Tag Archives: power

Culture, Economics, Education, Elections, Family, Politics 2023, Religion

HATING THE HATE

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HATING THE HATE

Don’t you just hate it when people (it seems more often to be young women and gays) declare that they “hate” this or that movie, or a restaurant or some celebrity or… well, whatever?  “Hate” is tossed around like a beach ball at high-school graduation in that it has nothing whatsoever to do with what’s actually going on at the moment.  This is not to say that “hatred” isn’t a powerfully destructive and corrosive reality, it’s just that most people who hate things really don’t, in fact, which means that non-hating people have to be on the lookout for real hatred so that we don’t get caught down in it when it’s being tossed about like a beach ball: never staying in one spot long enough to start an infection.  On the other hand, playing with hate can leave reasonably intelligent people open to mob – or group – hatred campaigns while not actually recognizing when “party-hate” has become consuming “hatred,” so foul that it can change people’s personalities.

One person, reasonably intelligent and reasonable, might learn of something with which he or she strongly disagrees and privately bemoan the fact of a bad political or legal turn of events, but never descend into actual hatred of anyone as a result.  In a group of equally angered partisans, however, the formerly reasonable person might break laws and demonstrate, agitate, hold signs and shout hateful slogans while comforted by the like-mindedness of other proto-haters.  The real hatred spews out when counter-protesters show up, arguing directly against what the mob “hates.”  There is no worse hatred than pops out when opponents start to poke holes in the dislikes of the originating protesters.

The worst haters also seem to be the most likely and virulent accusers of hate in others.  Why this is so can be debated by psychologists, but it has something to do with the mental neighborhood in which they live.  In many cases it is a matter of hating themselves and finding it impossible to love others.  Hate is their currency.  It should be no surprise that “members” of the LGBTQ+ “community” are among the most active haters, especially transgenderists.  One could speculate that a person who “transitions,” even if only emotionally, bears the impossible burden of hating who he or she is… so much so that emotional and mental energies can be almost wholly committed to convincing oneself and others that he or she is, in fact, someone else, an enormous weight to carry.

Another activist group that accentuates its hate for opponents is that comprised of those who are pro-abortion.  As a qualified arm-chair analyst, Prudence can see clearly why this is so: people who are “pro-choice” or, in fact, pro-abortion, have first to believe a series of lies relative to the nature and effect of various abortion procedures, which means tricking themselves or lying to themselves, something that is psychologically unsettling in the first place, and then act with or support those who will act on an utter hatred for the proto-human trying to grow and live.  Only then could the death of that unborn child be rationalized.  Prudence believes that hatred begets hatred – jumping into the shallow end of a pool will ultimately wet the jumper just as thoroughly as would happen by first entering the deep end.

Pro-lifers, on the other hand, tend to be more religious and more Christian in beliefs and actions.  For them, life is sacred and fetuses are entrusted to mothers in God’s name; they can’t be killed for any reason.  Essentially, the two sides cannot compromise.  Having reveled in 50 years of nearly unrestricted abortion rights, pro-abortion forces now feel victimized by forces directly opposed to their beliefs in a right to abort the unborn for virtually any reason, including convenience of the mother and / or the father or of any other person with influence over the mother.  To those who have reversed the ostensible “right” to abort, pro-abortionists have only hate.  Those who can actively or acquiescently cause or accept the death of entirely innocent unborn babies are already steeped in untruth and hatred.  It is a small shift to hate those who have attacked their convoluted premises of justification.

Hate readily erupts from people on the Left, and the reasons seem complex, but they’re not.  Socialism is fundamentally premised on hatred.  Many who are attracted to this or that sympathetic-sounding promise of socialism, would vehemently deny Socialism’s connection to hatred of any color. Socialism is just “helping” the (choose all that apply:) downtrodden, oppressed, poor, disadvantaged, illegal, incarcerated, undocumented, impaired, incapable, marginalized, indigent, ill-informed, illiterate, iniquitous, intemperate, impregnated, introverted or invasive.  Such “help,” however, inevitably costs the recipients freedom and sovereignty.  By definition, each type of “help” places the recipient in a group henceforth identified by their weakness or dependence.  It all becomes political, as the government grows to encompass all the help it can imagine providing, and the recipients form advocacy groups for their type of neediness.

