They Who Refused To Pay the Piper...

...Today Have No Children.

Most of the most bitter women I have ever met (Cal State Sen. Jackie Goldberg, call your office) were my sisters of the baby boom generation who are now long past their time to bear children. My brothers are merely sad, though some of them are still too adolescent to realize it.

Go read the Brothers Grimm (Hah! Irony!) tale again, and this time with the perspective of what the cost of ridding ones personal life of "rats" -- rugrats being particularly vulnerable to such a mien -- really has been.

Ades to Corruption

aide

–noun
1. nurse's aide.
2. an aide-de-camp.
3. an assistant or helper, esp. a confidential one.

-- from Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

I've long wanted to have a short word that I and others could use that would be an apt label for one who helps forestall or prevent reforms to decadent institutions.

The closest historical word, antidisestablishmentarian, is way too unwieldy to use for reformers to make any headway with.

I initially thought about using the near acronym ADET. This is comprised by taking the first letters of antidisestablishmentarian's two prefixes (Anti and Dis), the the first letter in Establishment and the first letter of the suffix (Tarian). While it has the advantage of a unique appearance, it sounds way too diminutive in speech. Hence I think it sounds far too benign to convey the nastiness that protectors of bad bureaucracies have been known to resort.

However, the word aide already exists, and the word antidisestablishmentarian is clearly a subset of aide definitions 2 and 3. So, I think I've found my answer.

I propose the semi-acronymic word ade be adopted. It is far less cumbersome a word than antidisestablishmentarian, and so lends itself well to public speaking, and better, to public acceptance. Good public speakers should be able, with proper inflections, to make it clear that they are speaking of ades and not the wider aides. And ade also separates such people from the true aids for our woes, the reformers who we so desperately need to stop the growth of Leviathan.

I intend to speak out in print using the word ade, so I just wanted to prepare the way.

**Update**

A reader has suggested this following line helps drive home the point about how much damage antidisestablishmentarians (ades) make inevitable because ades stymie society's natural defenses. Ades hinder society from reforming needed institutions and thwart her from eliminating unneeded and bad ones.

What AIDS does to the body, ades do to society.

A Progressive Rant

I started to write a screed in July in response to a Belmont Club post, Definitions, entitled Those Hellbent On Leading Us Into A New Dark Ages. But I cooled off after I answered a misunderstanding posted by BC commenter 3Case.

In June I wrote "Progressives" Are Demonstrably Dangerous to Human Life, but I still wasn't satisfied. This was to be followed by a part II that had been provoked by Mark Alger here. Instead, it languished incomplete for a couple months. I was feeling downright low about how hard a nut this was going to be to crack.

Many years ago I wrote this of Progressives. My wry humor sprung from the fact that it didn't take long for the Progressive reform movement that grew out of the late 19th Century American Populist movement to degrade into a comfy home for deceptive power seekers who succeeded in breeching our government's constitutional limits incrementally for "only the best of reasons."

In early August, Our Curmudgeon, in the pursuit of another topic, wrote of the treachery of "Progressives" as I've always wished him to do, but it still was not enough. For, on that same day, I had heard parts of a speech by Hilliary Clinton that got me started on another screed that I never finished: The "Progressive" Hatred for People.

And now this last week, Mark Alger needled me with the thought that we who are representative of true progress ought steal the progressive label from the phonies.

ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHH! 8/17/07

Continued on 9/05/07

The people who have been granted (by the PC crowd) the leave to wear the label Progressive are anything but. In addition to having long ago become the home for those whose lust for power may well set a new standard for perversion, they are well on their way to making a pejorative of the word progress just as they have made an unbearable burden for anyone who is truly liberal. Those who would wish we will not progress could not be happier.

More and more I run across both writers on the Internet and casual conversants who see that "Progressive" must be put in scorn quotes whenever we refer to those who claim that label.

This is unacceptable. This is Orwellian Newspeak being thrust upon us because we people who must speak with each other in order to counter this road to serfdom and a new dark age do not control the mainstream news media's effluent. We so badly need a new and widely influential means of communicating our viewpoint so that we can counter the anti-language corps. Where is our John Galt who can pirate, even for a little while, all media outlets away from those who relentlessly destroy our language?

A few days ago I had to contend with the confusion over what is a "Progressive" at The Belmont Club. After my initial comment to Wretchard, I had a short interchange with two of his active readers, Charles and LarryD, over the words Postmodern and Progressive. I think I stumbled on the best way verbally to deal with our tormentors: call them Postmodern Progressives.

In the end I think we were all dancing around the same idea at core. Today's Progressives are not advancers of civilization even if there were once some who could rightly claim to have been. Just as "Liberals" view as progressive the liberal growth of government -- and thereby the growth of restrictions on the liberty of individuals (anti-libearlism), so too when something will lead to mankind's diminishment, that is what "Progressives" view as progress.

