Vengeance of the Power Elites Pleases Satan

My attention was drawn to the following video "Jordan Peterson - Political Correctness and Postmodernism" by a fan of Professor Jordan Peterson. He's the prof who's been castigated by Leftist Sinister critics for being politically incorrect in his warnings of threats to free speech and thought by proposed Canadian legislation before it was passed.

What Professor Peterson concludes may better provide my readers with a way to covey the premise of which I have long warned: that the haters of humanity ally themselves with casuists (true believers) because the latter provide both cover for haters' misanthropy and free labor in carrying it out.  



Beginning at about 16 minutes in, he extracts some quotes from Nietzsche's Will to Power.
The following paragraph is a summary of Prof. Peterson's quotes of Nietzsche leading up to a series of exacting money quotes out of a chapter in Zarathustra.

The nihilistic doctrines that would emerge in the aftermath associated with the collapse of the moral underpinnings of the West would produce a form of political catastrophe (associated with communism) that would kill 10s to 100s of millions of people in the 20th Century. (Peterson, noting that Nietzsche was right, then quotes Nietzsche informing us that the elite would ignite the flames deliberately, out of spite).

"'What justice means to us [the power elite, anticipating the popular rejection of them] is precisely that the world will be filled with the storms of our revenge.' Thus they speak to each other, 'We shall wreak vengeance and abuse on all whose equals we are not.'...  You preachers of equality ... your most secret ambition is to be tyrants [who] shroud yourselves in words of virtue."-- The Tarantulas

Peterson asks "why this emphasis on [seeking] power above all else?" He answers "It's resentment [of being less revered for their intentions (all which failed) than those out in the real world who've succeeded] disguising itself most reprehensibly as compassion."

I compressed the above paragraph because it helps the reader understand quickly what he was trying to say. I recommend listening to that segment in full so you have more of the evidence he presented to sustain his conclusions.

Peterson ends with "It's time for the mask of that to be removed and set straight before we walk further down the path that leads to no good [worse than we've already been misled]."

He appears to have arrived at that point of realization for which, in my opinion, the 10th Commandment was written. Every day it ought to become ever more clear to the wavering faithful what a too often underappreciated gift that commandment was to us from our Loving Maker.

"Thou shalt not covet [for it may lead to the ultimate unhappiness for both he who covets and for those he resents and provoke casual violations of all Commandments.]"

The supplanting of the Judeo-Christian moral code with a Satanic one appears to be complete in those whom Professor Peterson asks us to unmask for the sake of us and our posterity.

The Stink of SKUNCs

When Guy S came up with the best acronym, SKUNCs, for what so many continue to call RINOs, little did we know that it would prove doubly appropriate in these days of #OWS.

The movement that has moved across the country and the world, called Occupy Wall Street, got promoted due to the behavior of one of the most obvious phony Republican elected official in the country: NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. This former Democrat wanted to become mayor. He had the money, but no real connections in the NY Democratic political machinery. So he bought the Republican nomination and ran against the Democratic machine mayoral candidates and won the first time. And he's been the incumbent ever since.

Had Democrat er Republican er RINO er SKUNC mayor Bloomberg cracked down early on the #OWS clowns in Zucotti Park we would not be forced to hear of the malodorous human excrement in various cities from Oakland to Altlanta.

Hence I think it fitting that the lingering stink of decaying, festering, human excrement should always be associated with SKUNCs.

Ripping Off the Blinders Is Rarely Easy

A friendly comment meant to alleviate my worries over the advance of the Statists was offered me by Towering Barbarian at Belmont Club's The Seven Second Solution:

“The pettiness with which his colleagues [Joe Scarborough et al.] betrayed him [Mark Halperin] is mixed news. It bothers me that they’ve become the sort of people who would do this thing to one another, I consider it more worthy of a reality show like “Survivor” than real life, but on the other hand the fact that their infighting has become that vicious suggests not only a house divided but a house divided beyond the point of repair. I don’t think many of the “Survivor” casts would do very well in the real world so that does say interesting things about the future of the Left. ^_^” 

This triggered in me what I hope is a good explication of the Sustainability movement's new morality and its threat to human civilization as we, truly on the right, wish to countervail.

Once you understand the Sustainability mindset, believing that the Left will simply go off and disappear is not a good thing. If the meaning of a scorched earth doctrine does not mean much to you now, it will; they are not planning on going alone.

