Tag Archives: nation

Education, Family, Politics 2024, Religion

The days dwindle down

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Coming closer to the end of one’s tenure in physical life leads that one to consider both past and future and the multiple meanings of both.  There isn’t anything unique to that; millions of people who have gone before and who are in similar periods of contemplation have had such thoughts or are now contemplating what and how to face that transition.  Then there are the thoughts of sadness for those who are prevented from the luxury of contemplation or who are not wise enough to seize the opportunity to contemplate their various lives.

Love is the spiritual force that drives our contemplations and our hopes that we might add something more that is positive to the world and to those we love.  Why is that the motivation?  Merely for kind memories after we’re gone?  Or, is the existence – virtually universal – of love in the “hearts” of those who know us, now, or who remember us from years prior, but even, somehow, of love we have for children too young to know us, really.  Love is more than a vapor that blows this way and that: it is like an abiding, surrounding fluid that is everywhere we look and think.  One cannot wash it off.

It can be repelled with hatred, illustrating the force that is love and its strength and simultaneous fragility.  Each of us has a responsibility – spiritually – to defend love from the nibbling intrusions of hate.  Some become so fearful of the imputed power of hatred that they stop feeling, let alone expressing, love.  Yet love is infinitely stronger.  Religious explanations of love are somewhat confusing since most are complicated by political or financial power over populations.  The confusion has become worse as scientific inquiry has appeared to disprove many religious tenets.  This threat to religious infallibility has caused many branches of Judeo-Christianity to soften scripture and history so that modern social justice may be elevated to something religious.  True Love is largely left behind.  The frequent declaration of God’s love for each of us is disconnected, somewhat, from the universality of love and the earthly, daily battle with hate.

The best expression of love… and the best way to multiply love, is marriage and children.  It is a simple, not quite infallible formula that has worked for millennia.  It is a formula that, like changing water into wine, changes everything in the worlds of the husband, the wife and the souls entrusted to them as co-creators with God.  Love expands in families.

Hatred, on the other hand, usually is not generated inside of families.  It steals into families, perhaps because of drugs or alcohol, or because of some human vector that generates unrequited angers or, worse, self-hatred.  It spreads.  The wise society maintains a social – perhaps religious – infrastructure that can mitigate, if not resolve, familial dysfunction.  It would strengthen everyone.  It would assure that subsequent generations of citizens will be smarter than the last, and well-balanced and nurturing.

If unchecked, hatred becomes a means of judgement, both of acquaintances and friends or family.  Like other addictions, it begins to look for reasons and justifications for itself.  Soon, it’s pleasurable and satisfying.  Those who don’t hate seem less wise than the one who is smart enough to hate those who deserve to be hated.  In short order, correspondence is reduced to only the circle of co-haters – all enjoying the satisfaction of being more discerning than those who float along disregarding the hateful qualities of this or that person, or group, that are so obvious.  Society, the civil, unregulated cooperation that reinforces everyone, can break down at this stage.  The visible and invisible lines of hateful judgement create unbridgeable chasms that advance some at the expense and pain of others.  There is no longer society… only an uneven police state in which most trust very few others.

The aging individual must choose, now, what his frame of mind will be when the hour comes to leave.  Leaving immersed in hatred would seem to be the wrong “way” to face whatever comes next, and this should include self-hatred, possibly the most common form of hate.  Hating oneself leads to a search for confirmation from others, perhaps from society, that the self-hating individual is correct in his outlook.  If he is “confirmed” as a member of a properly hated group, he will then have found a mission to either spread the hate or better define it, or to find a way to correct the reasons or balance the reasons it is hated.  Inevitably this “balance” is perceived as an economic one: forcing people who have nothing to do with why a group is hated today, though long dead, to pay reparations to others alive today, who have virtually nothing to do with the hated people, again, long departed.  It is illogical in its conception and unfair in execution: a reward for hatred.