I think we all understand that "Progressives" are NOT. But what are we who really love to see progress going to do about it?

I am convinced that most "Progressives" fall under the category of the misled. The most troublesome of them are the true-believers who allow themselves to become useful idiots. But the task that we who are optimists must find is how to unmask the mostly quiescent troublemakers who lend their support to the useful idiots, thereby accomplishing what they themselves could never achieve: mankind's self-destruction.

I know from what I've read throughout the web on the Right that most Right thinkers see that the label of Progressive has been stolen every bit as much as classical liberals have had Liberal stolen from them.

We must fight to take back the label Progressive so that those that follow us will be able to progress. So that those that follow do not find themselves under a yoke that so many Americans have fought to keep from being institutionalized on these shores. This is a patriotic battle. This is a battle that the bulk of humanity will always have with the effete elite. Understanding it does not require rocket science. It does not require knowing what Postmodernism is, only that it is something that wants you to return to times of enslavement over men's minds. It wishes for nothing less than a new Dark Age.

My friend Og often suggests that at some point the need to argue must end; that it is time for the cricket bats. He may be close to right.

Dilemmas Facing Advanced Civilization -Pt2

Part one of this series can be found at Open List: Dilemmas of Advanced Civilization

1. Wanton wastefulness solely to temporarily slake the appetite of a bored audience for exciting entertainment.
   
2. A sense of defeat -- "oh, what's the use?" -- that may sideline a cultural defender. This effect may be temporary but can be permanent.
   
3. Exhaustion of the virtuous. An otherwise strong defender recognizes a clear adversary; adversary's offense could be anything from an incremental point of contention all the way to a significant assault on an essential institution, but defender still retreats from even a verbal battle for reasons unstated; letting important opportunities slide becomes easier with each passing incident.

For an "entertaining" example of wanton wastefulness, click on this episode of Top Gear. Top Gear is the BBC's most watched program (at over 50% share). BBC programing is paid for with the BBC tax on all UK TV sets. Watch for the intermittent expression on the face of the host (one of the three) affectionately known as the Hamster.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but I think his mugging could indicate that while shame may not be thoroughly dead in the UK, its agonizing death throes are beyond the denial stage.

For an example of ailment number 2, I offer my own intermittent posting of entries here.

For an example of ailment number 3, I offer this episode from Eternity Road.

**UPDATE Aug 7**
Coincidentally, Dennis Prager wrote this for Townhall.com today: Excitement Deprives Children of Happiness, that explores the circumstances that lead to consequences such as ailment number 1. He admits it is not just children, but the adults they grow up to be.

Open List: Dilemmas of Advanced Civilization

Just trying to identify major and minor factors that challenge today's advanced civilization. The developed world's pathologies affect the whole world. Here's a start with no leading item identified.

• Pessimism.
  
• Cynicism.
• Protection of wealth.
  
• Enervation of motivation.
  
• Lack of gratitude.
  
• Lack of humility.
• Seeking power for the sake of power, or "King of the Hill."
• Misanthropic notions.
• Reemergence of ancient irrationalities.
• Deliberate monkey-wrenching.
• Abandoning reasoning, preferring feeling. (Og)
• Choosing to go along with whatever is made popular. (Og)
• The notorious get press; the notable don't unless they screw up. (mts)
  

Help me add to this. Take as negative viewpoint as you wish. It is my position that for every trouble there is also some optimistic view that can be taken.

Update: Please see Dilemmas Facing Advanced Civilization -Pt2 for part 2 in this series

The Secret of Utopias

Practical jokers find delight in the confusion, discomfort, and predicaments they can inflict on their targets.

Misanthropes -- haters of humanity -- are easily enraged when humans find happiness in their "miserable" lives.

Utopia is commonly understood to be a perfect place where nothing bad happens. Those who are selling their vision of the perfect the world are oft described as Utopians.

Question:

What provision do Utopians make for practical jokers and misanthropes?

Answer:

What? Do you really expect them to reveal to you ahead of time that it is they who plan to run things?

Missed the Misanthropes Hiding Behind Malthusianism

Dennis Prager wrote a column today, Why Are Atheist Books Best Sellers?.

Among the reasons he stated, he did not mention the haters of humanity.

The radical environmental movement has provided the misanthropes the perfect place to disguise their hatred. They do it under the cover of the "moral" authority asserted by Neo-Malthusianic movements like that foisted by the Global Warming crisis mongers.

I've made the case for this connection many times. Notably here and here. I've tried to get Mr. Prager to acknowledge the threat before. But for some unfathomable reason he chooses to miss it, not discuss it in depth. He even outright evaded it as can be heard here. Notice in that clip how he shunted all of the death worship onto the shoulders of radical Islam and let the radical Left slip by unscathed.