Nowhere in the socialist corrosion is there a solution to or cure of any need… just nuance and expansion of groups.  All the needy will likely vote to increase the levels of help and the numbers of helpless previously unrecognized.  Many will be hired to administer the distribution and identification of needed help.  It has been said that Socialism denies human nature and is therefore fatally flawed as a means of organizing governance to the benefit of the majority of citizens.  In fact, Socialism functions and gains power by promulgating the WORST tendencies of human nature and is therefore fatally flawed as a means of organizing governance.

It is clear that some people, due to momentums from earlier existences or due to unfortunate nurturing, even while in the womb, will be de-motivated to work and otherwise take care of themselves.  Such will comfortably accept support from others or, worse, have few compunctions about stealing what they need from others.  They are examples of basic beliefs being the foundation of morality.  Like most – not all, but most – humans, these individuals’ beliefs may be changed with appropriately provided education and rewarded actions.  It is a task that successful societies will undertake and accomplish… failed societies will excuse it and even encourage it as some aspect of “rights.”  It is, rather, an aspect of rewarded “wrongs.”  Continuous welfare creates resentment among recipients, not gratitude.  The relative status of dependents is low; those who have gained the skills to set their own economic path – path of personal “worth” – are obviously treated better, even revered.  Those who are economic “losers” are tolerated at best and scorned at worst.  There is no pleasure in dependency.  Dependents eventually hate the providers.  Any change in status for recipients, required by providers, will increase resentment.  A relatively minor trigger event could yield widespread hateful, destructive action.

Politically, disgruntled, economically dependent populations are fertile ground for opposition groups and philosophies.  A little guidance as to whom to hate, and how, can bring mobs to the streets and actions into riots, scaring the bejeebers out of decent citizens and civil authorities.  It can also guide volumes of votes at election time.  “Defund the Police” can actually gain political relevance.  There are politicians who are so craven as to capitalize on the political will and hatreds of the forces of social failure.  For shame.

One political party has shifted its basis to one of hatred, and it’s not the Conservatives, who tend toward belief in the potential and value of every person.  Rather than support and profit from their self-destruction, conservatives, more than likely Christian in outlook, believe in the possibility of rehabilitation and conversion of welfare recipients into productive, successful members of the greater society.  Welfare must be temporary, in our view; self-support is constructive and self-enhancing; work is its own reward as well as the means of self-support.  Everyone is valuable.  Unfortunately, for 60 years we have avoided fighting for our beliefs, attempting only to temper the failed and failing beliefs of leftists.  For another shame.  It is the politics of conservatism that has failed, not that of the left. 

There is a fundamental hatred expressed by leftists to keep people in the welfare morass.  The waste of their lives and their children’s lives, whether by imposed helplessness, victimhood or crappy education managed by other leftists, is an expression of hatred for those so trapped.  What a cruel outlook on politics and power.

Ultimately, as we are witnessing in 2023, there is a general hatred of American Constitutionalism and its “negative rights,” as Barack Obama calls them.  Theirs is a hatred of free speech, legal protections of religious expression, unreasonable search and seizure, Fifth Amendment protections and all the rest.  This readily becomes hatred of those Americans who believe in and defend the majesty of our Constitutional Republic.  As those same leftists cement into place the ability to control the outcomes of elections, their hatred for honesty, truth and fairness is clear.  Shame on them.  Conservatives are still whistling past the graveyard of failed civilizations, hoping against hope for fair treatment in elections.  I hate that.

Climate, Culture, Economics, Elections, Governance, Health Care, Politics 2023, Religion, Representation

LE MAIN GAUCHE

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The laziness of Americans, as opposed to the laziness of humans in general, will prove the undoing of our culture and comforts, unless there is large-scale social change.  The pieces – or parts – of the social engine that created a series of technological revolutions that placed men on the moon in 1969, are well-known, but widely disparaged.  How can a successful society turn away from what worked for it for hundreds of years – even thousands – and turn in a generation or two towards multiple paths of destruction of those same social-civil engines that made America the most attractive, envied nation in the world?  It requires intense purpose and planning.

