Professor Francis Harry Compton Crick was a British physicist, molecular biologist and neuroscientist, most noted for being one of the co-discoverers of the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule in 1953. Crick suggests in his The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul that a person’s mental activities are entirely due to the behavior of nerve cells, glial cells, and the atom, ions, and molecules that make them up and influence them. He argued that traditional conceptualizations of the soul as a non-material being must be replaced by the materialistic understanding of how the brain produces mind; that religions can be wrong about scientific matters, and that part of what science does is to confront the errors that exist within religious traditions.


Beyond Good and Evil

Even the most elementary understanding of science makes it clear that human perception is a construct. The blue of the sky, the deep red of a morning sunrise, the human voice, even the glass of water you drink, none are as they appear. Francis Crick describes the brain as a conscious, perceptive, and thinking organ. Yet what you see is not what is really there; it is what your brain believes is there. Your brain makes the best interpretation it can, combines the information, and settles on the most plausible interpretation. This allows the brain to guess a complete picture.

Envision an experiment. Two people are shown an identical, large, and intricate painting, each being in different rooms. The two people are not aware of each other. The first is told to look at the picture for one minute. The second person is confronted with the same picture, but it has been covered with sixty, one inch square pieces of paper so the painting cannot be seen. As the second person watches, each square is removed for one second and then replaced. This continues until each square of paper has been removed and then replaced. The person only saw one inch of the painting at a time. You then ask each person what the picture was of and to describe it in detail. Both have seen the entire picture. But each will have a different interpretation. The second person might not know what the picture was, but might be better able to describe certain pieces of detailed information. It is somewhat analogous to one not being able to see the trees for the forest, the other not being able to see the forest for the trees.

It becomes evident then that you can be taught to see, hear, smell, and feel what others want you to see, hear, smell, and feel in an effort to make their construct yours. This has myriad implications. One, of course, is the modern move to secular morality vs. tradition morality. Europe has become almost wholly secular; some other countries are following, and America is making great strides toward the notion of a self-evident morality as well.

Philosopher Bryan Magee says that “human behavior makes the most sense when it is explained in terms of beliefs and desires, not in terms of volts and grams.” To him, we understand ourselves not so much through science but through our interrelations, our culture, our value systems, and possibly our totems as described by Emile Durkheim. And we differentiate ourselves by these attributes over those of plants or animals.

My “unified continuum”, however, is constructed of past and present experience as well as my expectations of the future. We are made up of atoms and molecules, but they move at our will in a holistic way.

One can speculate whether morality is an illusion. That we “ought” implies that we “can”, which implies, at least, a certain amount of free will. Yet, is morality a construct as well? Kant showed us that the material world is not the only world there is, and that there is a higher domain we rely on in every free choice we make. That “there is a ghost in the machine, which we may for convenience term the soul.”

To an extent these are micro observations of humanity. But there is as well a macro behavior. As atoms and molecules move in a continuum that describes each of us as “I”, we as a people move as well to describe the continuum of a society whose culture was at least partially static.

What is good and evil, and what is beyond either? Our culture has been lead by the rule of law and by the conditions of morality as set in stone in the Ten Commandments. These written rules have presided over morality for much of Western civilization for centuries and for America for the better part of two hundred years. This is swiftly becoming an extinct description. A new morality is being taught and nurtured, particularly among our youth, many of whom are now adults.

The rules that governed our individual behavior and that of society are no longer in vogue. The new morality is being claimed by the secular ethic of the future. “The culture wars in America, involving issues like abortion, divorce, and homosexual marriage, can be largely understood as a clash between traditional morality and secular morality.”

“The new source of morality is no longer the external code but the inner heart.” Does this not provide cover for autonomy and self-fulfillment; does this not provide cover for selfish and irresponsible behavior?

The neo and ultra left are deeply imbued with this new morality. It has taken over American government, our universities, our corporations, and our institutions. It is beyond traditional morality. And it is beyond good and evil. It is the appeal of unbelief. It is gaining the power to remake society in its own construct.

Our brain tries to unravel the consequences of what appears to be the ever decreasing value of the dollar, spiraling unemployment, the apparent corruption within the government and corporate America, and our own tenuous situation amidst a left wing enclave of secular morality. As the forest around us begins to burn, our philosophical musings begin to seem less important than does the simple idea of survival.

As a nation we are certainly spiraling downward. Has this any real meaning in the overall scheme of things? We might abhor the idea of our savings being sacrificed to the hungry politicos; we might shudder at the idea of being simply another third world country; we might even suffer a suicidal depression at the thought of the abject poverty of our children. If we listen to the positive lectures by such evangelists as Joel Osteen, we might even find a silver lining in our own demise. If we are only beings whose perception cannot even perceive the real “us”, do those sacrificed in the ovens of Buchenwald make any real difference?

Are these simply the perceptions of Francis Crick with which our minds make the best interpretation? Is morality simply a construct of one’s own personality and inner feeling, or is there something more about a social contract that one must hold on to? Why is the sky blue? Why is Obama making changes that threaten our quality of life?

Life can be made easy or difficult. Is our morality that of Job wherein mankind simply does not have enough knowledge to explain why things happen the way they do? Do life’s hardships chisel a perception of morality?

As a practical matter we are obliged to forgo these elevated intellectual matters and fight simply for our survival and as well that of a society and culture that is not beyond good and evil, but rejoices in the rules by which it was forged. Fight with tooth and clay for the survival of our traditional cultural morality, if not for yourself, then for your children and their children.

If you revel in exploring “self”, you must also explore the consequences that self indulgence brings to what was once a glorious nation, whose prosperity and culture was the envy of the world. For what other reason did everyone want to move here and virtually no reasonable person wanted to leave?

Force Majeure is not a defense to denial.

Doctor L. Scott Smith, Esq.

“Etiquette, no matter how well-meaning, cannot manipulate the marketplace of ideas for long. To argue otherwise demonstrates merely the idiocy of “political correctness””. L. Scott Smith, America Unraveling, A Politically Incorrect Analysis of Public Faith and Culture

Political Correctness: A Cultural Cancer

Cancer is not just one disease but a large group of almost one hundred diseases. Its two main characteristics are uncontrolled growth of the cells in the human body and the ability of these cells to migrate from the original site and spread to distant sites. If the spread is not controlled, cancer can result in death.

The term Politically Correct has some rather vague beginnings, some of which did not often represent what it does today. Kant’s separation of “faith” and “empirical knowledge”, for example, argues that the former is a subjective matter only. Does that make Kant the father of relativism? Nor is the ideology of Political Correctness just an American phenomenon. It aspires to undermine several Western cultures as well. Oddly enough, it is currently thought by liberals to be a brilliant Republican invention to undermine the opposition. Whatever its origin or salient progenitors, it has gotten out of hand.

No thinking or civilized person can argue with the truthfulness of its underlying intentions. Though ethnically diverse, it is to our benefit to remain united. Using terms like nigger or honky rips the fabric of unity. Indeed, we are a nation of ethnic diversity, but it is counter productive to allow cultural diversity. The terms are often misunderstood. If one argues against cultural diversity, many have the idea that one argues against ethnic diversity. It has become popular to squash any such discussions as racist or radical and falls under the umbrella of the Political Incorrect.

One might believe that many so called Politically Incorrect actions or statements are rather shallow or that their antonym, Publically Correct, is often a bit silly. And sometimes they are. But this ideology has woven itself into the American social structure so tightly that it is destroying the body of its host. The definition of cancer above aptly describes the destruction of a body (nation) by the uncontrolled growth of cells (politically correct ideology). And like a cancer, it spreads and attacks the heart of our unity and strength through a process of national, cultural decay, and if not controlled, will help result in our nation’s death.

Is that an exaggeration?

A culture is represented by its language, its approach to science, its world view, its financial structure, its economic strength, its religious foundation, and a host of other attributes. America praises itself on being philanthropic, a nation of liberty, and a bulwark of Christian values. Mr. Obama stated that America is the greatest nation on earth. One presumes it was because of these attributes. He then made a Marxist contradiction by asking his supporters to help him change it. He followed that by stating that we are not a Christian nation. As it turns out, Politically Correctness, unabated, was part of that change in a societal preponderance of relativistic thought.

