The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth,
So Help you God.
It’s a matter of faith that we all believe that truth in all matters is the best course of action for the righteous as well as the secular. However, as the gray hair keeps gaining an ever-greater share of our mane that adorns our wrinkling domes, we have come to understand that there are times when the truth must be used, shall I say, judicially. Knowing how much of the truth to use in a given situation is one of the more important things that makes us quintessential Human. I am going to provide an example of the truth that will absolutely enrage some people, cause some people to question the premise that is giving rise to this truth, and yet others will try to assimilate this particular truth and become introspective and confused about the matter. Are you ready?
As source material, I am going to make liberal use of the book, Freakonomics, by the celebrated and much respected economics author, Steven D. Levitt, as well as data available from the public domain and available to all. Think back to the early 1990s. Crime was on the accent and the prediction by all of the criminologists, social and political scientists, and other such experts was that law-abiding citizens had better be prepared because by 1995 crime in the good old US of A would overtake us all and make us prisoners in our own homes. However, what happened was quite different. Instead of crime continuing to go up, it began to fall. And the fall was dramatic. By the year 2000, the murder rate had fallen to its lowest level in 50 years. What’s more, the rate of every other sort of crime was also falling in equal amounts. And this just in, the FBI announced that the overall crime rate is still falling as of 2009. So what happened to reverse the crime rate when all conventual’s wisdom indicated that criminal activity would soar like an eagle? Like most Monday morning quarterbacks, the experts scrambled to bring forth logical reasons why this had happened and to spin the data so that their reputations would not suffer. Some of the logical reasons were, the expanding economy in the 1990s, proliferation of gun control laws, the proliferation of right to carry gun laws, progressive policing strategies, more police, cell phones, and on and on. The truth is many of these things had little to do with the falling crime rate. For example, adding more police always reduces crime but any reduction is minuscule at best. Of all of these reasons, cell phone proliferation has probably contributed the most to the apprehension of criminals, not enlightened police work, and the increased apprehension rate will somewhat effect a reduction of criminal activity by removing more criminals from the street. So what really did happen to cause the crime rate to start falling and continue to fall? OK now, get a firm grip on your outrage because the truth in the matter is that Roe v. Wade is what caused the most significant effect on the crime drop. When Norma McCorvey went and got pregnant again, she wanted an abortion because she did not want the child and she could not care for the child. Norma was a poor, uneducated, unskilled, alcoholic, drug-using 21-year-old woman who had already given up two children for adoption, and when she got pregnant again, she wanted an abortion. Problem was that it was 1970 and she lived in Texas and Texas law said it was illegal to have an abortion. The rest is history as Norma McCorvey had her name disguised as Jane Roe as her case went to the Supreme Court and in 1973 the Court held that it is a Constitutional right of a woman to have an abortion upon demand. Mr. Levitt states that decades of studies all indicate when a child is born into an adverse family environment, such as being unwanted and uncared for, that child is the most likely of all to become a criminal. So beginning in 1973, and as a result of abortion on demand, poor, unmarried, drug using, etc. teenage mothers began to have abortions in great numbers. These aborted children, had they instead had been born, would have become part of an ever-increasing pool of unwanted children who, in most likelihood, would have grow up to become potential criminals and contributed to the predicted surging crime wave of the 1990s. Of course, that did not happen. What happened instead was the unwanted children were not brought into the world, and by so doing; the biggest pool of potential criminals was eliminated. So by the time the 1990s rolled around, these aborted children that would be coming into criminal age (late teens) were not here, and as a result, criminal activity has been on the decrease ever since. The unemotional evidence is very strong that this is the truth of the matter. So, know the truth and the truth shall set you free? Well, as for myself, I really don’t know.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
EXPERTS
EXPERTS: Wisdom’s Antidote
French Prime Minster, Georges Clemenceau, is credited to have said, “War is too important a matter to entrust to military men.” The more popular paraphrase of the quote is, “War is too important to be left to the Generals.” I think I can distill millions of words about what the quote means by saying the quote relates to the problem of relying on experts, or savants, to make decisions or judgments that instead requires wisdom concerning the whole of the matter rather than specialized knowledge. All to often, activists, government, and those competing for power, uses experts to prevent full and rational discourse on a matter by insisting that only their supporting expert(s) has the definitive knowledge of the subject. A case in point; Global Warming alarmists have lined up their experts to support their position that Man is causing climate warming and insist that the science of Global Warming is settled and anyone one who believes otherwise is just a contrarian at best or an uneducated denier at worse. The truth of the matter is that climate is dynamic and responds to a whole range of physical factors, including man’s puny activities, and is just as likely to be heading for another ice age as our current warming period winds down. In other words, the science of climate change is far from being settled and listening to experts on both sides does little to bring wisdom to bear on the subject. So why are so many influential people and practically all of the world’s Governments supporting the notion that man’s activities are causing a catastrophic warming of the earth’s climate? Fellow traveler, do you recall the Snail Darter?
The Snail Darter is a small (3 inch) river fish that was discovered by environmental activist and biologist, David Etnier, in the Little Tennessee river in 1973. When Professor Etnier saw the small fish he cried, “Eureka”, because he knew he had found the means to stop construction of the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River. By invoking the National Environmental Policy Act, the lawsuit to stop construction of the dam could allege that the dam would alter the habitat of the river to such an extent that the Snail Darter would be extirpated (wiped-out) and if that happened, it would violate the Environmental Policy law. Of course you can plainly see that the Snail Darter was not really the concern of the Environmentilists, it was stopping construction of the Tellico Dam that was the real objective. In a like manner, World Governments, Socialists and One world activists had their “Eureka” Snail Darter moment when they discovered the Man caused climate warming issue because they could use the climate warming issue as a means to obtain power by using Cap and Trade to control vast areas of their respective economies. Once they had the additional power afforded by saving the Earth from man made Global warming, their real objective of enhancing centralised government power to promote a Socialistic agenda could be well adavanced. Don’t believe me? Listen to what happened when President Hugo Chavez addressed the UN Climate Change Summitt at Copenhagen recently. President Chavez was reported to say, “there was a silent and terrible ghost in the room and that ghost was called Capitalism”, he went on to further say, “Capitialism is the road to hell…lets fight against Capitalism.” When President Chavez said those things about Capitalism the room erupted in a standing ovation and the applause was deafening. Care to advance an opinion as to what the real agenda of the Climate Change Summitt was? There are probably many and varied objectives of the attendees but you can rest assured that none of the objectives had anything to do with global warming.
This is what you get when you rely on experts to define an issue. An expert has expertise in a very narrow area and is more interested in promoting his expertise than rational discussion of all of the factors affecting the issue. Those who nefariously use experts to further their objectives and agenda will more than likely engage the public’s emotions, the best emotion to use being fear, because emotion is the best enemy of rational argument. Sound familiar? So with apologies to Monsieur Clemenceau, Decisions are too important to entrust to experts.
French Prime Minster, Georges Clemenceau, is credited to have said, “War is too important a matter to entrust to military men.” The more popular paraphrase of the quote is, “War is too important to be left to the Generals.” I think I can distill millions of words about what the quote means by saying the quote relates to the problem of relying on experts, or savants, to make decisions or judgments that instead requires wisdom concerning the whole of the matter rather than specialized knowledge. All to often, activists, government, and those competing for power, uses experts to prevent full and rational discourse on a matter by insisting that only their supporting expert(s) has the definitive knowledge of the subject. A case in point; Global Warming alarmists have lined up their experts to support their position that Man is causing climate warming and insist that the science of Global Warming is settled and anyone one who believes otherwise is just a contrarian at best or an uneducated denier at worse. The truth of the matter is that climate is dynamic and responds to a whole range of physical factors, including man’s puny activities, and is just as likely to be heading for another ice age as our current warming period winds down. In other words, the science of climate change is far from being settled and listening to experts on both sides does little to bring wisdom to bear on the subject. So why are so many influential people and practically all of the world’s Governments supporting the notion that man’s activities are causing a catastrophic warming of the earth’s climate? Fellow traveler, do you recall the Snail Darter?
The Snail Darter is a small (3 inch) river fish that was discovered by environmental activist and biologist, David Etnier, in the Little Tennessee river in 1973. When Professor Etnier saw the small fish he cried, “Eureka”, because he knew he had found the means to stop construction of the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River. By invoking the National Environmental Policy Act, the lawsuit to stop construction of the dam could allege that the dam would alter the habitat of the river to such an extent that the Snail Darter would be extirpated (wiped-out) and if that happened, it would violate the Environmental Policy law. Of course you can plainly see that the Snail Darter was not really the concern of the Environmentilists, it was stopping construction of the Tellico Dam that was the real objective. In a like manner, World Governments, Socialists and One world activists had their “Eureka” Snail Darter moment when they discovered the Man caused climate warming issue because they could use the climate warming issue as a means to obtain power by using Cap and Trade to control vast areas of their respective economies. Once they had the additional power afforded by saving the Earth from man made Global warming, their real objective of enhancing centralised government power to promote a Socialistic agenda could be well adavanced. Don’t believe me? Listen to what happened when President Hugo Chavez addressed the UN Climate Change Summitt at Copenhagen recently. President Chavez was reported to say, “there was a silent and terrible ghost in the room and that ghost was called Capitalism”, he went on to further say, “Capitialism is the road to hell…lets fight against Capitalism.” When President Chavez said those things about Capitalism the room erupted in a standing ovation and the applause was deafening. Care to advance an opinion as to what the real agenda of the Climate Change Summitt was? There are probably many and varied objectives of the attendees but you can rest assured that none of the objectives had anything to do with global warming.
This is what you get when you rely on experts to define an issue. An expert has expertise in a very narrow area and is more interested in promoting his expertise than rational discussion of all of the factors affecting the issue. Those who nefariously use experts to further their objectives and agenda will more than likely engage the public’s emotions, the best emotion to use being fear, because emotion is the best enemy of rational argument. Sound familiar? So with apologies to Monsieur Clemenceau, Decisions are too important to entrust to experts.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Morality
Morality Tis Better On Thee Than Me
It’s the Holiday season and I got to thinking about the message of Love that Jesus brought to the world. Not only did Christianity make Agape Love part of the social fabric of our culture, the spiritual message promoted a kind of National honesty and culturally instilled set of ethics that enabled business and social intercourse to proceed with an inherent ease that was the envy of the world. Needless to say, science, rationalism, progressive philosophy, and a general coarsening of social and personal behavior, brought about by an entitlement mentality, greed, and all of the other deadly sins, have all combined to make things like morality and ethics seem “old fashioned” and not at all relevant to modern life. Morality has gotten all mixed up with economics at its most basic levels and prompted Steven Levitt to address morality and economics in his book, Freakonomics, to wit: “Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work—whereas economics represents how it actually does work”. The reason why morality and economics are intertwined is because Government, and everyone else, uses incentives to motivate people’s behavior for one reason or another and these incentives influence morality and economics. The classic example of morality and economics getting caught up together is the Daycare Center that began using a negative monetary incentive to address the problem of late pickup by parents. The Daycare Center imposed a $5.00 fine on parents who were up to 15 minutes late. As a result of the “negative” incentive, late pickups surged because it was easier to pay the $5.00 fine than deal with the hassle of being on time. When there was no fine imposed, morality drove the parents to pickup on time because of a desire not to impose on their friends at the Daycare Center, i.e., when the $5.00 fine was imposed, a trivial monetary value was substituted for a Morality value which relieved the parents of any moral or ethic incentive. Needless to say, if the fine imposed would have been, say, $50.00, the outcome would have been much different. So what is this thing called Morality and what are its foundations? Jonathon Haidt at www.moralfoundations.org has it all figured out, to wit:
The Foundations of Morality
1) Harm/care, related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. This foundation underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.2) Fairness/reciprocity, related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. This foundation generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy.3) Ingroup/loyalty, related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. This foundation underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it's "one for all, and all for one." 4) Authority/respect, shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. This foundation underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.5) Purity/sanctity, shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. This foundation underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).
As you can see, most of the foundations of morality are based upon the evolutionary values instilled by the necessity of survival. These values are becoming less and less relevant in the modern world where the struggle to survive is being mitigated by science, technology and social governance. So if you ever wondered why morality and ethics seems to be going the way of your last week’s paycheck, it may well be because science and technology, married to the ideal of socialism, is rewriting what morality and ethics are. I guess our progeny will discover what this neo-morality will be. So cherish Christianity’s message of Love as it is repeated this Christmas and perhaps the morality and ethics it portended, through the foundations listed above, will fall on fresh ears and remain relevant. But if not, then I guess its “Back To The Future” of dog eat dog. Sure is beginning to look that way, don’t you think?
It’s the Holiday season and I got to thinking about the message of Love that Jesus brought to the world. Not only did Christianity make Agape Love part of the social fabric of our culture, the spiritual message promoted a kind of National honesty and culturally instilled set of ethics that enabled business and social intercourse to proceed with an inherent ease that was the envy of the world. Needless to say, science, rationalism, progressive philosophy, and a general coarsening of social and personal behavior, brought about by an entitlement mentality, greed, and all of the other deadly sins, have all combined to make things like morality and ethics seem “old fashioned” and not at all relevant to modern life. Morality has gotten all mixed up with economics at its most basic levels and prompted Steven Levitt to address morality and economics in his book, Freakonomics, to wit: “Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work—whereas economics represents how it actually does work”. The reason why morality and economics are intertwined is because Government, and everyone else, uses incentives to motivate people’s behavior for one reason or another and these incentives influence morality and economics. The classic example of morality and economics getting caught up together is the Daycare Center that began using a negative monetary incentive to address the problem of late pickup by parents. The Daycare Center imposed a $5.00 fine on parents who were up to 15 minutes late. As a result of the “negative” incentive, late pickups surged because it was easier to pay the $5.00 fine than deal with the hassle of being on time. When there was no fine imposed, morality drove the parents to pickup on time because of a desire not to impose on their friends at the Daycare Center, i.e., when the $5.00 fine was imposed, a trivial monetary value was substituted for a Morality value which relieved the parents of any moral or ethic incentive. Needless to say, if the fine imposed would have been, say, $50.00, the outcome would have been much different. So what is this thing called Morality and what are its foundations? Jonathon Haidt at www.moralfoundations.org has it all figured out, to wit:
The Foundations of Morality
1) Harm/care, related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. This foundation underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.2) Fairness/reciprocity, related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. This foundation generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy.3) Ingroup/loyalty, related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. This foundation underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it's "one for all, and all for one." 4) Authority/respect, shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. This foundation underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.5) Purity/sanctity, shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. This foundation underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).
As you can see, most of the foundations of morality are based upon the evolutionary values instilled by the necessity of survival. These values are becoming less and less relevant in the modern world where the struggle to survive is being mitigated by science, technology and social governance. So if you ever wondered why morality and ethics seems to be going the way of your last week’s paycheck, it may well be because science and technology, married to the ideal of socialism, is rewriting what morality and ethics are. I guess our progeny will discover what this neo-morality will be. So cherish Christianity’s message of Love as it is repeated this Christmas and perhaps the morality and ethics it portended, through the foundations listed above, will fall on fresh ears and remain relevant. But if not, then I guess its “Back To The Future” of dog eat dog. Sure is beginning to look that way, don’t you think?
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Urban Fortification of Socialism
2000 Census Population Density USA Today 2004 Election Red/Blue Map
I invite you to look very closely at the above two maps. They are profound in their similarity. The left map is the official 2000 Census Population Density Map where the red color indicates where the highest population density is located. Of course, the concentration of red also indicates where the great cities are due to the greater population within the respective counties and so clearly indicates where the great urban centers are located. The map on the right is the USA Today 2004 election results, also down to the county level. Red represents Republican votes and in general indicates a more conservative political area. The Blue represents Democratic votes and in general indicates a more liberal political area. Now, try to overlay each map in your mind. I think you will find that the red high-density areas (urban areas) on the population density map closely correspond to the democratic, or politically liberal, areas of the 2004 red/blue map. The political importance of these maps is profound in that it clearly shows that the urbanization of America is providing an irresistible fortification of socialistic tendencies due to liberal or “progressive” thought within the body politic by virtue of the greater population and thus greater political power of the urban areas. Indeed, those who demand that the US Constitution be treated as a “living document” to support progressive or socialist dogma may well have a viable argument due to the phenomena of urbanization. Think about it. The country was mostly rural when the Constitution was ratified and rural living peoples are very self-sufficient and fearlessly independent. The Constitution, in general, codifies self-sufficiency and independence of the individual as a way to ensure personal liberty and thus prevent tyranny from gaining a foothold in Government. When people congregate into urban areas, dependence upon one another is more important than self-sufficiency, and personal independence must be moderated in order to foster social conditions that will enhance the opportunity for all to live in peace and harmony with one another. In other words, urban living promotes a more socialistic environment by the necessity of interdependence, not independence, of city dwellers. This socialistic force due to urbanization is irresistible much like a trade wind that blows due to environmental factors, i.e., a socialistic wind is blowing due to urbanization factors and it will continue to blow stronger and stronger unless a way is found to reverse urbanization, and that is not likely. Indeed, the census bureau reports that the 2000 census indicated that 81% of America’s population is now living within urban areas while the remaining 19% of the population is living in the rural areas of the country. But wait, there’s more. Just this week the United Nations announced that the World population is now 50% rural and 50% urban. What does it mean? Every good sailor will tell you that it is folly to try and change the wind because the wind will blow to wherever the wind will blow. Every good sailor will also tell you that you can set your sail to the wind and go to where you want to go regardless of the way the wind blows. Somehow we must find a way to maintain personal freedom and liberty within a more and more socialistic environment that the urbanization of America is causing. It’s time for the intellectual sailors of this country to set freedom’s sail to the prevailing socialist wind so that personal liberty will still be the destination of our progeny.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Tin Cup Man
Tin Cup Man
There once was a Tiger called Woods,
Who hit it as hard as he could,
His smile would just shine,
As he played double-time,
On many more courses than he should.