Stalin hunted down the leftest of the Left, Trotsky, because he outlived his usefulness. The Left is so unthinking each figures it can’t be them. They remind me of those in the gulag who went to their deaths muttering “if Stalin only knew.” So what if the Left is filled with innumerable useful idiots, maybe even in greater percentage that we witness on MSNBC. They have been the squeaky wheels and shock troops who provided motive for the Statists to ratchet up their power, but become dead weight and a threat once that power is achieved. That kind will never learn.

But the Left still has its nihilists, misanthropes, and variety of others that are too obscure to include here and now. It is they who would aim to take you out with them. And that all is in the planning of the Sustainability nuts whose morality is not the live and let live of the rest of us.

Towering Barbarian, once one recognizes that there are people in power who really do believe themselves superhuman, and that all the rest of humanity is worth less than them, one undergoes a paradigm shift in understanding how big the threat really is. Because the moral code of these supermen most likely evaluates you less than the latest strain of antibiotic resistant strep.

The Left is not the whole or even the primary threat. And I think you even see that in that you think they are on the wane. Yes they are, but for the Stalin/Trotsky reason. The primary threat is the Statists for whom the Left has been extremely useful. See: they are neither Left nor Right, but for themselves. Sure they proclaim themselves Left or Right, but it really only provides them a facade, in a wolf in sheep's clothing way. Like the Progressives chose their label to hide their regressive intentions for the rest of humanity.

The rest of us are merely raw material with which they wish to play until they’re done with us. We cannot fight them if we refuse to see them for what they really are.

Modern Yes, Postmodern No.

So that you may understand what I’ve been fighting all these years.

I invariably use postmodern when referring to the trend, and use contemporary when I wish to refer to the now. I reserve modern to refer a thing or condition that came about as an incremental improvement over whatever preceded it.

The modern age was filled with the byproducts of the Age of Reason and the Industrial Revolution.
The postmodern age is what comes from permitting rulers to assign to all us subjects LIMITS to our seeking improvements. Postmodern portends the bleak future that our rulers intend for us.

My using the terms in this manner has not prevented others from maligning modernity when they use modern to refer to what the policies of “Progressives” Statists have done to our way of life, but at least I try to apply the terms consistently. From time to time I call others on their error when it appears they have simply failed to notice how newspeak has been creeping in, and -- surprisingly enough -- have often been received pleasantly.

Using postmodern to refer to this growing oppressive state then frees up modern to preserve the spark of that vision of seeking improved living conditions for all of humanity.

Whoa: You'll Think You're Dreaming

when you read ‘Mentalist’ Episode Provides Strong Pro-Liberty Message.

In the way this TV show installment plays out, one might think this is long lost Mission Impossible episode. You know the formula: the IMF team foils some despotic third world ruler through guile and finesse exploiting the bad guys' weaknesses, and using the overwhelming resources of a bigger, better government. Back when America was more reliable.

If only real life would play like that.

Hey, enjoy it. This may be all that our postmodernist Hollyquid mavens will allow us anymore.

(The real solution is to band together in a bloc and protest city halls of this kind, using words very close to that of the protagonist. Oh -- I'm dreaming again. Sorry.)

Corrupted Literature

In the news lately was the fact that portions of our literary heritage have been cleansed of troubling words. Huckleberry Finn was already bowdlerized by removing the N word. I forgot what was new recently, but that is relatively less important than other forms that are less noticeable.

I once had a discussion (more than a decade ago) where an anti-theist challenged me about troubling passages in the Bible. He had made an assertion for which I researched the answer, and then refuted. He then disputed my results by presenting me with an on-line version of my source. In the online version of the source, two words had been reversed in order, changing the meaning completely. I showed him the old printed text that had the proper order. It was against his druthers for my old copy to be right, but the printed version made more sense in context with the remaining commentary. At best, that error would leave the honest reader confused. For the skeptic, it provided more fodder for attack -- as was the case here.

Recently, when searching for some phrases in C. S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man, [alternate found at archive.org] I found another error that could leave the reader wholly lost due to the alteration of a single letter!

Instinct, by the only known reality of conscience and not a reduction of conscience to the category of Instinct. [highlighted: error in the online text]

Instinct, by the inly known reality of conscience and not a reduction of conscience to the category of Instinct. [highlighted: as printed in the original]

Now, this is likely due to spell checking by the publisher's aid. But the "correction" should have been caught and restored. Our contemporary world thinks of spelling errors as relatively unimportant. As the above passage demonstrates, that is not always true. Maybe it's all Lewis' fault for using such a non-standard adverb. He should have anticipated the future better than he did. (I hope my readers see the irony in that sarcasm aimed at his critics.)

