio, recently cut in half with a new 64-pounds-each landscape-block outer wall.  Then there is the 8 x 10 shed and a whole lot of inlaid brick walks and aprons and stone covered, brick-outlined sections of the yard.  Very early on, the main bathroom upstairs was expanded as the master bedroom was created, by eliminating a linen closet and an original small bedroom closet.  Lots of plumbing and carpentry, there.  There were many new windows the old guy replaced when much younger.  There’s also a built-in bed platform with drawers underneath, and an under-window bureau and a built-in mirror with make-up lights in the, now, 3rd bedroom.

Unfortunately, most of it is 20 to 40 years old and needs major work the old guy can’t do, particularly as suddenly restrictive heart problems are accommodated.  Now that the heart has been examined several ways, old man’s wife doesn’t want him to even tie his shoes too tightly.

More decisions will have to include how a grandson might help complete the brick-defined terraces in front of the house, where the steep drop of the yard has thwarted desires for decades.  Blessed with lots of bricks from the shortened patio (see 64-pound landscape blocks, above) it makes perfect sense to use them to solve another problem, doesn’t it?  Not even a little?  So far the brick sculpture-terrace-what-the-Hell-is-he- building-there, looks potentially good, except there’s a huge pile of dirt on the walk near the house, which ultimately must be screened for agricultural purposes on the terraces and elsewhere.  Now it’s grandson work.  Tugs at the heart, don’t you know.

How many things can be set aright before the big cut?  That’s another decision, linked to how much can the didn’t-realize-he-was-getting-old-so-quickly-guy get away with?  Number-one son and his number-one son already got roped into moving the adjustable bed into old guy’s office / TV room, and moving other stuff the helpless old bastard shouldn’t try to do.  Huh!  Well, okay; can’t move it back himself, anyway.  There are bushes to be clipped, again… can he get away with that?

But underlying every surface concern are the profound ones.  How many normal actions have the potential of being the last time they’ll be done?  Driving to the office?  Selling a copier?  Helping customers?  Or, more importantly, kissing beloved wife or painting woodwork; or getting windows replaced or hallway floor redone.  What about this, or that or the other thing that comes down to fixing up the house for the next owner?  Will he get to lay out the Field of Honor again, straightening the flags when they sag from vertical? What about having lunch with Will Vercoe, one of the world’s best people, or having lunch with Dennis Galvin and Jay Gaffney, two more of the world’s best people, or bantering with Frank Allen, the world’s best person, a man without whom the old guy’s life would have been far less fulfilling or useful.  The best.

Or, everything will be so wonderfully wonderful after the operation that we’ll all be joking around about why there was any worry at all.  They do this all the time.

Don’t you just love hyphens?

Culture, Economics, Education, Governance, Health Care, Politics 2020

The Prices of Freedom

3 Comments
We're surely safe, now....

Our recent – and continuing – experiment with executive, unconstitutional tyranny in the name of public health, ought to wake up a nation that has been doing a poor job of conveying America’s exceptionalism and founding ideas.  At least two generations have matriculated with limited and essentially non-philosophical education about our own country’s history.  The unique responsibility that is part of and the foundation of  United States citizenship is barely mentioned, if not derogated, in government-monopoly “public” schools.

Being shut-down, locked-down, and pushed-around by a variety of state governments brings to mind the importance of our Constitution and our individual sovereignty as U.S. citizens – sovereignty that does NOT extend to non-citizens.  We are exceptional precisely because our form of government, and the IDEAS that define it are an exception to commonplace tyrannies that defined governance prior to the American Revolution.  Our nation is not an outgrowth of ethnicity or tribal history, but of a rare, exceptional set of ideas and philosophies.  One of these is that citizens are sovereign  and the federal government is formed by their consent, limited  by the Constitution that We the people created, ratified and (should) hold sacred.  If we only understood it!

It is hard to explain to Obama types who perceive the Constitution as flawed since it doesn’t list all the free stuff the federal government is obligated to give to people.  Those are they who bristle at the description, “free stuff.”  People will be paying taxes out the wazzoo for all the federal gifties, they note.

Still, as any veteran can tell us, there is a price to pay for freedom; we just don’t contemplate what that statement actually means.  A young-to-middlin’ man whom Prudence has known for his entire life, has grown to be a good observer of political fallacy, and he pointed out a good one regarding coronavirus tyranny: our freedom… our sovereign independence is not a gift from any government.  It is God-given, or, if you can’t stomach those concepts, it is a birthright if born under the Constitution, and precious.  Yet we wiil happily share it(!) with anyone who wishes to become a U. S. citizen.  That’s a gift that isn’t even offered anywhere else in the world, except somewhat in Canada and a couple other former dominions.

Freedom belongs  to the individual; it is personal, private property.  Unless we hurt others by committing crimes, no one can CONSTITUTIONALLY take our freedoms away.  Free citizens installed the constitution to limit the powers that the federal government THAT WE CREATED, could exercise on OUR behalf.  WE delineated the limits to government, not the government – not the congress – not any president except in the rare instances when the survival of the nation was threatened, war was declared by our supposed representatives, or when internal uprising threatened the nation.  Nowhere in its clarity and brevity is there a power granted by the people to restrict our inalienable rights in the event of  really bad influenza.  These bedrock concepts may sound quaint, but THEY ARE THE FUNDAMENTS of the United States of America.