Politically Correctness has infiltrated more than its shallow underbelly. It now regulates our behavior in mathematics, science, sociology, finance, and every other strata of what was our national culture. As strange as it might seem, there is a term in use now called Anti-racist Mathematics. In short, it is the idea that minorities are not given equal advantage because the discipline is discriminatory to certain classes of citizens. I graduated from the university in mathematics. It seemed to me that math was just math. I had no idea that it was ethnic or cultural. Nor was I bright enough to know the difference. Political Correctness affects Christmas, speech, identity politics, newspeak, sex, first person language, political consciousness, Xenocentrism, and a host of cultural misanthropes.

It is a cancer that has even infected our young heroes who fight our wars. And it is leveled almost entirely by people who have not been in the military. Such judgments of behavior are easy for those who have not born the stress of combat. These young combatants, who do our bidding, carry considerable weight on their backs. Temperatures are either unbearably hot or painfully cold. Hours and often days are spent in the field without facilities. Each day ends in exhaustion. One’s butt cheeks become so chaffed that walking is painful. One’s pants often become laden with excrement and urine. The average person would not tolerate the food for more than a day. Body order is appalling. The nights are filled with terror. One opines endlessly whether he will run out of ammunition or that his weapon will fail. And then there is the constant threat of death. And many either come to that fate or are seriously injured for life. The enemy is known to do appalling and barbaric things to him if he is caught. Strange illnesses attack those in a strange land, some that are un-diagnosable.

And if that is not enough, he is constantly followed by cameras and news crews who his own superiors have authorized. They transmit his every move back to a citizenry that knows not his torture but who judges him under the guise of Politically Correctness. Why? To appease whom?
Recent examples illustrate this misguided pejorative and its affect on a whole society. Navy SEALS were sent on a mission to capture and extract the ringleader of those who killed, mutilated, burned, and then hung Americans from a bridge over the Euphrates River. This barbarian, Ahmed Hashim Abed, apparently claims some little boo-boo at some point in his capture. But this is only according to Ahmed after being turned over to the Iraqi authorities. There were no witnesses. These men are now up on charges. Ringleaders of the WTC bombing are being tried in a civilian court. Many in America decry the water boarding or other mild interrogation methods of them while at Gitmo. I went through much more in Special Forces training. An adherent to the religion of Islam was trained as a physiatrist on tax payer’s dollars. Military authorities were remiss in asking questions and taking this individual to task. The result: he killed 13 people and wounded scores more as they were being processed for deployment. Our southern border remains a war zone as the administration hurries to appease Mexican elitists.

Why? The ever spreading forms of Political Correctness? A country filled with illiterate and obese pansies (Seventy five percent of our young are not eligible for the military because of this ridiculous situation)? A nation that has lost is way, its will, its integrity, its fortitude (Less than 2 percent of our nation is active military. Less than 9 percent are veterans.)? A nation who cannot remove their thumbs from their Blackberry, who cannot get their ass off the couch, watching the newest reality show or the latest football game, who cannot get themselves out of bed before noon? A nation of bodies mutilated with ink in an effort to show their individuality? And yet, at that late hour of the day, some find themselves putting on their protesting apparel and rushing to the latest political identity rally or special interest group meeting to have lunch and plan how to change their country’s values to match and indulge their own sick desires?

Yes, like cancer, Political Correctness begins from hundreds of point sources, each with eloquent arguments for its righteousness, for its virtue, for its holy grail and for its supposed point of light to the rest of the world. And it migrates from its original source to distant sites. In the meantime, it not only suppresses the traditional functioning of a culture but slowly destroys it. And like a cancer, if not controlled, will result in death.

At its heart, Political Correctness is denial. Denial has no survival value.

Robert Bork

Bork has written several books, including Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline, in which he argues that the rise of the New Left in the 1960s in the U.S. has undermined the moral standards necessary for civil society, and spawned a generation of intellectuals who oppose Western civilization.

Outliving a Liberal Activist – Part Two

The activism of the 60’s fueled a liberal philosophy far greater than any of its leaders or its followers imagined. It gave young people a feeling of abandoned freedom to circumvent reason and responsibility, to test the system, and to disenfranchise liberty and traditional values through misplaced idealism.

I spent part of my youth enamored with the works of Alan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Like many I was a lost soul, looking for an identity. It led me, at times, into the gutter, into the back streets of poverty, and into the lives of the homeless.

I played bongos for strippers in Juarez, Mexico, slept in the gutter, trolled the streets of the most seedy and dangerous neighborhoods of Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia, and I believed, in my idealism, that my upbringing was nothing short of sanctimonious tripe. My protest was against the establishment and of anything conventional, rigorous, or even normal. I was 24.

I was not alone. Scores of young people in those days began to project politics, religion, and American values as hypocritical. It was a value changing decade throughout Western Civilization. It seemed chic to look for radical ideas of the past and promote their misguided and sociopathic idealism. It all seemed so … well … romantic, charming, and roguish. It was bullshit.

It gave rise to a much more insidious and dangerous progressive movement that intellectuals immersed themselves in with abandon. In the depths of their study they lost sight of common sense, reality, and historical perspective. It became popular to engage the idealism of youth through fevered monologue. While it began as the poetry of a youthful disdain for parental conformity, it became a very complex set of arguments.

Relativism, egalitarianism, multiculturalism, Marxism, all become the daily bread of progressive thought. And with it began the siege on American culture. It all seemed so benign during the 80’s and 90’s, all while a well tutored minority gathered strength. They infiltrated the media where they were given free reign by the first amendment to engage in a brilliant scheme of mind control. Even the assault on traditional Christianity is being joined by Christians. The arguments were so well tuned by that time that people would nod their heads in agreement. It all seemed so true and kind and virtuous. It did as well to the Danish, the French, and much of Europe. And it does now to many Americans.

But Denmark, France, and most of Europe are in the throes of losing their identity. French President Sarkozy has finally been forced to stand up against the onslaught of France’s cultural decay in a recent declaration to the UN, as has the Australian parliament and their Prime Minister. The same movement is happening in other Western countries. .

Who are these liberal progressives? We understand the infiltration of our culture by Muslims, for example, but why the assault from within our own ranks? To understand that, one must understand the origin and goals of liberal progressives. They were fueled largely from the idealism of the 60’s and perpetuated by a new cultural type unto itself. They are people who produce nothing, who do not own businesses, who do no manual labor, who are not farmers, and who are primarily urban. They understand the inner city and the appeal of Utopia speak.

They are self-appointed “progressive” social engineers and Utopian idealists who subvert and rape uninformed souls through an eloquent and insidious attack on their common sense. And with it they seize power, advantage, and control. They infiltrate government, replace the bureaucratic machine with their own, and prey on corporate money in a conspiracy to appropriate economic hegemony. This tandem coupling supports its own cultural regime, far from that of our founding. And with it, the financial elite continue to rape the working family through trickery, using that family's own tax dollar to plunder profit.

But chic is beginning to lose its flavor. Western civilization is beginning to rise in a belated effort to save itself. Those who do produce, who do labor, who do own small businesses, who do live apart from the hustle amid the grime of concrete, asphalt, project housing, and the grid locked traffic of Washington D.C. are taking up their guns and their religion and rebelling.

No, I shall not outlive the activists nor the minorities and special interest groups who shout from rooftops. When Samuel Adams remarked that ““It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless, minority; keen to set brush fires in people’s minds …” he might well have stated the case for the liberal activists and the strides they have made to unravel a culture. But we know that was not the case. He was stating an axiom apropos to his day and the colonist’s situation. Were he alive today his statement would be directed not as a call to arms against British tyranny, but against the onslaught of constitutional adulteration, at the unwieldy growth of government, at the ever increasing and ratcheting of taxation, and at the fevered efforts of fascist statists to subvert an entire cultural to satisfy their own misguided dementia and profit taking from working America.