Folks. It would be wise to preserve all your old hard-copy books. Because the memory hole is not only due to deliberate destruction, it comes about due to poor supervision of doltish contemporary scribes clerks. If you want the future to have to reinvent less "wheels," be more protective of our heritage in your possession if you can.

Postmodern Times Reveals a Place of Marvels

First Jerry Brown gets reelected in California, while neither his exceedingly wealthy RINO opponent nor the GOP ever challenged the legitimacy of his candidacy in court for being in violation of state constitutional limits. 

Yesterday Obama's oligarchical puppeteers remake Clinton president for a few moments. 


Regarding that, have you yet seen the phrase 

D R Y    R U N

come out of the mouths of the apparatchiks at the Ministry of Truth Agency of Lies? [In later years Pascal began using Agency of Lies because he saw that we were not an Orwellian world quite yet, and felt it best that he speak the truth while he still could. -- ed.]


Trust in your old uncle Pascal; it's in the works. AKA trial balloon.


Postmodern times really is a place where you will not believe your eyes. (Nor want to.)

Before We Were Dehumanized

We had to be given a clever vision of our origins that was disparate from God before our Conditioners could dehumanize the bulk of us.

Who could forget the ape-inspired scene after having seen it? Zarathustra indeed.


I hope you enjoy the following trailer despite my regrets over how I was once greatly influenced by the original film. The trailer is for a documentary that shows us who the creative but useful idiots were and how they did it.

ABC News: "Death Panels (snicker) Will Save Money"

ABC News: "Death Panels (snicker) Will Save Money" -- Paul Krugman of the NYTimes

 
Well, when ABC News' The Roundtable is willing to discuss this openly, brazenly, even with snickers for those who "bitterly cling" to the "old" JudeoChristian value system (that innocent human life is sacred), well, maybe there are many more who will take my last two posts seriously enough to pass them on to those who still believe "liberal" means behaving decently towards the less fortunate.



Your job, should you dare take up the challenge, is to

1. Convince all the liberals you know that the Left has taken power in the government under liberal disguise.
2. The Left is not the same as "liberal."
3. It is not a good thing as the above video attests despite the attempted white wash of the main speaker.

Ingenuity by Common Humans: Discounted by Our Demigods

Late today I encountered a frank new commenter at Belmont Club. It was on Wretchard's latest exploration of the AGW fraudulence.

Here is the comment "Bear" posted:

We should all be aware of who wants to pick the winners and losers.

Civilization as we know it is confronted with serious issues. It just so happens some think they can determine the outcome. These are not ignorant people, and carbon is a vehicle to the solution in their eyes. The problem is that they equate survival as a species with a socialist (we all know where that ends) state.
relentless growth is unsustainable.

Climate change propanganda is the vehicle to get there, since stating the obvious issues would generate even more populist resistance.

The myth that technology can solve everything is patently false.

this will end badly.

Bear, I’ve been battling with this concept a very long time. Few are willing to state it as you have.

There is redundancy in your assertion “The myth that technology can solve everything is patently false.” It sounds like you want to believe your line so much that you had to call technological solutions both a myth and patently false.

Dare you battle with me over it?

He responded:

Synopsis of Pascal Fervor

 Last updated:  March 19, 2011

What I mean by Pascal Fervor is suggested at the top of my sidebar. Blaise Pascal disliked those who destroyed things and especially people he thought good. These destroyers so aroused his ire that he dedicated his genius to defeating them. I, your humble commentator, call that sort of dedication "Pascal Fervor." I've tried to take clues from Pascal so as to move somewhat in the manner he did. However, lacking his genius and position of  influence, my efforts to overturn those forces that would destroy the American Dream may not be anywhere near so successful.  As a result, I sometimes call myself Pascal (the derivative.) That is, I have endeavored simply to move in the direction to which he was pointing.

The inclination of Blaise Pascal operating on a fixed moral plane.

This page was composed to inform you what this blog has concentrated upon most. If you'd like to help me in my battles, I provide a simple start at Irrationality Topples Kings.

