Here's the counterpart bumper sticker:
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
Doorbell
Parties come and go.
Although the politicians are working to pit the poor against the rich, the unable against the able, the receivers against the producers of government benefits, it is time to see that we are not the enemy of each other. To engage in this infighting is to let the real culprit get away with his criminality.
There is no future for the poor if being successful and wealthy is not a possibility. The government as it is now being constituted and operated and the people it is protecting (big business and big labor that will not put itself at risk and is simply another arm of the government) are now the enemy of the people.
Your and my future depend on remedying this situation. Get to know your neighbors. Build trust with them.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Obama's Advocacy of Wealth Redistribution
This was discovered in 2008, but it is interesting to listen how smooth this man is. If you are taken in by people sounding not only learned but "good*," then he sounds fabulous.
What is to be redistributed?
Property.
Whose property?
Yours. I didn't hear him excepting you from having your property taken and redistributed, did you? (Listen again, carefully, if you just assumed that he couldn't possibly mean you.)
And what is property?
Anything that is yours - the body you were born with and anything that you have mixed your labor with to obtain or have been given by someone who properly owned it. It includes your savings, your precious things, the organs of your body. (Stolen property is not properly owned.)
They can take that?
Yes, any of it and all of it. The only criteria is that they can point to someone who, in their estimation, needs it.
How do I know they need it?
Do you think this question amounts to anything in the face of the State and it's wants? Why do they care what you and I think if they already appropriate the right to own us and everything that is ours?
__________________________________________________________
The Founders of this country knew that governments can and will take anything they want from their citizens unless they are stopped. The Constitution was set up to stop them. Here we have a man who is openly claiming that the constitution was not written as it should have been and is advocating that the Government take anything it wants in order to redistribute it.
Do you want to understand why people hate, are scared to death of, and want to get rid of Obama? Do you understand why they might go on strike? It's because he has set himself up as a direct threat to every man's liberty and property, properly gained - the two requirements for you to be able to live as a human being. He has proclaimed himself, in Ibsen's words, "An Enemy of the People," albeit smooooooth as silk.
Have you seen any evidence that he isn't working to carry out his vision?
I have not.
__________________________________________________________
*The good that Obama relies on is that you are willing to sacrifice for the group and the "greater good" as determined by the political elite. It is not really the good. It is the good that has come down to us via culture of at least 2000 year old.
One of the ways we know that it is not the good is because socialism and top-down government planning always, always, always fail. Why? Because these schemes separate results from motive power for the individual citizens which all their schemes depend on - and motive power only comes via the individual, not groups and collectives.
__________________________________________________________
Added post: 7-23-2011
Here is another video of oh-so-smooth Obama speaking on July 22, 2011. He says Americans will pitch in if asked. One problem: They are not asked. They do not contribute to this voluntarily. They are forced. Also notice that for Obama, there are no individuals and individual choices. He is thoroughly collectivist.
And what happens when people are forced? Their motive power evaporates because they have no control over their own fate. A person's ends are, by law, prevented from being gained by his motives and actions. They are forced to give up their resources to those who are not motivated to produce, but to rule. So, the resources go to support their further rule. This is the great evil of socialism and why America is in the death throes of its experiment of liberty. Capitalism is the economy of free men. It cannot work when a man's mind is in chains.
The real mantra for this era, the one that would make a difference is "Get out of the way!" Another one with a religious cast is "Let my people go."
What is to be redistributed?
Property.
Whose property?
Yours. I didn't hear him excepting you from having your property taken and redistributed, did you? (Listen again, carefully, if you just assumed that he couldn't possibly mean you.)
And what is property?
Anything that is yours - the body you were born with and anything that you have mixed your labor with to obtain or have been given by someone who properly owned it. It includes your savings, your precious things, the organs of your body. (Stolen property is not properly owned.)
They can take that?
Yes, any of it and all of it. The only criteria is that they can point to someone who, in their estimation, needs it.
How do I know they need it?
Do you think this question amounts to anything in the face of the State and it's wants? Why do they care what you and I think if they already appropriate the right to own us and everything that is ours?