Yes, I am running out of heart beats. The mindlessness of political correctness and the clever admonishment of protest is a combination too tightly woven within our complex social structure, as broken as it might be, for the successful rise of a people or for a call to arms any time soon to combat a clever tyranny.

When I finally came to my senses and realized the profane and sociopathic ideology of liberal activism, I ran for the hills, or the rice paddies as it were. Like it or not, agree with it or not, it was time for me to do it or get off the pot (pun not intended). Truth is, I was not smart enough to know if the damned thing was right or wrong, but I had to sleep with myself at night. Helping young GI’s in the Asian jungle seemed more truthful than helping them with purulent protests in the midst of long haired yippee clowns assailing Chicago.

It remains apropos to quote a fella named Jefferson once again:

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” Thomas Jefferson

And from a lady friend who infers that I might be plagiarizing:

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. - Edward R. Murrow

Alan Ginsberg and Jerry Rubin



“Johnny Nolan has a patch on his ass”

Kids chase him
thru screendoor summers

Thru the back streets
of all my memories

Somewhere a man laments
upon a violin

A doorstep baby cries
and cries again
like
a
ball
bounced
down steps

Which helps the afternoon arise again
to a moment of remembered hysteria

“Johnny Nolan has a patch on his ass”

Kids chase him

–Lawrence Ferlinghetti (A Coney Island of the Mind)

Outliving a Liberal Activist – Part One

It was 1968 when I took a bit of a side trip from a camp in Southeast Asia, took a taxi to a suggested hotel, and was walking through the lobby. It was the first television set I had seen since leaving the states several months earlier. Watching TV was not in my job description. But, what the hell, there it was. I was at first confused by what I saw on the tube. A young fellow with long, fuzzy hair was speaking, rather yelling, very animatedly. After some concentrated effort, I realized that he was speaking out against the war and against me as a warrior. His name was Jerry Rubin. He seemed a joke to me, but in the ensuing months he and his followers became anything but a joke.

Rubin not only protested the war, but also those of us who participated in it.

Rubin has since passed on. Luckily, I, who was part of what he protested, keep on going. His pal, Abbie Hoffman, has passed away as well, his demise taken as a suicide. David Dellinger followed suit in 2004. There were other activist leaders at the meeting: Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale. Known as the Chicago Eight, some continued such activities throughout their lives. Two at least were awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience or some other similar accolade.

People have to applaud their dedication to whatever nebulous goal their protests were aimed. However, some became businessmen, entrepreneurs, and/or teachers, and were subjected to hostility from previous followers as traitors (to their cause). It was not these eight who shaped our present society in any case. Indeed, it is those thousands who minds those activists shaped. And it is those minds that are setting policy and indoctrinating our children today.

In large part their world was not only one of American anarchism, it was antiestablishmentarianism, a movement against any form of “the system” anywhere, and it was through not only hostility but irresponsible, juvenile, and comic antics. Rubin, in particular, was more enamored with the fun and visibility of the act than with its content.

Their overall social disdain came, sometimes, as much from cowardice as a need for fame. While they did not want war, while they did not want to put their lives in danger, apparently part of a noble cause, they did not respect the death or sacrifice of those who chose to help their fellow Americans who were already slogging through the rice paddies.

These were the seeds of American discontent with tradition, with public faith, with the sanctity of marriage, with the right to life of unborn infants, with the free market place, with the right to own property, with conservative free press and speech, and with self determination. And these seeds were planted throughout the western world as young men and women took up the activist sword in Europe as well.

But my outliving such liberal activism now seems an impossibility. The many thousands whose minds they influenced now fill the halls of our congress, our administration, our universities, our high schools, and our elementary schools. They fill our institutions, our churches, our commerce, and almost every facet of the social structure of Western Civilization.

It has been 41 years since I sat in front of that TV set and pondered the comic antics of cowardice. It has been 41 years since I saw young men die while others at home strutted their disdainful and disrespectful routines within the judicial system, thumbing their noses at America. In later years these activists were given kudus and awards from progressive intellectuals while their counterparts, the soldiers, lay still in the muck of a hot and humid jungle, dead and forgotten.

Did they protest to save those young men? I think not. They protested for the sake of protesting, for the visibility it gave them, for the disdain they held for the generation that bore them. It was a wonderful lark. But in their protest they were responsible for the lives of many who fell. Can only a soldier understand that?

When I left for Southeast Asia in 1968, people would stop their cars and shake my hand, offer me a ride or a steak dinner. On my return in 1969, our country had turned its back on us. These activists had been successful in turning the American people against us. Ironically, hardly anyone would admit to being in Vietnam or talk about it in those days. While 2,709,918 souls were true Vietnam vets, 9,492,958 now falsely claim to have served in Vietnam. Why this sudden popularity, enough to have people lying about their service, even building their careers on it? See the book Stolen Valor. It shows how people claiming to be vets with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can collect VA money monthly the rest of their lives. Not only that, once the venom of the Jerry Rubins, Abbie Hoffmans, Alan Ginsberbs, Jane Fondas and others of their ilk had passed, it became macho to say one was in the war.

Though times and people are fickle, the changes brought about by such people as Alan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti fermented through the generations of our youth. In my youth, as a philosophy student at the university, I thought these people, particularly Ferlinghetti, innovative, daring, romantic, and gave a young man an identity for which we all seek after leaving the family nest. But my mind changed as I realized that society will tolerate only a certain amount of decadence. Subconsciously, though not consciously, I came to understand that American society continues into deeper decadence simply by redefining its terms. And thus, over time, primarily because of the activism of the 60’s, society gave free reign to pornography, homosexuality, sexual profanity and promiscuity, social activism, anarchy, and movements against every facet of American culture, tradition, and values. Certainly, what was not tolerated 40 years ago is quite normal today. And it is because these same activists have used our very freedom to allow such decadence that they have impugned the concept of liberty and the traditional fabric of our values.

Are we free to display our Christian/Judeo faith and heritage publically? Atheists, activists, and those few who misinterpret separation of church and state say no. Are we free to display and promote pornography? Our liberal judicial system and activists says yes. Are we free to say our fallen were murdered by Muslim Terrorists? Activists and the politically correct cowards say no. This disparate list is so large now that it becomes not a bruise but a cancer upon a nation.

These activist sentiments spur government expansion in an effort to take over our lives. The concept of liberty has been twisted, adulterated, and manipulated in such a way that traditional American values are eroding one bite at a time.

I see people in the ER or hospital who have multiple, elaborate tattoos, piercings, an expensive cell phone or Blackberry, and smoking. They have no job and are not looking for one. Most spend their evenings drinking beer. Their clothes are below their buttocks, their shoes expensive Niki’s, and their designer shorts sport a crotch almost to their knees. Their knowledge of American history is dull and void, their pride, if they have any, displaced.

“Our nation’s health care crisis in not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. It is crisis of culture – a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one’s self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. A culture that thinks I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me.” Starner Jones, MD

Self-appointed “progressive” social engineers and Utopian idealists have subverted and raped our souls through a quite eloquent and insidious attack on our common sense.

And in such times as these, what would people of conscience do?

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” Thomas Jefferson

“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless, minority; keen to set brush fires in people’s minds …” Samuel Adams

You cannot continue to deny that wolves are upon you and still expect your liberty to survive.

Karl Marx

Marxists believe that Marxism describes the true potential of human beings, and that this potential can be fulfilled in collective freedom after the Communist revolution has removed capitalism's constraints and subjugations of humanity.
“In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things."

“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world, Unite!" Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Communist Manifesto.

The Ever Changing, Changeless World

In a recent article, I made small references to the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. An acquaintance, after reading the article, complained that the Categorical Imperative, the part of which I was referencing, was both bullshit and flimflam. He then made the observation that I did not understand Kant in any case. As it turns out, he wrote his doctorial thesis on Kant. I concede to his admonitions.

