Tag Archives: Marxism

Biden, Crime, Economics, Education, Elections, Governance, Guns, Right?, Politics 2024, Religion, Terrorism

BEFORE BUTLER – AFTER BUTLER

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So much speculation. Those of us who have been praying for this nation are waiting to see God’s hand at work reforming our moral platforms, perhaps penetrating our wayward churches, perhaps loosening the chains on our public education. Can He cleanse higher education, as well? Of course. Those with eyes to see and ears to hear are in for a period of joy. To the less-inspired, if you have been hoping for a sign… well, there you are.

Joe Biden threw down a challenge to the Almighty the other day: he would get out of the campaign for re-election only if God Almighty told him to get out. Hmmnnhh… sometimes the observer is too close to the signs to see them – forest for the trees, and all that. JOE! JOE! Heaven to JOE! If you can’t take a bright, shining slap to your psyche, you will not like the two-by-four on the side of your head. Take the hint, Joe… please!

All of the pablum comments about “lowering the temperature” of political discourse, are no more than political comments uttered by the unaware. We need to recognize that God is totally unimpressed by politicized speeches, statements, position papers and other modified forms of bull-hockey. He cares only about your soul and the love in our hearts. The hatreds are our business, alone.

Political campaigns are staffed, in part, by professional liars. Prudence doubts that this fact is actually a good thing, or good aspect of human endeavor in any case. It will be interesting to see what changes might manifest in the output of campaign drivel. Will it become more principled? Will it add to Americans’ understanding of the Covenant aspect of our exceptional Constitution and Republic? Will anything be conveyed in place of standard calumny and excrement? There’s is a lot to watch and listen for. Which campaign will actually improve the level of “unity” in these great United States?

The “LEFT,” so called, is a wide, stinking river of anti-American opinion, calumny and hatreds of multiple kinds, cobbled together to defeat conservatism. American conservatism doesn’t really fit anywhere on the spectrum from LEFT to RIGHT as typically distinguished – most of the distinguishing being done by those on the Left.

As much as possible, the original founding ideas of “America,” were developed in concert with the principles of Judeo-Christianity. Key to the non-religious basis of the American Republic is that equal application of the Law applies to everyone. This concept is a continuous lesson in Biblical writings, and we see it in the balance between FREEDOM and RESPONSIBILITY. God’s instruction to mankind is based on FREE WILL, but it is bound by the responsibility to answer for the consequences of our free-will decisions. (As ye sow, so shall – so MUST – you reap) This fundamental concept is the basis of our Constitution. For humans to establish a government that can so closely reflect the fundamentals of both the Old and New Testaments, is a small miracle. The alternative to the Constitution is the mix of philosophies we call “the Left.”

As illustrated in virtually every Bible story and book, those who stand up for God are almost immediately attacked, if not killed. From the very start: Garden of Eden, the “serpent” employed the process of dialectic materialism, as in Marxism. God commanded Adam and Eve to not partake of the Tree of Knowledge in the center of the Garden, else they would die. The serpent argued that the benefits were even greater than god inferred, and that despite what He said, surely they wouldn’t actually DIE for gaining the knowledge of the Gods. God stated the Thesis (God’s Word) the serpent argued the Anti-thesis, and the net result became the Synthesis. Adam and Eve were not struck dead, but they were Banished from God’s bountiful Garden, thereafter forced to struggle in lives of constant testing and difficulty. The process of dialectic lying has never changed: Abortion is not murder; unborn babies are not humans with souls. The synthesis is not an alternate truth… it is an alternate lie that is easier or more beneficial for people to believe. The process leads to Communism: the exact opposite of our Constitutional Republic.

When the United States of America was formed, it stood against thousands of years of evil and tyranny, much of it represented by Royal families. The forces of the Left almost immediately started to undercut the new government, an effort that truly shifted into gear following the Civil War. For 150 years we have been bending to the blandishments of dialectic materialism. Today we’re $35 Trillion in debt, borrowing at an unsustainable rate to maintain astonishing welfare outflows, while reducing our ability to physically defend ourselves!