So, since freedom of movement, assembly, religion, the redress of grievances, of speech and from unreasonable search and seizure belong to US, along with freedom from excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishments, from being forced to quarter soldiers in our homes unless provided by law in times of war, from frivolous criminal charges except by a grand jury, from deprivation of life, liberty or property except by due process of law, and from having our property taken for public use without just compensation, they are OUR PROPERTY.  We also have the right to a speedy trial, and to confront witnesses against us and to have the assistance of counsel.  We may demand a trial by jury.  The enumeration of rights (protected by the Constitution) shall not be taken to mean that other rights not enumerated are not still retained by the people.  Do you grasp the enormity of those words and others in the Constitution?  WE are the top of the heap: NOT THE GOVERNMENT.

The Fifth Amendment enumerates our right to JUST COMPENSATION when our properties are TAKEN from us.  Where does this leave our small-g governors when they attempt to force us to stay home, to stop working, to stop going out without a face-mask, to stop assembling with whom we please, or to stop earning our lawful livings?  How can we be restricted from buying any lawful product from any lawful seller thereof?  Our RIGHTS are our PROPERTIES… inalienable except in the most dire circumstances.  Over the years courts and even the Supreme Court have established that there must exist some overarching PUBLIC PURPOSE for ANY restriction of citizens’ rights.

There are 1,000 definitions of “public purpose” for every 100 instances of the exercise of police power.  Since the government, AND THEREFORE THE POLICE, exists to serve and protect US, our property , our rights, our citizenship, in fact our sovereignty, public gatherings, riots, parades and demonstrations and other incidents that block commerce and free access to public works like streets and sidewalks which WE PAID FOR AND OWN, legally and only appropriately, may be restricted to serve a public purpose (that purpose being the defense of good order so that private rights and properties may be legally enjoyed), including commercial properties.  Public safety in terms of free and safe flow of traffic and commerce, is also a public purpose.

So where is the government when the “public purpose” umbrella has evaporated in the presence of new information, scientific and otherwise?  It is in the increasingly comfortable position of tyrant, decreeing and attempting to enforce restrictions on the sovereign rights of citizens for NO GOOD PUBLIC PURPOSE.  And here is where we are regarding restrictions on movement, assembly, commerce, travel and personal hygiene in the guise of imaginary “Law” that says no one may exit his or her domicile without wearing a face covering.  We need not get in to keeping 6 feet away from other people.  These restrictions on rights actually form an offer to take with just compensation, our personal properties: things we own without restriction.

So WE THE PEOPLE should issue letters of conditional acceptance to our governors and Mayors and selectmen and Aldermen and police officials if necessary, stating our CHARGE for the loss of freedoms and rights.  That is, “just compensation” is not a price set by government who desires to take these properties for NO compensation; no, it is a price that seems “just” to each of us based on our own free judgment of the importance and therefore value of specific ones of our rights.  It seems Prudent that wearing a silly mask that has neither medical nor public value, should cost $80.00 per day, no terms: payable upon receipt.  Restriction to one’s home is worth at least $336 per day, unless one has school-age children, which adds $121.77 per child.  Staying 6 feet away from others is worth $2.25 per foot, per hour times the number of people so distanced.  The federal magicians have already tried to pay us for our inherent right to work.  Freedom of Religion is worth a lot more than these tiny sums.

It’s a whole lot less costly than days in court with juries, which cases the state and municipalities will lose.

Culture, Economics, Foreign Policy, Governance, Immigration, Politics 2020, Representation, Responsibility

RESURRECTION

Leave a comment
"In the beginning..."

There has never occurred a crisis for civilization when capitalism failed to function.  “Capitalism” is innate, virtually instinctive among humans, and the most powerful of motivators in societies as small as one member.  An individual has the same needs for life on a personal level as a family, clan, village or nation  has: clothing, food, protection and shelter.  At whatever level or intensity of need, humans will attempt to obtain as much as possible of any of them at the lowest “cost” of effort possible.

Once acquired these needed things automatically become property – property on a spectrum of ownership, from the very personal, like clothing, weapons, tools, personal or family shelter.  Beyond the immediately personal, family property and then clan or village property, there automatically develops properties that are belief-based, like loyalty and group-safety obligation.  It is a short journey to sharing beliefs about events, conditions, weather, waters, animals and childbirth… and death, that are unexplained and ascribed to supernatural influences.  These beliefs are as crucial a private property as clothing and self-defense, and as durable a cultural quality as pottery styles or graphic and oral expressions of every sort.  And they will be passed on to children nearly infallibly.  Behavior by either children or adults that is contrary to those shared beliefs automatically produces negative sanctions.

In groups as small as two, and certainly of 3 or 4, specialties: differences in abilities, are quickly apparent.  In a group of families there will be definite skills of higher degrees of excellence in this person or that – better hunting skills, better tool-making, better making of clothing, better hut-building.  Someone – an elder – will gain enough knowledge to predict outcomes, or eclipses, or the arrival of herds.  His or her wisdom will be sought out for transfer to children.  Specialization.  Economics is part of and an outgrowth of specialization.  Wise men, chiefs, healers and others will be fed in exchange  for their unique services.  Food is an automatic medium of exchange.  Next, perhaps, are weapons and tools.  The hunter who unerringly leads the hunting party to the clan’s next moose or buffalo or elk, may be “gifted” with a blanket, better shoes or more food… or a wife.

Rules, mores, or customs guide the relationships within the group.  Inevitably there is a shared concept of us and them: people from outside the clan.  The desire to protect the clan is just as automatic.  Yet the possibility of trade with outsiders may be easily entertained because of the ease of acquisition compared to the work required to obtain the outsider’s goods on their own.  The values must be set.  How many of this kind of skins or tools or decorations or… whatever, are “worth” the higher quality flint arrowheads the stranger makes?  Before long the first group will be trapping extra beavers just to trade for arrowheads: an economy is created.