__________________________________________________________
The Founders of this country knew that governments can and will take anything they want from their citizens unless they are stopped. The Constitution was set up to stop them. Here we have a man who is openly claiming that the constitution was not written as it should have been and is advocating that the Government take anything it wants in order to redistribute it.
Do you want to understand why people hate, are scared to death of, and want to get rid of Obama? Do you understand why they might go on strike? It's because he has set himself up as a direct threat to every man's liberty and property, properly gained - the two requirements for you to be able to live as a human being. He has proclaimed himself, in Ibsen's words, "An Enemy of the People," albeit smooooooth as silk.
Have you seen any evidence that he isn't working to carry out his vision?
I have not.
__________________________________________________________
*The good that Obama relies on is that you are willing to sacrifice for the group and the "greater good" as determined by the political elite. It is not really the good. It is the good that has come down to us via culture of at least 2000 year old.
One of the ways we know that it is not the good is because socialism and top-down government planning always, always, always fail. Why? Because these schemes separate results from motive power for the individual citizens which all their schemes depend on - and motive power only comes via the individual, not groups and collectives.
__________________________________________________________
Added post: 7-23-2011
Here is another video of oh-so-smooth Obama speaking on July 22, 2011. He says Americans will pitch in if asked. One problem: They are not asked. They do not contribute to this voluntarily. They are forced. Also notice that for Obama, there are no individuals and individual choices. He is thoroughly collectivist.
And what happens when people are forced? Their motive power evaporates because they have no control over their own fate. A person's ends are, by law, prevented from being gained by his motives and actions. They are forced to give up their resources to those who are not motivated to produce, but to rule. So, the resources go to support their further rule. This is the great evil of socialism and why America is in the death throes of its experiment of liberty. Capitalism is the economy of free men. It cannot work when a man's mind is in chains.
The real mantra for this era, the one that would make a difference is "Get out of the way!" Another one with a religious cast is "Let my people go."
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Question to Obama
You've expressed every tenet of socialism - particularly redistributing people's wealth. Since America is capitalist, the economy of free men, why are you trying to destroy it?
Monday, July 18, 2011
The Administration that Ran Aground on Envy
All the inspiration that was present at the start of the Obama Administration is now gone. All that are left are the partisan hangers-on and most likely they will continue to hang on.
What happened?
I say this President ran aground on envy. Envy is the fundamental and core belief that the world is unjust and that this injustice must be corrected - at all costs. For people dominated by envy, some people have money and power and others don't and that simply isn't fair. (I wonder if this idea comes from the Garden of Eden story? There everything was provided and since in real life it isn't, they are pissed. They keep thinking this reality is somehow just not right nor just. And, as long as that exists anywhere in the world, those with the money and power are to be hated and taken down. You can hear it in the speaking of Obama's Aunt Zeituni. She sees American welfare as a duty and so does our President. Ayn Rand defined envy "the hatred of the good for being the good."
That, my friends, is the essence of the Obama Administration. He exhibits it on every front.
He exhibits it in our foreign policy where he arbitrarily gives to our enemies and withdraws support of our friends. (Honest to God, I have some Jewish friends who are so liberal they would vote for Obama if he were building Auschwitz on property adjacent to theirs. That's another story.) He exhibits it in his treatment of business, stealing people's property and dictatorially handing it over to his voter constituency, the unions. He arbitrarily lets blacks get away with crimes that he would never allow for whites so he doesn't treat all Americans equal under the law. He rails against Wall Street and big business to induce guilt for producing value so he can loot their value and our value. He destroys his own value by openly lying. What could have a man be so anti-human life that he sneers at the good and creates a distraction while he plunders the good (your money, your belief in him, your good will) which he wants. This is the criminal mind at work. See here.
Frederic Douglas said it best as to why this Administration has run aground: "A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing." It has built its constituency on those that will amount to nothing. They do not have their hands on the levers and dials of producing value and because they don't, essentially they are parasites - in the material sense and in the spiritual sense, getting high on hope not solid plans. (Here's an example of getting high on hope.) They can only exist as long as their host, the vital producers, will support them. Their time is running out.