There once was a Tiger called Woods,
Who hit it as hard as he could,
His smile would just shine,
As he played double-time,
On many more courses than he should.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Ain't Got No Horse
Ain’t Got No Horse
I heard a story about an old Indian traveling across the desert with all of his worldly possessions being dragged behind an old broken-down pony and his Squaw laboriously walking alongside. An old prospector happened upon the itinerant pair, and after they each had exchanged perfunctory salutations, the prospector, with a slightly bewildered smile, asked the dignified Indian seated upon his Pony why he was riding while his Squaw was walking. The old Indian slowly looked at the prospector and then responded with a patient and tolerant voice; “She ain’t got no horse.”
This story came to mind as I was watching and listening to our august Senators debate the proposed Government run Health Care law now before the Senate. The politicians were actually debating the merits of an amendment that would allow for more health screening procedures for women. I’ll just pause here for a moment to let what I just said fully sink in. OK, now that you have had a little time to consider what was being debated, I’ll restate what I said the Senators were discussing in order to illuminate the glaring and apparently overlooked salient of the matter. Today pompous politicians were deciding how much health screening women would receive under the proposed Government Healthcare Program. That’s correct; politicians were deciding what level of healthcare women would receive, i.e., women will not be discussing with their primary healthcare provider what level of healthcare screening they personally needed, wanted or would pay for. Fellow “free” citizens, when you give the Government the responsibility for your personal healthcare you will no longer be riding the horse on your healthcare journey, you will be walking alongside the Government who will be riding the horse and will be dictating where you are going, healthcare wise, that is. The salient about this matter is; Government can only make political decisions. Governments can’t and won’t make personal decisions for you. If you allow the Government to take over your healthcare, your healthcare will be subjected to and rendered with all of the political considerations that the Government must make because Government is a political entity. Government cannot be a personal healthcare provider. So as time rolls by, Government Healthcare will be less and less about your personal healthcare and more and more about what is politically expedient and most politically advantageous to do. Don’t believe me? Look what has happened to the Social Security Program. What started out as a safety net for old age security has morphed into a political machine that promotes social causes, social engineering, and all for Government power and political advantage. Your social security taxes (taxes are power) go less and less for your old age safety net, and more and more for general social welfare.
In short Citizens, if you keep giving away your freedoms and power to the Government, “you ain’t got no horse.”
I heard a story about an old Indian traveling across the desert with all of his worldly possessions being dragged behind an old broken-down pony and his Squaw laboriously walking alongside. An old prospector happened upon the itinerant pair, and after they each had exchanged perfunctory salutations, the prospector, with a slightly bewildered smile, asked the dignified Indian seated upon his Pony why he was riding while his Squaw was walking. The old Indian slowly looked at the prospector and then responded with a patient and tolerant voice; “She ain’t got no horse.”
This story came to mind as I was watching and listening to our august Senators debate the proposed Government run Health Care law now before the Senate. The politicians were actually debating the merits of an amendment that would allow for more health screening procedures for women. I’ll just pause here for a moment to let what I just said fully sink in. OK, now that you have had a little time to consider what was being debated, I’ll restate what I said the Senators were discussing in order to illuminate the glaring and apparently overlooked salient of the matter. Today pompous politicians were deciding how much health screening women would receive under the proposed Government Healthcare Program. That’s correct; politicians were deciding what level of healthcare women would receive, i.e., women will not be discussing with their primary healthcare provider what level of healthcare screening they personally needed, wanted or would pay for. Fellow “free” citizens, when you give the Government the responsibility for your personal healthcare you will no longer be riding the horse on your healthcare journey, you will be walking alongside the Government who will be riding the horse and will be dictating where you are going, healthcare wise, that is. The salient about this matter is; Government can only make political decisions. Governments can’t and won’t make personal decisions for you. If you allow the Government to take over your healthcare, your healthcare will be subjected to and rendered with all of the political considerations that the Government must make because Government is a political entity. Government cannot be a personal healthcare provider. So as time rolls by, Government Healthcare will be less and less about your personal healthcare and more and more about what is politically expedient and most politically advantageous to do. Don’t believe me? Look what has happened to the Social Security Program. What started out as a safety net for old age security has morphed into a political machine that promotes social causes, social engineering, and all for Government power and political advantage. Your social security taxes (taxes are power) go less and less for your old age safety net, and more and more for general social welfare.
In short Citizens, if you keep giving away your freedoms and power to the Government, “you ain’t got no horse.”
Saturday, November 28, 2009
There're Baaaaaack
There’re Baaaaaack
Breaking News…..From the AP…Date 27 November 2009…………………………….
SAN LUIS, Colo. — A creepy string of calf mutilations in southern Colorado has a rancher and sheriff's officials mystified. Four calves were found dead in a pasture just north of the New Mexico state line in recent weeks. The dead calves had their skins peeled back and organs cleared from the rib cage. One calf had its tongue removed. But rancher Manuel Sanchez has found no signs of human attackers, such as footprints or ATV tracks. And there are no signs of an animal attack by a coyote or mountain lion. Usually predators leave pools of blood or drag marks from carrying away the livestock. Two officers from the Costilla County Sheriff's Office have investigated the mutilations but say they don't know what's killing the calves. "There's nothing really to go by," said Sanchez, who's ranched for nearly 50 years. "I can't figure it out." A spokesman for the sheriff's office told The Pueblo Chieftain that investigators doubt a person butchered the calves because there is no blood at the scene. "I've butchered a cow before and I know what kind of a mess it leaves," Sgt. James Chavez said. Some in the area believe the mutilations are the work of aliens. An area UFO chaser, Chuck Zukowski of Colorado Springs, has been to the Costilla County pasture to investigate. He told the paper there have been other unexplained calf mutilations in the area, including three in March. One of the other calves, found dead on a ranch near Trinidad, had its ears removed, Zukowski said. Sanchez said he has sold off his 32 remaining calves out of fear more would be mutilated. He hasn't decided how he'll manage the remaining 40 animals in his herd. "It's a big loss for a small rancher," he said.
Well, there you have it. Holy Cow, where is Mulder and Scully when you need them? Well Mulder (David Duchovny) is now a stud-bucket that has beautiful women falling all over him in Showtime’s Californication and Scully (Gillian Anderson) has just finished her latest movie, Boogie Woogie. Not likely that they could rev-up the old X-files and find out what’s really going on in San Luis Colorado. That being the case, you are left with Banginthedrum’s intrepid investigator, and all-around inquisitive fellow, uh, that would be me, to get to the bottom of this messy business. Good luck with that. Nevertheless, this latest event of Animal Mutilations and the possibility of, Oh no Mr. bill, Aliens fricasseeing helpless pasture animals and taking only the choice organs is a disturbing event. It also begs the question, “Why are the Cosmos ruffians coming all the way to Earth just to carve up some US Grade Choice Black Angus on the hoof?” Perhaps they can’t get a good prime cut on their home planet, “Gillydad Prime”, and so they have to motor light-years just to get to the way-out-of-the-way Earth in order to finally get some decent fixin’s for a really good meal. Of course, perhaps they (the Aliens) are not Cosmos Carnivores looking for a special evening-out meal but they came to the third rock from the Sun because they are Scientists engaged in research about how life on this planet is progressing. Well, if that would be the case, why are they checking out dumb animals, why don’t they go to the top of the heap and carve up Humans to really find our how we are doing, evolution wise, that is? If that is what the Aliens are doing, I would suggest they fly into Washington D.C. in order to pick off some really smart and advanced Humans, because that’s where all the really smart Humans live nowadays, and believe me, we Earth people wouldn’t miss them all that much. But I digress. There is a serious side to this, and I want to address it with you. By now you have read my many pieces railing against Science, and about how Science has become Politicized, and in general, how the Scientists have developed an arrogant attitude towards us dumb-butt ordinary citizens. Let me give you a case in point.
Do you recognize the above diagram? The above diagram is a plaque that was attached to Pioneer 10 &11. Pioneer 10 & 11 are Satellites that are now on their way to parts unknown in the Cosmos. The plaques were put on the Satellites in the event that extraterrestrial life might find them at some point in time and somewhere in the Cosmos. The plaques contain basic information about who we are, where we live, and other basic information. The plaques are an attempt to communicate with unknown life in the event life exists out there and comes in contact with our voyaging craft. When I learned that scientists had placed these plaques on our Satellites, and then shot them into the Cosmos, I was outraged. Think about it. If life here on Earth is just one of many that occupy the Universe, then, more likely than not, all of the other life developed under the same Universal rules as we did, and with the same resulting characterizes and traits as us Earthlings. In case you missed it, while watching the Colts beat the crap out of everyone, its dog eat dog here on good old terra firma. I, and neither did you, make it that way, it’s the way it is. Life consumes (eats) life in order to conserve that planet’s resources and this is the only way that life can survive to advance. It is the height of arrogance that Scientists would make a decision on their own that could have devastating consequences for all life on Earth by assuming that advanced extraterrestrial life would always be benign. What I am saying here is that we don’t know if other life is out there, only that if other life exists, chances are excellent that they developed just like us and we might represent some mighty tasty food that could ensure their survival. After all, the advanced life could rationalize we Humans are not all that advanced, and so they would have no ethical problems associated with using us as food or as beasts of burden. This is not meant to humorous. We have no ethical problems eating cattle or using horses as beast of burden because they are an inferior life that is not really all that advanced and we eat to them and use them in order to survive and advance. An extraterrestrial life, much more advanced than us, would not have an ethical problem having us for lunch either, i.e., big fish eat little fish, or using us as smart beasts to do their bidding. I am outraged that arrogant and sophomoric Scientists could put all life on Earth in such jeopardy without having knowledge of what is really out there in the cosmos, life wise that is. Get the serious picture?
Breaking News…..From the AP…Date 27 November 2009…………………………….
SAN LUIS, Colo. — A creepy string of calf mutilations in southern Colorado has a rancher and sheriff's officials mystified. Four calves were found dead in a pasture just north of the New Mexico state line in recent weeks. The dead calves had their skins peeled back and organs cleared from the rib cage. One calf had its tongue removed. But rancher Manuel Sanchez has found no signs of human attackers, such as footprints or ATV tracks. And there are no signs of an animal attack by a coyote or mountain lion. Usually predators leave pools of blood or drag marks from carrying away the livestock. Two officers from the Costilla County Sheriff's Office have investigated the mutilations but say they don't know what's killing the calves. "There's nothing really to go by," said Sanchez, who's ranched for nearly 50 years. "I can't figure it out." A spokesman for the sheriff's office told The Pueblo Chieftain that investigators doubt a person butchered the calves because there is no blood at the scene. "I've butchered a cow before and I know what kind of a mess it leaves," Sgt. James Chavez said. Some in the area believe the mutilations are the work of aliens. An area UFO chaser, Chuck Zukowski of Colorado Springs, has been to the Costilla County pasture to investigate. He told the paper there have been other unexplained calf mutilations in the area, including three in March. One of the other calves, found dead on a ranch near Trinidad, had its ears removed, Zukowski said. Sanchez said he has sold off his 32 remaining calves out of fear more would be mutilated. He hasn't decided how he'll manage the remaining 40 animals in his herd. "It's a big loss for a small rancher," he said.
Well, there you have it. Holy Cow, where is Mulder and Scully when you need them? Well Mulder (David Duchovny) is now a stud-bucket that has beautiful women falling all over him in Showtime’s Californication and Scully (Gillian Anderson) has just finished her latest movie, Boogie Woogie. Not likely that they could rev-up the old X-files and find out what’s really going on in San Luis Colorado. That being the case, you are left with Banginthedrum’s intrepid investigator, and all-around inquisitive fellow, uh, that would be me, to get to the bottom of this messy business. Good luck with that. Nevertheless, this latest event of Animal Mutilations and the possibility of, Oh no Mr. bill, Aliens fricasseeing helpless pasture animals and taking only the choice organs is a disturbing event. It also begs the question, “Why are the Cosmos ruffians coming all the way to Earth just to carve up some US Grade Choice Black Angus on the hoof?” Perhaps they can’t get a good prime cut on their home planet, “Gillydad Prime”, and so they have to motor light-years just to get to the way-out-of-the-way Earth in order to finally get some decent fixin’s for a really good meal. Of course, perhaps they (the Aliens) are not Cosmos Carnivores looking for a special evening-out meal but they came to the third rock from the Sun because they are Scientists engaged in research about how life on this planet is progressing. Well, if that would be the case, why are they checking out dumb animals, why don’t they go to the top of the heap and carve up Humans to really find our how we are doing, evolution wise, that is? If that is what the Aliens are doing, I would suggest they fly into Washington D.C. in order to pick off some really smart and advanced Humans, because that’s where all the really smart Humans live nowadays, and believe me, we Earth people wouldn’t miss them all that much. But I digress. There is a serious side to this, and I want to address it with you. By now you have read my many pieces railing against Science, and about how Science has become Politicized, and in general, how the Scientists have developed an arrogant attitude towards us dumb-butt ordinary citizens. Let me give you a case in point.
Do you recognize the above diagram? The above diagram is a plaque that was attached to Pioneer 10 &11. Pioneer 10 & 11 are Satellites that are now on their way to parts unknown in the Cosmos. The plaques were put on the Satellites in the event that extraterrestrial life might find them at some point in time and somewhere in the Cosmos. The plaques contain basic information about who we are, where we live, and other basic information. The plaques are an attempt to communicate with unknown life in the event life exists out there and comes in contact with our voyaging craft. When I learned that scientists had placed these plaques on our Satellites, and then shot them into the Cosmos, I was outraged. Think about it. If life here on Earth is just one of many that occupy the Universe, then, more likely than not, all of the other life developed under the same Universal rules as we did, and with the same resulting characterizes and traits as us Earthlings. In case you missed it, while watching the Colts beat the crap out of everyone, its dog eat dog here on good old terra firma. I, and neither did you, make it that way, it’s the way it is. Life consumes (eats) life in order to conserve that planet’s resources and this is the only way that life can survive to advance. It is the height of arrogance that Scientists would make a decision on their own that could have devastating consequences for all life on Earth by assuming that advanced extraterrestrial life would always be benign. What I am saying here is that we don’t know if other life is out there, only that if other life exists, chances are excellent that they developed just like us and we might represent some mighty tasty food that could ensure their survival. After all, the advanced life could rationalize we Humans are not all that advanced, and so they would have no ethical problems associated with using us as food or as beasts of burden. This is not meant to humorous. We have no ethical problems eating cattle or using horses as beast of burden because they are an inferior life that is not really all that advanced and we eat to them and use them in order to survive and advance. An extraterrestrial life, much more advanced than us, would not have an ethical problem having us for lunch either, i.e., big fish eat little fish, or using us as smart beasts to do their bidding. I am outraged that arrogant and sophomoric Scientists could put all life on Earth in such jeopardy without having knowledge of what is really out there in the cosmos, life wise that is. Get the serious picture?