It appears that hatred is a personal matter, one that individuals can control or reverse.  Historically, however, most starkly described in “1984,” hatred is a political tool.  For many movements, for whom to hate is the sea-anchor that keeps them on course.  It is part and parcel of psychological warfare where repetition and cross-citation becomes “truth,” not because it is true but, because it is believed.  The same process works personally, creating self-hatred.  It is all destructive: from simply feeling like a failure, to rejecting opportunities to triumph… to attempting suicide.  “Satan” wins.

Some are unable to process love, which is one of the most difficult mental states to overcome.  It is the enemy of self-worth or self-esteem.  One should not prepare to die feeling this way.

Nor should a nation die in self-hatred.  Good national “health” and a good future, depend upon knowledge of real history, good and bad, and accepting that the imperfections of humans have happened, are happening and will happen, and that we are willing to apply steps of improvement to how we act.  Nationally, we can do better for ever larger numbers of people… if we believe in our ability to do so.  Hating one another, or our nation, or ourselves, is the recipe for failure.  Do we know better?

Crime, Culture, Economics, Elections, Governance, Immigration, Politics 2024, Religion, Representation

A Partnership of Success

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Nations are living organisms: biological – with an emphasis on logical – made up, obviously, of living, breathing people who share basic concepts of right, wrong, love, family, economics and social status.  The health of the nation connects to the health of its members, physically, but also to the health of its beliefs, religious and otherwise.  Some nations started because of religious beliefs, but most are or were tribal.  Weaving through hundreds or thousands of years of history – perhaps “progress” – nations either progress evenly enough that its members accept, over time, their relationships to political power-holders, elected or otherwise.  It is a function of “social status” noted earlier.

Wars change nations, usually by a form of cruel, expensive, bloody separation or segregation: almost purification.  If there were some semblance of justice in the origins and results of war, stronger nations, healthier nations, will result.  Former amalgamations of nations are distilled apart leaving nations comprised of people who more evenly – fairly – share the basic concepts of life and cooperation listed at the beginning of this observation.

Historians, of course, amidst their natural biases, justify or castigate wars along a spectrum of perceived fairness or righteousness in their origins.  However, time reveals the health of nations following the wrenching of war, and the correctness of the new or modified nation’s composition.  Is the society healthy?  Do its members accept, if not reinforce one another?  Is there a path for the divisions of social status to soften or encourage improvement of the economic and social status of its members?  If so, that nation will retain its shared identity and ethical agreements.

The advent of writing and written “history” of nations and wars, began a process that has left “modern” peoples with an image, at least, often biased and one-sided justifications of conflicts over the past 5,000 years or so.  The use of writing, long, long ago, was a tool of kings or emperors: ruling classes, certainly.  The recorded story would automatically be told from the outlook of “rulers,” and then, only of the victorious rulers.  As writing and reading spread through greater fractions of societies, somewhat truer, more accurate pictures of the how’s and why’s of wars have been “painted.”  Throughout, the tendency for dominant elements of societies – governors – to control what those dominated know or believe about the nature of the world around them and, more specifically, about the workings and intentions/philosophies of their “governors,” themselves.

Occasionally – very infrequently, actually – only once, in fact, a nation is (was) formed based on the best of the philosophies and histories that human history had delivered to that point and place in time.  To define that nation, the philosophies of individual sovereignty, responsibility, liberty and from-the-people authority to govern, and the reasons for employing those ideas, were written into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and Bill of Rights of 1789.  Underlying all of them is the tradition of Judeo-Christianity: 5,000 years of learning what are rights and wrongs and how honesty and honor can and should dissolve lies and hatred and disrespect.

Through it all the Bible has made clear that the most powerful relationship with God is an individual one.  Fellowship and congregation are wonderful reinforcements for the individual’s ability to internalize the concepts of God and His rules for life and ascension.  Without religious freedom the evolution of souls and the growth of individuals would be impossible.  Without the lessons religion provides, the model for 2-parent families and effective fathering of sons and daughters, including economic security, would slip away.  There are those, today, who think the government will take better care of children than will their parents.  God forbid.