What happened?
I say this President ran aground on envy. Envy is the fundamental and core belief that the world is unjust and that this injustice must be corrected - at all costs. For people dominated by envy, some people have money and power and others don't and that simply isn't fair. (I wonder if this idea comes from the Garden of Eden story? There everything was provided and since in real life it isn't, they are pissed. They keep thinking this reality is somehow just not right nor just. And, as long as that exists anywhere in the world, those with the money and power are to be hated and taken down. You can hear it in the speaking of Obama's Aunt Zeituni. She sees American welfare as a duty and so does our President. Ayn Rand defined envy "the hatred of the good for being the good."
That, my friends, is the essence of the Obama Administration. He exhibits it on every front.
He exhibits it in our foreign policy where he arbitrarily gives to our enemies and withdraws support of our friends. (Honest to God, I have some Jewish friends who are so liberal they would vote for Obama if he were building Auschwitz on property adjacent to theirs. That's another story.) He exhibits it in his treatment of business, stealing people's property and dictatorially handing it over to his voter constituency, the unions. He arbitrarily lets blacks get away with crimes that he would never allow for whites so he doesn't treat all Americans equal under the law. He rails against Wall Street and big business to induce guilt for producing value so he can loot their value and our value. He destroys his own value by openly lying. What could have a man be so anti-human life that he sneers at the good and creates a distraction while he plunders the good (your money, your belief in him, your good will) which he wants. This is the criminal mind at work. See here.
Frederic Douglas said it best as to why this Administration has run aground: "A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing." It has built its constituency on those that will amount to nothing. They do not have their hands on the levers and dials of producing value and because they don't, essentially they are parasites - in the material sense and in the spiritual sense, getting high on hope not solid plans. (Here's an example of getting high on hope.) They can only exist as long as their host, the vital producers, will support them. Their time is running out.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Why Obama has the Republicans by the Short Hairs
Obama knows that the Republicans cannot vote to raise taxes, so why does he demand they do so? My answer? He thinks he has them by the short hairs.
How so?
He stands squarely on and counts on this culture's moral principle which has governed her since the turn of the 20th century.
So long as he stands there, he forces Republicans to argue economics. If someone-you-love's life is in danger, will you not act because you look at your bank account and decide you can't afford it? No. You would do whatever you could to save the life of the person you love. But, Obama will work to convince the American people that the Republicans will always look at their bank account first when it comes to doing the "right thing" for people and the Republicans are unable to challenge Obama's version of the "right thing."
The United States is fundamentally a Christian nation - not in the sense that Christianity is the official religion - but rather that the values of the Judeo-Christian worldview and morality have and still influence this culture. In that worldview, a person is expected to sacrifice himself for another. The story of Abraham and Isaac is the story of God requiring Abraham to place his life in God's hands. God tests Abraham by instructing him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, to show that he is, in fact, obedient to God. Abraham is committed to being obedient to God so he builds an altar, lays his son Isaac on it and raises the ax high to deliver the killing blow. God stops him. Abraham proved his loyalty God, the higher moral authority.
The principle of self-sacrifice is amplified in the New Testament in the Sermon on the Mount. We have all gotten the message. So now when the government comes along and wants to provide health care for all citizens, they rightly and righteously provide us the opportunity to fulfill on this moral dictum. In fact everything they come up with provides us this opportunity, they think.
It is this principle of sacrifice to someone higher - not choosing something because it is a more important value to oneself - but giving up something more important for something less important (the definition of sacrifice) since whatever was deemed as more important was done so not by the person himself, but someone who has substituted himself and become his moral authority.
This principle began in American political life a little over a hundred years ago. Now we are trying to survive in an orgy of self-sacrifice.
Obama now needs to be delivered the coup de grace and put him and us out of our misery from trying to live this contradiction against life. He needs to be told publicly that the moral dictum that he is counting on - that one help his neighbor not because he values him (if he does) but because he has a duty to sacrifice to him - is over. It is inconsistent with life and must end.