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thanksgiving 2009
Here's hoping that this day allows you to be with family and friends. The sun is still shining upon us and little girls with bouncing curls gives us hugs without a care in the world. Little boys run and shout and ask that you watch their latest achievement. There is much to be thankful for.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The 17th Amendment Legacy
The 17th Amendment Legacy
By now most of us have watched and listened to our popularly elected Senators as they rose up in the well of our corrupt neo-Roman Senate and huffed and puffed, pontificated, equivocated (weaseled), and positioned themselves in the earnest hope of being able to be on both sides of the current manufactured health care issue. Now that they have sanctimoniously voted to allow “debate” on the 2,000-page law, the real bribing/blackmailing can begin in earnest. If you thought the $300,000,000 bribe to Senator Landrieu to vote for debate was outrageous, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. What’s that you say? Isn’t bribery a crime? Well, bribery is a crime for dumb-butt citizens like you and me, but not for the self-anointed Potentates that occupy the 17th Amendment United States Senate. I suggest you go back and read my piece on the 17th Amendment (The 17th Amendment and the Rise of Special Interest) to gain a small understanding of how this monumental mistake has given rise to our corrupt and dysfunctional United States Senate. We all know the Senate is corrupt and I say it is also dysfunctional because the Senators no longer represent their respective state’s interest as was originally intended in the Constitution. Because each Senator is now popularly elected, special interests have gained power over State interests by virtue of funding the popular election and continuous reelection of Senators, thereby enshrining incumbency and ensuring that when you become bribed, you stay bribed. The Senators in reality represent special interests rather than their respective states and the indigenous citizen electorate therein and by so doing have become dysfunctional Potentates bent on gaining and maintaining personal power. The arcane and nutty rules of the Senate serve to perpetuate each Senator’s personal fiefdom, and as a result, the US Senate is a dysfunctional bunch of 100 individuals putting personal power first, special interests second, political party third while leaving the Country’s business relegated to pompous rhetoric and little else. This is hardly what our forefathers constructed as part of our carefully balanced democratic Republic and if one reads the Federalist Papers you will quickly determine that what has happened to our United States Senate is exactly what our framers feared would happen when special interest were given an avenue to corrupt by direct election of long serving Senators. In other words, the dysfunctional Senate is no longer the restraint on the public’s emotions it was intended to be and thereby has given the Administrative branch of government extensive power it was never intended to have. Don’t believe me? The current Administration has appointed over 30 Czars that has enormous power and discretion over all aspects of citizen’s lives and wherewithal and the US Senate wasn’t even consulted or asked to confirm the appointments. In fact, the Senate never even protested all that much because these Czars really don’t impact a Senators ability to remain in power. These appointed Czars are just another aspect of a Federal Government that is becoming more centralized and more powerful with each passing day, just like our founding father’s said would happen if we didn’t maintain our Constitution. Ratifying the 17th Amendment is just one of the more egregious failures of Constitutional maintenance that has lead to a continuing erosion of personal freedom by enabling an every increasing powerful and centralized Federal Government. Fellow citizens, this is really serious stuff, unless, of course, you don’t really care about representative Government, personal freedom, and things like that. You know, things that our Constitution was suppose to protect. Still unconvinced? Lets look at the manufactured health care issue. I say it is a manufactured issue because the premise of Health Care Reform is that the United States health care system is broken. That premise is patently a lie. The United States health care system is the best in the world and the only problem is that it costs far too much. Why does it cost so much? The most basic reason is that healthcare in the US is the best in the world and the best always costs more. Beyond that basic reason, however, is that the healthcare industry has became just that, i.e., they have become an profit making industry that has no constraints whatsoever as they build every bigger and ever more glamorous hospitals, buy physician’s practices by the carload, and then pass the costs on to insurance companies that they invest in and to the Government that aid and abets the whole process. When was the last time you visited a modern hospital? Most new ones have opulence entryways that rival Las Vegas, services that have nothing to do with healthcare and on and on. And you wondered why they charged $20.00 for an aspirin tablet. Then, of course, there is the matter of lawsuits that puts an unfathomable expense burden on the system that we all must pay for one way or another. What has this got to do with the Senate being corrupt and dysfunctional? I think if you have the stomach to read the 2,000 page healthcare law you will find nothing in there that addresses the cost associated with healthcare. So, you ask, if they are not addressing out-of-control healthcare costs, what is the Government Healthcare all about? Really! I’ll leave that for you to decide. Oh, by the way. I have included a link that lists all of the areas of spending that the $787 Billion Stimulus law encompasses. If you really care and dig deep enough, you will find new agencies and entities created to support Government Healthcare, Cap & Trade, Immigration Reform, among many other things that have absolutely nothing to do with Economy stimulus. This was done well before Healthcare, Cap & Trade, Immigration, etc., even made it to the floor of the Senate or House of Representatives. The United States Senate passed this so-called Stimulus law without even reading it and you wonder why I call the United States Senate dysfunctional.
www.propublica.org/special/the-stimulus-plan-a-detailed-list-of-spending
By now most of us have watched and listened to our popularly elected Senators as they rose up in the well of our corrupt neo-Roman Senate and huffed and puffed, pontificated, equivocated (weaseled), and positioned themselves in the earnest hope of being able to be on both sides of the current manufactured health care issue. Now that they have sanctimoniously voted to allow “debate” on the 2,000-page law, the real bribing/blackmailing can begin in earnest. If you thought the $300,000,000 bribe to Senator Landrieu to vote for debate was outrageous, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. What’s that you say? Isn’t bribery a crime? Well, bribery is a crime for dumb-butt citizens like you and me, but not for the self-anointed Potentates that occupy the 17th Amendment United States Senate. I suggest you go back and read my piece on the 17th Amendment (The 17th Amendment and the Rise of Special Interest) to gain a small understanding of how this monumental mistake has given rise to our corrupt and dysfunctional United States Senate. We all know the Senate is corrupt and I say it is also dysfunctional because the Senators no longer represent their respective state’s interest as was originally intended in the Constitution. Because each Senator is now popularly elected, special interests have gained power over State interests by virtue of funding the popular election and continuous reelection of Senators, thereby enshrining incumbency and ensuring that when you become bribed, you stay bribed. The Senators in reality represent special interests rather than their respective states and the indigenous citizen electorate therein and by so doing have become dysfunctional Potentates bent on gaining and maintaining personal power. The arcane and nutty rules of the Senate serve to perpetuate each Senator’s personal fiefdom, and as a result, the US Senate is a dysfunctional bunch of 100 individuals putting personal power first, special interests second, political party third while leaving the Country’s business relegated to pompous rhetoric and little else. This is hardly what our forefathers constructed as part of our carefully balanced democratic Republic and if one reads the Federalist Papers you will quickly determine that what has happened to our United States Senate is exactly what our framers feared would happen when special interest were given an avenue to corrupt by direct election of long serving Senators. In other words, the dysfunctional Senate is no longer the restraint on the public’s emotions it was intended to be and thereby has given the Administrative branch of government extensive power it was never intended to have. Don’t believe me? The current Administration has appointed over 30 Czars that has enormous power and discretion over all aspects of citizen’s lives and wherewithal and the US Senate wasn’t even consulted or asked to confirm the appointments. In fact, the Senate never even protested all that much because these Czars really don’t impact a Senators ability to remain in power. These appointed Czars are just another aspect of a Federal Government that is becoming more centralized and more powerful with each passing day, just like our founding father’s said would happen if we didn’t maintain our Constitution. Ratifying the 17th Amendment is just one of the more egregious failures of Constitutional maintenance that has lead to a continuing erosion of personal freedom by enabling an every increasing powerful and centralized Federal Government. Fellow citizens, this is really serious stuff, unless, of course, you don’t really care about representative Government, personal freedom, and things like that. You know, things that our Constitution was suppose to protect. Still unconvinced? Lets look at the manufactured health care issue. I say it is a manufactured issue because the premise of Health Care Reform is that the United States health care system is broken. That premise is patently a lie. The United States health care system is the best in the world and the only problem is that it costs far too much. Why does it cost so much? The most basic reason is that healthcare in the US is the best in the world and the best always costs more. Beyond that basic reason, however, is that the healthcare industry has became just that, i.e., they have become an profit making industry that has no constraints whatsoever as they build every bigger and ever more glamorous hospitals, buy physician’s practices by the carload, and then pass the costs on to insurance companies that they invest in and to the Government that aid and abets the whole process. When was the last time you visited a modern hospital? Most new ones have opulence entryways that rival Las Vegas, services that have nothing to do with healthcare and on and on. And you wondered why they charged $20.00 for an aspirin tablet. Then, of course, there is the matter of lawsuits that puts an unfathomable expense burden on the system that we all must pay for one way or another. What has this got to do with the Senate being corrupt and dysfunctional? I think if you have the stomach to read the 2,000 page healthcare law you will find nothing in there that addresses the cost associated with healthcare. So, you ask, if they are not addressing out-of-control healthcare costs, what is the Government Healthcare all about? Really! I’ll leave that for you to decide. Oh, by the way. I have included a link that lists all of the areas of spending that the $787 Billion Stimulus law encompasses. If you really care and dig deep enough, you will find new agencies and entities created to support Government Healthcare, Cap & Trade, Immigration Reform, among many other things that have absolutely nothing to do with Economy stimulus. This was done well before Healthcare, Cap & Trade, Immigration, etc., even made it to the floor of the Senate or House of Representatives. The United States Senate passed this so-called Stimulus law without even reading it and you wonder why I call the United States Senate dysfunctional.
www.propublica.org/special/the-stimulus-plan-a-detailed-list-of-spending
Friday, November 6, 2009
Antecessor Communique
Antecessor Communiqué
This is a letter to my yet to be born great great grandchildren. I can only hope this letter to my future progeny will survive the uncertain temporal journey because I know the Grim Reaper, riding his faithful steed Time, will surely gallop my way to do his duty and make my personal delivery of this message impossible long before my great great descendents become of age. I want to make this temporal connection in order to relay certain facts about the journey from me to you, and perhaps in so doing, shine some light upon how you got to where you are in your future world. Most of the facts to be shared with my yet to be born great great grandchildren are not facts you will find talking heads blathering about in the media as they regurgitate what savants and opinion makers say is important. I’m talking about really important things to share, like my Father resisting my calls for him to spend his carefully saved money in his last days in order to enjoy his final moments in the sun as much as money could make it possible. Why would my Father not spend his money? He would not spend his money because of his experiences gained during the Great Depression. My Father had to put newspaper inside his shoes to buttress the holes in the soles and wear his shop apron backwards because there was not enough money to by new shoes when they wore out or work pants when they developed holes in the rear. People bought potatoes in 100lb bags and ate potatoes at every meal. Indeed, the old Depression era saying, to wit, I complained I had no shoes to wear until I saw a man with no feet, was not a clever sound bite. The saying reflected the reality of daily life during the Great Depression. If one armed themselves with the knowledge of my Father’s experiences during the Great Depression, then it was very understandable why he would refuse to spend any money that was not absolutely necessary to sustain life. To say my Father did not understand the modern welfare mentality is an understatement of historical proportions and his mindset about life, shaped by his experiences, was little changed by current modern events. Even though I was reared in very humble circumstances, I did not experience the Depression as my Father did, and as a result, I do not share my Father’s inability to open the purse for things unrelated to survival. Time marches on. Mind you now, I am in no way a spendthrift. I have availed my family and myself some of those things that make life more comfortable, but I only do it if it can be done without debt. This old fashioned frugal inclination has made me a part of a declining minority in today’s (2009) society. This, and other old fashioned principles that still afflict me and others of my age, like, self-reliance, patriotic duty, nuclear families, and divine imperatives are rapidly being replaced in our society by beliefs of entitlement, hedonism, collective families and secular imperatives. If one looks at these ongoing changes in individual and social behavior with a comprehensive perspective in mind you will quickly realize that the world’s peoples are become more and more “urbanized” and this leads, by necessity, to people becoming less independent and more and more social as urbanization continues to increase. This “urbanization” of the world’s peoples is the root cause for the changes listed above just like the Great Depression was the root cause for my Father’s behavior concerning money. This process of wide-scale social integration is further being aided and abetted by the continuing advances in technology that has provided cell phones and Internet access that has in turn enabled affordable worldwide personal communications for the masses. You should never underestimate the power of communications as an agent of change in human relations. I can only imagine how personal communications will advance in your future world and the social changes that such “advancements” will portend. Equally important during the increase in urbanization is the shift from individual nuclear families towards a collective “one world family”. This change in ethnic attitude can be traced to the progressive movement that started in earnest over one hundred years ago and was initially an effort to “Humanize” the Industrial Revolution and end war. The progressive movement has now morphed from its beginnings of promoting social justice into more of a social control system of enforcing social equality and wealth redistribution. The evolved progressive philosophy is now social fait accompli, in that, within all educational systems, the progressive notion is now exclusively taught and is rapidly becoming the universally accepted gospel of social enlightenment and behavior. This fundamental social change is at odds with the US Constitution that codified personal responsibility and individual freedom and is causing much strife within the legal and political communities. Indeed, the reality of an evolving “collective” society, that we are now experiencing, de-emphasizes personal freedom and individual liberty, and instead, emphasizes collective responsibility and behavior along with enforceable individual restraint. Just like my Father’s behavior was shaped by the Great Depression, my behavior is now being shaped by the great social change taking place and will go a long way in explaining how you got into the circumstances that you now find yourself in. In all honesty, I don’t know if the path we are on represents advancement for humankind, or something else. I suspect it represents “something else” because it all sounds like the eternal quest for a Utopian Society that has never been obtainable, through many have tried. Indeed, history teaches us that most quests for a Utopian Society have been the vehicle for tyrannical rule rather the collective enhancement of individual Human dignity. Well, regardless of the situation you find yourself in, I hope you will look kindly upon me and my fellow compatriots because we were just ordinary people trying to cope with issues that were much larger than our individual lives. I know that sounds like a copout, and it probably is, but no one really wants to trade a comfortable life nowadays for abstract ideas regardless how noble they may be.
Your Loving Great Great Grandpa
This is a letter to my yet to be born great great grandchildren. I can only hope this letter to my future progeny will survive the uncertain temporal journey because I know the Grim Reaper, riding his faithful steed Time, will surely gallop my way to do his duty and make my personal delivery of this message impossible long before my great great descendents become of age. I want to make this temporal connection in order to relay certain facts about the journey from me to you, and perhaps in so doing, shine some light upon how you got to where you are in your future world. Most of the facts to be shared with my yet to be born great great grandchildren are not facts you will find talking heads blathering about in the media as they regurgitate what savants and opinion makers say is important. I’m talking about really important things to share, like my Father resisting my calls for him to spend his carefully saved money in his last days in order to enjoy his final moments in the sun as much as money could make it possible. Why would my Father not spend his money? He would not spend his money because of his experiences gained during the Great Depression. My Father had to put newspaper inside his shoes to buttress the holes in the soles and wear his shop apron backwards because there was not enough money to by new shoes when they wore out or work pants when they developed holes in the rear. People bought potatoes in 100lb bags and ate potatoes at every meal. Indeed, the old Depression era saying, to wit, I complained I had no shoes to wear until I saw a man with no feet, was not a clever sound bite. The saying reflected the reality of daily life during the Great Depression. If one armed themselves with the knowledge of my Father’s experiences during the Great Depression, then it was very understandable why he would refuse to spend any money that was not absolutely necessary to sustain life. To say my Father did not understand the modern welfare mentality is an understatement of historical proportions and his mindset about life, shaped by his experiences, was little changed by current modern events. Even though I was reared in very humble circumstances, I did not experience the Depression as my Father did, and as a result, I do not share my Father’s inability to open the purse for things unrelated to survival. Time marches on. Mind you now, I am in no way a spendthrift. I have availed my family and myself some of those things that make life more comfortable, but I only do it if it can be done without debt. This old fashioned frugal inclination has made me a part of a declining minority in today’s (2009) society. This, and other old fashioned principles that still afflict me and others of my age, like, self-reliance, patriotic duty, nuclear families, and divine imperatives are rapidly being replaced in our society by beliefs of entitlement, hedonism, collective families and secular imperatives. If one looks at these ongoing changes in individual and social behavior with a comprehensive perspective in mind you will quickly realize that the world’s peoples are become more and more “urbanized” and this leads, by necessity, to people becoming less independent and more and more social as urbanization continues to increase. This “urbanization” of the world’s peoples is the root cause for the changes listed above just like the Great Depression was the root cause for my Father’s behavior concerning money. This process of wide-scale social integration is further being aided and abetted by the continuing advances in technology that has provided cell phones and Internet access that has in turn enabled affordable worldwide personal communications for the masses. You should never underestimate the power of communications as an agent of change in human relations. I can only imagine how personal communications will advance in your future world and the social changes that such “advancements” will portend. Equally important during the increase in urbanization is the shift from individual nuclear families towards a collective “one world family”. This change in ethnic attitude can be traced to the progressive movement that started in earnest over one hundred years ago and was initially an effort to “Humanize” the Industrial Revolution and end war. The progressive movement has now morphed from its beginnings of promoting social justice into more of a social control system of enforcing social equality and wealth redistribution. The evolved progressive philosophy is now social fait accompli, in that, within all educational systems, the progressive notion is now exclusively taught and is rapidly becoming the universally accepted gospel of social enlightenment and behavior. This fundamental social change is at odds with the US Constitution that codified personal responsibility and individual freedom and is causing much strife within the legal and political communities. Indeed, the reality of an evolving “collective” society, that we are now experiencing, de-emphasizes personal freedom and individual liberty, and instead, emphasizes collective responsibility and behavior along with enforceable individual restraint. Just like my Father’s behavior was shaped by the Great Depression, my behavior is now being shaped by the great social change taking place and will go a long way in explaining how you got into the circumstances that you now find yourself in. In all honesty, I don’t know if the path we are on represents advancement for humankind, or something else. I suspect it represents “something else” because it all sounds like the eternal quest for a Utopian Society that has never been obtainable, through many have tried. Indeed, history teaches us that most quests for a Utopian Society have been the vehicle for tyrannical rule rather the collective enhancement of individual Human dignity. Well, regardless of the situation you find yourself in, I hope you will look kindly upon me and my fellow compatriots because we were just ordinary people trying to cope with issues that were much larger than our individual lives. I know that sounds like a copout, and it probably is, but no one really wants to trade a comfortable life nowadays for abstract ideas regardless how noble they may be.