The Left has insinuated its socialist-communist forces into the Deep State, into public and private education, into higher education, into globalist corporations and communications. Just look at the list of “Americans” who attend the World Economic Forum and who are comfortable with the influence of the U. N. and the World Health Organization as it attempts to gain treaties with developed countries that would place the W.H.O. in charge of NATIONAL health-care policies and much more. It’s time to put Satan behind us.

The United States, due mainly to failures in education and religion, has accepted anti-Americanism to a great degree. Every principle embodied in our Constitution is challenged constantly by some form of anti-thesis, usually couched in this or that sympathetic concern for poor, hungry, fat, disabled, dysphoric, addicted or homeless misfortunates that the ‘fortunate’ are obligated to pay government employees and contractors to make comfortable. Those same employees or contractors are rarely paid to solve life’s many misfortunes. Providing real solutions to how people became so unhappy and uncomfortable is perceived as cruel, racist, or insensitive, and frequently, illegal. Both the government and the social problems become larger. Thesis – anti-thesis – synthesis.

The other day a “lone, crazed gunman” came within an inch of killing Donald Trump. As things ramped up for the Republican National Convention, the love for Mr. Trump seemed to expand and motivate the assembled crowd to new heights of love for him and his “larger than life” status in the party and in the country. For Trump, however, the events of Saturday, July 13, 2024 re-oriented him to his true status: mortal. They made clear to him that he is not larger, but smaller than he thought; that he is a tool in the hands of God, to Whom he owes his continued life on Earth. The mission has changed.

The divine intervention that saved him also makes clear that there has always been a plan and purpose for the creation of the United States of America. One hopes that the many uncertain Americans who may have suspected some kind of “purpose” for America: Free-Masons and all of that, might experience a renewal in their faith, having witnessed a pretty clear message from the Almighty. The Lord works in mysterious ways. For Trump, there is a new reason to do his best for America – new reasons to stop our self-destruction, stop our acceptance of Marxism / Communism, stop our un-Godly drift away from faith and truth. For those of us with eyes to see and ears to hear, we should be ready to help him… or, help ourselves.

Economics, Education, Family, Race, Religion, Responsibility, Sex, Taxation

AMERICA – Article III

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A major factor in the success of the United States and its economic freedom (among other freedoms) is the honesty and relative strictness of its judiciary, both federal and State. The honesty of contracts at every level, including the contract between the American people and the federal government: the Constitution, relies increasingly upon the Supreme Court, the final arbiter.

Article III details the legal circumstances that require original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which means that the supreme court is the first, and only Court, that can hear those cases and rule upon the issues in conflict. In all other cases – and there are hundreds – the Court must agree to accept an appeal from litigants who not only aren’t satisfied with the decision made, but who also believe there is a Constitutional issue involved in their conflicting claims. At least four Justices must agree to accept a case, and one of them is likely to write an opinion, if not THE opinion that will form the Court’s ruling. It takes time. When the majority opinion is delivered there usually is a dissenting opinion. Lawyers everywhere study both. Crucial interpretations of Constitutional issues will form arguments in other cases. Sometimes the issues raised in the dissenting, or minority opinion, will be refined to bolster other cases. The written words of the Supreme Court are critical to our success as a nation.

The Congress is given the power to establish inferior federal courts and charge them with certain authorities over types of crime or types of conflicts. There are courts for immigration matters, for example, or for tax issues, and several others. The country is divided into 12 “Circuits” and Justices often visit those Circuits. See https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/court-role-and-structure for a comprehensive view of federal court structure.