Not long before the Eagle landed, the United States reached its highest level of living standards for the largest number of people, of all races.  John Kennedy was president at the time and it’s been downhill for the United States since then.  Social pollution had slipped into our “main” stream of progress towards the future.  The generations of World War I and the Depression had proven their rightness and righteousness by raising up the “Greatest Generation” who sacrificed lives and property to remove large elements of evil in World War II, and then rebuilding former enemies so that they might join “America” in a future of freedom, democracy and prosperity.  Unfortunately, the evils of Communism were not destroyed at the same time, instead literally encouraged through treaty and malfeasance to grow and entrench in two of the largest countries: the U.S.S.R. and China.

Communism is unalterably antithetical to the American idea and system; it is antithetical to religion, by definition, and it is contained and promoted within a mission of ridding the world of religion and individuality… two of the key engines of American success.  How is it possible that Communism could ever gain a foothold against the beautiful system and ideals of America?  Long-term, never ending planning and step-by-step erosion of values.  “Well, I’m not a Communist,” you are saying to yourself, “and there’s no way other Americans could ever fall for that crap.”  You’re only half right… on both parts of your statement.

First, how could anyone fall for Communism in the United States?  We “know” it fails to increase freedom and inevitably descends into fascist authoritarianism, controlling every aspect of life and interaction in society.  Communist nations are organized by classism and are examples of racialism of the worst sorts.  Communists of varied virulence have followed two tracks, and one is education.  Over the past 60 years, while our “representatives” have been consumed with clinging to their elected sinecures, leftists, convinced of their being so much smarter than those who “cling to their guns and Bibles” as Obama notably observed, have taken control of educational colleges and programs.  This placed leftists (Communists) in charge of certifying teachers and controlling the curricula in education degree programs.  Bit by bit our schools, mostly public, but the majority of private schools as well, have slanted curricula toward what “educators,” especially those Phd.’s who get hired as superintendents and commissioners of education, think is most “progressive.”  No one wants to be “old fashioned” else we won’t be keeping up with competing countries.

From teens and college students who got away with drugs and free sex rebellion in the 60’s and 70’s, have sprung generations of children who have been raised in “socialist” homes by parents who perceive winning as more valuable than learning, training and personal advancement.  If that means “beating” the system and protecting their offspring from the consequences of failure, then there are no limits.  College courses, themselves, have more and more quickly responded to social change and trends, first from feminism and then anti-Christianity and sexual deviance.  Today students can “major” in relatively useless study areas that have grown out of non-individuality, non-individual responsibility, communalism.  We can hear this diversion from what made us strong and resilient when “advocates” and activists describe their deep feelings and concerns for this or that “community.”

The “gay community” or the “trans community” or the “African-American community” are terms that display an inherent rejection of Americanism.  Our fundament is individual responsibility, individual success and individual failure, if that is what it takes to learn how to improve and succeed.  The quality and character of each of us Americans, is what matters… not the false groupings proto-Communists would try to have us believe exist.  Everything, good or bad, is “class-actionable” to communists.

The most destructive laziness is to allow the present circumstances to continue.

The other part of your – our – belief that we’re not Communists also is, sadly, in question.  Leftists – Democrats – love to accuse Republicans of planning to cut Social Security and Medicare.  Republicans automatically trumpet their promise to “protect Social Security and Medicare!”  What they are really saying is: “We believe in these parts of the Communist Manifesto even MORE than those Democrats who claim to care about you!”

Federal money has purchased most Americans’ philosophies.  The line between good solid American values and corrupt socialist nanny-statism is moving with almost every “omnibus” bill in Congress and every election cycle.  We are, by and large, afraid to give up Communism, now.  How can we make the case for freedom?  And, what is that case?  If most Americans are committed socialists, who is going to rally behind rolling socialism back?

Perhaps you were an obedient mask-wearing soldier in the battle against COVID-19.  Some of your compatriots are still wearing their masks, convinced, by government wisdom, of something or other.  You have thought you were protecting others and saving lives (despite all science to the contrary) and need only for our benign governors to alert you to something else that only your sacrifice can save us from… imminent destruction of the environment and our planet, for example.  “Whatever it takes,” you think to yourself, “just tell us so that we know what to do.”  Needless to say, YOU will never be called an “anti-vaxxer” like those deplorables that are constantly skeptical of what is necessary to save us, all.  Many of them probably attended Trump’s speech on January 6th, 2021.  You don’t need to convert to Communism, the Communists are perfectly happy with you as you are: malleable and far removed from individuality. No trouble.

