Friday, January 29, 2016

Establishment Tactics

Very few of the Establishment appear to be honest brokers. Hence I understand the short-term allure of the tactics of Donald Trump. But long term? Really?

Please let examples such as the following serve as a warning (one of many I've received, but I'm providing this one as an abject lesson) to those who want to believe that "someone is working for ME." My letter to them [Heritage] could be sent to Trump and a horde of others. I suspect it will be met with deaf ears if it is even read by anyone.

Dear Christie Fogarty (presuming that's your real name), or anyone who cares for the reputation of Heritage,

Re: Christie Fogarty <info@heritage.org>
"Pascal,

I just stepped out of our final membership team meeting of the month. I wanted to remind you that you haven't renewed your Heritage membership this year. 
You’ve been one of our most dedicated members and I know you wouldn’t want your Heritage membership to expire...."

Heaven forbid that anyone at your institution or others like you would bother to personalize a fund-raising message at least somewhat.

I do not remember what year it was exactly -- I think 1999 or 2000 -- when I last sent you any money.

First of all, I'd say my membership long ago expired and so it is impossible for me not to want it to expire now. In fact once was the only time I sent you anything.  It was because I read of an attempt by the Clinton administration to attack you (I do not recall now the nature of that attack). In retrospect you have forced me to conclude that it was a weak moment on my part. I find it painful to recall. Thank you.

And secondly, but more importantly, since 2000 was the last time I could have sent you anything, how is it possible that I could now be one of you most dedicated members?  The very essence of what Heritage is supposed to stand for is undermined by such a preposterous designation. 

I can hear your best explanation now:
"What we do is so important that we must maintain funding, and past contributors have proven to be future ones, thus we are hoping we can touch you again, so please excuse a little hyperbole." 
In other words: "Our ends justify our means." 

How exactly is that not similar in nature to Nancy Pelosi's "Are you serious? Are you serious?" when asked where in the constitution one could find permission for Obamacare.

I am sadly aware how sophistry is a nasty part of our heritage. Given that the ends justifying the means tactics are being employed by your fundraisers, it would appear sophistry, or at best its useful idiot tool casuistry, have become a mainstay at Heritage.

If you retain a vestige of shame you will rectify this behavior immediately.

At the least one would think that Heritage, which claims to be in the forefront of protecting individuals from large and remote institutions, and a institution in its own rite, could respond favorably to an individual who has caught you employing tactics apparently learned from those you want us to believe you are protecting us. Et tu Heritage?

Your cynicism feeds my skepticism. If your purpose in life is to convince the public that nothing beyond divine intervention can save us, then you are firmly on the road to damnation.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Between the Lines #5 [Age Cap]

All you need to know about your position in the state of American health care today I assert you may discover from two posts, one from 2009, and another from 2014. Both reveal the mindset of the architect of American health care under Barack Obama.

  1.  http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/07/06/electing-god/
  2.  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/

The first is an analysis of what the architect of our current "heath care" system created by presenting a clear examination of his thinking.

The second is an admission by the architect of his own feelings. Twelve pages worth. What do I read between the lines there?
"If my feelings are good enough for me they are good enough for you. Period."

I know from sad experience there are some who will refuse to get this message.

Below is repeated Zeke Emanuel's graph as published in 2008. Those who noticed how it ceases at age 75 thought it was merely a matter of convenience -- nobody knows how far to the right someone might live, right? Right?

Well, it wasn't until 2014 that he openly disclosed his wishes. It is hard not to conclude now that the graph ending at 75 was not merely incidental. It's surely been his and Obama's intended policy.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Defeating the Progs and Critical Theorists

The thought that follows this introduction began as a comment to What is Cultural Marxism and What is Critical Theory? that Redbaiter posted at his blog, TrueblueNZ. This is not the first time RB has written about the Left's nihilistic tendencies, particularly its employ of Critical Theory to bring Western society and culture to its knees. But this time he brings to our attention a newer video "What Is Critical Theory" that he pleads that his readers watch so as to gain more familiarity with the tactic even if they are largely aware of it already. His reason for desiring that more of us are better educated and aware of the enormity of the threat he makes clear at the end. "They [Cultural Marxists and Critical Theorists] are a massive force, but we can defeat them if we unite in that one purpose and that one understanding. Go out there, and fight the Cultural Marxists at every opportunity. If you don’t, everything is lost."

I largely concur with that request. But I also know what a daunting task it is he is wishing that many more of us will take on. Daunting because overcoming denial of the very real existence of evil is far more difficult today when the religions that traditionally stood against it have been eroded both from within individual institutions and in the minds of the huge percentage of adherents it has lost.

So in the interest of building up RB's case I tried to show what was missing from the video he featured and what more can be accomplished once we look at what was not said. I ask that you read RB's post and view the short video, and including comments left by AF and EAD. I think it will help you greatly understand what I think is an important lesson to be learned.


As I think you know RB, I love history. With my recall and ease at synthesizing connections between the past with the present I can bore even you before you gain an inkling as to why I am mentioning some story -- say, from ancient Greece.

Speaking of boring. While this video's narration is somewhat informative even for me who has familiarity with Critical Theorists, it will bore a lot of viewers in part because of something critically missing from it.

