Who Celebrates You Knowing Nothing?

Tonight, Og and I stumbled upon this little truth.

Og: Art is not the relating of an event. Art is interpreting it.
PF: And a piece of modern art can relate different things to different people, a Rorschach.
Og: Sure. But we're talking politics, and not art.
PF: And that has patterns that most people will recognize. What clearer reason for politicians demanding control of education?

Politician: They who don't know the lessons of history will accept it again. Perfect!

The Danger of Labels

Converging current events prompted me to toy with this idea. But no matter how I start it, it comes back to people feeling uneasy without them.

What's This Noise About Global Cooling?

"Science is at war with global warming. Science has always been at war with global warming. Global cooling is our friend." </straight-faced sarcasm>
[supporters whoop and woot in the background]

New Media Will Have Supplanted Old Media When?

How will you know when new media has supplanted old media?

When Newspeak becomes Liarspeak. When we will have reclaimed our language so that a label matches the word that is being used for that label.

Currently liberals are not. Progressives are not. Democrats are not. A Constitutionally Limited Republic is not. Gay is not.

Each of these misnomers have become accepted jargon for things they are not mostly because establishment media uses them that way. If you attempt to use liberal in its original sense, you stand a good chance of being misunderstood and then punched in the nose by a real liberal.

It is a fact that these words now carry a meaning that a large number of people think of negatively. The ability to use the word in its original sense is destroyed because your listener, especially a stranger, will most likely think you are using it with its current meaning. In some instances, such as in a joyously carefree experience, the moment is apt to be spoiled when you think of the word that was once widely used to describe the experience: gay.

In fact, when you read the appendix of George Orwell's 1984 you will find that is the whole intention of Newspeak. To make it impossible for human beings to think of anything the state chooses. The language, far from its ages old use of enabling communication between individuals, has moved beyond propaganda to become a tool to enslave mankind. And don't discount that there is an unmistakable bonus it provides its masters. It delivers a burst of fleeting joy to those who exercise power in this manner; employing power because they can. ["Oh c'mon. How does Pascal know this is true?" Ask me.]

Right now "old" media only looks derelict. Kind of like the second Death Star in Star Wars. Still capable of delivering to American Statists a host of once illegal new voters who can't understand English enough to comprehend how sophistic are these bastards.

When writers on the Internet can once again use the word liberal and have it mean "pertaining to the liberty of individuals" rather than "a label under which power seekers can suppress liberty in order to enforce their concept of equality," then old media will have truly become old.

"Progressives" Are Demonstrably Dangerous to Human Life

Mark Alger today provoked me to refine my old observation about Progressives.

Seeing as what ilk today has been anointed with the Progressive label by establishment media are the very same ones enamored of Postmodernism, they ought be forced at every opportunity to face and twist in the logical consequences of their blatant contradiction.

Postmodernists clamor for regress; ergo, the new progressive favors repression not liberty.

Therefore, those who claim and those who grant the progressive label to these haters of the human ability to advance and to thrive: both are liars whose primary goal is to mislead their fellow humans to an early death.

Go to Sleep America

At the Reform Club -- irony of ironies -- we have a site co-contributor criticizing those who worry over and dislike the closed door Congressional hearings (assuring that we "know nothing" of its subject) and the product of its effluent that is about to be unleashed.

And if amnesty (hush!) is as openly welcome to Americans as Senator Feinstein asserted in a soundbite released today, then why the closed door hearings? Talk about need for reform Mr Zycher: calling Mde. Feinstein less than truthful and less than courageous is in danger of becoming mandatory understatement.

Here is how I responded to Benjamin Zycher's The Rantings of the KnowNothings

Pascal Fervor said...

Recommending that your readers give in to any apparent fait accompli of law breaking seems strikingly out of place at a site dedicated to societal reform.

But what weight does my opinion carry here? I'm just a guest; perhaps less so after today.

I can listen to Establishment media and a handful of "rightwing" talkers (such as the Medwitts^☼) if I wish to hear more efforts to anesthetize any groundswell of public outrage on this subject.