Your Loving Great Great Grandpa
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Supreme Court of the United States
An Open Letter to the
Supreme Court of the United States
As an ordinary citizen of the United States I congratulate the members of the Court for serving this great country by taking up the burden and privilege of being the final arbiters of law for us all. It cannot be denied that each of you are distinguished not only in the field of law, but as worthy, honorable and notable scholars of American justice as well. I know that your days and nights must be filled to capacity with the labors of the court but I hope you will find some time to listen to an ordinary citizen about his and other’s honest concerns about the Supreme Court. For example, take the matter of what most people call “common sense”. I realize that when an expert labors exclusively in their field of endeavor, like being a Supreme Court Justice, a job related hazard common to all savants is the gradual, but inexorable, slide into an esoteric world where nuance is regularly raised to equal importance as the rudiments, or perhaps as an ordinary person would say, a loss of “common sense”. In this regard, take the matter of the US Constitution itself. Most ordinary citizens understand that when the Constitution was written, it was the several states that came together and granted, very grudgingly, certain enumerated powers, and only enumerated power, to a federal Government that was to be created. In other words, there was not yet in existence the Federal Government that very grudging granted enumerated power to the several states. Of course this salient is codified by the founders as Amendment X, to wit: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, not prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. It would seem unnecessary to restate the obvious that the Federal Government serves at the pleasure of the States, i.e., The States do not serve at the pleasure of the Federal government. However, the tenth Amendment has been the most disregarded requirement in the constitution by the Supreme Court, and today, the reality is that the States are now, for all practical purposes, subservient to the Federal Government because of the rulings of the Supreme Court. Perhaps this lack of fidelity to the Constitution is a result of nuance, or at least, expediency (the most deadly sin of all), taking precedence over common sense. While we are on the subject of the Constitution, let’s also restate another obvious fact that most ordinary citizens understand but this fact may have become lost within today’s esoteric world of Constitutional law. The fact is that the Constitution of the United States is an “entrenched” Constitution and this fact along with the requirements of Amendments IX and X, make the argument concerning Strict Construction versus Loose Construction an invalid argument. I believe T. Jefferson supported Strict Construction by saying that if the entrenched Constitution does not grant a power or right, then it is unconstitutional for the legislature, court or anyone else to grant such an unremunerated power or right. I believe A. Hamilton supported the notion of Loose Construction that held if the Constitution did not specifically prohibit a power or right then any unremunerated power or right would be legal and constitutional. The later argument is patently absurd because a free people already enjoy all that they themselves say is not illegal by their Constitution and State, otherwise, they would not be a free people as the Constitution guarantees. This is so because if the Constitution doesn't specifically prohibit a power or right, then Government is free to enact any law they wish that would restrict the inherent right of freedom for the people. A Constitutional loss of individual freedom is exactly what is happening today under the doctrine of Loose Construction because the doctrine does not prohibit anything and this situation can be laid directly on the bench of the United States Supreme Court occupied by those misguided Justices who practice Loose Construction. The doctrine of Loose Construction may be misguided, but it is at least understandable. The practice of the Court to reach across any nuance to confer constitutionality upon a freedom usurping law not only defies common sense, it is not understandable. For example, Justices John Paul Stevens, Steven Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter recently dissented the majority decision of the D.C. gun ban. How these learned scholars could deny the unambiguous second Amendment is beyond understanding by the common man unless they purposely found some nuance derived justification for what they personally believed rather than what the Constitution says. Indeed the second Amendment is not really about the right of the people to keep and bear arms, it is about the right of free citizens to form and maintain a Militia. In order to have a Militia, free citizens must have their own arms, after all, that is exactly what the second Amendment says, doesn’t it? And don’t even go the nuance position that the National Guard is the people’s Militia, the National Guard is an arm of the standing United States Army and a standing Army is the very situation that the founding father’s were deathly afraid of. The right to form and maintain an armed Militia was thought to be the final line of defense against a freedom usurping Government and when you rule against the second Amendment you are tearing down the last line of defense for a free people. Other examples that perplex plain citizens like myself is the ongoing Court rulings that support a Loose Construction derived doctrine of separation of Church and State. Just where in the Constitution is the separation of Church and State codified? Indeed, I would hope that when the “cross in the desert” case comes before the court, the court would simply instruct the plaintiffs forthwith: Bring forth to this Court the law respecting an establishment of religion that Congress has made. I believe that the first Amendment is the only reference that the Constitution has made concerning the state and religion, that is, unless you disregard the repeated reference to God and stuff like that. The point of this open letter is that the Supreme Court of the United States is our next to last line of defense against a freedom usurping Government and that next to last line of defense appears to be crumbling before our very eyes as Loose Construction and the personal ideology of the Justice’s serving the court lay waste to our carefully constructed entrenched Constitution. I, and the Citizens of this great freedom loving country, beseech the august court to put politics and personal ideology aside in the greater purpose of service to the fidelity of the Constitution.
Supreme Court of the United States
As an ordinary citizen of the United States I congratulate the members of the Court for serving this great country by taking up the burden and privilege of being the final arbiters of law for us all. It cannot be denied that each of you are distinguished not only in the field of law, but as worthy, honorable and notable scholars of American justice as well. I know that your days and nights must be filled to capacity with the labors of the court but I hope you will find some time to listen to an ordinary citizen about his and other’s honest concerns about the Supreme Court. For example, take the matter of what most people call “common sense”. I realize that when an expert labors exclusively in their field of endeavor, like being a Supreme Court Justice, a job related hazard common to all savants is the gradual, but inexorable, slide into an esoteric world where nuance is regularly raised to equal importance as the rudiments, or perhaps as an ordinary person would say, a loss of “common sense”. In this regard, take the matter of the US Constitution itself. Most ordinary citizens understand that when the Constitution was written, it was the several states that came together and granted, very grudgingly, certain enumerated powers, and only enumerated power, to a federal Government that was to be created. In other words, there was not yet in existence the Federal Government that very grudging granted enumerated power to the several states. Of course this salient is codified by the founders as Amendment X, to wit: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, not prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. It would seem unnecessary to restate the obvious that the Federal Government serves at the pleasure of the States, i.e., The States do not serve at the pleasure of the Federal government. However, the tenth Amendment has been the most disregarded requirement in the constitution by the Supreme Court, and today, the reality is that the States are now, for all practical purposes, subservient to the Federal Government because of the rulings of the Supreme Court. Perhaps this lack of fidelity to the Constitution is a result of nuance, or at least, expediency (the most deadly sin of all), taking precedence over common sense. While we are on the subject of the Constitution, let’s also restate another obvious fact that most ordinary citizens understand but this fact may have become lost within today’s esoteric world of Constitutional law. The fact is that the Constitution of the United States is an “entrenched” Constitution and this fact along with the requirements of Amendments IX and X, make the argument concerning Strict Construction versus Loose Construction an invalid argument. I believe T. Jefferson supported Strict Construction by saying that if the entrenched Constitution does not grant a power or right, then it is unconstitutional for the legislature, court or anyone else to grant such an unremunerated power or right. I believe A. Hamilton supported the notion of Loose Construction that held if the Constitution did not specifically prohibit a power or right then any unremunerated power or right would be legal and constitutional. The later argument is patently absurd because a free people already enjoy all that they themselves say is not illegal by their Constitution and State, otherwise, they would not be a free people as the Constitution guarantees. This is so because if the Constitution doesn't specifically prohibit a power or right, then Government is free to enact any law they wish that would restrict the inherent right of freedom for the people. A Constitutional loss of individual freedom is exactly what is happening today under the doctrine of Loose Construction because the doctrine does not prohibit anything and this situation can be laid directly on the bench of the United States Supreme Court occupied by those misguided Justices who practice Loose Construction. The doctrine of Loose Construction may be misguided, but it is at least understandable. The practice of the Court to reach across any nuance to confer constitutionality upon a freedom usurping law not only defies common sense, it is not understandable. For example, Justices John Paul Stevens, Steven Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter recently dissented the majority decision of the D.C. gun ban. How these learned scholars could deny the unambiguous second Amendment is beyond understanding by the common man unless they purposely found some nuance derived justification for what they personally believed rather than what the Constitution says. Indeed the second Amendment is not really about the right of the people to keep and bear arms, it is about the right of free citizens to form and maintain a Militia. In order to have a Militia, free citizens must have their own arms, after all, that is exactly what the second Amendment says, doesn’t it? And don’t even go the nuance position that the National Guard is the people’s Militia, the National Guard is an arm of the standing United States Army and a standing Army is the very situation that the founding father’s were deathly afraid of. The right to form and maintain an armed Militia was thought to be the final line of defense against a freedom usurping Government and when you rule against the second Amendment you are tearing down the last line of defense for a free people. Other examples that perplex plain citizens like myself is the ongoing Court rulings that support a Loose Construction derived doctrine of separation of Church and State. Just where in the Constitution is the separation of Church and State codified? Indeed, I would hope that when the “cross in the desert” case comes before the court, the court would simply instruct the plaintiffs forthwith: Bring forth to this Court the law respecting an establishment of religion that Congress has made. I believe that the first Amendment is the only reference that the Constitution has made concerning the state and religion, that is, unless you disregard the repeated reference to God and stuff like that. The point of this open letter is that the Supreme Court of the United States is our next to last line of defense against a freedom usurping Government and that next to last line of defense appears to be crumbling before our very eyes as Loose Construction and the personal ideology of the Justice’s serving the court lay waste to our carefully constructed entrenched Constitution. I, and the Citizens of this great freedom loving country, beseech the august court to put politics and personal ideology aside in the greater purpose of service to the fidelity of the Constitution.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Geezer Rant
Geezer Rant
How did it happen that manly men started replacing a hearty handshake with an embracing hug?
How did it happen that a proud free people began letting the Government completely run their lives?
How did it happen that shapely women are now kicking manly men’s butts in pop media?
How did it happen that even sailors blush when hearing mainstream movie dialog?
How did it happen that modern women have now become the sexual aggressor?
How did it happen that grade and high school students now feel free to cuss-out and physically threaten their teachers in the classroom?
How did it happen that it is now socially acceptable to scorn Christianity?
How did it happen that Governments and people are afraid to criticize Islam?
How did it happen that the New York Times changed from the paper of record to an ideology rag?
How did it happen that people who don’t want to work have now become respectable welfare recipients?
How did it happen that it is socially acceptable and celebrated to have children outside of marriage?
How did it happen that the great American stock exchange has become a casino?
How did it happen that Government now sponsor and encourage citizens to gamble?
How did it happen that the emotion of hate has now become a hideous crime?
How did it happen that labor unions now negotiate for lower wages and less benefits?
How did it happen that US Corporations became global Corporations?
How did it happen that personal heath care has now become a Government responsibility?
How did it happen that 47% of Americans pay no federal income tax?
How did it happen that a father is no longer required for anything except money?
How did it become impossible to buy American?
How did it happen that Government says there is no inflation when a loaf of bread has went from 19 cents to $1.50?
How did it happen that science became politicized?
How did it happen that the Holocaust can be denied?
How did it happen that the US Constitution has become a living document that now means what eggheads say it means in today’s world?
How did it happen that lawmakers make laws without reading or understanding the laws they are making?
How did it happen that it is impossible to live a free life without breaking laws and regulations that are without number?
How did it happen that responsible citizens keep on electing lying, cheating and corrupt politicians?
How did it happen?
How did it happen that manly men started replacing a hearty handshake with an embracing hug?
How did it happen that a proud free people began letting the Government completely run their lives?
How did it happen that shapely women are now kicking manly men’s butts in pop media?
How did it happen that even sailors blush when hearing mainstream movie dialog?
How did it happen that modern women have now become the sexual aggressor?
How did it happen that grade and high school students now feel free to cuss-out and physically threaten their teachers in the classroom?
How did it happen that it is now socially acceptable to scorn Christianity?
How did it happen that Governments and people are afraid to criticize Islam?
How did it happen that the New York Times changed from the paper of record to an ideology rag?
How did it happen that people who don’t want to work have now become respectable welfare recipients?
How did it happen that it is socially acceptable and celebrated to have children outside of marriage?
How did it happen that the great American stock exchange has become a casino?
How did it happen that Government now sponsor and encourage citizens to gamble?
How did it happen that the emotion of hate has now become a hideous crime?
How did it happen that labor unions now negotiate for lower wages and less benefits?
How did it happen that US Corporations became global Corporations?
How did it happen that personal heath care has now become a Government responsibility?
How did it happen that 47% of Americans pay no federal income tax?
How did it happen that a father is no longer required for anything except money?
How did it become impossible to buy American?
How did it happen that Government says there is no inflation when a loaf of bread has went from 19 cents to $1.50?
How did it happen that science became politicized?
How did it happen that the Holocaust can be denied?
How did it happen that the US Constitution has become a living document that now means what eggheads say it means in today’s world?
How did it happen that lawmakers make laws without reading or understanding the laws they are making?
How did it happen that it is impossible to live a free life without breaking laws and regulations that are without number?
How did it happen that responsible citizens keep on electing lying, cheating and corrupt politicians?
How did it happen?
Friday, October 16, 2009
CERN
CERN
I’m guessing that most readers of this have not had a great deal of interest in or knowledge of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). This massive facility is located on the border between Switzerland and France and will be the subject of a great deal of news in the coming months. The reason that this facility will be newsworthy is because of the experiments in nuclear research that is about to get underway. The experiment will be conducted with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which is a massive underground tunnel that houses a gigantic ring some 27 KM in circumference and containing some 9300 super conducting magnets with the whole thing cooled down to –192.2°C (-313.96°F) and evacuated to a vacuum better than outer space. Added to the scientific mix is a computer that can probably be qualified as the world’s largest and fastest with enough power to compute all of our federal income taxes in one fell swoop. And finally, some very special detectors that will be the center of attraction when the experiment finally gets underway after a false start a few months ago. What’s this all about? The multinational scientists and technicians will inject nuclear sub-particles called Hadrons and accelerate the particles around the ring until the particles reach a speed of over 99.999% the speed of light. But wait, there’s more. They will inject another batch of Hadrons into the ring, also going 99.999% of the speed of light, but heading in the opposite direction (one group of particles will be traveling in a clockwise direction and the other batch will be traveling in a counter clockwise direction at the same time). When every thing gets all revved up and everything is just right, they will cause to counter rotating beams of particles to collide head-on. If you had a smattering of science in your youth, you will realize that when things are accelerated they pick up momentum and when that momentum is suddenly halted, the momentum is converted into energy, and in this case, massive amounts of energy. Why are they doing this? They are trying to find all of the constituents of matter by banging them together with enough energy to cause all of the sub-particles to separate and go flying off. The separated particles will be detected and the scientists will study the flying chaos to determine how matter is made. The whole purpose of this experiment is meant to advance our understanding about the universe we live in. If this seems a bizarre way of trying to understand things, you are not alone. The banging together of particles in order to understand matter has been likened to banging two watches together and then studying the flying parts of the destroyed watches in order to understand time. I, along with many others, think these kinds of massive experiments misuse precious resources that could be better used elsewhere to further more practical findings. After all, a single man sitting alone with only a pencil and a pad of paper on his lap, provided most of the insight and knowledge we have today about the universe we live in. That single man was Albert Einstein. Einstein used his logic, reason and power of observation to make all of his discoveries and those discoveries and insights have never been disproved or improved upon. Oh, by the way, Einstein did it all without the necessity of a massive Large Hadron Collider. But wait, there is even more. There are some knowledgeable people who are concerned about colliding two counter-rotating beams of particles together with a relative speed nearly two times the speed of light. They are concerned that when that happens, a black hole will be created, and in an instant, the earth will be swallowed up and no more Monday night football with a cold brewski for any of us. Surly God will not be happy about this.