The big impact on economics, and on the establishment of capitalism as an organizing  force in society, came with the introduction of agriculture.  As people settled  around their fields, the importance of property changed forever.  Where crops “belonged” to the village, or “city,” their grains and products were not handed out to every family for free.  There were trades or barters required, leading to record-keeping, counting, weights and balances.  There appeared the recorded existence of debts to be repaid in the (near) future, between families and the granary (city) and even between cities: a collective capitalism (property rights) and individual capitalism (private property rights.)  Automatically new specialties arose: law-enforcement within the city, and border-enforcement against all outside the city – soldiers and general conscription when fields and water sources were threatened.

Treaties were needed: rules to reduce threats from “others,” and to define ownership of certain lands and resources.  There always existed nomadic peoples who refined forms of movable dwellings, like those of indigenous peoples in North America.  Conflicting interaction between “property-rights” people and nomadic tribes inevitably result in destruction of nomadic uses of lands desired by those who employ fences, borders and ownership-based economic structures.  Native Americans had no concept of fences and property lines, and this difference affected why they never developed cities, industries and massive growth.  Today, the simplicity of indigenous people’s way of life is attractive to those who wish to tear down our current, sloppy, polluting and more or less capitalist, civilization.

Capitalism and all of its moving parts: private property, profit, risk, debt/investment, accumulation of wealth and inheritance and the freedom to fail and learn, is the prime driver of the global economy and amazing invention and innovation that supports more than 7 Billion humans.  But it does all of this at great cost, not least of which is the expansion of the number of possible “sins” and multiplication of the number of temptations (frauds, scams, legal deceptions, global banking).  On the other hand, and comprising the basic defense of capitalism as an organizing principle, capitalist economics and politics  have spurred the greatest wealth and health in history.  More people are well-fed and comforted in hundreds of ways, educated and made relatively “free” thanks to capitalism than under any of the more or less tyrannical systems employed, ever.

Capitalist politics depend on democracy and, judged by the success of the United States, upon republicanism:  the democratic election of ostensibly more capable, perhaps wiser, representatives.  Evidently, as well, Constitutional republicanism is crucial to the explosive growth of wealth and a “middle class” of upwardly mobile individuals and families who could, realistically, work their way higher up the economic ladder.  It is worth analysis and reformation, both political and economic, to return the U. S. system to its successful ways.  This means reformation of economic institutions, and of political institutions, both of which, today, conspire to concentrate power – and share it – to the detriment of freedom, upward mobility and essential Constitutionalism.

The strongest voices raised against “America,” are firmly on the left, socialist and worse.  Their prescription is virtual destruction of “capitalism” and honest conservatives / constitutionalists must recognize their logic in the presence of an extremely unbalanced, oligarchy of global bankers who largely have brought the financial system to a point of dictating to even the United States, what its future will be: indebtedness to that cabal, and therefore limited as to the extent of our independent action internationally.

Capitalism requires limits and institutions that prevent its (people’s) essential tendencies toward 1) monopoly and, 2) political / governmental advantage.  We can see the damages that concentrations of wealth will cause, not least of which is empowering socialism and anti-constitutionalism.  But it also creates severe stratification in a society formed without “castes” or “classes.”  Perhaps worst of all, super wealth transcends nationhood; when profits can be earned around the globe, the need to adhere to a single country’s norms and laws, tends to evaporate.  Most particularly, the impact of market presence in the nations of our rivals / enemies, sees corporations or syndicates of corporations, bending to not offend those who mean the U. S. the most harm.

Is it possible to restore a sense of nationalism for industries key to the defense and independence of the United States?  What would such a policy look like?  What could possibly be the enforcing agency?  Can current political hatreds and ignorance permit the formation of a national-interest industrial policy that serves the country, rather than one that serves a party?

When the two – or three – political “sides” in the U. S. don’t agree on what the national interest is, or even if there IS a national interest, it appears that a national industrial policy is rather remote.  Yet it must manifest if the United States is to control its own destiny.  What forces must come together to make this happen… and within two years?

A “fusion” government.  A… what the Hell?  Never happen.

It has to.  Until Bush beat Gore, technically, the two-party system functioned as a modified “fusion” government system.  Overall, both parties were mainly interested in doing what was best for the country and managed to cooperate on major issues and trends.  Sloppy, corrupt and self-serving, and able to cooperate as much as we did thanks only to the unlimited creation of stultifying debt, both parties managed to avoid the corrosive hatreds of the past twenty years.  How we’ve operated since, say, the Kennedy administration, is NOT the model to strive for, now.

Thirty Congresses and eleven Presidents have brought America to the edge of insolvency and at risk of subservience to China and others.  The abrupt re-set due to coronavirus is an opportunity and a test.  For the faithful, a test like this is not an accident, it is a loud vibrant message from God that we are far along a wrong path.  But, those certain that they do not believe can get the message, too.  The United States cannot continue to waste its wonderful gifts bestowed at our founding and many times since.  Here are a few changes that must manifest if we are to maintain our independence:

  • New leadership.  Without trying to parse all the forces that pushed on the psyche’s of numerous political leaders, we – and they – must recognize that the Democrat party has shifted distinctly leftward… and that leftist policies – virtual socialism – are incompatible with Constitutional republicanism.  Some leaders are so committed to this relatively new political stance that they must be replaced by younger, more pragmatic and, dare it be suggested, more conservative leaders. 