5:45 PM

This was followed by a not atypical middling response by the Reform Club's host, my fellow Angelino:

Tom Van Dyke said...

I'd just like someone to explain why this is better than doing nothing. Me, I'm a big fan of doing nothing.

There are many cracks in society's floor that are best left uncaulked, and absent any real reform, this is one of them.

6:21 PM

Crack Tom? This is a veritable breach.

Maybe this explains why my old teacher and Hudson Institute president, Herb London, has absented himself from the Reform Club for so long. Jolting his students awake -- perhaps the most important lesson he drilled into me -- was that man's primary goal.

Breaking Away to Get Along

More and more I believe you will see breaks with one long established tradition: Going along to get along. The rebellion is growing. You don't feel like joining it now, but I suspect you will feel compelled to join it.

The term take this job and shove it carries a resoundingly pleasing echo. That is because we have all flirted with the thought from time, but circumstances generally don't permit it. And another long and well founded phrase also resides in our thoughts don't burn your bridges.

Go along to get along was always looked at askance in traditional schools of ethics, but nevertheless, that devil was always granted his due. You don't make the rules. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Its just a job.

But there is something radically changed from before. There's both a dread and a gallows-like humor in the air. It's joked about. What with all the news of terrorist attacks. The widespread acceptance of permitting street hooligans to walk around masked. And what's up with the topsy-turvy way the likely suspects are treated? Who elected the ACLU to the be the rules-making committee of the Department of Homeland Security anyway?

We witness the community of likely candidates to the terrorist ranks make gains and inroads into our culture while the rest of us have to suffer under Byzantine rules ostensibly aimed at protecting us from their schemes. It didn't save Byzantium from being conquered by them before, what makes you think it will work this time? Shake your head, I think something is stuck.

And the thing that troubles us the most is the utter ineptness of our current leaders to work well together in the face of the threat. It couldn't be worse were the ineptness deliberate.

The people who you work for and the people who you vote for are not leaders in the traditional sense. Every effort has been made to expunge leaders from your ranks. Managers have been sought. Managers have been put in place so that moneyed interests can tell them how to manage. Manage what? Manage you.

Not so bad in the past, because your managers seemed like leaders. The Peter Principle seemed like a joke. The Dilbert Principle was a joke. It is also a glaring reality. And no matter how else we feel about this joke, the leaders it gave us are deadly serious.

The clowns on the Left, the more they rant and rave, and call George W Bush all sorts of names he does not deserve, serve too well to keep us from criticizing him for the things he needs to be criticized for. After all that abuse he receives, which of us decent folks don't feel the need to defend him from the worst even as we are uncomfortable with his performance?

And what of the few leftish clown of the Right, along with Establishment media, who keep the GOP from functioning as the grassroots would like to see it function? They prevent it from giving us a clear view of real men from which to decide to lead us. Real leaders? The management won't allow it.

And what of the President himself? Let's give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume that all that we may fear about him is groundless. So then, after he has been hearing loud and ugly voices that charge him with Hitlerian crimes and even worse, how keen can his hearing still be? When a good number of us out here in the hinterland say to him, "Mr. President, you're making big mistakes," what snowball chance in hell do you think he can still hear, let alone take our constructive criticism seriously?

But we have to be frank. We have to take our challenge seriously. So we have to look at the way things are, and surmise a good deal else from how they appear, and we have to stop complaining that things are not how we wish them to be. We have to start taking up the challenge ourselves.

We have to demand a NEW leader. He will understand. I think whoever he is he'll be in agreement with my following observation.

George W. Bush imposes on our fighting men rules of engagement that are right out of the ACLU urban police playbook. This is not healthy for America and its fighting men, these rules that Generally Betrayus. I know it sounds like a joke. But it is no laughing matter. Not if your survival means anything to you.

Yes my friends. The reason for the coming rebellion is a term that our homegrown adversaries use in a universal sense: Sustainability.

You are coming to understand, however reluctantly, that it is your survivability that hangs in the balance. That and that of your posterity and of the gift of Liberty that, from this wonderful country, still shines like a beacon the world over.