The Constitution is both a covenant and a unique, exceptional, partnership with the people – citizens – of the United States.  Unique among nations and history, the CITIZENS of the United States formed the government of the United States.  The founding had flaws, primarily slavery and slaves, themselves.  The problem that the founders hoped would fade away became the gut-wrenching lever that separated the states.  The Civil War became the awful medicine that commenced the cure of slavery fairly quickly, and the cure of racism that has progressed for decades afterwards.  But, in both the forming and preservation of the Union, God blessed our nation with the wisdom and fortitude to earn the right of national identity.

Our identity depends upon our general grasp of the IDEAS, the philosophies that underlie our founding and why the Constitutional model is designed the way it is.  As we select our representatives, governors and President, we should be looking for each of their understanding of our Constitutional Republic being a PARTNERSHIP that makes possible the success of every U. S. citizen.  U. S. citizenship is the “Gold Standard” of all citizenships around the world.  One of the prime tests of the right to lead Americans is whether the person seeking that power/status is prepared to defend the unique value of U. S. citizenship.  Anyone who would dilute, or threaten that value, by definition is unqualified to lead us.  Only U. S. citizens live under the protections and guarantees of the U. S. Constitution and those comprise the most valuable possession – personal property – of every citizen.

An example of PARTNERSHIP would be careful defense of our borders on behalf of every state and every citizen, with proper and strict control over non-citizens allowed to enter our nation.  An example of TYRANNY would be loose or virtual non-control over illegal entrants.  An example of PARTNERSHIP would be careful, balanced budgeting and management of the people’s money, taxes and banking/investment regulations.  An example of TYRANNY would be $35Trillion in national debt and $1Trillion owed in interest every year.  An example of PARTNERSHIP would be honest law enforcement and equal application/protection of the laws.  An example of TYRANNY would be use of law enforcement agencies and even courts, to persecute people because of their beliefs or politics.

An example of PARTNERSHIP would be telling U. S. citizens the truth about government actions and legislation.  An example of TYRANNY would be for the government or its agencies to lie to Americans… or to bring up for a vote legislation with more than the number of words than are in our amended Constitution.

Biden, Governance, Immigration, Politics 2023, Representation, Responsibility

FREEDOM’S FUTURE

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Predictions are generally not very Prudent uses of mental energy.  Every new year period yields predictions from financial experts, various historians, and, practicing their strong abilities to follow trends, politicians.  Politicians are no more intelligent than 99% of the polity they claim to lead.  Their skills are no greater than roughly that same percentage.  They DO have unusual experiences, having agreed with their own ethics and advisors of various sources, to get involved with politics, campaigning and the miasma of half-truths and virtual untruths that “politics” seems to require in order to gain majority support.

Prudence is very close to a man who ran for office in the 1980’s.  One of the most common questions directed to him was, “Why do you want to get mixed up in this stuff?”  His strong beliefs about where his state government was off kilter didn’t really answer that question.  In its simplest terms, it was almost, “Why would you want to become a cesspool adjuster?”  Hard to answer.

One must multiply the paltry and rotten problems of one state by ten times or twenty, to appreciate the corruption of the U. S. Congress and the “swamp” it finances.  Where does that leave us in the matter of predictions?

One of the most prescient observations, which sadly became a clear prediction, was from Scotsman, Alexander Fraser Tytler: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. …”  It would be difficult to fashion a more succinct description – warning – of the political history of the United States.  Having just watched the querulous assignation of the Speakership of the House of Representatives to Kevin McCarthy of California, and appreciating the truth of Tytler’s observation-prediction, some fresh predictions are now become Prudent.

Much of the battle for the speakership involved demands from actual conservatives to cut federal spending, even holding it to 2022 levels (a very low bar for measuring success), which would be a departure from the profligacy of recent decades of lies and spending.  In other words, what those 20 or so conservatives promised to win elections is a departure from the direction of the past 7 or 8 administrations.  Based on his history of “working across the aisle,” as though that were a mark of wisdom to be celebrated, McCarthy’s instincts would not have led him to run the house, its committees or the budgeting process, such as it is, along those lines.  His history in the house, and some of his comments on hot issues, indicate that McCarthy acted as much in service to his party position as to hard principles.  He supported Trump and criticized him.  He voted for and against what might be considered “liberal” legislation.  He has been more steadfast in opposing Biden-supported spending plans.