What troubles me about our contemporary world is no secret. I've written about it repeatedly here and on my old website. Nearly every institutional policy and event that leaves us shaking our heads and thinking "I don't understand" may be explained by it to some extent. We tend to think of ourselves as so very advanced, but we humans are falling prey to the same sirens that have trapped us and killed us since antiquity.

The single most debilitating thought in our world is not often spoken, but I see it underlying everything today.

S U S T A I N A B I L I T Y.

Sustainability is the arch concern of "very important" people who are acting on behalf of the fear -- but disguised as prudence by invoking the high sounding "Precautionary Principle" -- that there are too many people on earth. It forms the foundation for what I call their new morality. Unceremoniously, incrementally, they have been superseding the Judeo-Christian morality that is core to the culture that created the United States.
It means that a minimum number of people aim to maximize human decline with a minimum of fuss. To reduce the fuss, old wounds and feuds and prejudices and covetousness have been rejuvenated. We will be permitted to reduce ourselves. This blog remarks on the numerous instances where the evidence for this shows itself.

That is the short explanation of what is going on. I bet it's not enough for most "advanced" people. So, should you think you may need it, I've more.

————————————

What I am trying to do is pass along to you in this blog are observations driven by intuitive inquiry and conclusions reached by means of analytical skills I use as an engineer. Reading them may help you protect your life. Any difficulties you have in understanding me may not only be because I can be too esoteric (obscure) or too concise (insufficient details), but also because writing is a skill that I'm still developing and not easily.  If you're unsure of anything, please don't be embarrassed for me or for yourself. Be inquisitive and ask me for more details. I will attempt to answer.

It is my hope that many of you can simplify what I am saying to reach many more people than I could ever hope to do. That is the only way I know to maximize my impact -- to rely on decent people to get my warnings out to those they care about and build blocs to block the machinations of those who would eliminate all unselected individuals.

————————————

Those who find themselves in positions of power and influence tend to be pessimists. Why that is I have done a bit more than speculate on my own and other sites. But why is not nearly as important to you, the individual, as first recognizing that the pessimism is there, in horrifying amounts, and then comprehending where all that angst is leading.

I find it logical and significant that Malthusianism which preceded Marxism came into being at roughly the same time that mankind achieved unprecedented liberty and then quickly gained the ability to thrive as never before. I also find it compelling to note that both deadly ideologies -- one from the start, the other proven to be -- have been and are heavily fostered and accepted by the highly positioned and/or the well-to-do who have self-styled themselves as Progressives."

The furtherance of these ideas has become such accepted thinking in the splendid halls of "intelligentsia," that any who dare utter an optimistic word -- such as those who believe in a God who has promised to always provide -- are shouted down, marginalized, and persecuted.

And generic hatred of mankind other than oneself -- misanthropy-- underlies it all. I've witnessed it as have nearly everyone who is reading this blog when you bumped elbows with them. It is that sense of dread and loathing oozed by some in the upper classes for the "repulsive" middle class that ever strives upward to join them.

Malthusianism lent to the hatred a sense of morality ("we only wish to reduce human numbers so a better man may live on and well").
Marxism lent to it the notion that what is bad for individuals (take from the earner and given it to the one who whines) was in the best interests of the collective and thereby "socially just."

The Marxist/Socialist/Collectivist is a world where brotherly morality has been turned upside down (promote envy of and legalize theft from an owner so the getter needs not steal) is good.

Conclusively, be it from stated aims or historical results, Malthusians and Marxists are nothing short of misanthropic death cultists in "social" moralist disguise.

The Cause of the Coming Conflict, Summarized

No man, and no lesser god, has the right to decide who may live and who may die in the manner that herds of animals are kept in check.
The difference between a life affirming religion and all the other belief systems is this central message.


Update: Obama says "We are God's partners in matters of life and death."

And So, What's the Consequence of Being Deemed Unuseful?

This story finally breaks the illusion that fear of radical human population control is nothing more than the product of a fevered imagination.

For instance, what is one to make of that item under the title Utilitarianism? "Saving the most socially useful?"

Mind you, this was no crackpot publication this appeared in, The Lancet, penned by Health Care Czar Ezekiel Emmanuel. And as you read on, as you should, you'll find there is much more to be opposed to in the proposed health care legislation that our country's leadership is trying to rush through Congress.

Here is the one thing that I think every American should mull over in their minds, most especially those who revere those who fought World War II, "The Greatest Generation."