It is interesting to note that the young Marx was an avid reader and proponent of both Kant and Voltaire as well. One might speculate whether Marx understood them either. The mature Marx departed from much of the ideology of Kant, making way for his own form of the dialectic, for which Engels gave him great praise.

All were social manipulators in their own way. All argued with the status quo concerning religion, social interrelation, economics, and moral perspective. They were the radicals of their day, whose time, effort, and energy were wholly directed toward contradiction. They were determined writers about the ideas of social class, organized religion, and the essence of moral behavior.

Central to Marxi’s thinking was the thesis of class struggle and revolution, a result of the glaring economic disparity between the have’s and have not’s of his day. Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto has been the bible for revolutionary radicals of every country and every decade since shortly after it was written. Like Mein Kampf it directs radicals in the aversion to and overthrow of the status quo.

In every age, class has inevitably immerged through one social dynamic or another. Over time the distance between classes grows, causing an ever increasing dislike of one for the other. Different seasons use different terms such as “the working class”, “minority”, “proletariat”, “whiteness”, “capitalist.” But all are directed at those who appear to be in control either by their wealth, status, or position of power. And each, as Marx, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and others who were revolutionaries have done, work tirelessly to overthrow the status quo. In many cases, it matters not what the establishment is, simply that it has to be changed. And this occurs as the “apparent” class chasm grows.

Obama offered up the maxim that America is the greatest country on earth, help me change it. I paraphrase, but the meaning is the same. This is certainly a Marxist contradiction, and though it seemed benign at the time, its meaning is becoming quite clear as the days unfold. As a community organizer, Obama worked in areas where poverty is prevalent, literacy is in question, and welfare is the norm. His background was steeped in Marxist principles as was that of many of those with whom he surrounded himself.

But history is rife with such radicalism. While America, at Obama’s insistence, is the greatest nation on earth, it, still, must be changed? Why? Because some have and some don’t? But is there not contradiction there as well?

Historically, and currently, many people in other nations do not have access to the “rule of law”, the liberty to chose one’s path, the means to advance one’s station through hard and productive work, freedom of speech, the right to self defense, and a free market economy. Yet the radical Marxists who have found their way into the government do not believe such liberties pertain to those for whom they speak. Interestingly enough, not one of them is in any way a part of the class they appear to represent. Why is that? Because they realize it is from that class they can manipulate, encourage, and pursue the necessary votes to gain admittance to the throne of power.

Alexis de Tocqueville recognized that something different was being created in America. It was not following the old and established authoritarian rule of Europe. While the founding fathers were slow, sometimes reluctant, to shed the ways (sometimes evils) of the past, through recognition of their faults, they overcame them. And now, in today’s America, anyone can prosper and live with dignity and liberty. Is it not simply a matter of determination? But that is only one way to power. There is another, and that other is through deceit.

One can build a platform that caters to the poor, the infirm, the supposed trodden upon, and the bleeding heart liberal. They need only find someone to blame, and they have. These principles worked for Marx, Hitler, Mao, et al. And once they gain that power, it is easy to gain more power by the usurpation of liberties, the appointment of radicals of like mind, and by the expansion of government filled with Marxists sympathizers.

Marx was, indeed, open about his aims. The Obama radicals remain anything but transparent about theirs.

The truth of the matter is that this is all a bit silly when one understands that we are, in fact, governed by the money changers, and the game we play is a bit laughable.

You cannot continue to deny that wolves are upon you and still expect your liberty to survive.

Immanuel Kant

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Immanuel Kant: Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals

God and Liberty

I am an agnostic. Modern day philosophers call that Soft Atheism. At the same time, I am a strong defender of Judeo-Christian values, public faith, the many icons and totems that represent our Judeo-Christian culture, and the principles those concepts instilled in the traditional American fabric.

People have the notion that all atheists are or can be immoral, since the absence of a deity means as well that there is no accountability, thus why the need for morals? Poppycock. Most people want to make a decent living, independent of authoritarian rule. They want the best for their families. Most see the benefit of morals, of a set of values, and of a way of life that promotes their and their family’s well being. I am lucky to live in such a society. I have no desire to change it, impede it, or overthrow it. I want my children and grandchildren to have at least the same quality of life that I have had, or better.

Judeo-Christian values are fundamental to America and to the quality of American life. Without them, it is suspect to say that one is an American. The nation was created to rid itself of the secular and authoritarian forms of government that existed in other countries. America is a republic and is thus based on the “rule of law.” Over the past 20 odd decades, most of those laws were made using Judeo-Christian values and common sense. Yet, over the past 50 years, the rule of law has become something quite different. Are we willing to sacrifice our children to the noble yet misguided ideals of socialism and fascism?

American Liberty has survived because of its God connection and concept. There is ample evidence of that claim. One need only study the founding principles and documents. The champions of Christianity are not always as moral as they should be, however, and hardly pious enough to throw stones at others. The cross we bear has many thorns: Slavery, our treatment of the American Indian, and the Mexicans of the Southwest are but a few. But do not mistake the actions of either individuals or governments as the authors of our founding principles. We cannot change the past, but we can affect the future.

There are individuals within and without the government who are intent on redefining and changing our founding principles. Consciously or unconsciously, those with power to affect change are not only corrupt, dictatorial, and authoritarian, but also intent on dealing the deck over and over in their favor. Money is their power. While they remain exempt from the efforts of private individuals, they at the same time force municipal and state governments to comply with their wishes: Do our bidding or lose out.

That same strategy is used day after day in the Obama administration. And with it, they increase the size and authority of government every day. The idea is easy enough to grasp. They do it for control. But of what? The lives and liberty of those citizens they now feel are their subjects. Requiring the approval of government is no different than controlling one’s liberty. We are told that some controls offer security. We are told that controls will offer better health care. We are told that spending taxpayers money will enhance our lives. We are told that controlling the environment will enhance our quality of life. We are told that giving up our 2nd amendment rights will result in less loss of life. We are not fools. We don’t mind being told. We don’t mind acting on those needs that we see need reformation. But we don’t want government controlling it. Nor was control the principle by which this country was founded.

Americans want to be left alone to act on their own decisions. To act on that which is a priori knowledge, i.e., known independently of experience, and which guides moral behavior through pure practical reason itself.

It has been tried in other countries and each time has failed. Socialism, communism, fascism, et al, have been miserable failures over the centuries. The commonality and irony was that each gave up the idea of certain principles of individual creativity, merit, and productivity through hard work. America struggled for decades to hold on to those concepts. Yet the new administration wants to control our lives by socialistic principles that undermine each of these. They are counter to American Judeo-Christian values and liberty.

Neither the courts, the state legislature, nor any of the 3 national branches of government have the right to subordinate or overturn a rule of law that is predicated on the liberty of its citizens.
Conservative values include limited government, lower taxes, strong national defense, and free-market economics. Each is predicated on and for individual liberty. And the premise for each is a strong Judeo-Christian value set.

The lure of easy money in hard times captured the votes of many of even the most conservative among us. Willing to sacrifice the future for the present, the nation turned yet another corner in an attempt to appease a progressive minority’s march against traditional values. As it seeks to weaken our religious heritage, so does it work tirelessly to undermine our liberty.

Laugh as you will at such dogma. You do yourself and your progeny a disfavor by denying who you are.

Van Jones and Family

America, A Country Controlled By Professional Activists

Anti-Racism for Global Justice is part of the Colours of Resistance network. COR is a grassroots network of people who consciously work to develop anti-racist, multiracial politics in the movement against global capitalism. We are committed to helping build an anti-racist, anti-imperialist, multiracial, feminist, queer and trans liberationist, anti-authoritarian movement against global capitalism. We are committed to integrating an anti-oppression framework and analysis into all of our work.