Now, to save the planet, we are instructed, American success must be stifled.  Americans use too much energy, eat too much food, consume too much health care, drive too many miles, invent too much.  Maybe if we legalized extra-strong marijuana, dumbed down our education, shifted our university education towards social confusion and division, spent time and money on transgenderism in the military… perhaps then we can make progress towards snuffing out that damned American energy and genius.  Individualists will never kneel down for global government so let’s force Americans to divide against one another.  Students must be encouraged to foreswear their responsibilities by pretending to be the opposite sex – it’s a good way to divorce them from their meddlesome parents, as well.  We can’t have parents inculcating their offspring with religious beliefs and hard-work ethics.  All that pro-American stuff must be watered down.

So who are the “we” making all these plans?  Why they’re our elected and appointed federal and state officials!  We, the people, put these communist-socialists into power over us!  We, the people, largely ignorant of our responsibilities as U. S. citizens, have agreed with the hateful divisions that have popped up everywhere with the appearance of COVID.  Leftists have been rubbing raw the feelings of many blacks, mainly those who have failed to excel after generations of welfare dependency, failed education and inner-city criminality.  Institutionalized failure under federal “programs” have rewarded “community activists” for agitating a restive sub-group.  Leftists have worked for years to forgive the somehow-justified hatred for “white” culture, even when it expressed in riots, murders, looting and arson.  All that has been needed is an “unjustified” death at the hands of white police personnel – and not always “white” – any police.  A few communists, a few hired-to-be-incompetent district attorneys, and almost any tragedy can be turned into a society-ripping weapon against America.  If you think the anger and destruction is justified: the “Saint George Floyd” effect, then the committed communists and globalists (same people) are perfectly happy with you.  Their plans to remove the U. S. of A. as a stumbling block to globalism, are working better than well.

There’s always the next election, of course, when we can vote in some true patriots who will correct the problems the federal government creates for us.  That might be a plan if we hadn’t acquiesced to wholesale weakening of election laws and voting regulations slowly for decades, then in a rushing flood under COVID.  Every one of us must be vigilant in our states and question every regulation for voting that has been promulgated since March of 2020.

Communists and other leftists LOVE democracy.  All that voting… all those ballots… people can be persuaded to believe they are in control and making real choices.  One can observe that the largest “democracies” have nearly universal voter participation and, interestingly, nearly universal approval of one candidate.  How wonderful.  Even not-so-large “democracies” where some hapless opponent(s) of the approved candidate(s) find that the approved candidate still manages to eke out a win after ALL votes are counted.  This means ALL ballots are counted, not actual votes, but ballots.  As the great democrat, Josef Stalin opined, the people who count the votes are more important.  Clearly that has become the byword for leftists and capital-D Democrats in the United States: the purpose of an election is power – not democracy, not strengthening our republic, not expanding citizen participation… power.  And, since that is the true purpose, whatever it takes to realize that goal is justifiable.

After all, whenever leftists slip up and a Republican gains power, he or she is merely an interloper to be tolerated until power is restored to its rightful owners.  It is time, fellow citizens, to restore honesty in government – all three branches and the elections that create them.  Maybe a candidate will run on a platform of honesty and truth-telling to his or her constituents… ummm, naah.

We could ask, though.  If you’d like to make a candidate squirm, ask if he or she will adopt honesty and truth-telling as his or her platform, promising to tell the truth about government to constituents… to people like, well, you?  You won’t be able to keep up with the semi-true and misleading replies that question elicits.  Should that person take office, Prudence predicts that the answers he or she might offer, should you ask, will become less and more tenuously connected to truth.  Finally, “our” representative become a representative of the government TO us.  That is when we ought to know that it’s time to replace him or her with someone new.  Otherwise that sickly-sweet candy shell with the intensely bitter center, known as Communism, will win.

Culture, Economics, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Politics 2020, Representation

COPING WITH THREATS

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The freedom of the United States and the stability of worldwide political intercourse, depends on the role of the Dollar.
The greatest threat to dollar stability.

Prudence will be served best by a rational analysis of how and why the COVID-19 strain of “coronavirus” so dramatically upset governance, liberty and economics, compared to other flu-like illnesses that infect huge numbers of Americans every year.  This essay is beginning at the height – or the depth – of the national economic shutdowns and of the extraordinary fears that have everyone suspicious of every other warm, breathing human.  It wasn’t going to be published until we were at the other end of this national economic threat, which will, it seems Prudent to say, going to arrive.  But it cannot wait.  What can this new virus be compared to?