          The same is true for Republicans.  Republicans have been pulled leftward by the most crass and aggrandizing consideration: re-election.  Appealing to the (leftist) attractiveness of “free” advantages for voters, Republicans learned to win re-election along the same paths as more left-leaning Democrats.  Those who have built political careers (another problem) by hewing closer to Democrat principles,  should be retired so that conservative principles can again define Republicans.

          The ability of a “party” to be defined by, and to defend, an articulable philosophy of government, of legal code, of education and of help for the poor, is fundamental   for representatives of that party to deserve enough votes to gain governing authority under the Constitution.  Subsequently, the two parties should be able to agree on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution.   These essentials seem simple to some of us, but are not agreed-to by about half of the voting public.  It is time for both parties to lead America onto a stronger, Constitutionally purer path.

  • Destruction of debt.  None of our agreed Constitutional principles will protect us if we sacrifice the independence of the United States, and nothing risks that independence more, or more directly, than our ballooning debt, owed in large fraction to non-Americans, including other countries.  An industrial policy that both parties can agree to is part and parcel of controlling our national debt burden and the ultimate value of our currency and labors. 

          Total annual expenditures must reverse direction.  Contrary to the unsustainable trends of the past half-century, the federal “budget-in-name-only” must shrink by fully 25% – a prospect surely deemed impractical, if not impossible, by most in both parties, Republicans included.  While Republicans have always preached “smaller” government, since Johnson’s “Great Society,” indeed, since F.D.R.’s “New Deal,” the ostensible conservatives have succumbed to the enrichening advantages of staying in office, and have diverted their efforts to re-election rather than statesmanship.  For many now in office their personal advantages of office are shameful and distinctly off the mark.

  • Electoral honesty.  Democrats have raised the art of pandering to ephemeral, personal issue-driven groups to an art-form, even as they have learned – codified – numerous ways to expand “voter participation” so as to steal elections.  Vote-harvesting, early voting, same-day registration, automatic registration when interacting with state governments for unrelated matters, non-verification of citizenship status during such interactions, “Rank” voting and organized surrogate voting, and other schemes honest people can’t imagine, all contribute to the erosion of democracy.  Matched with these illicit garnerings of “votes,” is the opening of borders to waves of illegal entrants who, it is hoped by their advocates, will vote for Democrats and some misguided municipalities are granting illegal entrants voting privileges in “local” elections – a virtually unmanageable distinction.  To form a more unified national political structure, these tactics must be renounced and abandoned.  One voter – one vote… per citizen.

          Republicans are no purer when opportunities are present to take advantage of election management dominance.  For shame.  Both parties must commit to, and back legislation that strengthens enforcement of election laws, including “clean” voting rolls.

  • Deconstruction of the labyrinthine administrative “state.”  Both parties have colluded to slough off responsibility for the laws that are passed, by installing more and more agencies, offices, titles and programs among the 15 executive departments.  Within virtually all of them are powers to regulate citizen behaviors, each with the force of law despite no specific authorization from Congress.  This threatens personal freedom.  Both parties should be able to agree on the restoration and future preservation of freedom.

          What there is no agreement on is what constitutes that freedom.  To socialists, freedom means freedom from personal responsibility… in the dozens of forms that can take.  To originalists freedom means freedom to make as much of one’s abilities and situation as can legally be done and according to individual initiative and enterprise.  To make the opportunity to succeed manifest for the largest number of citizens and legal residents, government must be a trusted partner  in life, and not an opponent.  Repeatedly, this immense gulf separates the parties to the degree that   cooperation appears unreachable.  There must  arrive a more cooperative,   constitutional understanding of individual sovereignty and responsibility.

  • The re-establishment of honest budgeting.  Both parties must agree to annually cleanse the federal complex of agencies and programs, of wasteful overlap of purposes and missions and personnel.  The budget line-items for each should be justified or eliminated at least bi-annually.

          Beyond congressional oversight of each component of the total budget, an   agreement is needed to cut federal spending by every Congress for five Congresses (10 years) until total outlays are equal to inflows during the period of the previous budget cycle.  Can that much discipline be found among current and future   members?  And, in current and future presidents?  A president can begin the process with a half-hour address to the nation.  Bring back “Ross Perot’s charts” and ask the questions needed and issue the challenge.  Let those who are opposed to balancing the budget make their case.  There isn’t one.  On this challenge the construction of a fusion government can – and must – move forward.

Ultimately, Americans and their representatives will agree on the unifying principle that fuels the exceptional American, Constitutional experiment:  Our success as a free people and nation is measured not by how large our governments are, but by how small.

Culture, Economics, Education, Politics 2020, Representation, Responsibility, Taxation

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Leave a comment

It seems Prudent to pray.  Humans have an urge to worship, whether unto a deity of the personal perception of each supplicant, or to a set of deities connected to important natural phenomena like trees, rains, sunlight, moonlight, stars, winds, lightning, high and low temperatures… and more. 

If not truly worshipped, natural aspects of locales are generally respected with some attribution of supernatural importance, power or influence.  Caves, mountains, bodies of water, great forests and vital rivers are considered more than just natural by populations on whose lives they have life-giving or life-threatening influence.  Whether the Holy Spirit or the Great Spirit of native tribes, life’s continuous foibles, phenomena, fertility, feelings, fears and finality cause humans in every kind of society to come to terms with what can’t be controlled through forms of spirituality or religious faith.

What does it mean to all of those who claim to have no attachment to any church, religion or spiritual belief structure?  There are many and the number grows as government schools and liberal-leftist guided private schools divest themselves of morality and other quasi-biblical philosophies.  Only “science” can satisfy agnostics and atheists, those so declared tell anyone who’ll listen.  Religions are “mumbo-jumbo.”  So certain of their cold, scientific facts are many atheists, that they feel compelled to prevent any expression of religion or faith or spirituality.  The Prudent observer might think that they protest too much.  Their innate need to worship something is simply satisfied in a different way.