This all leads to both speculation and prediction.  Not even Prudence can discern the innermost motivations of a politician, so trying to predict what the McCarthy-led House will actually do on specific issues is not likely to be useful.  However, it seems Prudent to predict that some of the 6 holdouts who led the opposition to McCarthy, will face retribution, regardless of any promises from the new Speaker.  The Speakership brings a lot of power, both administrative and political… plus a fatter paycheck; threats to that power will be punished.

Further, any motion to “vacate the chair,” now makeable by a single member, will never result in a change in speakership.  Accepting this new rule seems like a major concession by McCarthy, but it will prove hollow.

A lot of heat will be generated from “oversight” investigations by several committees.  Will any dishonest Biden administrator, of which there are several, actually be impeached or forced to resign?  This is unlikely, despite the substantial law-breaking and lying to Congress that has transpired.  Will anything substantive come from an investigation into Hunter Biden’s and presidential brother, Jim Biden’s, nefarious foreign influence-peddling over the years Joe Biden was Vice President?  This appears to be a slam-dunk, but is also likely to be mostly heat, not light.  There may be some sort of resolution passed by a slim majority in the house, but no impeachments.

Can the House, alone, force Biden to close the southern border?  Theoretically… and according to the Constitution, Congress’ control of the “purse strings” can be used to propose “revenue”-raising legislation, taxation and borrowing and the like.  All such must arise in the House.  In addition, the ability for the Executive branch to draw moneys from the Treasury is dependent upon Congress’ passing of appropriating legislation to that effect.  Amidst all the horse-trading and dealing done between the House and Senate, let alone in each House, the likelihood of targeted restrictions on expenditures in order to control or punish any executive department or agency for bad behavior, lying to Congress or various malfeasances, is quite small.  It would be a watershed event, in practice, and seems doubtful in Prudence’ view.

It is more likely that specific appropriations might be voted for the purpose of closing the border and other needful actions, but, barring the willingness to perform quick impeachments, those directions given via appropriations can be “slow-walked” by the “swamp” for the duration of an administration.

Ultimately, in order to impose its will in any meaningful way, the “Republican” House will have to endure a government “shutdown.” In our lifetimes there has been very little political stomach for accepting the slings and arrows that are always directed at Republicans for such a “crisis.”

The pressure in Washington, within the deep state, certainly on Capitol Hill and, to our detriment, within the so-called Biden administration, is to send money from the Treasury out to thousands of programs that reach millions of Americans, buying their votes in the process.  Along the way we may adequately defend the country, but that is becoming more questionable as “woke” nonsense infects the military establishment.

Can a couple dozen conservatives in the House actually change the direction of our decline? May God make it so… otherwise, let’s all be prepared to defend our nation, economy and border.

Culture, Education, Immigration, Race, Responsibility

SURVIVAL

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Define: Individual…

The ability to “conduct” politics is critical to the survival of democratic republics, most specifically, to the survival of this one, into which we have been most fortunate to be born or naturalized.  Prudence teaches that, as Benjamin Franklin wisely observed following the Constitutional Convention, we have “…a republic (only) if you (we) can keep it.”  What is required for a citizenry to “keep” its republic?

First, obviously, is citizenship, itself… a fascinating quality, uniquely so for the United States of America, and the most valuable quality for the nation’s education system to impart.  Before joining a political party, our citizens should all be members of the “U.S. of A. party,” in effect.  That is, we all should share the principles of “America.”  How is that accomplished?

First and foremost, we must agree on the meanings of words and, simultaneously, on the meaning of laws, starting with our bases of right and wrong.  Just suggesting such a radical idea will generate heated argument, if not violence in certain venues, today.  Here in 2019, just 220 years since the Constitution was ratified, Americans no longer agree on very basic word definitions, starting with “nation.”