Annually, more than 30 MILLION U. S. residents make hospital visits due to the 4 common flu viruses.  And hospitals are busier because of them: there are some 200,000 hospitalizations.  This happens with no enforced shutdowns of business and trade, or restrictions on movement of legal residents.  If someone tells you they may have the “flu,” you back away, say “don’t give it to me,” smile and recommend your favorite home remedy: “Hot water with lemon.  Make sure it’s fresh lemon, squeeze it so you get all the juice.”  Then you carry on your daily activity, sure that you have cured someone.

Television advertising reminds everyone of the wonderful “flu” medications for sale that, in fact, suppress symptoms, enabling customers to feel good enough to go to work!  But, did you know that in the 2017 – 2018 “flu season” that there were 900,000 hospitalizations?  You didn’t hear about that then?  Weren’t the media keeping us up to the second with every new case, and in which county and city it appeared?  You weren’t afraid to leave the house?  Why not?  EIGHTY THOUSAND people died from flu that year, and in just a few months!  Ye Gods!  We should have been cowering, waiting for the federal government to rescue the entire country and we failed – we failed – to pay attention.  Thank God we survived that crisis.

The 2017 – 2018 season was 4 TIMES worse than the year before and our virtuous political leaders were asleep at the switch.  How was it that they didn’t whip us into a frenzy of prevention, segregation and economic dependency?

Is it Prudent to offer a couple of predictions?  One is that a relative handful of economic powers, some or all at least partially financial powers, will emerge with MORE economic power than they had prior to COVID-19.  Why does this seem likely?  Because those are they who know how to profit from crises, whether military or medical.

Want another?  The crisis we believe coronavirus has created, will be extended in many aspects, into the Fall, possibly through the beginning of November.  It’s possible that enough economic damage will have been done by mid-April for this to happen regardless of politics, but if not, political considerations will make it last for two valid reasons: 1) Democrats believe they can damage Trump into non-re-electability if things get “bad enough;”  2) Republicans believe that managing a terrible crisis with signs of steady improvement, will keep the nation from “changing horses in mid-stream.”  It would be more Prudent to put the whole thing to bed, so to speak, before the middle of April.  Let’s hope this prediction doesn’t pan out.

Based on the tawdry quibbling over how many non-virus-related hands will get greased by the, perhaps, $2 Trillion dollar rescue, bailout, support, small-business/ big-business load the Congress is “debating,” many socialist dreams could get realized thanks to the Chinese coronavirus.  Rational residents of our once-great nation should be shaking their heads at the crude nature of most of those august men and women, but we’re afraid to spread the virus ourselves.  Evidently, the House under Speaker Pelosi, has tried to include a dozen or more components of the leftist agenda in the “emergency” legislation.  One has to wonder.

Another prediction involves the health-care industry/system.  They are moving public policy at every level of government while struggling to meet the sudden pressures of a contagious disease.  It’s a disease that needs lots of products for just protection of care-givers – more than anyone had in stock.  It also requires lots of specialized equipment for treating those infected – more than anyone had in stock.  COVID-19 also requires lots of decisions about how to both remove the shortages of stuff, and to “prevent” the continued spread of infection – there is an oversupply of those: politician-provided.  And, unlike gloves, masks and ventilators, the proper operation of decisions is very difficult to measure or evaluate.

By definition decisions are made in advance.  Decisions made about the past are notoriously ineffective.  Real decisions lay courses of action, often without knowing which of the potential consequences will actually manifest.  There is always a hope that the one consequence a decision-maker prefers will be the one that happens, but once a decision is made, it’s a bit of a crap-shoot.  There are too many moving parts to control which consequence will be true tomorrow, or the next day, or a week or so from decision time.  In this current matter, the decision was to keep people from congregating, even down to groups as small as, well… two!  This has a corollary that says most businesses must close, especially those that operate with congregations of people – like restaurants, churches, schools, public transportation, planes and on… and on… and on.  It means no weddings or funerals, no court sessions, no legislative gatherings, no business meetings, book clubs or sales leads groups.  Very few business activities will be “allowed” to happen.  Meanwhile, millions of people are not paid, millions of transactions are unconsummated, billions of dollars of commerce are unrealized, and trillions of dollars of wealth are vaporized in a few days.