Leftism consistently challenges our Constitutional Republic. Socialism / Communism is inherently counter to the structure of morality and individual responsibility that is embodied in the Constitution. Freedom includes the freedom to fail, to try again and to make choices about how to advance in life. Forces of the left consistently attempt to tie individuals to government rules and regulations. This can be seen in attacks on religion and in unionized “public” education, itself. Little by little, leftist philosophies, even direct Marxism, like “minimum wage” laws, constantly distort our economy and increase dependence on government. These stresses generate social-issue conflicts that threaten domestic tranquility and even personal safety. This places immense public, if not mob pressure, on the Court and on individual Justices. Starting with Judge Robert Bork in 1987, the left – personified by Senator Ted Kennedy, an avowed socialist – has attacked and refused to compromise with “conservatism” in any form.

Leftist, or “Progressive” policies, inherently are on the attack against the premises and ideas expressed in the Constitution. The Supreme Court was and is charged with primary defense of the ideas underpinning the Constitution. Judge Bork represented a shift away from leftist activism on the Supreme Court. The retiring Justice, Lewis Powell had often been the swing vote on issues like abortion, tilting the Court to the left. Bork was a strict constructionist, unswayed by social pressures. To leftists like Kennedy, that threat of a shift away from the attack on original intent, was a threat so serious that the destruction of the reputation of an esteemed legal scholar like Bork, was well worth the effort. The attacks continue, as evidenced by the violent reaction to the reversal of Roe versus Wade in the “Dobbs” decision in 2022.

Among our “Unalienable rights” listed in the Declaration of Independence are “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Within them has developed a severe conflict, mainly due to the equality of status that women have acquired since the beginning of the United States. “Liberty” and “Happiness” both depend upon freedom of action by individuals. Pregnancy, uniquely, with its 9-month period of physical commitment and subsequent lifetime obligations, can interfere, unquestionably, with happiness and liberty of the pregnant woman. So far, we have not found a balance between the rights of the mother/parent, and those of the baby growing inside her.

Does the right to LIFE take precedence? Many think so. Do the rights of the mother take precedence? Many believe this is so. Mainly non-religious, non-Christian or anti-Christian persons, are pleased to take dominion over natural life, and grant women the absolute right to abort their child. Religious people tend to support the rights of the new life to be born and to thrive after birth. They are “pro-life.” Abortion absolutists have done their best to pervert the meaning of conception and of what a fetus actually is: a human baby, growing. Inevitably, this conflict landed in the Supreme Court. Sadly, Roe versus Wade resulted in more than 60 Million Americans being aborted, most of whom were growing inside women of color. It is a number that should give Anti-life believers some pause.

The Supreme Court makes mistakes. The “Dred Scott” decision is recognized as the worst of them, as Chief Justice Roger Taney attempted to undo several state and federal laws governing the status of slaves and even of any free negro citizen. Taney went so far as to declare the Missouri Compromise un-Constitutional and to state that the concept of “free soil” and freedom of slaves who resided there, was constitutionally unenforceable and need not be recognized by other territories or states. The decision helped to push the South to secession and proved to be recognized in its disregard among free states and territories. The 13th amendment made Taney’s decisions moot.

Another simpler, but still egregious decision was the “Kelo” decision: a 7-year battle over the “taking” of private property for public use, that was decided – many feel, wrongly – in 2005. The city of New London, Connecticut, decided that development of land next to a new Pfizer plant, would increase tax receipts to the city, and therefore qualified as a public good. Unfortunately, Suzette Kelo and her neighbors lived on that land, many on long-time homesteads, in perfectly acceptable, non-condemned homes. The city turned the land over to a new, semi-private development Commission along with the power of “eminent domain,” with which the Commission forced homeowners to sell their real estate. Tragically, The Supreme Court interpreted the “taking” clause in the 5th Amendment to include not only the clearly stated “public use,” like a school or water treatment plant, but for an amorphous “expected benefit” for the public, such as increased tax revenues might provide. In other words, amazingly, “public use” was interpreted to include “private use” if it raised more taxes than current landowners provided. Several States have amended their own laws to prevent exactly the premise of the Kelo decision.