Thank you for listening.

The Need to Place Political Correctness in the Crosshairs - Part 2

Political Correctness poses far more dangers to us than the suppression of our right to speak. Indeed, when the essence of the suppressed speech is warnings to those who will listen, how hard is it then to see that PC is actually quite physically dangerous as well?

I was prompted to add some additional commentary about the need that we eliminate Political Correctness from our institutions when Wretchard published The Belmont Club: Some hates are more equal than others.

It contains a variety of links and short commentary about Tuft's University punishing its students for disseminating facts about the violent record of militant Islam.

Here is the text of my comment there.

It does not take a rocket scientist to notice the conflict between those who govern our institutions using political correctness as their guiding light and that of society's fundamentally predominant concern of protecting human life.

In fact there is assuredly a radical reversal in the way those who've risen to the top of society's institutions have 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.

Here we have institutional dunderheads (at best) protecting some groups, and allegedly the wider public, by censoring information about the rotten record of the complainant group's dangerous fellow travelers.

Essentially the institution that is Tufts University cares more about the offended feelings of its current pet group than it does for the safety of the individuals that keep Tufts in business: its students.

It is coincidental that I published only yesterday The Need to Place Political Correctness in the Crosshairs that was prompted by the misguidedness of another institution, MLB, which cares far more about deflecting criticism of the behaviors of its players that it does about its players being saved from the consequences of that same behavior.

The bigger point I made was how really dangerous political correctness is, and that it's best stopped before it goes too far. This story about Tufts appears to be pushing the threat even deeper.

I take it for granted that my readers understand how cuckoos proliferate. What I have observed is we have had laid into our cultural nest the cuckoo we have come to know as Political Correctness.

Since PC first appeared, that cuckoo has been killing off nearly every humane inclination to redirect a fellow human being from off a path leading to disaster. And that goes for our society's path as well.

Nearly every time I see a story about the Left's outrage for some questionable group, and usually at the expense of one or two lone individuals, I can't help but recall this poignant observation, by Wretchard, when he ended his commentary to Easy to Be Hard, Easy to Be Cold

One of the sources of the inhuman "strength" of the Left is its refusal to acknowledge the existence of anything smaller than a mass noun. Rhetorical service to the people, masses, workers, peasants; the poor and the downtrodden are objects worthy of the Left; but love, pity and sorrow for individuals is sentiment beneath contempt.

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.

Our Next Good American Leader Is Currently Under Attack

The rudderless ship drifts at the mercy of the tides.

In responding to comments to Our Curmdugeon's alert about looming Congressional attacks on free speech, ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ of Fighting in the Shade, woefully prayed: "May God Help us."

I eagerly said amen to that.

Still, every time I hear that prayer I also feel haunted by the old saw: "God helps those who help themselves." The rub is in knowing that this Biblical "sounding" homily was purportedly authored by Ben Franklin, an early collectivist. That suggests that the seeds to allow men ruling the state to supersede God were planted even before we became a nation under God.

So Leonidas's prayer mixes well with concerns this old agnostic has been mulling for quite some time. What it comes down to is this: God -- What is Right -- will stand behind those who are in the right.

Knowing what is right isn't always clear. Many are easily misled, others are willingly misled. And those who have something to gain are eager to mislead. It doesn't take much recounting of history to prove this. In fact, misleaders are never more revealing than when they are attacking the teaching of what happened in the past. Those who wish to gain at the expense of others' folly don't very well want their useful idiots to know or care about consequences that have befallen fools of the past.

For there is hardly anything clearer than this. Those who wish to conquer have an ally in confusion. It takes good men to lead the way through and away from confusion. So it's natural that the conqueror can't abide leaders. New kings, upon ascending the throne, often killed off their potential rivals.

Those who are not necessarily against the right way, but are hell bent to have good things go their way, have been firmly committed to raising a generation of managers, not leaders. The last leaders I worked for in industry were purged in the 1970s.

And every effort is made to prevent new leadership from arising, perhaps in Biblical proportions.