“For more comments about our work and a sampling of the list of organizations and campuses where we have done workshops, click here. “

Anti-Racism for Global Justice333 Valencia Street, Suite 325San Francisco, CA 94103415-431-4204 x 210ChrisCrass@mutualaid.org

Obama’s Czars are growing in numbers by the month. It is interesting, if not frightening, to look at their backgrounds, their beliefs, and the energy with which they approach their determination to change America. One such example is a black man who rose quickly to prominence within the community organizer movement. Van Jones is married to a white woman, is lauded by Leonardo DiCaprio, yet insists on decentering whiteness. It appears that Jones is doing just that on a very personal level. Although his group is fronted by “saving the environment organizations”, their theme, by some, is highly weighted by an insistence on the abolishment of the white race.

One cannot fault the supposed nobleness of their cause. Bringing people out from under the bonds of poverty appears to be a loving endeavor. But these people never talk about just how that is to be done. The answer is that they do it by tearing down everything that America is. Thence Obama’s campaign motto of Change?

Jones and those of his kind remain convinced that whites are racists, if often only on a subconscious level. They make no mention of minorities being so. I have worked with Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians all my life and had no particular feelings about them one way or the other, or for that matter, the whites around me. All could do the same job as I, and they could function in society without creating chaos. I have never met a man who was willing to work hard who did not succeed. Is that not enough? Well … no. Not according to the Anti-Racism for Global Justice group and other organizations like them.

People like Jones may be champions of the poor. They may be the priests of social change for the better. They may be honest. But they do not lead us beyond their own noses, for they know not the real and long-term consequences of their actions. Jones was appointed Czar over Green, his promise being that positively affecting the environment by going green will give people jobs, saving them from poverty. A noble undertaking. But there his noble endeavor breaks down.

Jones’ dream is gaining ground exponentially. Why? Because he now has the government behind him. It is one thing to try to help people, if help is what they need. It is quite another to have the government not only endorse your efforts to do so but to force and then enforce them on society as a whole.

I use Jones here only as example. I singled him out because he was brought to my attention. But when one begins researching the background of these Czars, one is suddenly stricken with a realization that is abhorrent to traditional America. The potential for encroachment, intrusion, and control over every American’s life begins to form an even stronger, unbreakable alliance with authoritarianism and fascism, approaching the ideology of either of two evils: The empowerment of weakness or its antithesis, the ideology and precursor to identity politics like those of early Marx, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. It is interesting to learn that although Jones’ young years were spent as an activist, Maoist, Marxist, and Communist, he has come to realize that what he works to accomplish can be done neither by organizers nor the government, but only by capitalist entrepreneurs.

Such movements always have one or more scapegoats, evils that are behind all that is bad to those who believe themselves to be oppressed. In this case those evils are whiteness, corporations, the wealthy, and capitalism. If they can level the playing field, reduce the wealth of the wealthy, reduce the poverty of the poor, and integrate the races into one, the world will be a better place.

But this assumes a world where everyone is equal in their views, their ability, or that they even care about this great utopia they hope to create. Some were simply criminals before they understood what Jones or the Anti-Racism for Global Justice group was all about. And were they to understand it fully, they would not care. Some simply don’t care about creating wealth or having any at all. Some simply don’t care about being benevolent, kind, charitable, or virtuous. They want something for nothing, and if the government will give it to them at someone else’s expense, great. If not, they will simply take it either through the force of a knife at a victim’s throat or the enforcement of their will by the government.

What they desire is to force their will on you. And if the government can be changed or made to enforce that will, they are more than happy to let them. No reasonable person in our society wants to revert to the days of slavery. Yet they seem willing to allow the government to become the thought police, the enforcers of someone’s will against another’s, to reduce your liberty by having to comply with regulations on social interaction, if not belief. It is one thing to dislike black people, quite another to make that a crime. And what is slavery but the complete control of another’s liberty to think, chose, and act as he wishes without victimizing someone else’s liberty.

As it happens, the new God Czar, Joshua DuBois, is just 26 years old, and is charged with domestic poverty, responsible fatherhood, reducing the need for abortion and preventing unintended pregnancy, and interreligious dialogue and cooperation. What does that mean, interreligious dialogue and cooperation? Will it mean that Christians must accept, for example, the Islamic faith or else … what? He will only accomplish what the administration wants by further reducing the liberty of American citizens through the forced acquiescence of America’s majority.

Would it be naïve to assume that hundreds of new regulations controlling people’s lives, their interpersonal relationships, commerce, wealth, decisions, religion, public faith, and the creation of huge staffs would be the outcome of these commissar’s power over our liberty? Government’s job is to protect liberty, not to mold it to their liking. Will it be Jones’ job to see that I become a good little communist, that I succumb to his ideology that decentering whiteness is good for America and the world, that capitalism is oppressive and must be overcome, and that protecting the environment is all about reducing poverty while cleaning up the atmosphere … and is he now in a position to force them on me?

What gave rise to these activists who produce nothing, but who contribute to America only by their dislike for it? I believe thinking people know the answer.

You can choose to ignore these thoughts. You can choose to deny that they exist. You can chose to believe that such things can’t happen in America. But such denial has no survival value.

Paul Tillich

PARADIGMS

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." --Adolf Hitler


During the formative years of my formal education in philosophy and theology, I approached life, society, religion, and the search for a “rebirth of wonder” under the veil of a penniless depression. It was also during that pitiful sojourn that I discovered my savior, a first order autodidact. He, his wife, and two young sons became my family at the end of each day at the university. He attached plywood and tar paper to the outside of a humble gazebo behind his house, installed one light, a tiny bed, and a small desk. The remaining space was barely large enough to turn around. There was no heat. I often returned from the university at one in the morning, simply to spend less time in the near zero temperatures. I remember, having finally gotten to sleep, that when I moved, the sheets next to my body were fiercely cold, and I would awake with a start. They provided coffee, two meals a day, and with the few pennies I scraped together, I bought a cigarette rolling machine, paper, and two large tins of Prince Albert tobacco. I was a faithful but somewhat belligerent student until I ran into Carl Paul Reinhold Neibuhr, the author of the serenity prayer and a prince of American Protestant theology. While it was he who brought about my downfall, it was Paul Tillich (pictured above) who set me free:

“If faith is understood as belief that something is true, doubt is incompatible with the act of faith. If faith is understood as being ultimately concerned, doubt is a necessary element in it.”

My benefactor and I spent long hours discussing philosophy, religion, politics, economics, and history. He still haunts my space some 40 years hence, writing in a website The World According to Me. He remains a genius, seeming to gain more brain cells and knowledge with each passing year.

One such discussion centered around the concept of paradigms: A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, particularly in an intellectual discipline. And to this definition we apply the traditional American premise: Capitalistic economics, the fundamentals of individual liberty, and ecclesiastical piety together with those icons supporting a clear presence of Judeo-Christian public faith. To adjudicate them required the notion of governance and government. Yet the American paradigm is undergoing a shift, carrying us in a direction alien to the traditional values, mores, and moral ground upon which this country was found.

As of this writing, there is much furor over the Health Care Bill, the pros and cons of it, and the apparent anger of many who attend the town hall meetings. There are strong feelings on both sides about a bill that is both incomprehensible and gargantuan. Is health care reform needed? Is this bill the answer if it is? A young man recently told me that “big business is second only to government in corruption, greed, and dishonesty.” I suspect that is true. However, it appears that government now has power over business. Sometimes one does not see the forest for the trees. The fundamental argument is not with the Health Care Bill, although like any symptom, it might be good to eliminate it. The much deeper crisis is the expansion and direction of government. People whine over the prospect of the taxpayer having to pay back 54 trillion dollars of government spending. They will never have to pay it back. Common sense is often a prize possession. The crisis is not in the paying back in any case, it is in the power it gives government. The bailout and stimulus packages expand the government’s authority over business and the people employed by it. The appointment of Czars over many facets of American social interaction, economics, health, religion, and the environment expand not only government but its power, its authority, and its control over every citizen. The rule of law that forms the essence of our Republic is being adulterated and manipulated to please factions whose ideology is foreign to America’s founding principles.

That corruption, greed, and dishonesty are part and parcel of a capitalist economic system did not escape our founding fathers. Nor were they unaware of government collusion, alien to the rule of law and the documents they developed to curtail it.