When America was founded, it was founded on the idea that every man has a life and it is his by right - to be used by no one other than him. Human life in the United States of America is to be an end in itself. Why? Because reality shows us that life is an end in itself. It seeks to live and that is its basic purpose. This is the revolutionary idea that generated America. Millions of people have come here to live free to pursue their lives.
Obama though, is proudly invoking sacrifice. He doesn't care if the economy is wrecked by higher taxation. He doesn't care about anything that happens to America nor himself nor you. He lies boldly in service of his purpose - to institute self-sacrifice in America.
He loves and revels in using your moral code against you. He wants to see you twisting in the wind as you are unable to save yourself because you cannot cut the cord of the false moral code.
Obama is interested in collecting sacrifices. He doesn't sacrifice, he thinks. He doesn't grasp how he is sacrificing his life because his moral code has blinded him. This is what keeps him disconnected and arrogant, and why he needs so many rounds of golf. He cares about using the morality of sacrifice to keep you under his control and "fundamentally transform America."
And he will do it and is doing it because no one will challenge this moral code - the moral code of Abraham. So rather than fulfilling the promise that America is for human being, Obama chooses to institute sacrifice and end up having everyone hate each other because everyone else has a claim on his life. This is inhumane beyond belief, a back-to-the-dark-ages mentality and yet that is the principle that will keep the Republicans under Obama's control.
Who will be the first to stand up to this? Who will be the first in this era to stand for the POSSIBILITY that America is in the history of humanity? Who is willing to take on all the lies and mis-attributions to liberty and capitalism, the economy of the free? Who will carry the principles of liberty further than ever, showing that man when free becomes responsible and life works? Who will show that society gets taken care of when the individual is honored and otherwise it doesn't. Who will be the first to demand solutions that grant every man the right to his life - to live by his own self-interest so that he can thrive to the best of his ability? Who will be the first to see that man does not need regulation - that he is self-regulating by his own rational self-interest? And, that maybe, just maybe, government is only needed to stop the people who infringe on others' lives and property. How much more proof of the failure of socialism do we need? How much bigger idiot does a Republican have to become?
Give it up. Stop this charade for power!
How so?
He stands squarely on and counts on this culture's moral principle which has governed her since the turn of the 20th century.
So long as he stands there, he forces Republicans to argue economics. If someone-you-love's life is in danger, will you not act because you look at your bank account and decide you can't afford it? No. You would do whatever you could to save the life of the person you love. But, Obama will work to convince the American people that the Republicans will always look at their bank account first when it comes to doing the "right thing" for people and the Republicans are unable to challenge Obama's version of the "right thing."
The United States is fundamentally a Christian nation - not in the sense that Christianity is the official religion - but rather that the values of the Judeo-Christian worldview and morality have and still influence this culture. In that worldview, a person is expected to sacrifice himself for another. The story of Abraham and Isaac is the story of God requiring Abraham to place his life in God's hands. God tests Abraham by instructing him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, to show that he is, in fact, obedient to God. Abraham is committed to being obedient to God so he builds an altar, lays his son Isaac on it and raises the ax high to deliver the killing blow. God stops him. Abraham proved his loyalty God, the higher moral authority.
The principle of self-sacrifice is amplified in the New Testament in the Sermon on the Mount. We have all gotten the message. So now when the government comes along and wants to provide health care for all citizens, they rightly and righteously provide us the opportunity to fulfill on this moral dictum. In fact everything they come up with provides us this opportunity, they think.
It is this principle of sacrifice to someone higher - not choosing something because it is a more important value to oneself - but giving up something more important for something less important (the definition of sacrifice) since whatever was deemed as more important was done so not by the person himself, but someone who has substituted himself and become his moral authority.
This principle began in American political life a little over a hundred years ago. Now we are trying to survive in an orgy of self-sacrifice.