The American public is right to challenge the Supreme Court and, through the Senate, to carefully examine the beliefs of nominees to the Supreme Court. As political conflicts, largely fomented by the Left, become more heated and hateful, the ability of Justices to ignore such matters becomes ever more difficult. It is more crucial than ever that the strength and intention of the Court must be to preserve the originating ideas and ideals of the Constitution, resisting all attempts, regardless of political heat, to drift, stumble or run-away from them.

Culture, Education, Family, Politics 2022, Religion, Responsibility, Sex

SEX SELLS

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It is becoming ever more clear that there are good, solid, society-strengthening, family-strengthening and tribe- or nation-strengthening reasons to NOT sink into hyper-sexuality and debauchery.

“Oh, come on, you damned Republican prude, sex is fun and ‘empowering’ for individuals that didn’t like themselves before learning to translate everything about life and economics into sexuality.  Don’t be such a Donnie Downer.”  And, if one steps back from identity politics far enough to see the forest AND the trees, that one can see the point being made in that reactive statement.

Now, now, now… calm down, there.  America and the West have tried a 60-year experiment in immorality and sexual depravity, all couched in terms of “love,” “freedom,” “rights,” and “health care.”  It has proven extremely confusing, mainly because all the things the experiment was supposed to make better, have proven to become worse.

Of course, the prime target of the acids produced (and “dropped”) by the experiment has been morality, primarily Christianity.  REGARDLESS of your opinion of “the Church” or any reformation thereof, or of “the Bible,” the rules for living contained in both Testaments, are far, far better than the pack of “rights” and re-defined words we attempt to operate society with, today.  There is plenty of evidence of the breakdown of “Western” civilization, here in 2022, not least of which is the installation of an American administration controlled by mostly traitors and liars, and the “root cause” of this breakdown is mirrored by, or caused by, the spread of hyper-sexuality, mainly, but not exclusively, in forms of “non-binary” expressions.

“Oh, you hateful homophobic trans-phobe!  You can’t say that, you hater.  Next you’ll say you’re opposed to gay marriage.  Hummphh!”

It is not Prudence’ intent to use broad-brush half, or even smaller fractional truths to express feelings about others’ partial truths.  She intends to make very pointed statements about them.  Some examples might help.

Let’s consider pornography.  No one talks about it anymore.  In the 1950’s and 60’s pornographic photography came of age, or so people thought, in part thanks to Polaroid technology whereby film negatives didn’t have to be shared with any third parties in order to be shareable.  Of course there were always hidden, secretive “foreign” magazines from “Sweden” or some other exotic place, but, for the most part, “porn” was under-the-counter or back-room stuff in sleazy joints that most honorable, upright citizens would never frequent.  And then came “Playboy.” 

With Playboy numerous barriers were breeched: a new envelope was created, as it were, and ever more prurient publications pushed to stretch it.  Our own Constitution was unprepared for it.  The First Amendment had to be applied in some way to keep porn under wraps… and it couldn’t.  Judges, themselves, couldn’t agree on what constituted pornography or obscenity.  Pictures, and full-color, high-definition videos, of course, of naked bodies in the midst of various activities, are “protected speech” according to clever attorneys and agreed-to by judges, including supreme court justices.  Somewhere along the line, unlike the strict definitions of words usually applied to the Constitution, “speech” has been stretched to include “expression” which is automatically stretched to include bodily movement and exposure, all sorts of cursing and verbal attack.  One can almost hear the arguments.

“Freedom of Speech” now means any form of observable or audible activity detectable by another.  So, what, you ask?  Well, how about skewing life and sexuality toward unreality?  Do you not see the damage to marriage, families and morality?  And, now that what used to be hidden in various ways is quite public (any “Gay Pride parade), in movies and on television and a raft of advertising campaigns, can we even define morality?

“Morality?” you scream… “You mean that Christianity stuff?  Separation of church and state, pal!”  Hyper-sexuality has become the most effective weapon against true religion, most particularly, Christianity.  Just count the rainbow flags and laws that are closing in on what pastors and priest can even SAY within the liturgy.  What good has over-sexualizing everything from elementary school to church services actually done for America?