In many ways our statists take their clues from the Bible even as they do their damnedest to convince the rest of us that the Bible contains nothing of value for us whom they aim to rule.

Our statists have even moved beyond Pharoah in seeking to prevent new leadership from arising. Instead of killing the first born, they convince his mother to do it and his father to applaud it. And promote life alternatives that will lead his brothers and sisters not to procreate at all.

Taking more clues form the Bible: Despite much carnage, Pharoah failed. And the liberator arose in his own house.

So I'm reliably convinced that that haunts our statists.

Every effort is made to keep those they do not trust from rising to prominence.

Last night they went so far as to leave the names off the TV screen from under the images of the 10 GOP hopefuls so that the average viewer couldn't easily tie the face and words to a name.

I think our statists have little to worry about from those ten men. For men who live and die by name recognition, is it not odd that not one of them made a peep of complaint about the anonymity assigned them by MSNBC? Our next "leader" is allegedly amongst them? [shudder]

So ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ, I too ask God for help:

Where Is MY Leader?

Where Is MY Leader?

After seeing tonight but a portion of the staged display of Republican hopefuls, I simply had to ask: Where is my leader?

I don't know anyone who has this answer. So for second best, will someone please lie to me persuasively? C'mon try like you really give a shit about Americans and their future.

Speaking of shits; was there not one with enough backbone to say that the also-ran network MSNBC was not the right venue?

Hey! On that score alone, maybe no-show Fred Thompson really is the man?

Then, just to demonstrate he knows what to do about sabotage, how about one of the guys who did show up having the courage to walk up to the producer after the event and punching him in the nose?

For what? For deliberately not including the name of each hopeful under their image. That's standard practice everywhere. All except for this debate? Hence, it was intentional -- well deserving of painful consequences.

The fact that these unknown faces (except to the politically savvy) had to take mostly inane if not embarrassing questions? Aw, that's nothing. It's simply another cracked window through which to view the derelict mind of Chris Matthews.

After witnessing this charade, I must heartily congratulate the Dems for choosing not to appear in front of the far wider audience that belongs to Fox. At least they had the political sense not to have to face legitimate questioning even if it costs them money and viewership.

But what propelled the GOP to accept the Matthews invitation? Short of complete imbecility that is.

God bless it: where is a leader I would be proud to follow?

Tactical Maneuverings

Last Sunday (April 22) Fran Porretto took on one of the rules terrible that keeps the political system working quite favorably to suit our ever more elitist American ruling class.

The reception Fran received from extreme Leftists (fans of James Wolcott) for writing it truly demonstrates the workings of one of my long standing concepts: The Ideological Corral.

I plan in the next weeks to explain the corral like never before. It is an important element in my story about Ronald Reagan. The following is a start on that.

In a comment at The New Segregationists Part 2I wrote the following in response to one of Fran's co-contributors, Aaron Brenzel:

Aaron, Tocqueville’s observation is actively in play here: The tyrant cares less you love him provided you hate your fellow subjects. Rather than see Wolcott’s accusation as ridiculous, better for you to spread understanding why it would be deliberate.

Wolcott is proudly a Leftist-liberal. He sees inequality everywhere and hates it. (Aside: Does he realize that failing to achieve Utopia his side would install universal Dystopia just to be fair? I suspect he does.)

Effectively that means he’s very disinclined to permit liberty for individuals and very demanding of freedom for government (would erase constitutional limits that hinder his desires).

This is why I have long skipped past the liberal facade and directly label such a position as Leftist-statist. (I hope someone finally makes that distinction popular. For only when it is widely understood will the position’s undeserved aura of compassion be stripped away).

Operating from such a political position, Wolcott intends to convert Fran’s warning into Fran’s desire. “See? Government must be allowed to censor Francis before he harms some minorities.”

Our government has and will go extra constitutional in times of crisis.

Thus, the Left-statist, ever seeking government growth, is constantly erecting crises in the hopes that one or more will be accepted.