Obama now needs to be delivered the coup de grace and put him and us out of our misery from trying to live this contradiction against life. He needs to be told publicly that the moral dictum that he is counting on - that one help his neighbor not because he values him (if he does) but because he has a duty to sacrifice to him - is over. It is inconsistent with life and must end.
When America was founded, it was founded on the idea that every man has a life and it is his by right - to be used by no one other than him. Human life in the United States of America is to be an end in itself. Why? Because reality shows us that life is an end in itself. It seeks to live and that is its basic purpose. This is the revolutionary idea that generated America. Millions of people have come here to live free to pursue their lives.
Obama though, is proudly invoking sacrifice. He doesn't care if the economy is wrecked by higher taxation. He doesn't care about anything that happens to America nor himself nor you. He lies boldly in service of his purpose - to institute self-sacrifice in America.
He loves and revels in using your moral code against you. He wants to see you twisting in the wind as you are unable to save yourself because you cannot cut the cord of the false moral code.
Obama is interested in collecting sacrifices. He doesn't sacrifice, he thinks. He doesn't grasp how he is sacrificing his life because his moral code has blinded him. This is what keeps him disconnected and arrogant, and why he needs so many rounds of golf. He cares about using the morality of sacrifice to keep you under his control and "fundamentally transform America."
And he will do it and is doing it because no one will challenge this moral code - the moral code of Abraham. So rather than fulfilling the promise that America is for human being, Obama chooses to institute sacrifice and end up having everyone hate each other because everyone else has a claim on his life. This is inhumane beyond belief, a back-to-the-dark-ages mentality and yet that is the principle that will keep the Republicans under Obama's control.
Who will be the first to stand up to this? Who will be the first in this era to stand for the POSSIBILITY that America is in the history of humanity? Who is willing to take on all the lies and mis-attributions to liberty and capitalism, the economy of the free? Who will carry the principles of liberty further than ever, showing that man when free becomes responsible and life works? Who will show that society gets taken care of when the individual is honored and otherwise it doesn't. Who will be the first to demand solutions that grant every man the right to his life - to live by his own self-interest so that he can thrive to the best of his ability? Who will be the first to see that man does not need regulation - that he is self-regulating by his own rational self-interest? And, that maybe, just maybe, government is only needed to stop the people who infringe on others' lives and property. How much more proof of the failure of socialism do we need? How much bigger idiot does a Republican have to become?
Give it up. Stop this charade for power!
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
"Need" as the Ultimate Justification
I believe the liberal mind is a more socially accepted version of the criminal mind. Both justify taking other people's money and property for their purposes.
The human condition at bottom is that one must traverse the gap from "need" to "value produced" which satisfies the need. The need is generated by a living organism using its energy to maintain its life. That process, life, gives rise to needs which must be fulfilled if the life is to continue.
The blue arrow is "the gap." To mature as a human being means that one is able to navigate that gap and provide for his needs in a way that works while at the same time doesn't undermine his continued ability to provide for his needs.
The criminal mind and the liberal mind emphasize "need" as a lack - ultimately a lack of stuff or status. They think it unfair that the needy are not provided for. They believe that it is fundamentally unjust that everyone is not provided for - that it is some kind of cosmic injustice and that the world, because of this, is basically unfair. Because this is unjust, they say, they feel justified to correct this injustice and that is why they can, with a straight face, advocate taking your stuff, destroy a country such as America that has a system that allows people to traverse the gap of being human and create value, giving away other people's values (money) to poor people and poor nations, etc., etc.
Every time they open their mouths, they reinforce the "goodness," the "appropriateness" of being needy. When Obama brings some poor person or crippled person or in some way needy person onto the stage with him, he wants to hear about their neediness - the more needy the better - and he adds importance to their being needy. (I find this embarrassing for the person he is using.) He gives them his ear and kindness, attention and ultimately some money or goods. The one thing he doesn't do is talk about how they resourcefully went from need to results that satisfied their need. To focus on that would mean he would have no reason to exert his power over us and take our stuff.