That is not to say that people should not fear the Health Care Bill and Cap & Trade, for surely they should. The bigger fear is the cause: the government’s ever-increasing encroachment on the private sector and the people. Indeed, is it not naïve to believe that the government is the people and that our appointed representatives work for us? Certainly it is naïve, and it is so because the term “people” has no remaining meaning without being defined by the traditional paradigm. By, For, and Of the people is not simply a struggling paradigm, it has flown like so many leaves upon the wind, carried away by those who do not appreciate or understand its meaning, its relevance, or the consequences of its loss.

Not only is the government obese beyond comprehension, it struggles every day to inflate its size and exert its power over individual liberty. Be ever Vigilant is a phrase that has never been more necessary nor more poignant. Fight not the sore with band aids; fight with conviction its cause.

I invite you to read, once again, the quote at the beginning of this diatribe. While it appears caring and its promise noble, it was the precursor to one of the most evil and dominating powers the world has ever known. It was the “people” of the Reich who became as we, undefined, and with an ideology they did not comprehend.

May I remind you again that: All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. So, without further discourse, say baaa! to those sheep you find steadfastly chained by denial.

L. Scott Smith: America Unraveling

Jonah Goldberg: Liberal Fascism

The Mantra of “Change”


Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the “problem” and therefore defined as the enemy. I will argue that contemporary American liberalism embodies all of these aspects of fascism. Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism.

The mind of human kind does not flow softly through the soul of society. Its rapids gut the sand below the rocks, digging ever-deeper holes. It will not leave well enough alone, but continuously attempts to fix that which is not broken. As ill equipped for social structure as man might be, America, for the past two hundred years, has accomplished more than any society in history. Among others, these successes have encompassed freedom, economic security, the exercise of Christian public faith, the willingness and struggles of our young to keep us free, and the potential to rise to the heights of our dreams.

Yet, for decades, its academicians, those among us who have proven themselves as intellectuals and gained tenure within our universities, have worked to destroy it. But they are not without dispute among the highly educated and thoughtful. L. Scott Smith’s book, American Unraveling, A Politically Incorrect Analysis of Public Faith and Culture, for example, demonstrates by exhaustive research the path of America’s deception by liberal ideology. Smith is a seminary-educated and ordained minister, doctor of philosophy, and a lawyer. He carefully explores and defines the state of our nation’s culture, exposes the theory of the “godless” Constitution, shows how the nation’s immigration policy and the multiculturalism it has spawned are erecting a “Tower of Babel”, explains why the formative principles of the philosophy of liberalism are logical gobbledygook, and how the United States Supreme court is galloping toward “krytocracy.”

One would think that common sense would prevail over the madness of nonsense. But the principles of the liberal left are not without nuance. On the fringes of its philosophy is the promise of utopia, illusive though it might be. As was shown by Jim Jones, David Koresh, Hitler, Mussolini, and a host of others of their ilk, the philosophy of tribal unity is fraught with an idealism that is difficult to dismiss. It can be shown to be loving, philanthropic, fair minded, and leveling. It punctuates racism, yet is steaming with it. As the traditional boundaries of morality, values, public faith, and economic health shrink, our government is taking full advantage of its weaknesses.

The government acts with impunity to regulate every aspect of our lives. There is reluctance to severe this occupation of our liberty. The actions taken by an administration of “change” are welcome by legions of people who do not understand their consequences. Many in the country did not vote for the ideals of progressive liberalism; they simply voted against the last administration. But what they unwittingly got was a progressive march toward socialism. But is it socialism or fascism? Does it matter? Most certainly it does, because fascism can be far more evil than socialism. The latter is the antithesis of capitalism and is marked by collectivism and the slippery slope toward communism. Fascism, on the other hand, leads to tyranny, repression, and dictatorship.

But America is rife with factions and enclaves that voted for a liberal identity. Not understanding the ideals of the American experiment, they were ripe to embrace the “touchy, feely” premise that liberalism preaches. It signifies hope to those who envision a relief from their economic woes that they see as oppression. It plays to the emotions of artists. It holds accountable what they see as the privileged white majority. It is the final solution to almost every fringe element in the country. How can liberal fascism be any worse than what America has supposedly dealt to these people? Oh, but it can and it will be.

Life without liberty is life without hope. As the tentacles of big government begin to squeeze freedom from its citizens with force, regulation, and social pressure, the vision of success, economic freedom, individual and public faith, the free exercise of will, and even the most mundane of life’s decisions will be monitored and directed by the government, the definition of which is no longer the people, but the purveyors of behemoth, bureaucratic paperwork. The bureaucratic machine is already immense, ambivalent, divisive, and so removed from social interaction and understanding that the lives of the many are being run by the misguided hegemony of the few. It is a cancerous cloth so tightly woven that cutting through it has become impossible.

Paraphrasing Goldberg, the individual will not have the right to not be healthy. The state will be obligated to force you to be healthy for your own good. Environmentalism will give license to moral bullying and intrusion. L.Scott Smith writes, “An essential goal of the traditionalist involves curtailing the excesses of liberalism, which has led to a self-seeking citizenry motivated by the material and enslaved to the secular.”

Morality will operate under a new and glorious paradigm of relativistic card shuffling. The playing field will be leveled along with merit outside the sponsoring goodness of government. And life will be the drool of mediocrity. At last the march toward social equilibrium will force us all into the holiness of the third world. Everyone will be happy in his or her own manufactured demise.

Be wary, for this was exactly the tactic of Hitler, Mussolini, and other fascistic regimes throughout history.

Denial is the emperor of sheep.

Washington crossing the Delaware

“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpation of the national ruler, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the ruler of an individual State. In a single State, if the person entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measure for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair. The usurpers, clothed with the forms of legal authority, can too often crush the opposition in embryo.”

“It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority.” Publius, Number 28, The Federalist

Helotism

A conservative’s comments:

While Alexander Hamilton’s sentiment is one I can agree with, the trouble is knowing where to start the fight. The statist enemy is vague and formless; they are as prevalent as the air we breathe. The seeds of this pervasive network were planted long ago, and now many varieties of the roots of the evil system have invaded every home. The vast majority of the levers of power are not in the hands of the elected officials but of appointed bureaucrats. Special interests, lobbying firms, and labor unions remain in their places to ambush new congressmen on the rare occasion that they are replaced. They are increasingly rarely replaced (“held accountable”) due to gerrymandering. Speaking of gerrymandering, you ain’t seen nothing yet now that Rahm is in control of the census!

The point is, if some simpleton were to decide that it was time to take America back to the founding principles by force, there is not a single person, institution, branch of government, or special interest group that stands out as the obvious first target. Eliminating the top 10 or even 50 leading statists or statist groups would not even make a dent in the ways and speeds with which statism is encroaching on the culture. Frankly, the only way forward is to win hearts and minds with good conduct and good logic, looking for those “teachable moments” when individual leftists catch a glimpse of the true nature of the Emperor’s new robes.

All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. And we good men did nothing as wave after wave of cultural evils swept over our society. Our ability to appeal to logic and reason is useless against the typical Obama voter, as 14 years of indoctrination in government schools is specifically designed to produce unquestioning, compliant workers incapable of critical thought. They know how to sort out their feelings on a myriad of issues, but they can’t work out simple problems of cause and effect. Most have been converted to the new state religion of environmentalism. Most believe that ethics are situational, the ends justify the means, that the majority should universally prevail over the individual, and that proposed new leftist government programs will miraculously be efficiently proctored by angelic beings unsusceptible to sloth, graft, and corruption.

On top of all that, the typical American “conservative” is not actually a free moral agent or a free thinker. It isn’t learning new stuff that is so hard, it is deprogramming oneself and unlearning all the myths, half-truths, and PC garbage that was almost subliminally implanted due to the earliness of its insertion. A conservative is willing to speak out, unless they are at work or someplace where the PC police will come down on them like a ton of bricks. Until this changes, nothing else will. Conservative and Republican are not synonyms, but many people think they are, and so they consider their biannual pulling of the ‘R’ lever their sufficient contribution to the cause. Much work remains to be done to root the corruption and unconstitutional and fascist policies from the Republican party. Having a pro-life plank does not make the Republican party the party of God.