Obama's health care geniuses* think that the term “useful individuals” is now safe to use in public, but it is for the first time since its frequent use by the Third Reich.

*-------------------------------- Update ------------------------------------

Friday, July 10, 2009 10:31:11 PM

posted by Avoiding_Sulla

Comment no. 27 to the FR thread inspired by the zombietime.com article John Holdren, Obama's Science Czar, says: Forced abortions and mass sterilization needed to save the planet:

Adding this to the recent “Electing God” thread ... even I am finding it hard to believe that our alleged supermen think they can be this brazenly open.

It is amazing how rapidly this sort of thinking went from “Hush, don’t wanna disturb the sheep” to “Oh, what the hell?”

When this sort of thinking was relegated to but a few comments here and there, and when the only high profile websites were lunatics like the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT) and The Church of Euthanasia, many of you could sit back and say “Oh, it’s only a bunch of lunatic fringies and some Ivory Tower Elitists.”

Well, guess what? That thinking is now ruling in our White House.

I pray you all think that now is the time to spread the word, given this mountain of evidence, that the lunatics have taken over the asylum right at the top.

Abnormal Futurists

The oddly constructed word postmodern was invented by "Progressives" to refer to the future they envision. It is mostly a suggestive word.

Whereas normal people say "but who can really foretell the future," after they tell us of their plans and wishes, "Progressives" know normal people may not like their plans. So when they observe that some thing or action is to their liking, rather than become enthralled and proclaim: "Yay! That's more like it!", they may observe that it is postmodern, and then laugh and say "whatever that means."

To comprehend how postmodernist thinking incrementally assails normal thought, notice how often you hear "whatever that means" whenever somebody uses the adjective normal. Indeed, did you use it before completing that sentence? That is a postmodernist reflex inculcated into us by those who we have permitted to dominate our culture.

The more you think about postmodern, it is hard to imagine a word that better proves how abnormal "Progressives" and their goals for the future are.

Postmodernism's Paradigm

My comment at Belmont Club to:

Konyok @ 10:53AM

It’s a new paradigm…. Now, we have a perverse inversion in which the heirs of humanism seek to sacrifice the human being to a faceless god of nature.

Yes. However it is not new except to those who have only begun to notice. About those who remain silent after they notice — well — I ribbed Wretchard after he posted Meeting Engagement with Awakening to Fight Oblivion.

Human sacrifice:
“Sustainability” is now the most common code word for battling human populations, though it is voiced quietly. It seems far too many are resignedly welcoming this “meeting engagement.”

Sustainability is newspeak for a pessimism at least as old as paganism with its ritual deaths.

I think the disease is clear. Traditional conservatives have let their loathing to fight what has slowly become common practice trump their fundamental (now ancient) moral view that the sole reason for government is its legal authority to protect the weak.

It is THAT paradigm which has shifted. I’ve stated this new world paradigm as “The strong must protect the useful from the _____.” What's in the blank? You know as assuredly as Winston Smith knew what was in Room 101.

I’d say you are a moral man reflexively rebelling from the effects of Malthusianism blended with Utilitarianism to create the replacement, Godless morality of a “humanist” elite.

Aug 15, 2008 - 12:46 pm

I followed the above comment with this one. (It was published promptly).

Konyok; I’m not sure what else to tell you.

Here is what one dame whispered to me about my concerns: “You are not alone Pascal; but you may as well be.”

Aug 15, 2008 - 12:51 pm

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 to which 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.

------
Update 2  observation:

The Church of England is still.  Nineteenth Century Antidisestablishmentarianism succeeded. And now, today, given the Archbishop of Canterbury's  willingness to allow shariah law,  what in postmodern politics will keep the C of E from converting to Muslim? Knowing what we know of the cushy relationship between the Left and radical Islam, that is a frighteningly real prospect.

**Update 3**[12/16/10]

TrueblueNZ reader Kris K has suggested that ADE need not be simply a quasi-acronym.  Antidiestablishmentarians may be viewed functionally as "Appeasers, Dunces, and Enablers." ADE can stand as a true acronym.

I think that is a good idea. What remains missing in Kris' suggestion is any reference to the heavy handed thugs who assault reformers. Now since Appeaser and Enabler are much the same thing, I think the following set of three words carry the weight much better:

Appeasers, Dunces and Enforcers (ADEs)

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-liberalism) -- so too when something will lead to mankind's diminishment, that is what "Progressives" view as progress (anti-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