Because Obama and Michelle, the current point people for this view, and the rest of the liberals do this, I consider them and their kind the embodiment of evil in mankind. (I'm not talking about evil in the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments manner. Because man possesses volition, he chooses his course of action. He can choose to get across that gap, using his talents and mind to do that or not and this is his fundamental choice - to live as a human being or not.) There is nothing evil about having needs. We all have them by virtue of being alive. Granting them ultimate status and holding them aloft rather than supporting getting across the gap - by being creative and productive - is evil.
The ultimate joke, though, is on those that hold aloft need as the ultimate in importance. Although evil appears potent because it counts on fear and causes havoc in human lives by destroying their values and it always seems pleasurable in the short run, it is ultimately impotent. That is because it is not about developing the means for producing real value and satisfying needs. To continue, the mind besieged by evil must feed off the people who do traverse the gap since they are the ones who know how to get from need to value produced. (Frederick Douglas made clear that taking care of the needy for its own sake provides nothing lasting: "A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing.")
When I hear/see Obama, Michelle, the Pope, mother Theresa when she was alive, Pelosi, Schumer, Reid, Weiner, Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and thousands of other such people, I see evil incarnate. They foster a world that doesn't and cannot work, and they work to create parasites wherever they go. There is nothing more hideous that that. (If you think Mother Theresa was humane, she had millions of dollars and would not spend a frickin' dime on having the dying people she cared for have some measure of comfort as they went through the dying process. She could have conditioned the air because she could have easily have afforded it. Why? Because she thought suffering was the way to becoming whole - and holy, i.e., coming to know god. Source: The Missionary Position: Mother Theresa in theory and Practice by Christopher Hitchens.)
The criminal mind is always justified to commit his crime. Why? Because to his mind, the world is not just and did not treat him fairly for him to properly mature when he was dependent on others. To him, this shouldn't be. (I wonder if some portion of humanity is pissed because their God or their ancestors' God threw they out of the Garden of Eden? There everything was provided. Now they must work for the values they need.) He stays needy rather than find a way to clear away his fears and his grievances such that he become a value producer.
A person stuck in need ends up hating the good (value production) for being the good. (The good is value production and virtue is action which produces value.) Hating the good for being the good is envy and this mental orientation is sourcing the destruction of values now upon us.
So how do we get through this? Create and produce value. In everything you do. You will love it and will feel so nourished by it.
The human condition at bottom is that one must traverse the gap from "need" to "value produced" which satisfies the need. The need is generated by a living organism using its energy to maintain its life. That process, life, gives rise to needs which must be fulfilled if the life is to continue.
The blue arrow is "the gap." To mature as a human being means that one is able to navigate that gap and provide for his needs in a way that works while at the same time doesn't undermine his continued ability to provide for his needs.
The criminal mind and the liberal mind emphasize "need" as a lack - ultimately a lack of stuff or status. They think it unfair that the needy are not provided for. They believe that it is fundamentally unjust that everyone is not provided for - that it is some kind of cosmic injustice and that the world, because of this, is basically unfair. Because this is unjust, they say, they feel justified to correct this injustice and that is why they can, with a straight face, advocate taking your stuff, destroy a country such as America that has a system that allows people to traverse the gap of being human and create value, giving away other people's values (money) to poor people and poor nations, etc., etc.
Every time they open their mouths, they reinforce the "goodness," the "appropriateness" of being needy. When Obama brings some poor person or crippled person or in some way needy person onto the stage with him, he wants to hear about their neediness - the more needy the better - and he adds importance to their being needy. (I find this embarrassing for the person he is using.) He gives them his ear and kindness, attention and ultimately some money or goods. The one thing he doesn't do is talk about how they resourcefully went from need to results that satisfied their need. To focus on that would mean he would have no reason to exert his power over us and take our stuff.
Because Obama and Michelle, the current point people for this view, and the rest of the liberals do this, I consider them and their kind the embodiment of evil in mankind. (I'm not talking about evil in the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments manner. Because man possesses volition, he chooses his course of action. He can choose to get across that gap, using his talents and mind to do that or not and this is his fundamental choice - to live as a human being or not.) There is nothing evil about having needs. We all have them by virtue of being alive. Granting them ultimate status and holding them aloft rather than supporting getting across the gap - by being creative and productive - is evil.