I’m guessing that most readers of this have not had a great deal of interest in or knowledge of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). This massive facility is located on the border between Switzerland and France and will be the subject of a great deal of news in the coming months. The reason that this facility will be newsworthy is because of the experiments in nuclear research that is about to get underway. The experiment will be conducted with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which is a massive underground tunnel that houses a gigantic ring some 27 KM in circumference and containing some 9300 super conducting magnets with the whole thing cooled down to –192.2°C (-313.96°F) and evacuated to a vacuum better than outer space. Added to the scientific mix is a computer that can probably be qualified as the world’s largest and fastest with enough power to compute all of our federal income taxes in one fell swoop. And finally, some very special detectors that will be the center of attraction when the experiment finally gets underway after a false start a few months ago. What’s this all about? The multinational scientists and technicians will inject nuclear sub-particles called Hadrons and accelerate the particles around the ring until the particles reach a speed of over 99.999% the speed of light. But wait, there’s more. They will inject another batch of Hadrons into the ring, also going 99.999% of the speed of light, but heading in the opposite direction (one group of particles will be traveling in a clockwise direction and the other batch will be traveling in a counter clockwise direction at the same time). When every thing gets all revved up and everything is just right, they will cause to counter rotating beams of particles to collide head-on. If you had a smattering of science in your youth, you will realize that when things are accelerated they pick up momentum and when that momentum is suddenly halted, the momentum is converted into energy, and in this case, massive amounts of energy. Why are they doing this? They are trying to find all of the constituents of matter by banging them together with enough energy to cause all of the sub-particles to separate and go flying off. The separated particles will be detected and the scientists will study the flying chaos to determine how matter is made. The whole purpose of this experiment is meant to advance our understanding about the universe we live in. If this seems a bizarre way of trying to understand things, you are not alone. The banging together of particles in order to understand matter has been likened to banging two watches together and then studying the flying parts of the destroyed watches in order to understand time. I, along with many others, think these kinds of massive experiments misuse precious resources that could be better used elsewhere to further more practical findings. After all, a single man sitting alone with only a pencil and a pad of paper on his lap, provided most of the insight and knowledge we have today about the universe we live in. That single man was Albert Einstein. Einstein used his logic, reason and power of observation to make all of his discoveries and those discoveries and insights have never been disproved or improved upon. Oh, by the way, Einstein did it all without the necessity of a massive Large Hadron Collider. But wait, there is even more. There are some knowledgeable people who are concerned about colliding two counter-rotating beams of particles together with a relative speed nearly two times the speed of light. They are concerned that when that happens, a black hole will be created, and in an instant, the earth will be swallowed up and no more Monday night football with a cold brewski for any of us. Surly God will not be happy about this.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
World Federalist Movement
World Federalist Movement
(or how I learned to stop worrying and love the (Convergence) Bomb)
The World Federalist Movement, American Movement for World Government, Citizens for Global Solutions, Democratic World Federalists, One World Trust, The United Nations and other like organizations only feed the conspiracy minded that there is a vast and loosely organized intellectual Cabal out there that is leading and pushing the world’s struggling masses towards a utopian One World Government. Conspiracy or not, there is little doubt that an acceleration towards a One world altruistic (ethical) community is occurring within the world body politic and this new one world community will seek to end, for all times, the collection of self-centered (rational) nations that are now free to go about their own ways at the expense of all others and the planet. The race towards One World Government may not be obvious to all of us at this point in time, but I’ll wager we all instinctually feel that something very big is happening to our country and culture even if we don’t yet understand what is happening or why it is happening. I believe the unknown thing that is happening that feels so big nowadays is that the international intellectual community now believes that a rare confluence of events has occurred that will enable the dream of a One World Government to become reality and so a lot of seemingly unconnected things are being pursued in the furtherance of One world Governance. A theory that has been out there for a very long time now is that divergent political thought, like Communism and Capitalism, will eventually converge into a single socialistic movement, and when this happens, it will pave the way for One World Government. This event of convergence is now happening. Other of the more importance events that has happened, and has made the international intellectual community so giddy and hopeful, is that the United States has finally elected a progressive leader who also embraces the One World notion which means the timing is now perfect for acceptance of a One World Government by the rest of the world at large. The timing is now perfect because the world community, including the United States, has been conditioned by the mass media, academia and science that the human race has finally outgrown its regressive tribal instincts and is now ready for the enlightened notion of a single human family all living in peace and harmony under one World Government: Kumbaya, y’all. You know; Save the Planet, the United States uses an inappropriate amount of the world’s resources, it takes a village to raise a child, only the entire world can stop global warming and save the planet, immigration is a human right, it’s Government’s responsibility to ensure no one goes hungry, it’s Government’s responsibility to ensure all have the same health care, the Planet’s resources belong to all of the people, etc. Of course these words sound familiar because these, and other such rhetoric, are part and parcel of the progressive indoctrination, or education if you prefer, that has been going on for sometime now and is supported by the mass media, intellectual community, Academic and Scientific communities, and others that generally support a movement towards an altruistic world government. The timing is perfect because, of all things, the United States has even elected a black President who supports the One World Government movement. To really understand what is happening, we should visit why the One World Government movement began in the first place. The One World Government movement really got going as a result of World War I & II, which resulted in the very real and commendable desire to find a way to prevent such human catastrophes from ever happening again because science and the resulting technology will increasingly make it possible to destroy us all if unlimited war between nations continues unabated. No thinking individual could possibly be for unlimited war and destruction of all of mankind, could we? The problem is that there is no proof that One World Government is the way to prevent world war and strife by raising all of mankind up to a common and sustainable level of existence and governance. Indeed, civil wars still happen today in the modern world and neighbor still kills neighbor even though democratic governments strive to make all equal under the law by promoting and embracing an enlightened progressive philosophy. Certainly One World Government is the ultimate social course to pursue but only if the human family is ready for it. Regrettably, I believe it is far to early in our social development to even consider such a thing. Why, you ask? Even though we humans are the sentient life on this beautiful blue planet, we are, nevertheless, still only just one of the animal species that lives here. I know we all believe that we are well beyond mere animal existence, but like it or not, we all still have the antecedent animal instincts still encoded within our DNA (that is, if you believe in Evolution) and we behave the way we do because we are hard-wired by evolution to do so, i.e., we will always be burdened by our primitive animal past. By the way, isn’t it paradoxical that those who believe life accidentally sprang from an inert soup of materials which then allowed evolution to propelled us humans to where we are today, developmental wise, but yet question that our behavior is still governed by our antecedent animal ancestors as well as our evolution derived superior cognitive brains. What’s that you say? You don’t believe we are governed by our primitive past? Oh really. Was that you that ate that nice juicy steak? You are an animal that eats other animals just as big fish eats smaller fish. And don’t hide behind “Well, I’m a vegetarian and I would never eat animal flesh”. Plant life is life just like animal life with the exact same life giving DNA, and the fact is, life must consume life in order to live (at this point in our development, that is) and is just one aspect of our primitive past that we all must live with. I recommend that you read the book “THE MIND OF THE MARKET”, by Michael Shermer, to investigate this line of reasoning further because you will be surprised to learn such things as “fairness” was derived from our hunter-gathering past when those who did not contribute to the clans existence were shunned. This understanding of how we developed a sense of “fairness” goes a long way in explaining why we get so upset today with welfare programs and the like. So, as much as we all would dearly love to live in peace and harmony as one happy human family, we simply have not progressed far enough from our primitive animal past to do so. Personal freedom enabled by democracy and free markets within our respective cloistered nations is still the best possible choice until we all have raised ourselves to the same level of existence and governance. Whenever that happens, we should finally then be really ready for one world Government as a human family. Unfortunately until that time, it is probably true that those who are now clamoring for One World Government are doing so because of the desire for unlimited power. I don’t think you could ask for better proof that our primitive past is still governing our behavior in today’s supposed enlightened environment than the primordial yearning for power over your fellow man. God help us all.
(or how I learned to stop worrying and love the (Convergence) Bomb)
The World Federalist Movement, American Movement for World Government, Citizens for Global Solutions, Democratic World Federalists, One World Trust, The United Nations and other like organizations only feed the conspiracy minded that there is a vast and loosely organized intellectual Cabal out there that is leading and pushing the world’s struggling masses towards a utopian One World Government. Conspiracy or not, there is little doubt that an acceleration towards a One world altruistic (ethical) community is occurring within the world body politic and this new one world community will seek to end, for all times, the collection of self-centered (rational) nations that are now free to go about their own ways at the expense of all others and the planet. The race towards One World Government may not be obvious to all of us at this point in time, but I’ll wager we all instinctually feel that something very big is happening to our country and culture even if we don’t yet understand what is happening or why it is happening. I believe the unknown thing that is happening that feels so big nowadays is that the international intellectual community now believes that a rare confluence of events has occurred that will enable the dream of a One World Government to become reality and so a lot of seemingly unconnected things are being pursued in the furtherance of One world Governance. A theory that has been out there for a very long time now is that divergent political thought, like Communism and Capitalism, will eventually converge into a single socialistic movement, and when this happens, it will pave the way for One World Government. This event of convergence is now happening. Other of the more importance events that has happened, and has made the international intellectual community so giddy and hopeful, is that the United States has finally elected a progressive leader who also embraces the One World notion which means the timing is now perfect for acceptance of a One World Government by the rest of the world at large. The timing is now perfect because the world community, including the United States, has been conditioned by the mass media, academia and science that the human race has finally outgrown its regressive tribal instincts and is now ready for the enlightened notion of a single human family all living in peace and harmony under one World Government: Kumbaya, y’all. You know; Save the Planet, the United States uses an inappropriate amount of the world’s resources, it takes a village to raise a child, only the entire world can stop global warming and save the planet, immigration is a human right, it’s Government’s responsibility to ensure no one goes hungry, it’s Government’s responsibility to ensure all have the same health care, the Planet’s resources belong to all of the people, etc. Of course these words sound familiar because these, and other such rhetoric, are part and parcel of the progressive indoctrination, or education if you prefer, that has been going on for sometime now and is supported by the mass media, intellectual community, Academic and Scientific communities, and others that generally support a movement towards an altruistic world government. The timing is perfect because, of all things, the United States has even elected a black President who supports the One World Government movement. To really understand what is happening, we should visit why the One World Government movement began in the first place. The One World Government movement really got going as a result of World War I & II, which resulted in the very real and commendable desire to find a way to prevent such human catastrophes from ever happening again because science and the resulting technology will increasingly make it possible to destroy us all if unlimited war between nations continues unabated. No thinking individual could possibly be for unlimited war and destruction of all of mankind, could we? The problem is that there is no proof that One World Government is the way to prevent world war and strife by raising all of mankind up to a common and sustainable level of existence and governance. Indeed, civil wars still happen today in the modern world and neighbor still kills neighbor even though democratic governments strive to make all equal under the law by promoting and embracing an enlightened progressive philosophy. Certainly One World Government is the ultimate social course to pursue but only if the human family is ready for it. Regrettably, I believe it is far to early in our social development to even consider such a thing. Why, you ask? Even though we humans are the sentient life on this beautiful blue planet, we are, nevertheless, still only just one of the animal species that lives here. I know we all believe that we are well beyond mere animal existence, but like it or not, we all still have the antecedent animal instincts still encoded within our DNA (that is, if you believe in Evolution) and we behave the way we do because we are hard-wired by evolution to do so, i.e., we will always be burdened by our primitive animal past. By the way, isn’t it paradoxical that those who believe life accidentally sprang from an inert soup of materials which then allowed evolution to propelled us humans to where we are today, developmental wise, but yet question that our behavior is still governed by our antecedent animal ancestors as well as our evolution derived superior cognitive brains. What’s that you say? You don’t believe we are governed by our primitive past? Oh really. Was that you that ate that nice juicy steak? You are an animal that eats other animals just as big fish eats smaller fish. And don’t hide behind “Well, I’m a vegetarian and I would never eat animal flesh”. Plant life is life just like animal life with the exact same life giving DNA, and the fact is, life must consume life in order to live (at this point in our development, that is) and is just one aspect of our primitive past that we all must live with. I recommend that you read the book “THE MIND OF THE MARKET”, by Michael Shermer, to investigate this line of reasoning further because you will be surprised to learn such things as “fairness” was derived from our hunter-gathering past when those who did not contribute to the clans existence were shunned. This understanding of how we developed a sense of “fairness” goes a long way in explaining why we get so upset today with welfare programs and the like. So, as much as we all would dearly love to live in peace and harmony as one happy human family, we simply have not progressed far enough from our primitive animal past to do so. Personal freedom enabled by democracy and free markets within our respective cloistered nations is still the best possible choice until we all have raised ourselves to the same level of existence and governance. Whenever that happens, we should finally then be really ready for one world Government as a human family. Unfortunately until that time, it is probably true that those who are now clamoring for One World Government are doing so because of the desire for unlimited power. I don’t think you could ask for better proof that our primitive past is still governing our behavior in today’s supposed enlightened environment than the primordial yearning for power over your fellow man. God help us all.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
SAVANTS INSULAR
Savants Insular
I read Paul Krugman’s “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” in the 2 September New York Times Magazine in which the Nobel Prize winner in Economic Science tried his best to bring us up-to-date on the latest battles within the ongoing Macroeconomics intellectual wars. I will bet the entire sum of the $787 Billion “Stimulus” that just the mention of Macroeconomics was enough to cause you to quickly look over what’s on TV tonight. Mr. Krugman’s riveting account of how our Economic Savants, who are in charge of the economy nowadays, mussed up nearly everything concerning the current financial crisis and his dissertation about this situation should be cause enough for citizens to once again examine the wisdom of permitting Insular Savants (the inward-looking community of Profoundly Trained Experts) to be at the helm of our economic or any other state ship for that matter. As I tried my best to understand all of the esoteric economic babble that was being sprayed about in Mr. Krugman’s piece, an old saw surfaced from my memory, to wit: War is too important to be left to the Generals. I believe the saying about war and the Generals came to mind because I saw a corollary between the practice of war and the practice of economics where the practice of war employs insular military Generals to guide and direct the combat and the practice of Economics employs Insular Economists to guide and direct the financial system. The reason that Generals and Economists are insular is because, by necessity, both profoundly practice their professions exclusively within their respective professional communities and this situation promotes an intellectual isolation (insular) that makes it very difficult for them to consider the entirety of the state when practicing their respective professions. So, I believe that it is just as profound to say, “The economy is too important to be left to the Economists.” I say this because the practice of war and a practice of economics can both be summed up very nicely by what Sun Tzu said about war well over 2,000 years ago, to wit: “War is a matter of vital importance to the state; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin.” Or, in other words, war, and/or the economy, both affect the entirety of the state in much the same way so the entirety of the state must either support the morality and justness of the two enterprises or failure and ruin will be the inevitable result. In the case of the economy, if the Economists are at the helm of the economy, it’s unlikely that the entirety of the state will be considered in their practice of economics and there is little doubt, that at some point in time, events will overwhelm the knowledge available and ruin will follow as surely as day follows night, to wit: War and the Economy is too important to be left to the Generals and Economists. A case in point about Economists and the Economy is that throughout the entirety of Mr. Krugman’s dissertation about the failure of the Economists to get it right, not one mention was ever made concerning money. This omission is both important and revealing because money is to the economy as electricity is to an electric motor, i.e., if you are to understand and design a predictable and workable motor you need to fully understand electricity and if you are to understand and design a predictable and workable economy you need to fully understand money. Money, that invention in antiquity to facilitate commerce (not to facilitate politics), is suppose to be a medium of exchange that represents real value, like property or labor. Money is the raw material of the Economy just like is electricity is the raw material that makes the electric motor work. Here is an example about the importance of understanding money. The Financial Services industry accounts for over 21% of our economy. The product of Financial Services is new money that adds no value to real money, in short, they only make money off of money and produce nothing of real value. This created money can only devalue real money, and thus release an infinite number of human responses into the economy. Today’s Economist’s are now trying to codify these infinite number of human responses into a workable economic theory by injecting a continuing load of psychobabble about human responses to changing economic conditions. This is the height of foolishness because without an understanding or control over the value of money (e.g., letting the Financial Services Industry continue to create financial derivatives, leveraging, claims on claims, etc., and thereby create and inject worthless money into the economic system) you have no control over the most important element within the Economy (the human response). In other words, you have a non-controllable and continuously variable element (human responses) that you yourself are creating by your lack of understanding and control of the most important element of all, the value of MONEY. Good luck with that. To read Mr. Krugman’s article for yourself, click the following: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=paul%20krugman&st=cse
I read Paul Krugman’s “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” in the 2 September New York Times Magazine in which the Nobel Prize winner in Economic Science tried his best to bring us up-to-date on the latest battles within the ongoing Macroeconomics intellectual wars. I will bet the entire sum of the $787 Billion “Stimulus” that just the mention of Macroeconomics was enough to cause you to quickly look over what’s on TV tonight. Mr. Krugman’s riveting account of how our Economic Savants, who are in charge of the economy nowadays, mussed up nearly everything concerning the current financial crisis and his dissertation about this situation should be cause enough for citizens to once again examine the wisdom of permitting Insular Savants (the inward-looking community of Profoundly Trained Experts) to be at the helm of our economic or any other state ship for that matter. As I tried my best to understand all of the esoteric economic babble that was being sprayed about in Mr. Krugman’s piece, an old saw surfaced from my memory, to wit: War is too important to be left to the Generals. I believe the saying about war and the Generals came to mind because I saw a corollary between the practice of war and the practice of economics where the practice of war employs insular military Generals to guide and direct the combat and the practice of Economics employs Insular Economists to guide and direct the financial system. The reason that Generals and Economists are insular is because, by necessity, both profoundly practice their professions exclusively within their respective professional communities and this situation promotes an intellectual isolation (insular) that makes it very difficult for them to consider the entirety of the state when practicing their respective professions. So, I believe that it is just as profound to say, “The economy is too important to be left to the Economists.” I say this because the practice of war and a practice of economics can both be summed up very nicely by what Sun Tzu said about war well over 2,000 years ago, to wit: “War is a matter of vital importance to the state; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin.” Or, in other words, war, and/or the economy, both affect the entirety of the state in much the same way so the entirety of the state must either support the morality and justness of the two enterprises or failure and ruin will be the inevitable result. In the case of the economy, if the Economists are at the helm of the economy, it’s unlikely that the entirety of the state will be considered in their practice of economics and there is little doubt, that at some point in time, events will overwhelm the knowledge available and ruin will follow as surely as day follows night, to wit: War and the Economy is too important to be left to the Generals and Economists. A case in point about Economists and the Economy is that throughout the entirety of Mr. Krugman’s dissertation about the failure of the Economists to get it right, not one mention was ever made concerning money. This omission is both important and revealing because money is to the economy as electricity is to an electric motor, i.e., if you are to understand and design a predictable and workable motor you need to fully understand electricity and if you are to understand and design a predictable and workable economy you need to fully understand money. Money, that invention in antiquity to facilitate commerce (not to facilitate politics), is suppose to be a medium of exchange that represents real value, like property or labor. Money is the raw material of the Economy just like is electricity is the raw material that makes the electric motor work. Here is an example about the importance of understanding money. The Financial Services industry accounts for over 21% of our economy. The product of Financial Services is new money that adds no value to real money, in short, they only make money off of money and produce nothing of real value. This created money can only devalue real money, and thus release an infinite number of human responses into the economy. Today’s Economist’s are now trying to codify these infinite number of human responses into a workable economic theory by injecting a continuing load of psychobabble about human responses to changing economic conditions. This is the height of foolishness because without an understanding or control over the value of money (e.g., letting the Financial Services Industry continue to create financial derivatives, leveraging, claims on claims, etc., and thereby create and inject worthless money into the economic system) you have no control over the most important element within the Economy (the human response). In other words, you have a non-controllable and continuously variable element (human responses) that you yourself are creating by your lack of understanding and control of the most important element of all, the value of MONEY. Good luck with that. To read Mr. Krugman’s article for yourself, click the following: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=paul%20krugman&st=cse
Friday, September 4, 2009
SCARE du jour, Inc.