Was this damage a decision or an unfortunate consequence?  Who could possibly benefit from this consequence?  Some will, unfortunately.  As this shakes out – hopefully with the United States still an independent nation (this is relative) – the new economic patterns will emerge and we’ll see the beneficiaries.  China will have something to do with them.

Odd, it seems, that the paralysis of the West has coincided with the miraculous cessation of reported cases in China.  Clearly China has manipulated its stories about coronavirus, its reports about coronavirus, its claims about who started the virus’ infections (the U. S.), its denials of anything wrong having ever been done by China regarding coronavirus or regarding the punishment of doctors attempting to warn the government of China about its uncontrollable spread, and now, about the incredible end of new infections.  Is there any reason to believe that this disease was not released to have precisely the effect it has had on America and Europe?  Or, to believe that the West has reacted in the only ways most favorable to China?

Keep an open mind.  Question EVERYthing.

Culture, Governance, Politics 2018, Responsibility

Leaders, Leaders Everywhere – Part One

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America, or shall we say, the United States in particular, has severe leadership problems. We decry them in terms of politics as “partisanship,” but they are much broader than simply that. During our 100 years of industrialization we seemed to have a pretty good pool of leaders – business, industrial, scientific, mercantile, military, religious, philosophical and political. They weren’t deemed to be perfect by everyone, but they were relative giants in society and with their influences they appear to have set standards for others who would be leaders. A handful articulated this role, most simply lived it and comported themselves in what might be described as statesmanlike, in that they took larger views of life and growth, exploration and discovery, and responsibility, in their fields.

We have leaders among us now, of course, but… well, they’re different. And I mean no slighting of women in history, also of course, and the phenomenon of this devolution of leadership seems, unfortunately to have afflicted them, too. How to describe it? Or, how to describe a cause of it?

Let’s consider who a few of today’s “leaders” are. We know them: Trump and some in his administration; certain Democrat leaders including Mrs. Clinton; Congressional leaders, both majority and minority party; numerous “celebrities” from the entertainment industries – indeed, “celebrity” is a critical component of most “leadership,” today; ultra-wealthy business and financial leaders, like Federal Reserve governors and the Chair-man or –woman; the heads of corporations like Google, Facebook, Disney, Microsoft and a hundred more… maybe 500 more… maybe 5,000. But we hear of these business/industrial leaders usually with a descriptive term before their name: billionaire. Maybe, multi-billionaire. It’s a clue to what’s happened to leadership.

Money? Is that all that’s wrong with today’s leaders? They’re disoriented by wealth? Prudence would say, “no, not just money, but it’s a part.”

Leaders often have power. Charles Krauthammer had power as a “thought-leader” for example. Was he a celebrity? Somewhat, thanks to television, but he was a columnist and never described himself as a TV personality. No billionaire, certainly, but he had power for two reasons I can discern: 1) He was a well-read, well-educated observer of things powerful and political, who lucidly expressed his opinion with refreshing honesty, clarity and consistency, and 2) He was honest to himself and to his readers, a refreshing and rare quality from which his power derived. It has been a treat to be alive and literate during his lifetime. Most people under, say, 40, would not list him in their panoply of “leaders,” sadly.

Throughout history the most powerful, threatening, feared person has been in charge. He (occasionally she) could push people around, command their virtual, or real, slavery and surface fealty, and literally take the profits of their work. They could even “lead” them into battles but never were they “leaders” in the sense that they were going in directions that others wanted to go or felt “right” about going. That is to say, the mission driving the King – or kingpin – was not shared by those afraid to not follow him. Mission and Leadership appear to be of a set, virtually inseparable. Does this illuminate any of the apparent differences between leadership during “America’s” biggest century and now?

Intentionally or not, every leader, by default, has some kind of “mission,” possibly only because he or she has articulated what it is that has spurred his or her actions. Lo, and behold! That sudden mission is agreed-to, thanks to our being awash in communications, by a group of people who, in the majority of instances, know only a thin shell of what issues are at stake. But, they are behind “the leader” all the way. One might say that the “size” of the leadership is a function more of the extent of the communications about the issues than it is about the quality of the leader or of the importance of the issues… or of the “principles” that motivate the leader and the followers.