Turning the tide is going to require on an individual basis braver outspokenness, conviction in the truths of limited government and laissez-faire economics, clear and concise articulation, the wisdom and humility to brush off boilerplate ad hominem arguments, and an ability to patiently wait for, spot, and seize those teachable moments in the lives of government-indoctrinated individuals. We must realize that children are no longer being taught about the greatness of our founding. The founders are actually cast as villains, depending on their interactions with slaves and Indians. We must be versed in topics such as Natural Law, Austrian Economics, and the fallen nature of man, and ready to be a history teacher at a moment’s notice. Focus on the basics. Leave advanced topics such as the evils of central banking, judicial review, and foreign policy for some other year. Some will risk their jobs and their status in their communities. Many will risk their family relationships. All must be willing to risk something in order to save our grand republic.

Read Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg and Liberty and Tyranny by Mark Levin. Go to mises.org and brush up on the many errors of Keynesian economic theory. Be sure to read L.Scott Smith’s book, American Unraveling, a Politically Incorrect Analysis of Public Faith and Culture.

Also, never forget that the root cause of all of our troubles is a morality crisis. There is a spiritual dimension to our present age. We have set ourselves adrift from earlier absolutes of right and wrong, with obviously disastrous results. Nevertheless, even the most stalwart Obama supporter has a law of transcendence written upon their heart, in parlance we call this a conscience. Most people begin to see more clearly once they get beyond their indoctrinations, emotions, and the party line talking points.

H. L. Mencken September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956

Quotes:

"Democracy gives the beatification of mediocrity a certain appearance of objective and demonstrable truth. The mob man, functioning as citizen, gets a feeling that he is really important to the world - that he is genuinely running things. Out of his maudlin herding after rogues and mountebanks there comes to him a sense of vast and mysterious power—which is what makes archbishops, police sergeants, the grand goblins of the Ku Klux and other such magnificoes happy. And out of it there comes, too, a conviction that he is somehow wise, that his views are taken seriously by his betters - which is what makes United States Senators, fortune tellers and Young Intellectuals happy. Finally, there comes out of it a glowing consciousness of a high duty triumphantly done which is what makes hangmen and husbands happy."

"The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

"The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."


THE FALL OF AMERICA

Struggles are not new to America. I am referring here to the struggles we go through to maintain our economic health, our citizen’s freedom, our public faith, and our traditional values that made us the richest and most powerful nation in the history of man.

There are problems now, struggles as it were, facing America that, although not exactly new, are escalating at an exponential pace. These problems are easily named: Relativism, multiculturalism, socialism, egalitarianism, totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and fascism. Each presents a formidable problem for traditional America. Which is the worst of these and which will defeat us first?

If we look to the future, we might name multiculturalism. Muslims believe that, like Europe, they will take over the West, including America, without firing a shot. They will succeed by simple procreation. We repeat ourselves at 1.7 children per family, while they do so at 8 children per family. When that happens, our freedom will be lost to Sharia law.

We could name relativism, the philosophy that morality is dependent on circumstances, culture, and the right to do as one wishes, however aberrant that might be. Who can say what is right and wrong in a complex world? In a progressive world, the idea of the constant principles of the Constitution becomes outdated and counterproductive. It is part of the bowtie crowd, as tattoo enthusiasts like to say, whose ideas are dying in the dust.

We might postulate that “Global Governance” is not only the solution to the world’s environmental health but all other ills the world struggles with as well. And herein lies the looter’s philosophy reminiscent of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, a New World order that cries for a level playing field among the world’s businessmen. An idiotic idea that plays to the fair treatment of people to the demise of talent and productivity.

We could allude to our bending toward socialism, an appealing ideology to those who want government to take care of them: A system that demeans merit and productivity. Americans have become consumers, yet their greatness came from industrial giants whose productivity was unparalleled in history. We have given our productivity away, sold to the highest bidder, in favor of materialist squandering.

Or we could mention, to everyone’s disbelief if not chagrin, that we are in the midst of economic ruin. The question is, which of these problems will promulgate the fall of America first?

Forecasting the profusion of alternate cultures into our own by Central and South America, Asia, and the Middle East, experts put the downfall of America at approximately 50 years from now.

The rise of left-wing, liberal socialism is racing on a fast track to capturing America’s political identity. This movement dovetails with multiculturalism and must precede it. So … 20 years, if not tomorrow? With the election of Obama to the king’s throne of Pelosi, Reid, Holder, and others of their ilk, we might be there today.

While all of these problems cast clear and present dangers to America, our failing economy has reached critical mass. Our budget deficit is beyond repair. No amount of taxes will save us. Ending the war in Iraq and Afghanistan will not save us. Nothing will save us. The most apparent deficit is our federal leadership. They are gutless cowards. They will not save us. They cannot meet their promises, promises they only made to illicit votes, preying on our own ignorance. They knew they were cowards just as well as they knew they were politicians elected to represent us. Their cowardice, strangely mixed with arrogance, and profound stupidity has led to the ruin of America.

We need not wait for tomorrow or for that pale horse; we are in the midst of the fall of America as we speak. But with full bellies and an accompany lethargy, if not apathy, we not only don’t see our ruin but believe it can’t happen to us. It is said that people in love do stupid things. Hope is not far removed from love. Both represent an abstract concept that comes from the heart and not the brain. America’s hope is now revealed as stupidity, the result of millions of separate piles of chemicals with egos giving way to the circus barker selling promises.

We have betrayed our industrialists, our entrepreneurs, our innovators, our producers, and our powerful businessmen, whose government should answer to their well being and not the other way around. The return of the back slapping good ol’ boy is better than the bed wetting looters who wish to control our wealth.

The elite among us have become the ardent souls of hypocrisy.

Only by rising up from our denial, only by picking ourselves up from our lethargy, our fear, and our pain, and only by aggressively taking America back can we save ourselves. Only the principles of killology in concert with an intellectual revolution will turn our struggle around before blood runs in the streets.

Denial has no survival value.

Dr. Mortimer J. Adler (December 28, 1902- June 28, 2001). The Institute for Philosophical Research

Quotes:

- A man is not free who is not held responsible for his actions. jlg

- Complete freedom in a whole life would be possible only for an omnipotent being. Practical freedom is a matter of degree dependent both upon external circumstances and upon the nature of our desires. Bertrand Russell

- Some restraints are inevitable, some opportunities must be denied, simply because men have to live with one another and move differently to the attainment of antithetic desires. Harold J. Laski

- Although the necessity of some form of government and law must for the present be conceded, it is important to remember that all law and government is in itself in some degree an evil, only justifiable when it prevents other and greater evils. Hence, the problem we have to consider is not how to do without government, but how to secure its advantages with the smallest possible interference with freedom. Bertrand Russell

The Idea of Freedom

Freedom is an illusive concept and, like many other words we use, is often defined within the construct of those using it. Some have said that if the Constitution and its articles were abolished save the First Amendment, they could rebuild them. Others make a similar claim about the Second Amendment.

Are Liberty and Freedom the same? They are basic concepts like love knowledge, justice, and law. And, according to Mortimer J. Adler, “all make a substantial contribution toward the clarification of the central idea to which they are all related – the idea of man.”

Yet, men are existentially different, living and moving about in alternative realities. Though man is a communal animal, he is alone, occupying that space which no other animal or object occupies. Even so, his movements and decisions are often guided or coerced by external forces beyond his control. Thus his freedom is not absolute.

“The dialectic task is to remove the human element of diversity from the conversation, reporting from a purely objective, impartial, and neutral observation of the facts.” And while that is a noble undertaking, it is almost impossible to do. For example, is one’s freedom restricted or enlarged by the law? Does a socialist nation have more or less freedom than that of a Republic? Is freedom enhanced by more government or by less? The answers differ with perspective and diversity. Can we use language to dig beneath the surface of language to truly engage the thoughts of others?