At the core of the Judeo-Christian branch of theology is the conviction that innocent people (like children in the womb) must not be sacrificed to whatever human fear or true-believer movement demands it.

It should thus come as no surprise that because of this protective covenant with their God that observant Christians and Jews -- and their rights to be safe with their thinking -- are being targeted.

It is not hard to see that we are in the middle stages of gradually having Christianity deemed intolerable by authorities with the mind-altering intolerance that these anti-theists (with whom Mr. Prager slammed all atheists with the title of his column) are advancing. The final stage, for which they are clearly aiming, is the status of the church depicted in the Orwellian dsytopia of the novel 1984: a distant memory.

Bottom line: It should be no surprise that Malthusian misanthropes and radical environmentalists, including some of the GW true-believers, would be prevalent at the same time as the popularity of these books. Mr. Prager failed to include them.

Thoughts Provoked By a Misapplied Word

Today, I had only a little time because I have to leave. While quickly perusing Wretchard's greatly expanded reportage, I was sensitive to what I think was an unintended slander, by our gifted world correspondent/analyst, of modernity.

I read it at The Belmont Club: Airport Security. The following was the comment I left there. I hope my reaction further provokes awareness of, and the threat to, our civilization by the "Progressive" movement known as political Postmodernism.

Wretchard wrote: This just goes to show how much damage modern political correctness has inflicted on the Geneva Convention. [Emphasis added].


It is definitely not modern, and this error could be seen as a slander of the modern period. If anything, the Geneva convention helped advance modernity.

But what we have now is a product of the postmodern. You've used the term before, and it couldn't be more accurately ascribed, both to this situation and to the proponents who've made this tragedy possible.

Also, instead of modern or postmodern, you could have used the word contemporary, but then that would have been redundant (unless you wanted to imply that PC has evolved, er, devolved, er, progressed - yeah, progressed!).

I think I experienced what had to be going through your mind and feelings as you composed this line. The error in it reveals both comedy and tragedy, and maybe a desire to avoid editorializing in the direction I went, though I'm pretty sure you didn't intend the comedy.

The Need to Place Political Correctness in the Crosshairs

There are many others who comment much more diligently than I upon the many instances how Western culture in general, and American culture in particular, are relentlessly under attack by the Left and its shockingly complicit Establishment media. Particularly I have been impressed with how well S.T. Karnick makes that his regular concern.

A few days ago Mr. Karnick wrote of the criticism misdirected at MLB for the drinking and driving death of Josh Hancock, a St. Louis Cardinals pitcher. In comments to it, I made a quick point about how PC's intrusion into our culture has a bloody hand in making personal disasters of this sort more rather than less common.

Mr. Karnick concurred: "Until a sufficient number of people summon up the courage to speak out against this point of view, its ugly consequences will continue to plague us."

Now I'd like to make what I believe is a unique observation about PC. That is, I've not seen it mentioned even if its been noticed before, and I doubt it. PC's acceptance and certainly its persistence came into the forefront after much of Western thought turned in the 1960s to accept the notions of Thomas Malthus as revitalized by Paul Ehrlich et al. Merely fifteen years time after the unprecedented carnage of the Second World War, our intelligentsia seemed all too swift to accept the pessimistic notion that the number of humans on the planet was still unsustainable. In short, this is what is meant in high-minded parlance as the challenge of sustainability. (Considerable thought before WWII was moving in this direction. Indeed it appears to be a major feature in NAZI thought. In a world with diminishing resources, Hitler was moving to establish his race as the sole survivors. I plan to look into this further at a later date.)

It does not take a rocket scientist to notice the conflict between this concern and that of society's previously stated predominant concern of protecting human life in many different ways. In fact, by gum, there is assuredly a radical reversal in the way those who've risen to the top of society's institutions has gone about, ostensibly, protecting its members.

Of significant note is that which used to be called constructive criticism wound up in the cross-hairs of the heads of our institutions.

Instead of welcoming various sources of wisdom access to those who need the guidance, the PC crowd constantly concerns itself with how the feelings of the foolhardy might be hurt by those who wish to warn them. Rather than permit unrestricted passage of hard-earned lessons-learned, these "watchdogs" prefer that those whose feelings they claim to be protecting are better off with having their thinking (or unthinking) unfettered. "Let them learn the hard way where naive or ignorant or misguided choices will lead them" would seem to be their slogan.

Certainly, I don't think in history there was ever a group, so well entrenched in positions of authority, who -- wittingly or unwittingly -- were ever such an ally to predators as is our PC crowd.

Now surely there are many useful idiots in that crowd. But it is hard to imagine how they got there and how they manage to remain there unless there are significant numbers of the moneyed and influential class who believe that they are doing animal-husbandry-like work in letting the foolish kill themselves off. Kill themselves along with how many other handfuls of innocents who have the misfortune to be in their path on the way to their personal destruction.