In earlier times, when it could take days for news to reach a significant number of readers – always readers – powerful, or strong-willed people, at least, would start their journey towards a big idea, big goal, big industry or discovery, more nearly alone. His (most often, his) “followers” numbered in the single digits or low tens. It required courage, then. There were no happenstance leaders during the big century. Right or wrong they were real, and honest to their missions. If they and the mission failed, they faced failure… sometimes failure that meant the loss of everything. Lincoln.

Morality has a way of guiding, cajoling, molding and even forcing bad actions to end and bad actors to leave the stage of public influence. In fact, morality is essential to the success of leadership. Even today, when institutions and agencies do their level best to remove themselves from moral judgment, every person who claims to lead this or that movement – even “flash” movement – first lays out some “moral” position around which the latest crowd of followers might rally. Something is wrong and thanks to this “leader’s” vision, that wrong has been exposed and with (your) help, and money, that wrong will be ended and “things” will be set right. Communications unlike anything humans have been exposed to throughout evolution, play a big role in two ways: 1) newsworthy crowds can be assembled in a moment and, 2) the “wrong” that unites them need not be agreed to by even a significant fraction of the nation’s population.
What is “right” and what is “wrong,” anyway? Leadership, historically, has generally been connected to “leaders” who exercise courage in defense of what is “right.” Clear examples were seen during the American Revolution. Not only were the patriots fighting the government they were born under, but fighting with guns and cannons and real bullets. Not all of their fellow colonists were with them, many helped to fight against them. But motivating Washington and every Continental soldier who endured with him and other officers, was the powerful belief that what they were trying to do would yield a greater “good.” They believed they were doing what was right – not just more comfortable or more profitable, but right in terms of freedom, independence and justice.

The “patriots” comprised not even half of the British colonists… not even a quarter. Their mission would have appeared futile in many instances yet they soldiered on. How? They were both blessed and cursed by the paucity of information available to them. Cursed because they did not know the nature or size or deployment of the forces arrayed against them; blessed because they, unlike their modern descendants, were not burdened by too much thinking about their circumstances or by too much planning of how to avoid failure.

That is to say, they didn’t “know enough” to stop believing in the rightness of their mission: bumblebees unaware that they could not fly. The combination allowed their belief and trust in Washington and others to not just maintain but strengthen, until they flew in the face of the greatest possible headwinds. Is that “faith?” Trust in something one cannot see? Leadership is connected to that ability of humans – to believe in something greater than one’s self.

Modern leaders are more likely to be constrained by a flood of information. Indeed, most of our current “leaders” are called so because of financial success. Nearly every move they make is “hedged” in half a dozen ways such that they, personally, cannot lose. Even if their leadership of great businesses “fails,” they have arranged for a “golden parachute” that lets them leave wealthy. Their “leader-ship” carries minimal risk… to themselves. Their “mission” is personal gain and not the gain of a people or of a nation. They may be giants, dollar-wise, but are mis-identified as leaders. More and more, “success” is a measure of mere wealth. Even top political leaders leave office with more money than they entered with, and many become multi-millionaires by selling their celebrity – or notoriety. Money.