And then the Right-statist (typical RINO) steps in and demands the rest of us be reasonable and compromise by accepting one of the crises and subsequent government growth.

In summary: Wolcott has no reason to give Francis any credit for seeking to solve conditions that would eliminate a threat that the Left-Statists have worked so hard to establish in the first place.

The tactic employed by Wolcott, whether he knows it or not, is one that is meant to horrify the general public. For it has become a knee jerk reaction by the public that minorities are good and majorities are bad. For the sake of those who gain from it, a response has been conditioned in most of us that nobody in the majority should be believed as honestly seeking to remedy the problems. Any hint of racism is bad. And most reactionary-like, any discussion from the Right that is a legitimate attempt to remedy the hatefulness is considered not just fair to attack, but imperative to attack.

The idea is to make the Right side of the Left-Right political spectrum be too painful to get near. They make the Right unpleasant, even repellent like an electrified fence on one side of a corral does to livestock. This is as deliberate conditioning as ever there was.

Thus the Right side of the corral is occupied by those who, while they may not understand why they are being attacked (and I'm dedicated to remedying that), see good reasons to be there. It is mostly occupied by good people who feel that that side is so important that a little pain is well worth the price.

The rest of the population, being inclined towards where is most comfortable, gravitates to wherever the media allows the "middle" to be defined. And when the middle doesn't, naturally, allow the solving of problems, the media makes the Left side seem pleasant and well meaning. And that is despite the "occasional" outrageousness of those who own the Left side.

More to follow.

New Reasons For Reopening Debate On Executing Killers [Updated]

Summary: Circumstances have changed since most Western countries and many American states abolished capital punishment. Sudden effacement of many key safeguards which bolstered those anti-death penalty policies demands that the conscientious reopen the debate over the need for executions of society's worst killers.

This article that appeared in the Brisbane Times (h/t Wretchard at the Belmont Club) , tells of heightened threats to public safety being recognized and seriously confronted by prison authorities. The new threat arose due to concerted efforts of radical immans to convert to Islam the most unsavory of the incarcerated in the New South Wales prison populations. The story provides more than sufficient evidence that many premises that guaranteed general public safety and were heretofore key to Western civilizations' inclination to abolish capital punishment have become perilously thin and penetrable.

Update 4/28/07:
Saudis Arrest 172 in Alleged Terror Plot . Pertinent to the commentary below is this excerpt The militants also planned to storm Saudi prisons to free jailed militants, the ministry's statement said. Do you suppose the Saudis used Western standard interrogation techniques to break up this threat?

Commentary

Time and again obstructionists to capital punishment have argued that the incarceration of murderers is all that is needed to remove their threat to society. "Life in prison without the possibility of parole" they say is sufficient to protect society from new threats from these monsters.

There are a number of other arguments that partly defeat this premise -- such as the presence of known killers in the prison population being an unmitigatible lethal threat to guards and to those convicted of non-capital offenses. But no other arguments, including chances of a breakout from prison by any one murderer, outright defeated the life-in-prison argument entirely. At least not until now.


Here are just three new developments that I can think of now that undermine the idea that killers put away for life terms will never again arise to threaten society as a whole:

1. Their continued existence makes them an object of sympathy of the radical Islamists, providing the latter another reason to lash out at our society in general.
2. The radicals may decide to attack one or more of our already high security prisons -- a threat that should already have and will increase costs of running such institutions.
3. Every murderer is now a higher risk (to society) of being freed -- an event no longer solely in the hands of parole boards, but now also in the hands of fate. The fate of a successful prison break orchestrated with Saudi or other similar limitless money.

I am sure readers can come up with more reasons. But here is a special thing to remember. No matter how many times Leftists are dealt devastating blows to their premises, they manage, with the great help of establishment media, to drown out that fact. And then they go on to insert new and preposterous arguments into the discussion as if they haven't been revealed to be wholly devoid of humility and desire to protect our societies. Please be prepared. Don't let them get away with the stunts this time.

Tear Off Your Blinders and See -- A Foreword

 
Perhaps it needed a rest. However, I fear I’ve let this one device languish for too long. I hope you will forgive me.