“Well, we can have more and innovative forms of sexual pleasure, so there… besides, it’s a free country and she can always have an abortion if something happens.”  Something.  And, it makes health care busier.

Let’s consider another example: the “trans-gender explosion.”

Hyper-sex has become a tool of the left – perhaps it always was.  We can define the left as always attempting to erode freedom and responsibility, turning both over to some form of tyranny, camouflaged or not.  Federalizing every personal unhappiness is a clear marker, making tyranny stronger and individuals weaker.  Ultimately, spirituality and religion are weakened or lost altogether, as we are experiencing, now.  Back to “trans.”

Public schools, so-called, are increasingly federal, government schools, with “the public,” whose offspring are the reasons for their and their teaching staffs’ existence, increasingly excluded from participation or influence.   Children, from the age of 5, and even earlier in “pre-schools,” are carefully prepared to distrust their parents, prepared to ignore their own realities, like physical features and even names, IN SCHOOL!  Teachers, to whom the kiddos are entrusted for 3, 4, 5, 6 hours a day and more, and who are clear authority figures and sources of wisdom – which every child is attempting to gain – are spending less time educating the kids in preparation for adulthood, and more time guiding, or grooming them, for early-onset sexual experimentation and experience.  “Do you feel like a boy or a girl, today?”

“You can feel like both, if you want.  We’ll call you by a name you like better and we’ll use the pronouns that fit how you feel.”

“Don’t tell your parents about your new name; they’ll be mad at you.  You can change into different clothes when you get to school – to match your new name.  It will be our secret.”

Can you imagine such conversations? … from TEACHERS?  These are your tax dollars at work.  When the kids are older, the boys are taught how to tuck their penises into certain underwear so that they’ll look like girls in their underpants rather than boys.  What the Hell do “underpants appearances” have to do with school?

Girls are taught to bind their breasts so they’ll look more like boys.  Both are offered drugs to prevent development in puberty, risking permanent physical damage and developmental retardation and likely sterility.  Is that the point?  To prevent more children?  Or is it simply, and cruelly, designed to dissolve tradition and normalcy and family bonds?

Who, or what “institution” benefits from the breakdown of chastity?  Casting about in all directions reveals only a single beneficiary: government… and Satan, one might say, often indistinguishable.  And as it expands, it is not a government of benign partnership in the success of its citizens; it is a government that almost automatically divides its population against one another, increasing dependence upon… you guessed it, not freedom, but increasingly tyrannical government.

Government of, by and for the government.  87,000 new, armed, IRS agents will do that.  None of their purpose is to enhance freedom – it’s to vacuum money from we the serfs.

Interestingly, the strongest political force against this foul creep of foul creeps, is parents, fighting to keep their families intact and their children as pure as possible. 

Why the hyper-sexualization of kids, though?  There is an overarching control-meme pushing otherwise professional and ostensibly educated people to adopt Critical Gender and Race theories.  We can encapsulate it with the term, “ideology,” but that’s the same charge these groomers use against religion: ideology, a belief system without empirical proof.  And, they are the first to shout the loudest about “impose your religious mumbo-jumbo on my body…”  Yet, the only “proof” that has emitted from Critical Gender Theory is the destruction of lives, families, suicides and lifelong regrets in all but the rarest of cases.  And WE’RE the haters?

Dear friends, we are fighting the Anti-Christ, pure Marxism.  Marx, who believed in God, believed also that he would go to Hell for his philosophies.  He knew what he was doing and advocating.  We need to know, also, and reverse the tide on Marxist hatred that seems to have infected much of our American governance.  Those who are its advocates have adopted the anti-life, anti-freedom philosophies for the crassest, crappiest political advantage and wealth.  For shame.