An argument can be made that Socialism is the secular faith, as it were.  Those who believe in this “ism,” must take its tenets on faith, since there is no empirical evidence that Socialism has worked anywhere.  Yet they work tirelessly to impose socialism so that individuality and human nature are replaced with the collectivist ethos, and innate capitalism is replaced with Utopian premises of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”  A lot of faith is required to believe such ideas in the face of utter failure in every example.

Inevitably, Socialism devolves into tyranny.  In place of “guided honesty” of free individuals, Socialism is required to impose rules for correct behavior, and they inevitably become very granular.  The logical concerns we have about the American administrative state are genuine fears about a Socialist bureaucracy that is charged with imposing a statist conformity on large populations.  Although a modern socialist state might refrain from police-state status, today’s technology empowers social engineers to gather voluminous data that help identify non-conforming citizens, whose lack of adherence to rules threatens, or are perceived to threaten, the health and safety of the group/collective for whom the state exists and is dedicated.

Power, ultimately, and before very long, concentrates in the hands of the higher echelons of bureaucracies.

Also logically, politics within socialist systems can’t be allowed to offer significant opposition to the functioning bureaucracy.  There is a certain necessity to promoting, educating about, proving and re-proving a high level of infallibility of the state.  The benign nature of the system that all benefit from and must support, has no room for serious opposition to its own quality.  Calling socialist leadership into question is simply anathema to the established rules of conformity.  Freedom and socialism are essentially antithetical.  There is no need for freedom when “everybody” already benefits from the state.

The reactions to freedom and independent sovereignty can be seen in the United States today.  Wherever the premises of socialism/atheism are challenged by Christians, in particular, the socialist response is most often anger: the public face of hatred.  If any question of this set of observations remains, just consider the nature of angry reaction to Trump and to any of his supporters.  Hatred.

For every form of governance and social cohesion, there is a beginning and some sort of end-game.  Given the ubiquitous factor of human nature, which is fundamentally, personally, independent and capitalistic, in the sense of retaining the products of one’s labor – the whole “private property” thing – the founding of the United States did the best job yet in history, to craft a Constitution and the original institutions that, in the hands of both faithful and honest officials, judges and democratically elected representatives, might survive the tyrannical tendencies it was designed to oppose.

From the beginning, the desires of some for power over others, for self aggrandizement and for monopoly economic advantage, have been trying to erode the bases of liberty.  As the philosophies of tyranny also matured, the description of socialism as the utopian supplantation of capitalism, and thereby of individual freedom, caught the interest of those who already hated the chaos of freedom as much as they distrusted the unity of thought that resulted from religious faith.  Any system of human organization that did not need the guidance of the state, was/is to be discredited and destroyed.  And so it has gone since at least the (second) Civil War.  Never let a crisis go to waste.

The blind faith in socialism is not so dissimilar to religious faith: life-changing belief in something that can’t be seen, and acceptance of various scriptures.  On the other hand, but in the same way, erstwhile conservatives show blind faith in unregulated capitalism, as if human nature were fulfilled by monopoly, government-protected wealth concentration, and as if the super-rich billionaire class were going to become benign rich uncles to us, all.  There is foolishness aplenty to go around… the world.

Rather than thinking with our human-nature selfishness, a little statesmanship is the better prescription.  We need, first, to recognize that these, again, are the times that try men’s souls.  At the founding of the independence struggle, those who signed the Declaration of Independence were placing their support for what was a civil war, not truly a revolution, out in the public eye, making themselves primary targets for the British military fighting to hold the American part of the British Kingdom tightly to England.  It took phenomenal courage, as they pledged their “… lives, fortunes and sacred honor.”

Where is sacred honor, today, as we face the United States’ greatest enemy: the failure of belief in the American Dream?  Where are the statesmen and women who will risk everything to restore America’s path?  There is no question that stepping back from the brink of tyranny – from the brink of unfathomable debt – will be quite unpleasant, uncomfortable, unpredictable and will require a continuity of leadership we have not seen since Lincoln and Washington.  It will not be possible for Americans to work 30 and 35-hour weeks, take multiple vacations each year, and waste as much income on frivolous, games, goodies or fattening foods.  Everyone will have to sacrifice.

Especially governments.

The federal budget must be rendered $1 Trillion smaller.  Sounds easy when the number is so even and simply stated.  A trillion… a thousand billion dollars.  In none of our lifetimes have we seen a congress cut – as in spend less money this year than was spent last fiscal year – ANY federal office or program, without spending much more elsewhere.

Local governments would have to assume the absolutely essential social services, and forego multiple other demands… demands like raises, fancy equipment, landscaping that isn’t done voluntarily, new school buildings and numerous non-essential municipal jobs.  States will find cutting even more difficult, since all those unionized state employees are the same people whose families donate to and work for campaigns.  Plus, there’s all that graft on enormous public works.  No more $750,000 state university presidents in those days, either.

None of these politically unlikely changes will happen, of course, until a far greater hurdle is crossed: making everyone, both parties, and everyone else, public and private, believe that eliminating debt-based government is more important than all of everyone’s private concerns.  More than during any war-time mobilization, Americans will have to agree to the importance of national sacrifice… to the importance of living within our means, Constitutionally, and with added sacrifice to pay off all of our loans.