A concept I once roughly sketched acquired a prominent champion: Ronald Reagan.

Although the idea affected Mr. Reagan’s thinking, proven by the fact that he gave a speech clearly built from it, the idea never took off.

I think the reason for its lapse is clear enough as I expect many of you will see when you read it. Power seeking people can not gain from the wide-spread understanding of this concept. They have good reason to suppress it.

Back in the early 1980s, anyone who dared speak of the control of mass media by a biased core was belittled to say the least. However, that was in the days long before the Internet. The tables have since turned. It is those who deny the bias who are now subjects of ridicule.

So, I’m going to try to rekindle this idea.

I will do it in short segments.

I hope to persuade just a few of you of the wisdom in this concept. Then you, in turn, may influence others. Political blinders have been emplaced upon most all of us from a very early age. This concept permits much clearer vision, and thereby opens opportunities to fight back otherwise not in sight.

Perhaps one of you will reach some new American champion just as one of my early listeners apparently reached Mr. Reagan.

Yes. It is possible. Such a leader may once again inspire Americans to keep lit Mr Reagan's famous Beacon Upon The Hill.

Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics, And Medved

On The Michael Medved Show today: Mr. Medved used statistics to make the current voting record of one of his favorite presidential candidates appear very more conservative than it – and he – has become.

Mr. Medved loves to tell us how he's a former liberal activist. Is he still brazenly performing stupid liberal tricks on behalf of the more liberal candidates? You decide.


All the following transpired as I heard Mr. Medved downplaying the presidential "non-candidacy" of Fred Thompson.

Mr. McCain
In the course of his comments, Medved compared the lifetime conservative voting scores (tallied by the American Conservative Union) of Fred Thompson (8 years) with John McCain (24 years).

Medved said that the two senators shared similar scores -- about 85%.

That McCain's lifetime numbers are so high isn't too hard to believe since he scored in the high 90s early in his career.

But without looking, I will bet that for the last few years Senator McCain's ACU rating has been about 50% if not lower.

To be fair, I don't view McCain's behavior as being much different from what happens to Supreme Court justices after they've been on the bench for some time. That McCain suffers from the communicable diseases endemic of the DC swamp, there can be little doubt.

But thinking of Supreme Court justices -- and of their Actonizaton -- should arouse in us all the most important of concerns about McCain: Is this the man we can depend upon to nominate conservative candidates to the high court? [shudder]

Mr. Medved
Now, overall, Medved was doing this carefully, in a softball fashion. But clearly, Medved was dismissive of any Fred Thompson candidacy. While he made many substantive points about Thompson having more played (as an actor) the leader than being the leader, Mr. Medved didn't -- wouldn't, couldn't? -- stop there.

Medved is quite candid. He's still pumping for McCain, Guiliani and Romney, in that order. It is not lost on me, nor should it be lost by other conservatives, that Medved's penchant is consistent with the behavior of an old-fashioned Progressive; that is, promoting men who have pulled up one or more set of "stakes"^☼: the anchors that sustain conservative principles. The Progressive is for men whom, presumably, can be relied upon to comfortably re-orient society to some point (typically left) where will henceforth be considered the political center.

As Mr. Medved was admittedly trying to promote the early establishment favorites, I guess he figured it was okay to stoop to such disingenuousness.

Did he think we wouldn't notice?

And what can we make of all this if he did figure we would notice?

The point of concern I wish you all to take away from this commentary is not about McCain, but about Medved.

Conclusion:
Yes. Medved loves to tell us how he's a former liberal activist. Well, is he not still brazenly performing stupid liberal tricks? And on behalf of the more liberal candidates?

Watch your back conservatives.

Another Piece of the Puzzle Is Glaring At Us

I’ve been working on an examination of the concept of Utopia and of those who seek it and believe they can achieve it. It was inspired by commenter MoreNuancedThanYou in comments to “The Nature of Evil.” It’s not half done.

And then I read Our Curmudgeon’s screed for today: Repeal the Laws of Economics!