Scare du jour, Inc.
(Global Warming, Global Ice Age, Pollution, Nuclear Anything, Frankenfood, Dying Seas, Overpopulation, Violent Weather, Asteroid Mass Extinction, etc.)
Scare du jour, Inc. is not an individual but a loosely organized scare industry ably aided and abetted by the ideologues and moneygrubbers in the fourth estate. This industry makes money or promotes causes by scaring the crap out of people with an endless stream of scientific babble to support apocalyptic suppositions of calamity that is about to befall us all of one sort or another. The scientific babble is usually supported by enough of the ideologues and moneygrubbers within the scientific community that it seems like the entire scientific community is supporting the scare du jour by lending a measure of scientific credibility to the issue. The best example in this regard is the case made by that scientific giant and inventor of the Internet, Al Gore, in his explaining how Global Warming will destroy us all (Oh, by the way, Al Gore is chairman and co-founder of Generation Investment Management, a London-based business that sells CARBON CREDITS for profit, of course). Scare du jour, Inc. uses scare as an operational imperative in order to stampede public opinion into a desired awareness that will greatly aid in the eventual selling of a commercial or Governmental solution to the impending stated calamity. For example, in the case of Global Warming, Cap and Trade is the desired solution not only for Global Warming, but for many unrelated reasons as well. The scare industry, and it’s practitioners, have now gone scientific by designing “Choice Architectures” as a way of guiding decisions after scaring the people into an awareness of the chosen impending calamity. The Proletariat (that would be me and most others) will be amazed to discover that designing “Choice Architectures” is one of the ways that the Intelligentsia practices the discipline of “Heresthetics”. What’s that you say? What is Heresthetics? Heresthetics is the framing of a debate or issue so that one is always on the superior or winning side, or by saying it in another way, having one’s choices better received by others. Or better still, structuring the world so that you can always win. Doesn’t the above definitions give you a really good warm and fuzzy feeling? Perhaps you might even get an apprehensive feeling that you are being “nudged” to make a decision based solely on the merits of a “Choice Architecture” that has been presented by the Intelligentsia rather than subjectively examining the relevant facts and deciding the facts, as presented, don’t address your personal concerns on the matter. This is exactly what has happened in the current debate on Universal Health Care after regular people finally began to examine the details of the proposed new law. The people are now beginning to understand that the Universal Health Care program would be, in reality, a means for the Government to gain unprecedented power to implement social policy that would not be otherwise supported by a free people (that would be us). In other words, Universal Health Care is a “Trojan Horse” created (for the good of all, of course) to hide the real purpose of the Government and that is to gain unprecedented power to implement otherwise unacceptable social policy. The employment of “Trojan Horses” as an operational means to govern a free people is a despicable subterfuge and has no place in our or any other human society for that matter. All in all, it is always wise to become suspicious about other peoples motives when you discover that a “Choice Architecture” has been employed that will logically lead you to make a decision that might not be in your and your family’s best interest. In that regard, as the current Universal Health Care debate has illustrated, your and other Governments have now joined the scare industry as a fortuitous way to create “Trojan Horses” that can create consensus on a scare issue that can promote a popular decision that in turn can enable hidden social or economic policy to be implemented that otherwise might not be supported by the general population (that would be us Proletariat again). For example: Global Warming is the Trojan Horse, and Cap and Trade is the hidden agenda to gain power through taxation, regulation, fines and law to gain complete control over the economy in order to affect an unacceptable social policy. You can also make the same case that the “Broken Health Care System” is the Trojan Horse and Universal Health Care is the Government solution that will enable the hidden socialist agenda that will further Government’s Power to control. The financial crisis and immigration are also Trojan Horses and there will be others in the future as opportunities present themselves. After all, did not the White House Chief of Staff announce in a fit of arrogance “You never want a serious crisis go to waste”. If all of this sounds like something right out Orwell’s 1984, I’m afraid you are correct.
Note: The best ever and most definitive info yet on Global Warming: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
(Global Warming, Global Ice Age, Pollution, Nuclear Anything, Frankenfood, Dying Seas, Overpopulation, Violent Weather, Asteroid Mass Extinction, etc.)
Scare du jour, Inc. is not an individual but a loosely organized scare industry ably aided and abetted by the ideologues and moneygrubbers in the fourth estate. This industry makes money or promotes causes by scaring the crap out of people with an endless stream of scientific babble to support apocalyptic suppositions of calamity that is about to befall us all of one sort or another. The scientific babble is usually supported by enough of the ideologues and moneygrubbers within the scientific community that it seems like the entire scientific community is supporting the scare du jour by lending a measure of scientific credibility to the issue. The best example in this regard is the case made by that scientific giant and inventor of the Internet, Al Gore, in his explaining how Global Warming will destroy us all (Oh, by the way, Al Gore is chairman and co-founder of Generation Investment Management, a London-based business that sells CARBON CREDITS for profit, of course). Scare du jour, Inc. uses scare as an operational imperative in order to stampede public opinion into a desired awareness that will greatly aid in the eventual selling of a commercial or Governmental solution to the impending stated calamity. For example, in the case of Global Warming, Cap and Trade is the desired solution not only for Global Warming, but for many unrelated reasons as well. The scare industry, and it’s practitioners, have now gone scientific by designing “Choice Architectures” as a way of guiding decisions after scaring the people into an awareness of the chosen impending calamity. The Proletariat (that would be me and most others) will be amazed to discover that designing “Choice Architectures” is one of the ways that the Intelligentsia practices the discipline of “Heresthetics”. What’s that you say? What is Heresthetics? Heresthetics is the framing of a debate or issue so that one is always on the superior or winning side, or by saying it in another way, having one’s choices better received by others. Or better still, structuring the world so that you can always win. Doesn’t the above definitions give you a really good warm and fuzzy feeling? Perhaps you might even get an apprehensive feeling that you are being “nudged” to make a decision based solely on the merits of a “Choice Architecture” that has been presented by the Intelligentsia rather than subjectively examining the relevant facts and deciding the facts, as presented, don’t address your personal concerns on the matter. This is exactly what has happened in the current debate on Universal Health Care after regular people finally began to examine the details of the proposed new law. The people are now beginning to understand that the Universal Health Care program would be, in reality, a means for the Government to gain unprecedented power to implement social policy that would not be otherwise supported by a free people (that would be us). In other words, Universal Health Care is a “Trojan Horse” created (for the good of all, of course) to hide the real purpose of the Government and that is to gain unprecedented power to implement otherwise unacceptable social policy. The employment of “Trojan Horses” as an operational means to govern a free people is a despicable subterfuge and has no place in our or any other human society for that matter. All in all, it is always wise to become suspicious about other peoples motives when you discover that a “Choice Architecture” has been employed that will logically lead you to make a decision that might not be in your and your family’s best interest. In that regard, as the current Universal Health Care debate has illustrated, your and other Governments have now joined the scare industry as a fortuitous way to create “Trojan Horses” that can create consensus on a scare issue that can promote a popular decision that in turn can enable hidden social or economic policy to be implemented that otherwise might not be supported by the general population (that would be us Proletariat again). For example: Global Warming is the Trojan Horse, and Cap and Trade is the hidden agenda to gain power through taxation, regulation, fines and law to gain complete control over the economy in order to affect an unacceptable social policy. You can also make the same case that the “Broken Health Care System” is the Trojan Horse and Universal Health Care is the Government solution that will enable the hidden socialist agenda that will further Government’s Power to control. The financial crisis and immigration are also Trojan Horses and there will be others in the future as opportunities present themselves. After all, did not the White House Chief of Staff announce in a fit of arrogance “You never want a serious crisis go to waste”. If all of this sounds like something right out Orwell’s 1984, I’m afraid you are correct.
Note: The best ever and most definitive info yet on Global Warming: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Science, Science
Science, Science
(The Science Cheer)
Gimme a S…Gimme a C…Gimme a I…Gimme a E…Gimme a N…Gimme a C…Gimme a E…What does it spell?
Science, Science,
You’re OK,
Bring us a better life,
With each passing day.
When was it agreed to and decreed that only science can be the judge of fact and truth? How did that happen? How has science become the final say on subjects when science almost always gets it wrong on the way to getting it right? After all, making mistakes is one of the most important parts of the scientific method because mistakes and human misjudgments are the only way of discovering the final truth. By the way, it is virtually impossible to arrive at the “final” truth anyway because the final truth is like beauty, that is, it’s in the eye of the beholder notwithstanding the fact everything in this universe is constantly changing so such a thing as the “final truth” is probably not unobtainable in any event. This is true because the human mind is indeed a wonderful thinking machine but having complete knowledge of all things in order to discover the “final truth” is well beyond human cognition capabilities at this point in our development, even if it were possible. Of course, this means we must get it wrong before we can finally get it right, or as someone once said, “To error is Human.” So at what point should people believe that scientific method has ground out enough of the truth on the matter to be useful? When advocacy groups or Government quotes “Science” as having unequivocal knowledge about a certain matter, e.g., Global Warming, how do people know that enough truth has been arrived at by science to allow society to act in a responsible and knowledgeable manner? There are a number of problems facing society in this regard. First, science is a discipline, not an organization, and so there can never be unanimity on a subject regardless of the amount of time and effort spent to discover the truth. Further, because science is a discipline, no one speaks for all of science on a matter, but anyone or any organization can use or misuse scientific findings as they see fit without consequence to the discipline of science. Most important in this regard is the dark side of knowledge (see my piece, “The Dark Side of Knowledge”), e.g., making an atomic or hydrogen bomb from knowledge of E=MC2, practicing eugenics from knowledge of evolution, etc. Second, science is better at describing things while not truly understanding things, and if you don’t truly understand things, how can you know the full truth. For example, Maxwell’s equations fully describe electromagnetic fields to such an extent that engineers can use the equations to design many modern things such as electric motors, Radio, and on and on, but no one completely understands why there are propagating electric and magnetic waves associated with the spinning particles of matter. Third, science has always been susceptible to political manipulation and control. The classic example being, of course, the conviction of Galileo for heresy because of his scientific founded views. The modern politicization of science has now reached such a level that the discipline is rapidly losing credibility as a force for finding the truth. The politicization is occurring within the scientific community itself because of ideology beliefs held by the scientists and sponsors of scientific research. Published findings of research are often manipulated nowadays to be more compliant with the political views or competitive objectives of sponsors, be they government entity or commercial enterprise. The politicization of science colors research and subsequent findings with a desired political or competitive requirement rather than objective absolute scientific truth. These and other problems with the scientific community, makes the use of modern scientific research for Governmental policy justification and commercial enterprise suspect, at the very least. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a great believer in the scientific method of investigation because, in the course of time, science usually gets it correct. Science eventually gets it right mainly because of the peer review that has a vested interest due to good old fashioned human competition. But alas, there is also a growing problem with peer review because in today’s confrontational environment even peer review is being perverted by political groupthink and monetary objectives. The scientific community should be soundly reprimanded for squandering it’s hard earned credibility upon the alters of ideology and money and letting society to fend for itself in trying to decide the truth in scientific matters.
(The Science Cheer)
Gimme a S…Gimme a C…Gimme a I…Gimme a E…Gimme a N…Gimme a C…Gimme a E…What does it spell?
Science, Science,
You’re OK,
Bring us a better life,
With each passing day.
When was it agreed to and decreed that only science can be the judge of fact and truth? How did that happen? How has science become the final say on subjects when science almost always gets it wrong on the way to getting it right? After all, making mistakes is one of the most important parts of the scientific method because mistakes and human misjudgments are the only way of discovering the final truth. By the way, it is virtually impossible to arrive at the “final” truth anyway because the final truth is like beauty, that is, it’s in the eye of the beholder notwithstanding the fact everything in this universe is constantly changing so such a thing as the “final truth” is probably not unobtainable in any event. This is true because the human mind is indeed a wonderful thinking machine but having complete knowledge of all things in order to discover the “final truth” is well beyond human cognition capabilities at this point in our development, even if it were possible. Of course, this means we must get it wrong before we can finally get it right, or as someone once said, “To error is Human.” So at what point should people believe that scientific method has ground out enough of the truth on the matter to be useful? When advocacy groups or Government quotes “Science” as having unequivocal knowledge about a certain matter, e.g., Global Warming, how do people know that enough truth has been arrived at by science to allow society to act in a responsible and knowledgeable manner? There are a number of problems facing society in this regard. First, science is a discipline, not an organization, and so there can never be unanimity on a subject regardless of the amount of time and effort spent to discover the truth. Further, because science is a discipline, no one speaks for all of science on a matter, but anyone or any organization can use or misuse scientific findings as they see fit without consequence to the discipline of science. Most important in this regard is the dark side of knowledge (see my piece, “The Dark Side of Knowledge”), e.g., making an atomic or hydrogen bomb from knowledge of E=MC2, practicing eugenics from knowledge of evolution, etc. Second, science is better at describing things while not truly understanding things, and if you don’t truly understand things, how can you know the full truth. For example, Maxwell’s equations fully describe electromagnetic fields to such an extent that engineers can use the equations to design many modern things such as electric motors, Radio, and on and on, but no one completely understands why there are propagating electric and magnetic waves associated with the spinning particles of matter. Third, science has always been susceptible to political manipulation and control. The classic example being, of course, the conviction of Galileo for heresy because of his scientific founded views. The modern politicization of science has now reached such a level that the discipline is rapidly losing credibility as a force for finding the truth. The politicization is occurring within the scientific community itself because of ideology beliefs held by the scientists and sponsors of scientific research. Published findings of research are often manipulated nowadays to be more compliant with the political views or competitive objectives of sponsors, be they government entity or commercial enterprise. The politicization of science colors research and subsequent findings with a desired political or competitive requirement rather than objective absolute scientific truth. These and other problems with the scientific community, makes the use of modern scientific research for Governmental policy justification and commercial enterprise suspect, at the very least. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a great believer in the scientific method of investigation because, in the course of time, science usually gets it correct. Science eventually gets it right mainly because of the peer review that has a vested interest due to good old fashioned human competition. But alas, there is also a growing problem with peer review because in today’s confrontational environment even peer review is being perverted by political groupthink and monetary objectives. The scientific community should be soundly reprimanded for squandering it’s hard earned credibility upon the alters of ideology and money and letting society to fend for itself in trying to decide the truth in scientific matters.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
See Hear Now!
See Hear Now!
A Child wants what he can see.
(Russian Proverb)
The above Russian Proverb may provoke a knowing smile from most of us because, of course, it’s true. Rather than trying to deconstruct the Russian Proverb with a bunch of child psychobabble, suffice to say, the truth of the Proverb is that children lack the wisdom of experience to judge whether or not what is set before their eyes is in their best interest to have. My Grandmother instructed me long ago about the same general subject but in a different manner, to wit: The difference between an adult and a kid is that an adult can walk down the street with $20.00 in his pocket and return home with the $20.00 still secure for another day while a kid will spend the $20.00 at the first opportunity. Ah yes, the eternal wisdom of Grandmothers. I think an adjunct that is equally true can be added to the Russian Proverb and it goes like this: A child believes what he can hear. Of course, you deep thinkers will immediately understand that the Russians who quoted the Proverb over and over to their fellow Russians were not really commenting on children’s lack of wisdom, they were making a judgment about the dumb adults who still behave as children. The latest manufactured “crisis”, The Broken Private Run Health Care System, is the very reason that the Russian Proverb comes to mind because the Government takeover of health care is being promoted as yet another entitlement of the people and this new entitlement is a created vision that has been set before our naive eyes that induces childlike want. When we talk about entitlements, it is vital that we all understand, once and for all, that the Government has no money to provide for the entitlements it seeks to provide. Money can only be created by the productive people of society (see my piece, “Stimulus”) and was created in antiquity as a means to facilitate commerce, not as a means to facilitate politics. The Government can only take money from people and redistribute it in a manner to its political liking. A perfect example of the political judgments Government makes with other people’s money is the $787 Billion Stimulus that has most of it’s impact in time for the 2010 elections, and you wonder why I’m cynical, but I digress. I am reminded of my Grandmother’s lecture about walking down the street with money in your pocket when I consider Government entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, etc. What these Government Programs represent is our collective inability to “walk down the street” with our money remaining in our pockets to secure for the rainy day of required medical care, retirement, and the like. Because of our inability to be “adults”, and manage our own money and our own living affairs, we allow the Government to take our money to do with it what we are unable to do, that is, to provide for our welfare. The truth is we seem to be increasingly satisfied with being less and less free and in charge of our own destinies as time rolls by and even more content to scuffle like hungry dogs for the largess scraps secured by the Government from other people’s tables. Amazing. I’m always surprised how easy it is for the Government, or other policy activists, to create a vision to set before our eyes and cause our childlike instincts to want it. We never seem to understand that the promoters are the ones who are creating the vision for our eyes to behold and the rhetoric for our ears to hear and are thereby creating the “want” and the “belief” that only they can satisfy. If you think I’m again being too cynical, I refer you to my piece, “Prepare To Be Nudged”, which discussed the science behind creation of “Choice Architecture” to influence human judgment. Creating “Choice Architecture” is the deliberate imposition of structure in an environment to induce people to make a second party (in this case, Government) shaped choice. It is our elected Government that now has scientific experts hard at work to create “Choice Architecture” after “Choice Architecture” in order for the citizens to make the necessary choices about Cap and Trade, Stimulus, Health Care, etc. and will result in our elected Government having nearly complete control over our lives, fortunes and destines. Those wacky Russians and their goofy proverbs.