There is no other path to financial freedom and strength.  Every dollar of debt is a loss of independence; every dollar in taxes is a loss of freedom.  Can we strike the correct balance going forward?  – the balance between independence, freedom and responsibility?  – the balance envisioned in our founding that relied upon morality and personal responsibility?

Or shall we succumb to the blandishments of socialist, identity politics, and hollow promises of greater freedom through national controls?  Shall we continue down a path that promises the slow loss of all we hold dear in America… slow, until one day we lose everything that’s left, abruptly, cataclysmically, destructively, unrecoverably?  We hope we know when that will be, but we don’t.  We hope we can pull back from the brink before all is lost, based on some arcane calculations that, literally, no one knows how to make.

Will the path to sanity commence before the next election?  Not bloody likely.  What about after the next election?  Well, not until all the other spending promises are fulfilled, and by then it will be mid-term elections and there’s no way in Hell those congressional giants are going to bear the brunt of mismanagement long before THEY were first elected.

Culture, Family

A Universal Question

Leave a comment

We had take-out from Chipotle’s tonight.  It’s pretty good, although hard to take home without it’s becoming cold, but still tasty.  I went out of my way a few miles to get it, even though I nearly pass one on my normal way home.  When I arrived the place was packed, unusually so – extraordinarily unusually so – for a weeknight at this particular mall full of restaurants.

They were hosting a fundraiser for a five-time cancer victim who had been on the local swim team in high school, in between cancer battles, and who has made nothing but friends in her first twenty five years on Earth.  The swim team was sponsoring the event during which, for several hours, Chipotle would donate not five or ten or fifteen percent of revenues from identified supporters, but an astronomical thirty-three percent thereof.  By the time I left the wonderfully noisy establishment, the line had expanded from the long one I waited in, to one that extended through the double doors.  I had tears in my eyes.

The ultimate beneficiary is a granddaughter.  But that isn’t the topic… not really.

I work in a small city beset with every social ill, discomfort, and disruption there is, from drug abuse to gangs to illegal entrants on welfare.  Yet it has its own vitality, too, with hundreds of small businesses, including several that expedite everything from cars and furniture to cash back to the “home” countries.  Driving along the best route to the Chipotle restaurant I passed blocks that once were nearly pure Italian, now nearly pure “Hispanic,” although none of the residents come, actually, from Spain.

Looking at the myriad signs hanging from brackets or otherwise affixed to the storefronts, I was struck by all the forces, factors, influences and opportunities to create something, that had come together to form the human consciousness that had created this or that sign in particular.  And for that matter, that had created the things on display in the windows, or the very windows or the cars parked in front.  In the boundless (we think) Universe of planets and places of every shape and kind, how insignificant and majestic each of those creations are.  Why are they what they are?

Across the street were new apartment blocks of certain size and shape, in certain colors chosen from millions of colors, made of materials natural and invented, but made – created, by people, whose purpose and motivation may have been garnering money, another human invention, but whose product, however important to the net occupants, is, in the grand scheme of things, so infinitesimally tiny as to be invisible, which is not to say, meaningless.  One can rightfully assume, I believe, that every human-conceived and created thing or, I suppose, idea, is meaningful.  Indeed every thing  is or was meaningful in a large manner at some time, and the fact that no one we can find remembers its large meaning in no way detracts from its infinitesimal and utter importance.

How is it that we mere specks of tissue on this planetary mote have found within ourselves the need and the ability to create things?  How is it that we have invested so much of our cosmically virtual instants of life to the work of creating things, but even more astonishing, to devise ways and means to care about one another… like the five-time cancer patient who has created of herself, in spite of constant physical attacks on her tiny body, a teacher to children?

That so large a fraction of our blinks of time is spent creating ways to comfort ourselves and our children, is logical and to be expected, one would think; but, how is another such large fraction of our time consumed by caring for others, unrelated, most likely and unmet, even more likely?  Chemistry?  Cosmic rays?  Hmmnh.  What is the point?

Many of us human specks think there is no point.  To they who agree, apparently one should have as much fun as possible, as much sex as possible, own as many things as possible, be they items for sale behind that singular window in the building built as it was with the certain kind of sign saying what it says on the street where I passed, or the painted apartment blocks with unknown people in them… unknown at least to me.  If the things one owns happen to bring the owner more fun and more sex, then he or she has hit “life’s lottery,” making him or her “lucky” despite the impossibility of luck as a force working on the dust-mote of a planet we call home, else there would be something larger than our atoms and selfishness.

The house a semi-handyman lives in is full of things that he has made or perhaps modified or built because of need or artistry.  They are pleasing to him, for a hundred reasons, perhaps even to impress his wife or mate.  Oftentimes they were argued about in the concept, but he still “did” them, sometimes to praise.  But, why?  Why could not things have simply stayed the same?  Someone else crafted them as they were, or damaged them to leave them so.  Barring concerns of safety or comfort, why not leave them alone, tan instead of green, yellowish instead of rose, blue instead of stained and polished wood?  Whence came the compulsion, by anyone, to change them, all those things?

There may be, a billion stars away, a planet with what we call astronomers looking through what we call telescopes and barely detecting the changes in brilliance of our little star as we circle across its disk of light.  If a little more “advanced” than we they may have detected radio signals or nuclear blasts on our little speck and feel compelled, somehow, to let us know they know.  We will.  What would it matter, the color of my house or socks or fingernails, to any of those distant, distant cousins?  Or, to us, theirs?  But they and we, matter above all of our respective, awakened histories, to one another.  Interesting, that.