In it he wrote:

“Were the ACT-UP idiots to get what they've demanded, twenty years from today there wouldn't be an AIDS sufferer loose anywhere in the world. They'd all be dead or quarantined awaiting death.” [emphasis in the original]

Economically Our Curmudgeon would be right. It would be hard to find any cures for anything, let alone AIDS, given the sort of medical establishment our Post-modernist effete are longing to foist upon us.

But I think he’s wrong about the continued existence of AIDS victims.

Given the way things are today, I think he underestimates the power of our Politically Correct officials and overestimates the chances of rebellion by the rest of us.

Dear Curmudgeon: Can't you see where, were the ACTUP crowd to succeed in their demands, their physical outcome would not be permitted to become as bleak as you paint it? The rest of us would simply be forced to put up with less health care. Considerably less. The PC crowd would see to it.

You ask: "What would be their basis? And what do you mean by ‘considerably less’?"

I will try not to get too involved.

PC officials will make rules on the same basis that we allow them to champion the "rights" of all their pet groups at the expense of everybody else's rights.

Unlike those of us who have a grasp on reality, I've come to the conclusion that PC officials are actively seeking Utopia. As you so often chronicle, they are building Utopia to their specifications. You also know too well how much of a big deal they make of equality. Well, I contend that equality in achieving happiness is the Utopian's ultimate measure of success.

However, time and again, they find that they cannot succeed in making everybody happy. But they’ll not be deterred, by gum. So they instead resort to the next best thing: making sure that everybody is somewhat unhappy.

They have been attempting to do that for quite a long time now with wealth redistribution schemes. This nation has “poor” whose annual “income” (that is, in all forms of assistance) exceeds by far the working middle class’s income in most of the rest of the world.

I sure hope it’s dawned on not a few of you what I’m seeing here: by what standard would compel the PC official to shrink from employing the same approach in offering health care?

You actually think AIDS victims will merely die off because drugs that could keep them alive them will not be found? No, no. The AIDS patients must, eagerly, be kept around. Their usefulness as a pet group is too great. You are thinking in too limited a fashion, my dear Curmudgeon. You are thinking along morally defunct, non-Postmodern lines of thought. For surely it would not take long for some super person to ask “by what right do the rest of you claim to have access to untainted blood?”

Do I really have to spell it out?

These "Utopians" could very well demand that our blood supplies be statistically rigged to match the percentage of AIDS patients in the country (or even the world).

I’m going to end it right there.

And if some of you -- geniuses I am sure -- think that it is me who is mad, go reread the short story Harrison Bergeron (the link has it in full) and recognize that Vonnegut wrote that long before the Politically Correct became the bold bastards we’ve allowed them to become.

The Nature of Evil

As part of a much longer conversation with Og the Neanderpundit, his first short story, Slayer, published Saturday, prompted a short side discussion between us about the nature of evil. I had my own notions of what constitutes evil before reading the story (that I read quickly while conversing with him) and so I didn't immediately concur with him.

However, that is not the same thing as saying that Og was wrong. One of the great advantages to reading Neanderpundit is how Og stresses the simpler nature of what others weave into complicated explanations.

Og subsequently published this The Nature of Evil. In it he refined the three elements of evil he was conceiving during our discussion.

Primarily, he relates all evil to the infliction, enjoyment and profit from suffering.

My initial inclination was to think that his definition seemed a bit narrow. I am inclined to see evil in those who deliberately mislead others to their own destruction. As for those who are themselves misguided and then help mislead others, what are they? Well, they become agents of evil even if they themselves don't mean to be. Those who may be called "useful idiots" fit this latter description.

In our discussion, it didn't take me long to figure out how ticked off he is with the medical establishment. And even so, that is hardly reason enough to declare his view of evil as narrow. The trick, of course, is to take the report of his vision and see how it fits in with what I see.

Now Og knows I like to take my engineering skills and use it to study how little items fit into the forest we call living. I do it to to figure out better how the forest operates.