A Child wants what he can see.
(Russian Proverb)
The above Russian Proverb may provoke a knowing smile from most of us because, of course, it’s true. Rather than trying to deconstruct the Russian Proverb with a bunch of child psychobabble, suffice to say, the truth of the Proverb is that children lack the wisdom of experience to judge whether or not what is set before their eyes is in their best interest to have. My Grandmother instructed me long ago about the same general subject but in a different manner, to wit: The difference between an adult and a kid is that an adult can walk down the street with $20.00 in his pocket and return home with the $20.00 still secure for another day while a kid will spend the $20.00 at the first opportunity. Ah yes, the eternal wisdom of Grandmothers. I think an adjunct that is equally true can be added to the Russian Proverb and it goes like this: A child believes what he can hear. Of course, you deep thinkers will immediately understand that the Russians who quoted the Proverb over and over to their fellow Russians were not really commenting on children’s lack of wisdom, they were making a judgment about the dumb adults who still behave as children. The latest manufactured “crisis”, The Broken Private Run Health Care System, is the very reason that the Russian Proverb comes to mind because the Government takeover of health care is being promoted as yet another entitlement of the people and this new entitlement is a created vision that has been set before our naive eyes that induces childlike want. When we talk about entitlements, it is vital that we all understand, once and for all, that the Government has no money to provide for the entitlements it seeks to provide. Money can only be created by the productive people of society (see my piece, “Stimulus”) and was created in antiquity as a means to facilitate commerce, not as a means to facilitate politics. The Government can only take money from people and redistribute it in a manner to its political liking. A perfect example of the political judgments Government makes with other people’s money is the $787 Billion Stimulus that has most of it’s impact in time for the 2010 elections, and you wonder why I’m cynical, but I digress. I am reminded of my Grandmother’s lecture about walking down the street with money in your pocket when I consider Government entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, etc. What these Government Programs represent is our collective inability to “walk down the street” with our money remaining in our pockets to secure for the rainy day of required medical care, retirement, and the like. Because of our inability to be “adults”, and manage our own money and our own living affairs, we allow the Government to take our money to do with it what we are unable to do, that is, to provide for our welfare. The truth is we seem to be increasingly satisfied with being less and less free and in charge of our own destinies as time rolls by and even more content to scuffle like hungry dogs for the largess scraps secured by the Government from other people’s tables. Amazing. I’m always surprised how easy it is for the Government, or other policy activists, to create a vision to set before our eyes and cause our childlike instincts to want it. We never seem to understand that the promoters are the ones who are creating the vision for our eyes to behold and the rhetoric for our ears to hear and are thereby creating the “want” and the “belief” that only they can satisfy. If you think I’m again being too cynical, I refer you to my piece, “Prepare To Be Nudged”, which discussed the science behind creation of “Choice Architecture” to influence human judgment. Creating “Choice Architecture” is the deliberate imposition of structure in an environment to induce people to make a second party (in this case, Government) shaped choice. It is our elected Government that now has scientific experts hard at work to create “Choice Architecture” after “Choice Architecture” in order for the citizens to make the necessary choices about Cap and Trade, Stimulus, Health Care, etc. and will result in our elected Government having nearly complete control over our lives, fortunes and destines. Those wacky Russians and their goofy proverbs.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Gracious Tyranny
Gracious Tyranny
I really like my car. I can get into my Detroit Clunker any time I want to, turn the key, endow life to my belch-fire eight engine, grasp the ergonomically correct shifter knob, authoritatively yank the transmission into drive, lead foot the pedal, and head out to anyplace my prerogative dictates. Does this sound somewhat familiar? Of course it does. We all do it as many time as we wish, sometimes, many times in a single day. And when we head out, we traverse on endless ribbons of concrete and asphalt that go to any one of the greatest or least of places within any part and parcel of this vast country, and we go without impediment of any sort, save our ability and desire to do so. It has been said that the private automobile and the web of highways and byways are the ultimate practical enabler of personal freedom because if a place where you are located becomes undesirable or oppressive, well now, you just load up the old freedom machine and take off to a more friendlier place and time. And if the authorities don’t like the thought of your unauthorized rearrangement, well, they can just smell your departing exhaust. Getting into our private vehicles and going to wherever we want to go is such a commonplace occurrence in this country that we hardly ever think about the importance of the personal privilege that this represents in regards to our practical individual freedom and liberty. I am now going to ask for your indulgence as we use the above ordinary account of your personal automobile usage as a surrogate to illustrate the thought processes, rationale and justification that the “progressives, socialists, liberals, et al”, that have now gained prominence in our Governance and national life, would employ if they selected personal automobile usage as a “crisis” that required fixing at the national level. The surrogate example of your personal automobile usage “fixing” is intended to illustrate the same thought process, rationale and justifications that are now being employed by our Federal Government to “fix” your personal health care, usage of the environment, real and personal property rights, cap and trade, legal and illegal immigration, financial meltdown, failing economy, unemployment, ad infinitum. Be advised, there will be even more urgent “crisis” to be identified later on that require national “fixing”, as fortuitous situations warrant. In all fairness I hasten to point out that the “Progressive” movement started in the 1900s, and now fully employed in our Government, is not a wholly evil movement regardless of what Mr. Glenn Beck alludes to in his book, “Glenn Beck’s Common Sense.” The Progressive movement is responsible for child labor laws, woman suffrage, and a rather impressive list of worthwhile accomplishments that enhances our personal freedom as well as promoting civil justice for all. However, like all good things when taken to the extreme, they can injure and cure with equal vitality, but I digress. Let’s say that a Governmental Educated Idiot (or Idiot Savant), perhaps even one of the current 24 National Czars, commissioned a select panel of “experts” to study the cost effectiveness and social morality of our current personal transportation system. Select portions of the expert study began to trickle out which showed the costs that our personal automobiles were incurring on the environment and economy were staggering, notwithstanding the social injustice that was being done to those unable to afford a personal automobile equal to that of the more affluent of our society. The study clearly shows that the estimated costs being incurred were beyond anything approaching a cost effective way of transporting people about and the social unfairness of the current personal transportation system was a disgrace to an enlightened and civilized people. A series of recommendations began to surface from the Government that not only highlighted the cost effectiveness of public transportation over the current private transportation system but also how a national regulated transportation system would slash the appalling carnage on our nation’s streets and road that are now exceeding 43,000 a year. This tragic loss of life on our highways is a loss we can no longer endure as a Nation and the Government must act on behalf of the people to fix this inexcusable loss of life and treasure due to the inefficiency and unrestrained nature of the current personal transportation system. The study also pointed out that those who now drive on the nation’s roads have not had any kind of uniform national training to ensure safe driving across state lines and this situation will be addressed by a national public transportation system that will have uniform trained and licensed operators of public transportation vehicles and systems to safeguard all citizens. Of course, in order for the new Public Transportation System to become effective, private transportation must be suppressed through “true cost” taxation on private automobiles and supporting infrastructure along with other fair and appropriate Governmental means to supplant a Private Transportation System with a viable National Public Transportation System. I could go on and on, but there is no point of further burdening you with more conjured Governmental scenarios that should be frightening to a freedom loving people because they are as real as today’s news. One salient that should be remembered at all costs, the mortal enemy of liberalism is personal freedom, and this is why we are slowly coming under the sway of what I call Gracious Tyranny, i.e., it’s a Tyranny because an Oligarchy of an elite few are perverting the democratic process to assert complete control of the nation’s society and culture, for the Gracious good of us all, of course.
I really like my car. I can get into my Detroit Clunker any time I want to, turn the key, endow life to my belch-fire eight engine, grasp the ergonomically correct shifter knob, authoritatively yank the transmission into drive, lead foot the pedal, and head out to anyplace my prerogative dictates. Does this sound somewhat familiar? Of course it does. We all do it as many time as we wish, sometimes, many times in a single day. And when we head out, we traverse on endless ribbons of concrete and asphalt that go to any one of the greatest or least of places within any part and parcel of this vast country, and we go without impediment of any sort, save our ability and desire to do so. It has been said that the private automobile and the web of highways and byways are the ultimate practical enabler of personal freedom because if a place where you are located becomes undesirable or oppressive, well now, you just load up the old freedom machine and take off to a more friendlier place and time. And if the authorities don’t like the thought of your unauthorized rearrangement, well, they can just smell your departing exhaust. Getting into our private vehicles and going to wherever we want to go is such a commonplace occurrence in this country that we hardly ever think about the importance of the personal privilege that this represents in regards to our practical individual freedom and liberty. I am now going to ask for your indulgence as we use the above ordinary account of your personal automobile usage as a surrogate to illustrate the thought processes, rationale and justification that the “progressives, socialists, liberals, et al”, that have now gained prominence in our Governance and national life, would employ if they selected personal automobile usage as a “crisis” that required fixing at the national level. The surrogate example of your personal automobile usage “fixing” is intended to illustrate the same thought process, rationale and justifications that are now being employed by our Federal Government to “fix” your personal health care, usage of the environment, real and personal property rights, cap and trade, legal and illegal immigration, financial meltdown, failing economy, unemployment, ad infinitum. Be advised, there will be even more urgent “crisis” to be identified later on that require national “fixing”, as fortuitous situations warrant. In all fairness I hasten to point out that the “Progressive” movement started in the 1900s, and now fully employed in our Government, is not a wholly evil movement regardless of what Mr. Glenn Beck alludes to in his book, “Glenn Beck’s Common Sense.” The Progressive movement is responsible for child labor laws, woman suffrage, and a rather impressive list of worthwhile accomplishments that enhances our personal freedom as well as promoting civil justice for all. However, like all good things when taken to the extreme, they can injure and cure with equal vitality, but I digress. Let’s say that a Governmental Educated Idiot (or Idiot Savant), perhaps even one of the current 24 National Czars, commissioned a select panel of “experts” to study the cost effectiveness and social morality of our current personal transportation system. Select portions of the expert study began to trickle out which showed the costs that our personal automobiles were incurring on the environment and economy were staggering, notwithstanding the social injustice that was being done to those unable to afford a personal automobile equal to that of the more affluent of our society. The study clearly shows that the estimated costs being incurred were beyond anything approaching a cost effective way of transporting people about and the social unfairness of the current personal transportation system was a disgrace to an enlightened and civilized people. A series of recommendations began to surface from the Government that not only highlighted the cost effectiveness of public transportation over the current private transportation system but also how a national regulated transportation system would slash the appalling carnage on our nation’s streets and road that are now exceeding 43,000 a year. This tragic loss of life on our highways is a loss we can no longer endure as a Nation and the Government must act on behalf of the people to fix this inexcusable loss of life and treasure due to the inefficiency and unrestrained nature of the current personal transportation system. The study also pointed out that those who now drive on the nation’s roads have not had any kind of uniform national training to ensure safe driving across state lines and this situation will be addressed by a national public transportation system that will have uniform trained and licensed operators of public transportation vehicles and systems to safeguard all citizens. Of course, in order for the new Public Transportation System to become effective, private transportation must be suppressed through “true cost” taxation on private automobiles and supporting infrastructure along with other fair and appropriate Governmental means to supplant a Private Transportation System with a viable National Public Transportation System. I could go on and on, but there is no point of further burdening you with more conjured Governmental scenarios that should be frightening to a freedom loving people because they are as real as today’s news. One salient that should be remembered at all costs, the mortal enemy of liberalism is personal freedom, and this is why we are slowly coming under the sway of what I call Gracious Tyranny, i.e., it’s a Tyranny because an Oligarchy of an elite few are perverting the democratic process to assert complete control of the nation’s society and culture, for the Gracious good of us all, of course.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Bad Moon
Bad Moon Rising
I see the bad moon arising,
I see trouble on the way,
I see earthquakes and lightin’,
I see bad times today.
John Fogerty
The Southern Poverty Law Center, USA Today, CBS, Associated Press, Digital Journal, Cleveland Leader and Politics Daily all report that Militias in the USA are surging. Why is this happening? What motivates good and peaceful Americans to think that the only remaining way to protect the American Constitution and liberty is to become a member of a local Militia? Before we search for the answer, I respectfully request you revisit my piece “God and Guns” posted be me some time ago. You may recall that I advanced the idea that the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution was not really about the right to keep and bear arms. The amendment was enacted to ensure that the people had the right to form and maintain citizen Militias and in order for a Militia to be viable, the citizens must have the right to keep and bear arms, after all, that’s what the 2nd Amendment said in plain language. In other words, the citizens of the United States of America have a Constitutional right to form and maintain citizen Militias and the right to keep and bear arms only makes a Militia viable. Let’s revisit what James Madison said in the Federalist Paper #47 about Militias, to wit: “Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.” Perhaps the colloquial language used in bygone days is somewhat confusing today and the meaning of what Mr. Madison was saying prohibits understanding in today’s world. I believe what Mr. Madison said was that armed citizens organized into Militias was the final safeguard against a usurping Government. And I again urge you not to buy into the hooey that the National Guard is the people’s Militia. The National Guard is an adjunct to the standing United States Army and citizen Militias are Ad Hoc organizations formed from the citizens at large to address a specific threat, two very distinct and different organizations. During times of national peril in days past, citizen Militias were formed and equipped by the citizens themselves and then inducted into the United States Army to meet a current national threat. After the national threat was attended to, the Militia went home, disbanded, and the citizens went back to farming and the like. The Founding Fathers said over and over again that they were deathly afraid of standing armies and the citizen Militias were a protection from the nefarious use of a permanent standing army. The National Guard is funded, equipped, and is part of the United States Army Chain of Command and so it can in no way resemble a citizen’s Militia and in truth is part of the standing army that the founding fathers were so afraid of. The National Guard is not a Militia, period. How diabolical it is that the US Government has went to such great lengths to foster the notion that the National Guard is a Militia, i.e., why are they so afraid of citizen Militias that has been guaranteed by the Constitution? I will wager the entire stimulus package amount that if you are part of a local Militia and went public about it, you would be labeled a cult or something worse, prosecuted forthwith, and the Federal man would come and take you far away. I guess a Constitutional guarantee nowadays is only worth the paper it’s written on. But wait, I believe that we have just discovered what it is that people are getting all riled up about enough to seek out and join a local clandestine Militia. Here are a few things that people are upset about: the Constitution has been systematically disregarded and rewritten without the benefit of the Constitutional amendment process, citizens find they are unable to affect their own government, an unprecedented move by the Federal Government to usurp not only citizen Constitutional rights but local governments as well in a headlong rush to gain complete control over the country at large. The current Universal Health Care plan just might be the “straw that breaks the camel’s back”, and oh Lord, I see a Bad Moon Arising.
I see the bad moon arising,
I see trouble on the way,
I see earthquakes and lightin’,
I see bad times today.