Where does freedom live?  Is there some reason, aside from novels and movies, both strange aspects of humanity, to believe that only planet-wide, homogenous people could ever advance sufficiently to contact other life?  Isn’t science most properly an affirmation of freedom?  Freedom to wonder, investigate, experiment and explore?  Freedom to challenge “truths” and to postulate new ones?  A billion stars away, would the search for us be a scientific endeavor or a military one?

Or, as many appear to believe, increasingly over many decades, is freedom, the essence of individuality, an impediment to “progress?”  If it is snuffed out on our Earth-speck, will the Universe care?  Or is freedom a blip in the history of humanity, otherwise destined to be controlled by more powerful elites, inexorably planet-wide?  How is it that humans evolved to invent democracy and the concept of republicanism?  Cellular luck?  Not possible if there are no philosophical forces, like “luck,” operating outside of simple existence.  Did biochemistry produce democracy?  Or a nation founded on self-government and limited central powers?

And if “freedom,” the inherent rights of individuals to both succeed or fail, were to be snuffed out on the tiny mote of matter we call Earth, would it matter to our brothers on that other speck a billion suns away?  Would it matter here?

Governance, Representation, Trump

Land of the Free

Leave a comment

 

The current turmoil in our “American Community” is constantly laid at the feet of Mr. Trump.  He, of course, can’t avoid making his own contribution to our dis-ease… it is how he got himself elected.  But, we appear to be living out the future long forecasted: that we will destroy ourselves from within, and not be conquered from without.  Trump is a symptom of the poor health of our self-government experiment, not the cause.

A list of “major” components of modern American life will, topic by topic, immediately bring to the reader’s mind his or her own ideas – opinions – and perhaps knowledge of what is out of balance, if not dangerously wrong in each arena.  See if you agree that the following are the “major” components:

1   K – 12 public education                    2   Higher education

3   Religious institutions                         4   Religious faith

5   Law enforcement                                 6   Courts and judges

7   Race relations                                         8   Legislatures & representation

9   Energy                                                         10 Bureaucracy

11 Politics and campaigns                     12 Banks and money

13 Families and children                        14 Small business

15 Big business                                            16 Globalization

17 Taxation and licensing                      18 Illegal entrants

19 Welfare                                                     20 Drug abuse

21 Health care                                             22 Health insurance

23 Transportation                                     24 Pollution and waste

25 Global climate                                      26 Internet

27 Television, communications        28 Morality

29 Constitution and law                       30 Sexuality

31 Nationalism and patriotism         32 Civil rights

33 Culture                                                    34 Language

35 Science and ethics                           36 Computers and Artificial                                                                                                   Intelligence

Prudence indicates that everything “major” in terms of the molding, functioning and survival of society can be found among and within these topics.  This is not to say that “animal rights” and pesticides are not important, as are diet, obesity and vegetarianism.  But with some thought every advocate of almost anything can find his or her prime concern under one of these umbrellas… I think.

The unfortunate reality is that we, all of us, almost automatically, today, turn to our federal government, that thousand-headed Hydra, to take dominion over all of these topics or problems.  Simultaneously we turn to lawyers and litigation to restore balance when we feel unfairly treated by… well, anything and anyone.  “Freedom and Responsibility” have been replaced by “Comfort and Litigation.”  Responsibility for one’s freedom is a lot of work.

What, now, shall we do?  Your mind has recalled something about almost all of the listed topics, mostly problems and how you’d “fix” them if you ran the zoo.  There aren’t enough electrons to paint an LED screen with the “solutions.”  We are in debt to our great-grandchildren, each of us having benefited in some degree from that theft, no matter how succinctly that theft may be apportioned to other groups.  We got here by being human and we can get out of the morass by human means, too.

It is a mistake to believe that some perfect candidate for whichever office, is going to correct ANY part of ANY of the topical problem areas following his or her election.  It happens occasionally, advertently and inadvertently, but we have humanly caused to develop several systems of elective and appointive governance that are most effective in enriching those so elected and appointed, and least effective at solving true problems or injustices.

The operating logic of the Constitution is that representatives of the people would be the least corruptible locus of federal power.  They would be just like the farmers and tradesmen they left behind: suspicious of executive authority (like that from which the “Revolutionary War” had lately freed them) and responsible not only for designing and compromising on the legislation they wanted to have signed by the President, but also for holding the Executive departments in check, with ultimate oversight of their actions.

However, to further check the possible coalitions of emotion or temporary economic conditions, the Founders also included the Senate which members were selected by the several states’ own legislatures to, ostensibly, represent the states’ interests as sovereign states that had relinquished a measured amount of that sovereignty to enable the common defense of them, all.  Legislation that got “through” the House of the people’s Representatives, must, Constitutionally, ALSO be passed by the Senate with its own interests addressed, specifically those of their respective states.  Legislation had to please a lot of people to finally get to the President’s desk.

Of course, Senators have their own ideas and it is and was from the beginning, rare that a bill originating in either chamber will survive negotiations in the other without important changes.  As a result, two committees are formed, in effect: one from the House and one from the Senate, who sit together as a “conference” committee.  Their task is to iron out the differences between the two versions of the legislation.  If they can, with lots of back and forth with their respective chambers’ leadership, then the compromise “bill” is re-voted by each chamber (dual passage not guaranteed) and, if passed by both, finally sent to the President.

The theory at work was that the “people” would hold a check on their representatives; the Senators would hold a check on the passions of the people’s representatives; the House, and the Senate, sometimes together, would hold a check on a President and his administration.  Should work, right?

One of the greatest concerns of the writers of the Constitution and of the Federalist Papers, was the possibility of “faction.”  Faction is best translated as “Party,” political party.  What part have we, each of us, played in the virtual destruction of our constitutional republic?  How much of our decision-making at election times derives from anger towards or fear of, candidates from the wrong “party.”  Why has this become the marker for political “involvement?”  What has hatred got to do with self-governance?  With America?