Governance

Truth, Belief, Spirituality, Life, Death, Freedom

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atomTHE BIG SIX.
It feels as though all the “old” ways are under assault at once. The arguments against what is and how it came to be, are endless. Overpopulation is an argument that’s so old it’s become new again. The reasons to limit – even reduce – population change with the winds of politics, but they’re certainly heating up again, now. Mankind has no clear basis for determining when population is “over,” or just larger, but there are plenty of worries… and theories – same things, sometimes.
TRUE SEX
Another, relatively new argument is about sexuality. The closer we can get to pure animalism the better, according to some. Animals, themselves, exercise better ethics about sex than do humans who want to act like animals. Even Federal and state governments are de-regulating sex, mostly by coercing straight people, who are the vast majority. Why it is a government problem is hard to compute.
Reconfiguring sex brings up issues like Freedom, Social Cohesion, Law, Justice and the Regulatory State. The social – and sexual – roles of males and females are shifting, and have been for a century, to the point they no longer have legal definition. Their denial is where legality matters. The original feminist rebellion, allegorized in the Garden of Eden story, is playing out to unintended results, all around us.
HOT TRUTH
Climate Change – measurable in less than half a lifetime – is a wonderfully heavy political tool for leftist, controlling types. Too many people on the planet is the source of it, of course, as we are the source for everything unpleasant, even, now, earthquakes and volcanoes. The chief agitators about climate change are the same who want to sunder sexuality, disrupt business, cut law free from its moorings and render education into government pigeon-holing.
COLD TRUTH
Religious institutions are being de-legitimized, despite Constitutional protection of religious freedom, but religion, itself – as in spirituality – is being lost at the same time, as if it were never more than decoration. The spirituality of life is dismissed as inconvenience, as millions of abortions are committed around the world, so strongly advocated by those who deny fatherhood and motherhood as oppressive.
Science, to socialist controllers, is the new religion. It’s technology, really, that provides cover for the erasing of tradition… and of spirit. Science somehow justifies top-down regulation; freedom, religious and otherwise, is its impediment.
FORMULA SIX
All areas of human testing, failure and success derive from the following elements of the formulae for Humanity:
1) Truth; 2) Belief; 3) Spirituality; 4) Life; 5) Death; and, 6) Freedom.
I have tried to identify another “root” or “end” to improve this sextet, but these encompass everything, I think. All other topics of debate, argument, war and peace, including those heated and cold, are “means” to these “ends.” My contention is that it is possible to devise governance that prevents the means from thwarting the ends for all… and for every individual, family, extended group or nation. So, in turn:
TRUTH is absolute, illimitable, pure. It bumps into beliefs – or the other way around – constantly, but it can’t be changed with a new truth (opinion) to take its place, and lies may stick to it only temporarily. Truth is the reason for experiment, discovery, curiosity and science, but it can’t be limited by any of those – it simply is.
TREWTH
Many of mankind’s troubles stem from attempts to define or re-define truth, as though different opinions represented differing sets of truths. Obviously that is impossible; there are only differing sets of beliefs or, corrosively, attitudes.
Truth may be described through evidence, but evidence, itself, requires constant, scientific (defined as examination and testing free of the pollution of beliefs) distillation. There are as many truths as there are atomic particles, all potentially discoverable, but true regardless. Humans are concerned with a tiny fraction of them.
PERSONAL TRUTH
Our greatest literature is about the revelation of truth, or about truths that conflict based on unequal beliefs about them. Often, unable to reveal absolute truth, literature will draw moral lessons from its obvious existence, even if imperfectly known, and present those as a form of proof of absolutes. Such are easily disregarded by skeptics, who insist that they are entitled to irrefutable proof of absolute truth if they are to respond to it in any way. Otherwise, their comfortable beliefs will suffice for this lifetime.
JUDGMENT
Legal battles are one forge for isolating absolute truth, hopefully stripped of all misunderstanding. Oddly, mere opposing “views” of what is true are the essence of “proof” that will convict or acquit a suspect. Recognizing that absolute proof of absolute truth is imperfectly achievable by humans, we invest judges and juries with the power to “rate” the quality of opposing views of truth, in order to convict or acquit. Neither outcome establishes “truth,” although one may come close. Whose opinion of what is true, is most plausible?
Even confessions must be proven, as individuals are known to admit to acts not performed for various reasons.
TRUTH IN POLITICS
Controlling types, politicians and others, find that controlling access to truth – thereby defining truth for the controlled – yields immense power. Science is their umbrella, and education, glorious, indoctrinating, “public” education, is their most effective tool.
The monopolistic ability to control the beliefs of most of the population, and therefore how that population grants power democratically, enables teachers – controlled through licensure and unionization – to define “truth” for their students. “Science,” then is more free to pursue the “truths” it wishes to discover and to ignore those it wishes to obscure – or, as happens, doesn’t believe in.
Truth controlled by politics is a dangerous, dangerous weapon.
TRUE LIES
The existence of truth spawns lies… some unintended. Lying, when on purpose, is purely human. There is no inherent requirement for lying that must be met to live well. Lying is easy in its simplest applications; many are harmless, even beneficial for the “ly-ee.”
“Do I look stupid?” The asker probably thinks he or she DOES look stupid in some situation, but usually receives an answer like, “Of course not!” Which might be a lie. “Do these clothes make me look fat?”
Of course not.
[Additional Truthiness to follow]