The narrator in the video says “defining or categorizing Critical Theory is exceptionally difficult.” His reason — essentially that it’s too complex — misses the mark set by the title of the video. “What is” is not really answered dammit. When I’m done here — it won’t take long — I hope you might say it is his own intellectualism that gets in the way of getting to the point.

Yes the narrator finally decides to provide listeners with an oblique definition that I’ll shorten just a bit to aid clarity “Critical theory is the searching for … instruments of social transformation.”

Transformation of Western Civilization to what? This video leaves that out too.

Let me grant that he does do something very well. He lists most all the common varieties of attacks on Western Civ. But he never classifies it for what it is. Let me do that.

Critical theory is the application of criticisms beyond what those with common human decency call “constructive criticism:” criticism intended to aid the person or project criticized. Therein lies the answer to the question. Critical Theory aims for destructive criticism. Criticism for the sake of criticism. The social transformation sought by its adherents is the destruction of happiness, seeking to make everyone dissatisfied with life. Its ultimate end is the destruction of human life. Their perfect outcome would have every man at every other man’s throat.

What I’m suggesting is that Critical Theory serves a definition of evil that I’ve seen (most often in novels and film) but about which I’ve never seen written before. I think it was Mortimer Adler who defined love as the emotion wherein another’s happiness is essential to your own (others may recognize in it a similar line used by Robert Heinlein in one of his fictions). The form of evil we see behind critical theory is the emotion wherein everyone else’s misery is essential to your happiness. In other words, what I'm defining is beyond hate. It's love of hatefulness. Critical Theorists will not rest until everyone else is dead or wishing they were.

If you can see what I’m saying, then you know there is an antidote RB.  The problem lies not in that we people most inclined to behaving decently couldn’t win the battle. The problem is that most of us are too civilized to believe that such rotten people exist. But they are currently thriving. And they are doing so it at our expense, with the cooperation of many of us and with the unawareness (if not denial) of most of us.

The antidote is found in the basic decency code of the Judeo-Christain ethos. Critical Theorists have worked hard at undermining a lot of Western thinking, but never more hard than at undermining the fundamental message of the Western creeds. They do this by relentlessly using Alinksy's rule number 4 against western religions by as many angles as each religion has adherents, because every man will simply will fall short of the ideals they profess. Those failings provides an endless supply of low-hanging fruit. The relentless criticism achieves its destruction first by always focusing on the failings no matter how minor. Then they go on to downplay all the magnificent benefits to living that resulted from the civility induced by the religions into the individuals that provided those benefits.

The consequences of all of this criticism is that the very gains that have made living easier and the means by which they were achieved are belittled.  We are witnessing a large segment of the latest generation being misled into discarding it all. In essence they've been inclined to aligning with the notion that less civilized would make life better. Nihilism being mainstreamed. Proving that the Critical theorists' campaign has been supremely effective.

Think of it as Chinese water torture applied to personal morality. One gift horse after another has its mouth inspected by the torturers, linking any flaw, real or imagined, to the self-interests of the giver. No good deed goes unpunished is the message they have imbued in too many of us, but especially the current youngest generation. The Critical Theorists understood before the rest of us that anyone who takes them seriously will find it hard not to become invested in the same death spiral as our torturers.

Now here is where I begin to address all those who continue to value the older ways that have led to all the good things our Western Civilization has delivered. To you who continue to strive to make life better for yourselves and those around you.

When next you experience callous ingratitude, the sort suggesting dismissal of the many benefits you have provided others, I think it is where "turn the other cheek" has the power to change the world one ungrateful soul at a time.

Those who continue to provide comforts and warmth and happiness to others in the course of their lives mocks the efforts of these rotten death dealers.

And then there will be the time where the enemy, the neighbor who no longer can tolerate your happiness no matter how large or small, will have gone too far. Each of you at some point will come to recognize that no matter how many cheeks you offer to the enemy they will remain the enemy of common human decency forever. Each enemy will have clearly inscribed his name to his own proscription.

Love the Lord your God with all of you heart and all of your might and all of your soul.
And love your neighbor as yourself.

These two sentences can be stated in a secular manner.

Love that you have life; be grateful for the abilities with which you've been endowed to discover all about it that you can; strive to learn to feel to your depths life's worth and value it with your utmost to do so.
And offer to help your neighbor learn to strive for himself; because it will be harder for you to enjoy life when your neighbor does not know how and is afraid to try. It is in your best interests to carry him for a time whenever you are able. Make him aware that you are offering only a starter course and that he will signal its end.

Do these things as much as it is in your power to do so and you will have thwarted the Progs in ways far beyond any reachable by argument.

Friday, January 08, 2016

Red States May Expel Blue Ones

The movement to use Article V of the United States Constitution in order to rein in the excesses of the federal government appears to be gathering steam.

There may still be some difficulty in making headway with the new Amendments that would result. That is because 38 (3/4 of 50) states must ratify them. Too many blue states suggests we may have a problem getting the Amendments adopted.

So I was wondering if we could do to the blue states what their colleges campuses seem to be able to do with students whom they deem to be politically incorrect. Expel them. And we have the Left's own rules by which we could compel their expulsion. Alinsky Rule number 4. Look it up.

Sunday, January 03, 2016

More Evidence "Do They Want You Dead?"

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/us-repeals-meat-labeling-law-after-trade-rulings-against-it
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