How did we become subjects of the government “we” formed?  How did “we” allow the Departments of War, State, Treasury and Navy, plus an Attorney General, become a consuming, barely recognizable monster of 200, 400, 500 or more Departments and Agencies, Offices and Committees who govern us through regulation, fine, penalty, taxation and threats?  How did the nation that took on the world’s greatest empire at the time, turn into a population that can’t be trusted by the government it formed to choose what it eats, drives, takes for vitamins or thinks about faith or life, itself?  We are not trusted, even, to think about freedom.

 

 

Economics, Governance, Representation

Strange Times, Unbridgeable Gulfs

1 Comment

These are unusual times in Washington, DC, and in the whole country.  The popular press and the Democrat party, which is to say, on one side, there are many voices trying to convince the unconvinced that President Trump is surely guilty of terrible acts involving Russian operators who “colluded” with the Trump campaign to put the electoral kibosh on the Hillary Clinton campaign.  “Collude” means “conspire” generally and we know that Trump is guilty of that and much more because there is, after all, an investigation  ongoing and going and going and “they” wouldn’t be investigating a PRESIDENT, for Heaven’s sake, if he were not guilty of something.

The investigation is under the aegis, which means an obscuring cloak, like a sheep- or goat-skin, of a person named as “Special Counsel” by someone high up in the Department of Justice, usually the Attorney General of the United States.  There have been damned few of these.  Democrats and the Press can think of only one other, when asked: Archibald Cox, who was the first “Special Prosecutor” (same thing as a special counsel if there actually is a crime to investigate) of the so-called “Watergate Scandal” and whose removal as such by President Nixon caused the resignations of then Attorney General, Elliott Richardson and of his Deputy, William Ruckelshaus over their refusals to fire Cox.  Robert Bork, then Solicitor General, automatically became acting Attorney General and it was he who carried out the Presidents LEGAL order to remove Cox.

For Bork his legal exercise of authority, both his and the president’s, partly sealed his fate when he was nominated for the Supreme Court in the Summer of 1987 by President Reagan.  Bork had become an enemy of Democrat justice and there are no resentments, there is no umbrage greater or longer-lasting than that of a liberal.  Bork fired Cox.  Even though Nixon’s brutal ending of the Cox investigations was a time of great Democratic rejoicing – Nixon having sealed his disgrace by that action, what could be more joyous – Bork was the one who provided the means and that was never, ever forgotten.  Ted Kennedy, so-called Lion of the Senate, drunken murderer, he, prepared the most outrageous attacks and vilifications to sink Bork before he could even grasp what in Hell was being done to him.  It had taken 14 years but justice was finally served… against Bork.

This is an example of one of the forces that mould and shape history: hatred.  It is hatred of non-liberals, non-socialists, and it stems from the abiding leftist desire… need… to change humans.  Human nature, designed, conservatives tend to believe, by God, is an affront to leftists who believe, essentially, that left-leaning humans can create not just a better world than God could and did, but even better humans than His.  Heady stuff, and the fuel of giant resentments, perhaps explaining why liberals are always angry about something and why they are convinced in their hearts that people who disagree with them are in need of regulation and re-education, which require more government and LESS freedom.  Freedom, itself, is resented by leftists, socialists, liberals, Democrats.  Hence, anyone who defends freedom and less government, is an automatic enemy of the left.  With so many enemies all around, it is no surprise that liberals aren’t  happy very often.

Because liberals and other leftists are so convinced of their mission to separate people from human nature, they never accept a loss when they do, in fact, lose.  What they do is immediately calculate how to win a slightly different fight on the exact same principle  that they just lost.  First they’ll need to devise a venue upon which the original battle can be recreated, whereupon some modified tactics might bring a victory that was simply not accomplished the first, second or third time.  Of course, once the liberal victory is achieved, the result may never, ever be challenged since it is clearly on the correct path of history.  None of that reactionary constitutionalism, freedom, independence or individual sovereignty and personal responsibility can be allowed to “weaken” the strength of the liberal welfare state.

After all, the reason socialism hasn’t worked before is because earlier practitioners were not as smart as the current crop.  Actually what has always happened was that socialists ran out of money, and not their own.  Today’s stripe of leftist, controlling types, have grown up in a world where virtually unbridled debt is somehow “normal.”  Maybe we… they, can now afford to give up freedom for the opportunity to be coddled by socialists NOT because we won’t run out of money – that train, with its overpaid unionized crew, left the station long ago.  No, it’s because we won’t run out of debt!  So far, at least, the cliff’s edge is still out of sight.  So long as there is unlimited borrowing from the future, there’s no crying need for wisdom, intelligence, historical reference or basic economics.

It’s sad to think that there are capable people who have made whole careers out of bringing us to this point.

How can we conduct rational discussions of public policy with a group that thinks non-liberal people are less than human and living in a past that they, liberals, hate.  Not that liberals want to discuss policy with virtual Neanderthals who cling to guns and religion – what could they possibly add? – but there is a case to be made that what liberals would discuss is how to get conservatives to give up American traditions and historical truths… silly things like mother-father families and working for a living.  It is a nearly unbridgeable gulf.

If individuals whose daily life is barely affected by these issues can’t discuss them, how can we expect congress-people to work out conflicts over the same ideas when their entire beings are consumed by re-election?  Prudence tells us that there are honest liberals, as we know several just in the Merrimack Valley.  And it seems still worthwhile to change their minds, bit by bit.