John Fogerty
The Southern Poverty Law Center, USA Today, CBS, Associated Press, Digital Journal, Cleveland Leader and Politics Daily all report that Militias in the USA are surging. Why is this happening? What motivates good and peaceful Americans to think that the only remaining way to protect the American Constitution and liberty is to become a member of a local Militia? Before we search for the answer, I respectfully request you revisit my piece “God and Guns” posted be me some time ago. You may recall that I advanced the idea that the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution was not really about the right to keep and bear arms. The amendment was enacted to ensure that the people had the right to form and maintain citizen Militias and in order for a Militia to be viable, the citizens must have the right to keep and bear arms, after all, that’s what the 2nd Amendment said in plain language. In other words, the citizens of the United States of America have a Constitutional right to form and maintain citizen Militias and the right to keep and bear arms only makes a Militia viable. Let’s revisit what James Madison said in the Federalist Paper #47 about Militias, to wit: “Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.” Perhaps the colloquial language used in bygone days is somewhat confusing today and the meaning of what Mr. Madison was saying prohibits understanding in today’s world. I believe what Mr. Madison said was that armed citizens organized into Militias was the final safeguard against a usurping Government. And I again urge you not to buy into the hooey that the National Guard is the people’s Militia. The National Guard is an adjunct to the standing United States Army and citizen Militias are Ad Hoc organizations formed from the citizens at large to address a specific threat, two very distinct and different organizations. During times of national peril in days past, citizen Militias were formed and equipped by the citizens themselves and then inducted into the United States Army to meet a current national threat. After the national threat was attended to, the Militia went home, disbanded, and the citizens went back to farming and the like. The Founding Fathers said over and over again that they were deathly afraid of standing armies and the citizen Militias were a protection from the nefarious use of a permanent standing army. The National Guard is funded, equipped, and is part of the United States Army Chain of Command and so it can in no way resemble a citizen’s Militia and in truth is part of the standing army that the founding fathers were so afraid of. The National Guard is not a Militia, period. How diabolical it is that the US Government has went to such great lengths to foster the notion that the National Guard is a Militia, i.e., why are they so afraid of citizen Militias that has been guaranteed by the Constitution? I will wager the entire stimulus package amount that if you are part of a local Militia and went public about it, you would be labeled a cult or something worse, prosecuted forthwith, and the Federal man would come and take you far away. I guess a Constitutional guarantee nowadays is only worth the paper it’s written on. But wait, I believe that we have just discovered what it is that people are getting all riled up about enough to seek out and join a local clandestine Militia. Here are a few things that people are upset about: the Constitution has been systematically disregarded and rewritten without the benefit of the Constitutional amendment process, citizens find they are unable to affect their own government, an unprecedented move by the Federal Government to usurp not only citizen Constitutional rights but local governments as well in a headlong rush to gain complete control over the country at large. The current Universal Health Care plan just might be the “straw that breaks the camel’s back”, and oh Lord, I see a Bad Moon Arising.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Rabbits and Squirrels
Rabbits and Squirrels
Some time ago, when I was more intellectually active, I recall being engaged in an absorbing discussion concerning the meaning of life and why hair on your arm doesn’t grow any longer, when one of my peers looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Do you know why there are more rabbits than squirrels?” This seemingly non sequitur question, that came out of the blue and stopped the more serious give and take about “palming the ball” during dribbling in professional basketball, caused a mostly vacant stare aimed at the Einstein who had asked the question. The answer to this dumbfounder wasn’t long in coming. With somewhat watery eyes and slightly slurred speech, the Einstein answered his own question thusly: “because, have you ever tried doing it in a tree?” The answer, of course, highlighted the importance of the practical aspects of life to the discussion participants in general and so had an obscure link to the current discussions about the meaning of life in particular. More importantly, the citizen who asked and answered the question seemed to derive a great deal of intellectual satisfaction from the exchange. To this day, I don’t know why this exchange could generate even a small amount of intellectual satisfaction from anyone, but I digress. This obscure bit of personal history popped into my nomadic musings the other day while trying to understand the esoteric explanations of the proposed Universal Health Care plan by the proponents of the plan and their supporters. The only reason that my brain forced an involuntary recall about the mating habits of Rabbits and Squirrels during the current inane health care discussions must be because of the intellectual satisfaction being displayed by both sides of the proposal when they make their points about the plan. Again, I don’t know why anyone could derive even a small amount of intellectual satisfaction from the current discussions, which reflect, in so many ways, the meaning of life discussions held so long ago by my intellectual peers. But wait, you know what? The difficulty of doing it in a tree versus the straightforwardness of doing it on the ground being an explanation of why there are more rabbits than squirrels can also go a long way in understanding what is going on in the current dustup over Universal Health Care. The only reason that the rabbits and squirrels explanation makes any practical sense at all is because you must juxtapose the difficulty humans would have “doing it in a tree” with that of the perfectly adapted squirrel, who can instead, do it in a tree with considerable ease. In the same manner, the Government proposal for Universal Health Care being advanced fails the practical test because the Government wants it’s citizens to juxtapose their personal health care with a Government run health care system. Ah yes, therein lies the problem. Most free citizens instinctively know that Governments cannot make personal health care decisions because Government is a political entity and therefore can only make political decisions, not personal health care decisions. So it is patently impossible for a free citizen to juxtapose their personal health care requirements with the political decisions that would be made by a Government running a Universal Health Care system. This is exactly why the current Universal Health Care proposal being advanced by the Government makes no sense to free citizens. The juxtapose health care impossibility results in the complete frustration of the still free citizens in trying to reconcile what the Government is trying to do with their personal health requirements without really knowing what is going on and why the Government proposal is so wrong other than the Government simply hungers for the power that a Government run health care system would bring. Of course, the result of this frustration being that voices and blood pressures continue to raise in direct proportion to the continuing Government advocacy of this plan. Hum, I wonder why there really are more rabbits than squirrels?
Some time ago, when I was more intellectually active, I recall being engaged in an absorbing discussion concerning the meaning of life and why hair on your arm doesn’t grow any longer, when one of my peers looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Do you know why there are more rabbits than squirrels?” This seemingly non sequitur question, that came out of the blue and stopped the more serious give and take about “palming the ball” during dribbling in professional basketball, caused a mostly vacant stare aimed at the Einstein who had asked the question. The answer to this dumbfounder wasn’t long in coming. With somewhat watery eyes and slightly slurred speech, the Einstein answered his own question thusly: “because, have you ever tried doing it in a tree?” The answer, of course, highlighted the importance of the practical aspects of life to the discussion participants in general and so had an obscure link to the current discussions about the meaning of life in particular. More importantly, the citizen who asked and answered the question seemed to derive a great deal of intellectual satisfaction from the exchange. To this day, I don’t know why this exchange could generate even a small amount of intellectual satisfaction from anyone, but I digress. This obscure bit of personal history popped into my nomadic musings the other day while trying to understand the esoteric explanations of the proposed Universal Health Care plan by the proponents of the plan and their supporters. The only reason that my brain forced an involuntary recall about the mating habits of Rabbits and Squirrels during the current inane health care discussions must be because of the intellectual satisfaction being displayed by both sides of the proposal when they make their points about the plan. Again, I don’t know why anyone could derive even a small amount of intellectual satisfaction from the current discussions, which reflect, in so many ways, the meaning of life discussions held so long ago by my intellectual peers. But wait, you know what? The difficulty of doing it in a tree versus the straightforwardness of doing it on the ground being an explanation of why there are more rabbits than squirrels can also go a long way in understanding what is going on in the current dustup over Universal Health Care. The only reason that the rabbits and squirrels explanation makes any practical sense at all is because you must juxtapose the difficulty humans would have “doing it in a tree” with that of the perfectly adapted squirrel, who can instead, do it in a tree with considerable ease. In the same manner, the Government proposal for Universal Health Care being advanced fails the practical test because the Government wants it’s citizens to juxtapose their personal health care with a Government run health care system. Ah yes, therein lies the problem. Most free citizens instinctively know that Governments cannot make personal health care decisions because Government is a political entity and therefore can only make political decisions, not personal health care decisions. So it is patently impossible for a free citizen to juxtapose their personal health care requirements with the political decisions that would be made by a Government running a Universal Health Care system. This is exactly why the current Universal Health Care proposal being advanced by the Government makes no sense to free citizens. The juxtapose health care impossibility results in the complete frustration of the still free citizens in trying to reconcile what the Government is trying to do with their personal health requirements without really knowing what is going on and why the Government proposal is so wrong other than the Government simply hungers for the power that a Government run health care system would bring. Of course, the result of this frustration being that voices and blood pressures continue to raise in direct proportion to the continuing Government advocacy of this plan. Hum, I wonder why there really are more rabbits than squirrels?
Monday, August 3, 2009
Waltzing Lady Liberty
Waltzing Lady Liberty
When Bill Maher recently declared that America was a “stupid country”, my sprit soared, because Maher’s assertion that our country is stupid is like the Devil declaring that the righteous are wicked. My sprit soared because Maher’s contemptuous contention is a fortuitous counterpoint that shines a rare bright light on what is “smart” about our country, i.e., it is the ultimate confirmation that the country must be heading in the right direction because it is analogous to when an enemy speaks ill of you. You have commanded the ultimate confirmation of your rectitude from an impeccable source. I’m not saying that Maher is an enemy of America, I’m only saying that Maher is just another unofficial mouth-piece for many of our self-assured elite of this country, and he, and others of his kind, gives meaning and dimention to the wise words spoke by Heraclitus so long ago (circa 540-480 B.C.), to wit: “Much learning does not teach understanding”. I don’t know why Maher and his brethren have so little understanding of America that would cause them to declare that America is “stupid” but perhaps it’s because of their long association with the disconnected segment of our society that continuously reinforce their insular beliefs by an elite groupthink mentality. It really matters little because his specious remark has given us an opportunity to rediscover what is “smart” about America. America is really smart because with each passing day, race matters less and less, just as it has always been. America continues to be a “melting pot” of a just and enlightened people that really cares little about color or race, Americans care about freedom, character and responsibility and we fought a great war to enforce that principle. America is really smart because liberty has real meaning here because you are in actuality free to succeed or fail because of equal opportunity for all. America is really smart because it is a Democratic Republic that gives meaning to freedom by maintaining a free marketplace open to all. America is really smart because you can worship any God or no God if you so choose and you can educate yourself or remain ignorant of modern ways if you are of a mind to do so. America is really smart because we are a mostly civil society that practices patience when others are uncivil. America is really smart because people like Bill Maher can say stupid things with no fear. I could fill many pages about why America is smart and I hope you will take the time to reflect on the many ways that America is, indeed, “smart.” In the meantime, lets all, Bill Maher included, keep on Waltzing Lady Liberty, it’s the smart thing to do.
When Bill Maher recently declared that America was a “stupid country”, my sprit soared, because Maher’s assertion that our country is stupid is like the Devil declaring that the righteous are wicked. My sprit soared because Maher’s contemptuous contention is a fortuitous counterpoint that shines a rare bright light on what is “smart” about our country, i.e., it is the ultimate confirmation that the country must be heading in the right direction because it is analogous to when an enemy speaks ill of you. You have commanded the ultimate confirmation of your rectitude from an impeccable source. I’m not saying that Maher is an enemy of America, I’m only saying that Maher is just another unofficial mouth-piece for many of our self-assured elite of this country, and he, and others of his kind, gives meaning and dimention to the wise words spoke by Heraclitus so long ago (circa 540-480 B.C.), to wit: “Much learning does not teach understanding”. I don’t know why Maher and his brethren have so little understanding of America that would cause them to declare that America is “stupid” but perhaps it’s because of their long association with the disconnected segment of our society that continuously reinforce their insular beliefs by an elite groupthink mentality. It really matters little because his specious remark has given us an opportunity to rediscover what is “smart” about America. America is really smart because with each passing day, race matters less and less, just as it has always been. America continues to be a “melting pot” of a just and enlightened people that really cares little about color or race, Americans care about freedom, character and responsibility and we fought a great war to enforce that principle. America is really smart because liberty has real meaning here because you are in actuality free to succeed or fail because of equal opportunity for all. America is really smart because it is a Democratic Republic that gives meaning to freedom by maintaining a free marketplace open to all. America is really smart because you can worship any God or no God if you so choose and you can educate yourself or remain ignorant of modern ways if you are of a mind to do so. America is really smart because we are a mostly civil society that practices patience when others are uncivil. America is really smart because people like Bill Maher can say stupid things with no fear. I could fill many pages about why America is smart and I hope you will take the time to reflect on the many ways that America is, indeed, “smart.” In the meantime, lets all, Bill Maher included, keep on Waltzing Lady Liberty, it’s the smart thing to do.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Readin', Writin' and Money
Readin’, Writin’ and Money
I think we all understand the education of our children is a key element in the survival of a viable democratic Republic, i.e., a population that is ignorant about our history, philosophy of Government, responsibility of freedom, unable to effectively read or write, etc., will be unable to function successfully as a free and responsible citizen. For some time now, we, as a people, have been encouraged to throw more and more money at the education establishment in the hope of stopping the continuing downward spiral of education achievement. Good luck with that. Without knowing one wit about the educational system, anecdotal evidence abounds that educational achievement is inversely proportional to the money allocated to it. My personal anecdotal evidence supports this notion as well. For example, I went to a two-room school in Jordan Indiana, in my younger years, that had a pot-bellied stove for heat, an outhouse, a hand pump for water, lawyer-free discipline and not a piece of recreational equipment in sight and yet learned to read, write and do arithmetic. I also was taught our country’s history and how our government governs, and most importantly, how to be civil. I began to think about how badly our public education system has become when I was reading a small book about New England lighthouses by Bruce Roberts and Ray Jones. The authors were recounting a tale about the Matinicus Rock lighthouse, located some 25 miles out to sea off the coast of Maine, and included a letter by a lighthouse resident who was a girl of seventeen years (Abbie Burgess) and had written to her pen pal about the place, to wit:
“You have often expressed a desire to view the sea out on the ocean when it was angry. Had you been here on 19 January (1856), I surmise you would have been satisfied. Father was away. Early in the day, as the tide rose, the sea made a complete breach over the rock, washing every movable thing away, and of the old dwelling not one stone was left upon another. The new dwelling was flooded, and the windows had to be secured to prevent the violence of the spray from breaking them in. As the tide came, the sea rose higher and higher, till the only endurable places were the light towers. If they stood, we were saved, otherwise our fate was only too certain. But for some reason, I know not why, I had no misgivings, and went on with my work as usual. For four weeks, owing to rough weather, no landing could be affected on the rock. During this time we were without assistance of any male member of our family. Though at times greatly exhausted with my labors, not once did the lights fail. I was able to perform all of my accustomed duties as well as my father’s.
You know the hens are our only companions. Becoming convinced, as the gale increased, that unless they were brought into the house they would be lost. I said to my mother, “I must try to save them.” She advised me not to attempt it. The thought, however, of parting with them without an effort was not to be endured, so seizing a basket, I ran out a few yards after the rollers had passed and the sea fell off a little, with the water knee deep, to the coop, and rescued all but one. It was the work of a moment, and I was back in the house with the door fastened, but I was none too quick, for at that instant my little sister, standing at the window, exclaimed, “Oh look! Look there! The worst sea is coming.” That wave destroyed the old dwelling and swept the rock. I cannot think you would enjoy remaining here any great length of time for the sea is never still and when agitated, its roar shuts out every other sound, even drowning our voices.”
This girl of seventeen years, who could only go to school on the mainland whenever the sea permitted a boat to make the trip to the little school, and yet she, Abbie Burgess, wrote this beautiful letter. I have hired graduate Engineers who could not string two coherent sentences together and yet this isolated girl of 1856, without computers or modern technology, was educated to the extent that she could communicate with her fellow man by the written word that should be the envy of us all. How is this possible? I have never heard a convincing argument of how this can be other than a lot of very thoughtful people have placed the starting point for our public educational system decent at the same point in time when the “Progressive Movement” started in the 1890s. Could this be? I really don’t know either, but I do know that continuing to throw money at the educational system does not work and only demonstrates our collective lack of understanding on how to educate our children nowadays. This is particularly frustrating because, as Abbie Burgess’s letter demonstrates so skillfully, we used to know how to do it.
I think we all understand the education of our children is a key element in the survival of a viable democratic Republic, i.e., a population that is ignorant about our history, philosophy of Government, responsibility of freedom, unable to effectively read or write, etc., will be unable to function successfully as a free and responsible citizen. For some time now, we, as a people, have been encouraged to throw more and more money at the education establishment in the hope of stopping the continuing downward spiral of education achievement. Good luck with that. Without knowing one wit about the educational system, anecdotal evidence abounds that educational achievement is inversely proportional to the money allocated to it. My personal anecdotal evidence supports this notion as well. For example, I went to a two-room school in Jordan Indiana, in my younger years, that had a pot-bellied stove for heat, an outhouse, a hand pump for water, lawyer-free discipline and not a piece of recreational equipment in sight and yet learned to read, write and do arithmetic. I also was taught our country’s history and how our government governs, and most importantly, how to be civil. I began to think about how badly our public education system has become when I was reading a small book about New England lighthouses by Bruce Roberts and Ray Jones. The authors were recounting a tale about the Matinicus Rock lighthouse, located some 25 miles out to sea off the coast of Maine, and included a letter by a lighthouse resident who was a girl of seventeen years (Abbie Burgess) and had written to her pen pal about the place, to wit:
“You have often expressed a desire to view the sea out on the ocean when it was angry. Had you been here on 19 January (1856), I surmise you would have been satisfied. Father was away. Early in the day, as the tide rose, the sea made a complete breach over the rock, washing every movable thing away, and of the old dwelling not one stone was left upon another. The new dwelling was flooded, and the windows had to be secured to prevent the violence of the spray from breaking them in. As the tide came, the sea rose higher and higher, till the only endurable places were the light towers. If they stood, we were saved, otherwise our fate was only too certain. But for some reason, I know not why, I had no misgivings, and went on with my work as usual. For four weeks, owing to rough weather, no landing could be affected on the rock. During this time we were without assistance of any male member of our family. Though at times greatly exhausted with my labors, not once did the lights fail. I was able to perform all of my accustomed duties as well as my father’s.
You know the hens are our only companions. Becoming convinced, as the gale increased, that unless they were brought into the house they would be lost. I said to my mother, “I must try to save them.” She advised me not to attempt it. The thought, however, of parting with them without an effort was not to be endured, so seizing a basket, I ran out a few yards after the rollers had passed and the sea fell off a little, with the water knee deep, to the coop, and rescued all but one. It was the work of a moment, and I was back in the house with the door fastened, but I was none too quick, for at that instant my little sister, standing at the window, exclaimed, “Oh look! Look there! The worst sea is coming.” That wave destroyed the old dwelling and swept the rock. I cannot think you would enjoy remaining here any great length of time for the sea is never still and when agitated, its roar shuts out every other sound, even drowning our voices.”
This girl of seventeen years, who could only go to school on the mainland whenever the sea permitted a boat to make the trip to the little school, and yet she, Abbie Burgess, wrote this beautiful letter. I have hired graduate Engineers who could not string two coherent sentences together and yet this isolated girl of 1856, without computers or modern technology, was educated to the extent that she could communicate with her fellow man by the written word that should be the envy of us all. How is this possible? I have never heard a convincing argument of how this can be other than a lot of very thoughtful people have placed the starting point for our public educational system decent at the same point in time when the “Progressive Movement” started in the 1890s. Could this be? I really don’t know either, but I do know that continuing to throw money at the educational system does not work and only demonstrates our collective lack of understanding on how to educate our children nowadays. This is particularly frustrating because, as Abbie Burgess’s letter demonstrates so skillfully, we used to know how to do it.
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