Culture, Economics, Education, Governance, Politics 2020, Race, Responsibility

THE ENCROACHING

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The encroaching divide of America into “Constitutionalist” and “Socialist” camps, is proceeding apace.  At no time in our history has the nation and its culture been so threatened, not even at the time of the secession of the Confederacy.  Then both “North” and “South” shared nearly all moral beliefs and religious ones, economic practices, and the honesty in contracts that underpins our ability to cooperate as a civilization.  The exception, alone, was on the matters of slavery and racial differences and prejudice.

Wrenchingly, courageously, the slavery error has been solved.  During the civil War, reconstruction and segregation, the nation held together and made progress on virtually all fronts, including for the economic success and educational advancement of non-white peoples within the United States.  Black families were strong and growing stronger all the way through “Jim Crow” laws and post-war awakening and struggles, as was the nation as a whole.  This, only because the moral values and their religious underpinnings were widely shared across all strata of American society.

Today, not so much.  The first 60 years of socialist, globalist intrusion had paved a path but few were taking to it… at least until Lyndon Johnson took over from JFK.  Under the guise of “fulfilling Kennedy’s dream,” the Great Society was foisted on a relatively balanced government, federalizing welfare for “the poor” and “minorities,” mainly blacks.  Johnson’s famous prediction, “…I’ll have those n***ers voting Democrat for 100 years” exposed the cynical plantation-mentality of Johnson’s Democrats, and the base, gutter-snipe qualities of Johnson, himself.

At the same time Johnson plunged the U. S. into a meaningless war… er, U.N.-sanctioned conflict, in Viet-Nam, that split the nation politically and for the first time, split youth from parents.  With the advent of drugs and drug-infected music, the revolution was under way:  “the Sixties.”  Nixon was our last attempt to reign in alien culture, and they got rid of him in the most politically destructive way.  Meanwhile, welfare was corroding black families and dissociating old morals from “modernity.”  Feminism aggressively began to destroy both manhood and motherhood and education commenced to dissolve Christian thought as rapidly as new socialist-trained and unionized teachers could be installed in supposedly “public” schools.  Clever lawyers, psychologists, judges and justices found ways to parse common sense and conscientiousness into never-imagined “constitutional” rights.

Even so, with Ronald Reagan’s election patriotic Americans were renewed in belief in the “American Way:” that together, with right leadership, Americans could restore the nation they loved and pull back from the rot that was slipping past common sense everywhere.  We even vanquished Soviet Communism without a nuclear war; “History is over,” pundits declared.  Even Bill Clinton seemed rational for a while as his Alinskyite wife plotted “communitarianism” and socialized medicine.  Rational people seemed to be back in control of our freedom-loving destiny.  But the left never rests.

Gore almost pulled it off.  The Democratic party was, haltingly, inquiringly trying not just voting for the temporarily deceased, but here and there, voting for the imaginary.  Bush stopped them in Florida and waltzed into the September 11th attacks.  For a few hours the congress was unified and appeared to be patriotic.   We’ll be damned if some backward Islamists are going to attack us on our home turf!  That’s OUR job, after all.

Americans still largely believe that we can “fix” things.  Problems are solvable and resolvable in fair and rational ways or, as we’ve shown the world for 300 years, with technical skill and innovation.  Along the way we have spread wealth to more poor people than any other society on earth or in history.  But, we’re slipping:  concerted efforts to change our shared beliefs have taught millions of us to distrust and even hate, our own nation.  The most effective poison?  Charges of racism… and hateful or just confused racism, itself.

The source of these changes is Marxism-socialism.  Those of you who are not willing to correct the flaws of poorly regulated capitalists, and who believe that distorting history and historic figures will somehow make life better in 2020, should step away from the next planned “protest” and consider your own role in the destruction of the best system yet devised for the betterment of the most lives possible.  To reach back to the only governing system that has NEVER succeeded to replace the Constitutional democratic republic that always has, is to prove yourself a fool.  Please wake up.