To me it's a big jigsaw puzzle. (My Mom told me that while still in my crib, when I became bored completing puzzles with the picture side up I would complete them cardboard side up). Sometimes you see the whole picture before you're complete. Sometimes you are missing key pieces, but so what? Overall you can still comprehend most of what the picture tells you even before it's half complete.

So Og knew what he was doing, as usual. Yes, Og, I think I can fit your definition of evil into my own.

First of all, for any new readers. Though it might seem not to be the case from the following discussion, know that I am religiously agnostic. I am a searcher.

Some have said I am doing it the hard way. Others have said worse.

But if there is a God, that is between Him and me, and that seems to be all that any religion has a right to ask of its followers. Get right with Him. Sadly that seems far too often not the case. Get two people to agree and they too often — almost automatically, like it is something beyond their control — will make the third person a heretic.

What I refer to is the Concept of God. The Ideal. The Creator is First before the creation. When a man seeks out perfection he has a damn good chance to catch excellence. And we live in a whole world in which to seek excellence. It's really hard to get bored unless one limits oneself (most common) or if some outside forces attempt to limit you (next most common).

We can bowl a perfect game: but who can claim to ever bowling 12 mixers: 12 perfect strikes? "In your mind" we would tell such a claimant.

Exactly.

And if we can conceive of perfection in some matters of creation, why not all creation? Such clearly implies a Creator. And yet some don't even want to allow your children to even consider Him as a concept. If the Creator doesn't suffer from that course of events, then He really doesn't exist.

See Og. I finally got here. Sorry for the delay.

Evil as suffering. Evil is intent on inflicting suffering upon the Creator of the universe. He suffers as a parent who suffers when he or she witnesses his offspring coming to a bad end.

We are told that the first thing He told us to do, as he was taking us out of our box: "Be fruitful and multiply."

Why? Because He built all creation for us to enjoy. The more of us there are, the more opportunities for mankind to get one of us to see things the others just cannot see. We each are a potential help to each other.


What profit it men to have the Lord suffer in this way? So that men who don't know Him will turn to the scheming little demigods who will offer themselves to fill the breach. So that they will be worshipped instead of the concept of the Creator.

And why would the demigods want the Creator's creatures to suffer? Because that is the easiest way to drive the Creator's otherwise thinking creature (man) to allow themselves to be treated like cattle. People who suffer from illness want to die. The demigods can more easily cull a herd of thinking cattle if you can get the cooperation of the cattle. So let them suffer rather than spend "limited" resources on now useless eaters. What place has love and appreciation for a life well lived? Well: "Don't let her suffer: kill her. Please!"

And why would such men enjoy the suffering they are inflicting? They have do dismiss the humanity of those they are inflicting the suffering upon. They have to see themselves as higher up on the food chain. It's so much easier to do once they teach themselves to enjoy their "work" rather than wretch as would be the normal response.

It is like in battle. When the general who wants his men to fight tougher than the enemy? He wants his men to hate the enemy. So much easier to enjoy killing.

Well so it is with those who are warring against humanity. It is so much easier to get the agents who are waging that battle to enjoy the suffering they're inflicting. You of an earlier and more wholesome influence would think of such things as aberrant, as abnormal. Hell, the megalomaniacs who wage war on "overpopulation" need to make what was once abnormal and beastly become acceptable? As for allowing you your self-defense: now, that is unacceptable -- to them.

Now the medical profession has had many noble men in it. Many from the past did life-saving work with very little pay. But we've permitted the institution to become corrupted along with so many other institutions in our besieged culture. How? (Well, I've another puzzle sitting in a box that describes that. It will have to wait. )

All one needs to know about the medical establishment today is that many medical schools have eliminated the Hippocratic Oath: "First, do no harm." It is gone.

After that, how long do you think it would take for many to descend to this? "Psst. When we don't offer pain medication, and our patients really suffer, we'll have their loved ones begging us to let 'em go. Heh, heh, heh."

So Og. Here you are. Here is how your concept of evil blends in with mine. At least, that's my "short" order response.

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.

The Belmont Club: The Shadow Lengthens

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