So, for those who still retain an optimism for the potential of the human mind to meet any future shortages (be it for belief in The Creator's promise or simply from gaging how high we have risen in the face of all kinds of disasters), I bet you also have entertained the following question about how society is failing at its assigned task even as its leaders clamor for more control over our lives. Is it not a natural inclination, an imperative really, to look askance at how society has altered its approach to law enforcement?

Strict law enforcement being the principle means to protect innocents from predators was long established thinking in the West. Based significantly on the writings of Thomas Hobbes I believe, that was the be all and end all of the modern state: its raison d' ètre.

Heh, Heh. That is, that was before postmodernism turned up.

In response to my commentary about how, given the state of advances by radical Islam in the war on Terror, the currently disfavored view towards capital punishment is in need of review, reader RobC happened to opine with the ages old comment that those who harm innocents deserve only a little more consideration than that they gave their victims.

Within the confines of this essay, here is what I observe in response.

I used to know many like you, RobC. All of you have been marginalized out of hearing because Political Correctness has painted your views as beyond acceptable discussion.

Many blogs, as you suggest, will grant a hearing to your words. But more is needed to make the jump to where you will be heard in live public forums so that you may affect public policy.

My long term plan for this site (and my premier site should I get it working well again) will come up with ideas that will open up minds now trained (at best) to ignore you. I welcome suggestions and criticisms from readers to aid me in my quest. What doesn't ring bells, what has potential, and what will make good soundbites?


Also, I have had some success in the past at conceiving useful variations on how the political spectrum can be redrawn. However, that was during the Cold War so, although it still accurately reflects how power seekers game the system, it has less immediate use today in the War On Terror.

I have been brewing again a new way to redraw the political spectrum with soundbites that essentially say The Right loves life and The Left loves death. A preview can be read at comment #6 here.

More to follow.

A Keystone for Postmodernism: "Post-Normal" Science

Last week Wretchard posted "Post-Normal" Science As Proof of Global Warming.

In it he let an insider (Mike Hulme, the founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research) reveal in his own words the nature of that "science."

Wretchard does a nice turn on this there (and in a subsequent post).

Still, let me try to summarize why "post normal" science exists:

"Because our goals are so very important, mere facts cannot be allowed to get in our way. We must fund the right scientists only. We must get the science we pay for."

Where one finds true believers and radicals, one could logically expect some who are decidedly ruthless:

"All others must be ignored, barred, discredited and even ..., well let's not state that last part outright."

Go there and to see that I am well stating my summary. Yes my second quote is my own interpretation of course. But given the threats sent to dissidents, is it not wise to be cautious?

I've not written at length about Postmodernism yet. I've tended to refer to it here and there at my main site Pascal Fervor and in comments I've left at other sites like the Belmont Club. However, I have written long ago about casuists and sophists, and how the latter know how to make use of the former. Surely the power hungerers who exploit sophistry shamelessly have little qualms about misleading well-meaning people who time and again trip over into casuistry.


Please look into this. It quickly becomes clear to those who research Postmodernism (and I'm not talking about the architectural mode) that postmodernists takes a dim view of humanity as a whole. In short, their primary concern is global "sustainability." And that makes reducing the number of people on the face of the Earth, by hook or by crook, their chief agenda. Naturally, they are always welcoming volunteers; but they are not beyond seeing to it that more deliberate means are employed.

Misleading the wealthier humans on the earth into self-destruction has well begun: witness the huge decline in populations in the advanced world.

Making sure that the developing world — doesn't — continues. Groaning but doing nothing whilst the Mugabe's of the world do their worst is about as emblematic as it gets. Supporting violent Islam is their latest wrinkle: all the talk about making life better for little people everywhere is somehow gone and replaced with "let the local culture decide." See? Mugabe many times over.

And the Global Warming "Crisis?" To me and many like me it is the new excuse to foist command economy on the world. For those who don't know, that is what the old Soviet Union was aiming for. It is what the PRC still has but with adaptations to please a world market — eager for the products of its slave labor — to help sustain it.

Yes, the new face of World Dominion is simply a mask with Karl Marx behind it. And, in turn, Marxism always had the misanthropic Malthusian worshippers hiding behind it. This last group is ever so proud of the pile of corpses that Marxian ideology "produced" worldwide.

Anyway, nowadays haters of humanity live under the tent labeled "Postmodernist."

Whether you are conservative, classically liberal, libertarian, or even a modern liberal who has been made skeptical and wary by the unsavory behavior of Leftists, and you wish to survive in a personal sense, then it will serve you well to learn what postmodernists wish for you.

And now — as never before — you have "Post-Normal" Science as the verifiable proof of their hubris.