Nevertheless, the plan to divide and dissolve the United States is working.  States are now practicing what then-future Confederate states employed prior to secession: “nullification.”  With “Sanctuary” status being self-declared by cities and states, the federal system is under assault.  Politically useful illegal immigration is used as a “humanitarian” reason to disavow proper immigration regulations and restrictions, while still accepting federal welfare payments to even illegal recipients.  To date, the political will to stop this trend and restore primacy of federal law over international border control, has not been found.  Division.

Covid-19 has played neatly into the hands of socialist control-agents.  Economic and religious lock-downs both fit their innate desires to impose superior ways of living and doing than those chosen by free citizens.  Dictating how many free citizens can buy the services and products of other free citizens is a reach of executive whim that would seem impossible in an individual-freedom-and-responsibility, Constitutionally limited governance system.  Yet we have acquiesced to it rather sheepishly.  But, not everyone, by a wide margin.  Division is the greatest impact of the 2020 lock-downs.  Disease-prevention is a far-distant secondary effect.  The United States and China are the only major industrialized nations still hampered by this misguided theory.  The United States, ostensibly a “free” nation, is the only one damaged by it.  Division.

The tools of division are mostly forms of lying, whether about the efficacy of Covid lockdowns or of switching America’s high-energy-density economy to a low-energy-density one based on sunlight and windmills, or of “systemic” racism or tremendous racial progress and tolerance.  Those who would divide us are, practically speaking, anti-Christian and anti-Judaic.  Those who would divide our peoples wish most of all to divide us from our past… at least from the good parts.  In their views all that came before right now is so rotten as to be worthless, including the people and philosophies that created it.  Their Marxism is the only true philosophy (religion) and there shall be no other religions before it.

One wonders if they ever listen to the things they say.  Do you?

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Thought Leaders and other followers

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The evolution of politics in the U. S. is only a symptom of the collective consciousness of our people, as reactions to the much-anticipated “Nunes Memo” makes stark.  So-called “thought leaders,” who, in earlier times, might have been recognized as “leaders” by any definition worthy of follow-ship, are now best identified by a mix of shrillness and hypocrisy, the latter readily ignored by erstwhile and very temporary “followers.”

Any Gen-X’er or Millennial who stumbles across this scree is advised to watch “Saving Private Ryan” or “Apollo 13,” where he or she might get a glimpse of real adversity, dignity and bravery.  Shouting at people with whom you suddenly disagree doesn’t begin even to cast a shadow in the sunlight of true grit.  Who are the “thought leaders” of these most recent generations?  Barack Obama, may be one, although none of his great thoughts come to mind; just as much so is Colin Kaepernick, just as hard to comprehend.  And looming over Hollywood there is always Barbra Streisand.  For both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama Saul Alinsky was a thought leader, as he was for a generation of radicals.  Thought leaders, all.

Universities – in the “West,” at least – no longer place much emphasis on historical thought leaders, nor much on history, itself, sadly.  It is as though their role in preserving and increasing knowledge of western civilization is no longer worth the price of admission, which is trending toward the upper half of a hundred thousand bucks a year.  For those kinds of dollars one’s sons and daughters deserve safe spaces where never is heard a discouraging word.  Real debate requires grief counseling – parents have paid enough to get some.

George Soros might be a thought leader.  He certainly has enough followers, including those he pays minimum wage to riot on call.  But, there’s the nagging question, what does he THINK?  And, the gloomy corollary, what could his followers be thinking?

Soros thinks, in part, that a system of governance in which individuals are sovereign – like that outlined by the U. S. Constitution – must not be tolerated on this planet, he being a rabid socialist.  We also know that when Nazis were actively collecting and killing Jews like himself, that renouncing his faith, family, heritage and neighbors was not too high a price to pay to preserve his own life and comfort when all one need do was cooperate with Hitler’s Fascists, perhaps helping them steal Jews’ property.  No regrets, he says, and one might suppose his followers think the same way, as do partners, colleagues, compatriots and comrades who either have or hope to benefit from Soros’ wealth, whether an influential Democrat or a $15-an-hour “antifa” thug.  We need not probe too deeply into the erstwhile meaning of “antifa,” but Soros has bought, at least, a place in the thought-leader coven.