The ultimate joke, though, is on those that hold aloft need as the ultimate in importance. Although evil appears potent because it counts on fear and causes havoc in human lives by destroying their values and it always seems pleasurable in the short run, it is ultimately impotent. That is because it is not about developing the means for producing real value and satisfying needs. To continue, the mind besieged by evil must feed off the people who do traverse the gap since they are the ones who know how to get from need to value produced. (Frederick Douglas made clear that taking care of the needy for its own sake provides nothing lasting: "A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing.")
When I hear/see Obama, Michelle, the Pope, mother Theresa when she was alive, Pelosi, Schumer, Reid, Weiner, Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and thousands of other such people, I see evil incarnate. They foster a world that doesn't and cannot work, and they work to create parasites wherever they go. There is nothing more hideous that that. (If you think Mother Theresa was humane, she had millions of dollars and would not spend a frickin' dime on having the dying people she cared for have some measure of comfort as they went through the dying process. She could have conditioned the air because she could have easily have afforded it. Why? Because she thought suffering was the way to becoming whole - and holy, i.e., coming to know god. Source: The Missionary Position: Mother Theresa in theory and Practice by Christopher Hitchens.)
The criminal mind is always justified to commit his crime. Why? Because to his mind, the world is not just and did not treat him fairly for him to properly mature when he was dependent on others. To him, this shouldn't be. (I wonder if some portion of humanity is pissed because their God or their ancestors' God threw they out of the Garden of Eden? There everything was provided. Now they must work for the values they need.) He stays needy rather than find a way to clear away his fears and his grievances such that he become a value producer.
A person stuck in need ends up hating the good (value production) for being the good. (The good is value production and virtue is action which produces value.) Hating the good for being the good is envy and this mental orientation is sourcing the destruction of values now upon us.
So how do we get through this? Create and produce value. In everything you do. You will love it and will feel so nourished by it.
The torch represents the value you seek to produce that
lights your way. The stiffened arm is your moral strength
to get on with it and produce the result!
lights your way. The stiffened arm is your moral strength
to get on with it and produce the result!
Monday, May 30, 2011
The Man Who Lost His Voice
The phenomenon that is now becoming apparent to many of us is that no one gives a damn about what Obama thinks or has to say. He's lost his voice - which is to say, he's lost the listening that we and the world have for a long time granted him, the President of the United States.
Here is an article out of London on what is going on in the Middle East and how they definitely do not care what Obama says.
And here is an article about what the Veterans and active military think of Obama.
I'm expecting this chorus of non-believers and outright reactionaries to continue to grow. Why? Obama's word is not credible. He cannot be forthright about what he wants to accomplish and get the people on his side. He's has now manifested THE condition which has governed his Presidency - disconnected.
The other big fact is that if Obama at root is motivated to rid the world of colonial powers which he falsely claims America to be, and lasso her, the rogue, to the UN, he is going to have to learn that the Colonial/Anti-Colonial idea has passed from the motive of history. India and China and the states that now realize that production and trade is the way to a higher standard of living are not interested in getting rid of trading partners. Quite the contrary.
All of this augurs against Obama. He really is out of date and because he is, his great pretension to being a peacemaker simply will not work. He's trying to make peace not on the world's realities, but on some half-baked notions that he has about elitism, control and "I'm-going-to-set-the-world-straight-and-correct-the-injustice-to-my-ancestors." He increasingly looks ridiculous because he is pretentious, not real. His whole success depends on ginning up hatred - class hatred, race hatred, any and every kind of hatred that he can gin up - and fear - fear of the climate, fear of individual initiative, fear of a person protecting himself, fear of a person engaging in his right to free speech - all for one reason, to have people believe the grounds for his actions.
Sorry. Fewer and fewer takers.
The stark difference between how the world works and where Obama is in his thinking is brought out in this video.
I will reference other articles as they occur in the comments.