Those who now want to defend the borders of their “nation” are called “nationalists,” a term so pejorative as to be synonymous with Nazism.  Clearly the use of the word “nation” is close to the word “national” and the NAZIs were “National” socialists, meaning that they were transformed from socialists into right-wingers bent on either lynching a brown person or gassing some Jews.  I mean, “Duuuhhh.”  It is the same as owning slaves to be a foul “nationalist.”  It’s just like, ummm… Republicans.

So, principled conversations have become both tedious and more difficult.  Another bad word is “abortion” or, even more prejudicial: “infanticide,” or, “life,” itself.  Abortion is the epitome of goodness and deep caring about civil rights, in today’s lexicon, when it used to mean the premature and usually violent ending of the miracle of life in the womb.  So clearly it can neither be worried about or discussed, since it is settled civil rights “law.”  People with the temerity to question the beauty of abortion or who might suggest that the effects of rampant, profit-making abortion could be somehow bad for the “nation” or for our social communities, can be attacked physically, spat upon, kicked, thrown down to the ground and even worse.  No one will make much of a stink.

Governments have even created safe zones around abortion mills (sorry), “clinics,” so that those preparing to accept the sacrament of ending their child’s life, will not, themselves, be made uncomfortable.  I mean, “gosh,” after all.

States are finding their voice regarding abortion, passing various restrictions on when it is legal to kill unborn children.  One is based on whether a heartbeat has reached detectability, which is somewhere around 6 weeks after conception.  Others use a “principle” called “viability,” which is when modern technology can enable the fetus to survive outside the womb, generally successfully, while the, now, baby completes gestation and is able to mature with normal maternal care at home.  Viability seems to be around 24 weeks after conception, or two-thirds of a normal pregnancy “term.”

Opponents of these concerns, and these are among the most strident of advocates America has ever heard, pooh-pooh all of these calculations about life, and insist that death is somehow better and better serves everyone involved, but to do so they have to change the definition of “life, unborn, baby and offspring.”  Those words are relatively meaningless if the confused or weak-minded “mother” doesn’t “want” the child, baby, offspring.

Consequently craven politicians make what they think are legal laws based on the feelings of the weak-minded or weak-hearted proto-mothers.  The ramifications are grievously complex.  In the case of a new mother who takes her baby home from the birthing center but, for some reason, loses control under the new stresses of motherhood and kills the new child: she has committed a crime and will be arrested.  But, in the case of a new mother whose child survives abortion, which happens when abortion is performed late-term by a “doctor” who hasn’t practiced snipping the baby’s spinal cord before complete delivery, for example, she has no responsibility to the baby who, despite his or her automatic citizenship, may be allowed to starve to death on a table someplace near where it was delivered and NO ONE has any criminal liability.

Prudence wonders if those tables have a special, descriptive name, like every other piece of “medical” equipment. 

At one time, doctors swore to “first, do no harm.”  Indeed, they became doctors and joined an industry the mission of which used to be helping people overcome… oh, injuries, diseases, old age and other life-threatening conditions.  Unfortunately, politicians are unable to allow big economic functions to carry on successfully, and this politicization of medicine is reducing the money that can be made doing all the things we thought doctors were sworn to do.  The big money is in abortion, now.  Politicians are urging each other to send more money into the abortion industry, and then fight off every attempt to limit abortions, while placing restrictions on top of restrictions for the life-saving arena of doctor-activities.

Doctors, of course, worked their fingers to the bone, so to speak, to become doctors, and figure that the rewards should be commensurate – they’re not stupid, obviously.  Consequently, many are learning and practicing how to help the almost-born overcome LIFE.  Life is now a disease that doctors can cure.  What did you think you knew?

Fascism and Fascist are two words we can’t seem to agree upon the meanings of.  Those who are acting exactly like, umm… well, fascists, seem to believe that they are courageously fighting fascism.  This disconnect interferes with useful discussion and, unfortunately, interferes with sworn “peace officers” actually defending public order when faced with “Antifa” chaos, lest they “enflame” the situations.  When government policy is senseless, the sensible are left speechless.