Can man remove the bonds that tie him to his reality? If one is born and matures within a community, he seldom knows what lies beyond. His identity is tied to the rituals, the culture, and the sacred that reside there. He responds to the laws that tie his community together, those restrictions imposed on all in the community to provide security and reduce chaos to a minimum. And within the community, all else is directed by his freedom to choose within those restrictions. Does the introduction of outsiders marginalize his freedom or provide him with new, broader freedom enhanced by the addition of opportunities he had no knowledge of before?

If we do not agree on definition, we are discussing different subjects. Problematically, our alternative realities force us to define concepts differently. A small group of people were discovered on a Philippine island several years ago. They lived without shelter, simply huddling under trees during rain, spending the rest of their time foraging for food. They did not wear clothes or speak any intelligible language. The tribe had lived there in that manner for hundreds of years but had been reduced to just twelve members. They were the living example of in the introduction to Plato’s Cave. Yet, unlike what had happened so many times before, scientists, archeologists, anthropologists made the decision to leave them alone.

They were ungoverned, had no economy, no laws, and little knowledge beyond what it took to acquire food. They were restricted solely by their environment. Were they free? But, had they not been left alone and forced to be what we call civilized, they would be free from hunger, cold, heat, other animals, and insects. Yet they would be restricted by their inability to cope with a fast paced society that lived beyond their island and by laws they undoubtedly would not understand or see the value of. The list of restrictions on their freedom is almost limitless in our society. Who is freer?

One would believe that in America we do not have such alternative realities. Is it true? Diversity within our culture continues to grow, making it difficult to understand or agree with others who were, as well, introduced into our community. And that diversity is accompanied by the reduction of and imposition of our freedom. The atheist hopes to rid the American community of public faith, or better yet, faith period. The socialist hopes to rid the American community of capitalism, placing rigid guidelines on businessmen, giving his money to those with no penchant to earn their own. A revolutionary president hopes to “change America.” A growing liberal front hopes to deter individual responsibility with the assumption that freedom is enhanced by doing so. The First Amendment, a statement of freedom, is oft times adulterated in its absolution. And in doing so, allows acts that are abhorrent to most people. Whose freedom is being breached?

Though we hope for a peaceful and intellectual revolution, a turning point as it were, back to the community we knew, is it possible? Or is the chasm between our diverse natures too deep to overcome with reason, with dialectic, and with a return to the values of our past? Is America on the verge of violence and bloodshed once again?

The ruthlessness of absolutes is not part of a dynamic society. The Constitution was provided to assume that role. Moving outside its boundaries is leading us down a dangerous path in American History. Can anyone agree that America is freer with countless czars directing the efforts of private business enterprise? Can anyone say that the American Idea of Freedom is safeguarded by our new conciliatory foreign policy? Is debt, the likes of which we have never experienced before, a course or a stabilizing canon upon which America shouts of her freedom?

The Freedom that America holds dear is a standard bearer of the values of her citizens, their culture, their public faith, and their economic system. Those standards are eroding. Multiculturalism, the relativism of the far left, the growth of atheistic activism, the exponential growth of government, and the nationalization of industry are antithetical to freedom.

Statism is raising its ugly head. If one considers Freedom as “circumstantial freedom”; “acquired freedom”; and “natural freedom,” which does it affect? The last freedom might be defined as innate, by virtue of one’s human nature. The first defined as freedom as a result of favorable circumstances, while acquired freedom is a result of a certain state of mind. The move to socialistic doctrine denounces all aspects of man’s freedoms.

Has America become a misnomer? Does the wind lift our flag in the air and pronounce our liberty or our sacrifice?

If you find the promised land, don’t let go. Our fathers left it to us, how can we not hold on for dear life?

Ayn Rand – Born Alissa Rosenbaum, 1905-1982
Quotes:

- The goal of the “liberals”—as it emerges from the record of the past decades—was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus, statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot—by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli. (The goal of the “conservative” was only to retard that process.)

- Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production.

- That the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals—that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government—that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen’s protection against the government.

- Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation’s troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen.

Who Is John Galt?

“John Galt is a fictional charater in Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged. Although he is absent from much of the text, he is the subject of the novel's oft repeated question, "Who is John Galt?", and the quest to discover the answer. As the plot unfolds, Galt is acknowledged to be a creator and inventor who embodies the power of the individual capitalist. He serves as an idealistic counterpoint to the social and economic structure depicted in the novel. The depiction portrays a society based on oppressive bureaucratic functionaries and a culture that embraces the "stifling mediocrity" and egalitarianism of socialistic idealism. In this popular mass ideology, he is a metaphorical Atlas of Greek methology, holding up the world.” Wikipedia.

Rand and Orwell, like many writers, photographers, and painters across our globe, have made use of art forms to put on display their vision of humanity’s social interaction, or intervention as it were. Language, as used by Rand and Orwell, has been and will continue to be the primary medium for social, philosophical, and political communication. Our politicians and university professors do not normally take pictures or paint. The world’s media, however, do. This combined bombardment through the use of modern technology is difficult to do battle with.

Without you having read these authors, the terms Statist, Looter, and Limiter are defined through context and inference in the last blog. Though provocative and interesting, they do not serve our immediate purpose well. If we cannot converse within the confines of a common language, we cannot converse at all.

Exact terms within the fabric of the current government hedgemony is important. The term “Patriot”, for example, is used by both the left and the right (the definition of both of which is vague as well) but often with different meanings. One can say, “He is a criminal, but a Patriot.”, or “Yes, he voted against every war ever faught by America and dodged the draft, but he is a Patriot.” The dictionary defines patriot as “One who loves, supports, and defends one’s country.”, and patriotism as “Love of and devotion to one’s country.” There are many who the government sees as criminals but who would still fit these definitions. There is even logical support for pacifists, draft dodgers, and those who would vote against any war, although others would believe that logic faulty. If a staunch conservative and capitalist were to yell, “Let all patriots gather round and defend what is right.”, it might draw an entirely different crowd had the call to rally been issued by a left-wing socialist.

Even some conservatives stand in disdain of Rand’s strong individualist capitalist personalities. But how far does that disdain go? Beware that it does not go too far, for by it socialism is born.

When I was a young man, I met a genius with whom I became friends. He did not know he was a genius, and to this day I doubt he knows it. But his quotes are filled with poignant irony.

“When I finally get around to writing my personal Declaration of Independence, the last line will be something like, To these principles I pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor, as long as it does not rain, there is nothing good on television, and it is not inconvenient.” LP

And, with the flare of Sherlock Holmes,

“When all sane explanations fail to explain behavior, then insanity must be the truth.” LP

It is with such foreboding that I ponder the inexplicable campaign words of President Obama. I assume I paraphrase. “America is the greatest nation on earth. Help me change it!” And indeed, all the language of Obama is inexplicable. There is little doubt that Obama is a shining example of an alternative reality within my definition of Patriot. There is certainly irony.

And if an Intellectual Revolution is filled with precise and understandable language, and if it is characterized within the principles of Killology, and if it is couched within the traditional confines of America, and yet it fails … what then?

If Ayn Rand is wrong, is she wrong in this?

“I have given it no thought at all and, off-hand, I would say, no, the government shouldn't control guns except in very marginal forms. I don't think it's very important because I don't think it is in physical terms that the decisions and the fate of this country will be determined. If this country falls apart altogether, if the government collapses bankrupt, your having a handgun in your pocket isn't going to save your life. What you would need is ideas and other people who share those ideas and fighting towards a proper civilized government, not handguns for personal protection.”

I invite you to watch the 3 part Ayn Rand interview, which gives some idea of Rand’s Objectivism philosophy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMTDaVpBPR0&NR=1

Although at first shocking, do the points made pave a clear avenue for American economics and the moral ground upon which socialism drowns? Or are we too altruistic to save ourselves?