Many other political and government types see themselves as thought leaders.  They do their damnedest to lead the news whenever possible, but there they must compete with supposed journalists  who are vying for their own places in the thought-leader cabal.  Dismayingly, thanks to Twitter, Facebook, You-Tube and the like, many of both groups do lead thousands of people’s thoughts, even if only for a few hours… or minutes.  It’s heady stuff, nevertheless.

Mr. Trump has long thought he could lead some thoughts and a good slogan and article of clothing can do that, as evidenced by Madonna, for one example, and “KISS” for another.  Still, he does lead a lot of thinking in that everyone seems to think about him, whether skeptical, neutral, favorable or downright hateful.  People are in various tizzies since Trump decided to run, never mind since being elected, including great thinkers like Nancy Pelosi and Joy Behar of NBC.  Prudence isn’t sure whether great connivance is the same as great thinking.  Maybe.

One can recall when Billy Graham and a handful of other faith leaders were also thought leaders, in that large numbers of people attuned their beliefs to theirs.  In the “old” days, one might say, Cardinals in the Catholic Church were in that same role, in the sense that the Pope was a thought leader for the faithful.  Prudence indicates that their role has diminished significantly, largely from self-inflicted, festering wounds.  Western civilization overall has an abiding stake in the success and purity  of the Roman Catholic Church.  No matter one’s own path of faith, that purity is worthy of prayer.  Indeed, the purity  of EVERY Christian path is worthy of prayer, but each of those will have to find the strength to ignore popular culture and the attractions of money.  Few have.  Still, it is only in folly that we attempt, societally, to disavow the thought leadership of our Judeo-Christian heritage and history, since it underlies our laws, our origins, our forms of economics and capitalism and our sacrificial sense of justice.  There is no single thought pattern  stronger or more pervasive than what is described in the Bible, much as we wish there were no rights or wrongs or, for their matter, conscience.

Regardless of our half-baked feelings and weird higher education “leaders,” every society with endurance requires an abiding, overarching thought or belief in its mission… or purpose… or, failing those, right to survive.  “Balkanization” became a verb for good reason.  It names and describes how and why a nation held together by force will fracture along racial, tribal, religious and cultural lines, whereupon old hatreds, temporarily shrouded, again by force, will spill out into murderous, brutal conflict.

That is a fate to which the United States is not immune… not on the path we are following now.

Why?  What do we think about that?  Do we even hold congruent opinions, or beliefs about our direction?  Our future?  Karl Marx was and lately, is, a thought-leader, who later in life had to forego many of his twisted economic thoughts, since he had not factored in freedom, economic and otherwise.  We might consider that devotees of Marxism, like Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-Dung, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and, also of late, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, were also thought-leaders, but their thoughts have destroyed not only dozens of economies but tens of millions of their citizens.  That isn’t easy to conceive of or even feel badly about – if you’d ever heard of the events – but one can imagine a gymnasium, let’s say with 100 people in it: it’s only 10 rows with 10 people in each row.  One might even know all 100 of them.

But to appreciate these historic thought-leaders we’d have to imagine, say, 250 such gymnasiums just in Massachusetts and with a little help from one’s phone, realize that that is only 25,000 souls.  Hmmmnnn… Various kinds of Communist and National Socialist thinking have eliminated over 100,000,000 people – friends, neighbors, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters and more.  That’s at least 4,000 Massachusetts-es worth of gyms.  Is that enough murders to care about?  They make Hitler, alone, a very junior partner.  Does Marxism lead your thoughts?  How in Hell has communism gained favor among American youth?  For whom is this change a measure of success?

Somebody… some thought-leader, so called.  It makes one a little happy to be at this end of his life and a little sorry for today’s youngsters who will mature in an America where the thoughts of knuckleheads will be “leading.”