Some Americans – and other residents – are unable to accept the meaning of “immigrant.”  While it is true that native-Americans (which is a meaningless term, itself; indigenous peoples got here before Europeans did, but there was no “America” then, making the term, “aborigines” the only accurate one) were able to roam around as far as their war-making prowess enabled, they had no concept of “immigration,” today a distinct and legal condition.  They understood “invaders” though, by whatever words they described unwelcome “others” who threatened their lands and way of life.  They understood ethics better than many “others” do even now, and the concept of “theft.”

“Others” stole their lands and lives and very ways of life, often by creating treaties that aborigines agreed to, but which were quickly abrogated by their “other” treaty-creators.  Those sensitive to honesty, today, are painfully aware of the lies told against aboriginal peoples.  Lying is the distillation of not agreeing on word meanings, and it can threaten everything a people holds dear.  Back to “immigrant.”

We no longer live in a society where people can just slide onto one another’s land or appropriate their means of living.  The concept of private property is the basis of economics and social order, itself.  The need to strive to obtain the means to survive, protect and shelter oneself and one’s family, also provides the opportunity to be charitable toward others – often to sacrifice for others.  In order to “emigrate” to another country, a person must accommodate the legal strictures of his or her intended new home country and, in some cases, the strictures of his or her present country.  It is part and parcel of adopting a new “citizenship” which carries with it significant legal sanctions and benefits.  It is not a simple condition of location.

So, an “immigrant” must have a status defined in law, else he or she is simply a law-breaker… which is to say, a criminal.  The legal adjudication of that criminal’s status is a matter for the illegally adopted country to perform.  Otherwise, that person is not an “immigrant” at all, but a thief.

These are but a few examples of words the definition of which – specifically the disagreement over those definitions – threatens the existence of the United States and some other nations, as well.  Words have meaning, tied to the meaning of “truth.”

One other example is the word, “racism.”  Racism is a social concept that is based on an undefinable term, thus yielding a meaninglessness that enables the epithet, “racism” to be used with little connection to any of the circumstances that inspire its use.  Racism, epithetically, infers some group membership, of those so accused.  That is, the accused must be prejudiced against another group, presumably based on surface, observable traits.

Usually this refers to “white” people who are accused of a variety of wrong feelings, or thoughts, toward, usually, brown-skinned people.  Now, brown skin covers a broad swath of human beings who cannot by any measure be considered racially singular.  Anthropologists have tried dozens of ways to “define” races and every classification system immediately is challenged by freshly observed biological distinctions that must be shoe-horned into the supposed standard classifications.  In short, there certainly are biological “races” but it is nearly impossible to identify them, so “racism” is reduced to mere political advantage, today.

This is not to say that terrible actions haven’t been taken against people – of all shades of skin color – by countries, states, counties, towns, mobs and, in truth, individuals.  But, except for individuals , official, legalistic discrimination and worse bad actions have ceased in the United States.  Why has “racialism” increased?  Why have the accusations of “racist” and “racism” become more commonplace?  Politics – not logic, not biology, not science, not group connection – politics, through which racialist grouping by the most superficial of distinctions, can produce a sort of “groupthink” that yields “group-voting.”  For shame.

Our Constitution embodies the greatest spirit of individualism  ever made nationally  foundational in human history.  Individuals are required to be responsible to themselves and to others, a radical idea.  It marked the intentional, codified rejection of serfdom… the rejection of monarchy… the rejection of tyrannical control of others, altogether.  In other words, individuals  are sovereign under the Constitution.  As a result, the government was formed by communities of individuals, each of whom relinquished limited amounts of that sovereignty so that all may benefit.  The government was formed to serve its sovereign citizens, and not the other way around.

Now, we see our democratic, individual political powers being defined by false connection to arbitrarily defined groups.  Nothing more threatens our national cohesion and our nationally protected individual liberties.  Group membership yields group responsibility, the fundamental destruction of individuality and individual responsibility.  It is antithetical to our Constitution.  Billions call it socialism.