Here is an article out of London on what is going on in the Middle East and how they definitely do not care what Obama says.
And here is an article about what the Veterans and active military think of Obama.
I'm expecting this chorus of non-believers and outright reactionaries to continue to grow. Why? Obama's word is not credible. He cannot be forthright about what he wants to accomplish and get the people on his side. He's has now manifested THE condition which has governed his Presidency - disconnected.
The other big fact is that if Obama at root is motivated to rid the world of colonial powers which he falsely claims America to be, and lasso her, the rogue, to the UN, he is going to have to learn that the Colonial/Anti-Colonial idea has passed from the motive of history. India and China and the states that now realize that production and trade is the way to a higher standard of living are not interested in getting rid of trading partners. Quite the contrary.
All of this augurs against Obama. He really is out of date and because he is, his great pretension to being a peacemaker simply will not work. He's trying to make peace not on the world's realities, but on some half-baked notions that he has about elitism, control and "I'm-going-to-set-the-world-straight-and-correct-the-injustice-to-my-ancestors." He increasingly looks ridiculous because he is pretentious, not real. His whole success depends on ginning up hatred - class hatred, race hatred, any and every kind of hatred that he can gin up - and fear - fear of the climate, fear of individual initiative, fear of a person protecting himself, fear of a person engaging in his right to free speech - all for one reason, to have people believe the grounds for his actions.
Sorry. Fewer and fewer takers.
The stark difference between how the world works and where Obama is in his thinking is brought out in this video.
I will reference other articles as they occur in the comments.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Will America Sort Herself Out?
I am publishing this article which came out in the Wall Street Journal today because I think it points to an important point that we need to get, namely, that there is a difference between the triumph of the American ideal and America's cultural achievement such that we were able to elect a black man to the Presidency, and the ideas that Obama is instituting which contradict the American ideal.
America may go down the tube because it is unable to sort this out and in the process lose the ideal that put Obama in office. I'm clear that Obama is wholly instituting a class-based, privilege-grounded society which is pre-enlightenment - you know, back to serfdom. In this sense, Obama is certainly not American.
America may go down the tube because it is unable to sort this out and in the process lose the ideal that put Obama in office. I'm clear that Obama is wholly instituting a class-based, privilege-grounded society which is pre-enlightenment - you know, back to serfdom. In this sense, Obama is certainly not American.
Obama's Unspoken Re-Election Edge
This presidency flatters America to a degree that no white Republican can hope to match.
By SHELBY STEELE
May 25, 2011 Wall Street JournalMany of the Republican presidential hopefuls should be able to beat President Obama in 2012. This president has a track record now and, thus, many vulnerabilities. If he is not our "worst president," as Donald Trump would have it, his sweeping domestic initiatives—especially his stimulus package and health-care reform—were so jerry-built and high-handed that they generated a virtual revolution in America's normally subdued middle class.
The president's success in having Osama bin Laden killed is an exception to a pattern of excruciatingly humble and hesitant leadership abroad. Mr. Obama has been deeply ambivalent about the application of American power, as if a shameful "neocolonialism" attends every U.S. action in the world. In Libya he seems actually to want American power to diminish altogether.
This formula of shrinking American power abroad while expanding government power at home confuses and disappoints many Americans. Before bin Laden, 69% of Americans believed the country was on the wrong track, according to an Ipsos survey. A recent Zogby poll found that only 38% of respondents believed Mr. Obama deserved a second term, while 55% said they wanted someone new.
And yet Republicans everywhere ask, "Who do we have to beat him?" In head-to-head matchups, Mr. Obama beats all of the Republican hopefuls in most polls.
The problem Mr. Obama poses for Republicans is that there has always been a disconnect between his actual performance and his appeal. If Hurricane Katrina irretrievably stained George W. Bush, the BP oil spill left no lasting mark on this president. Mr. Obama's utter confusion in the face of the "Arab spring" has nudged his job-approval numbers down, but not his likability numbers, which Gallup has at a respectable 47.6%. In the mainstream media there has been a willingness to forgive this president his mistakes, to see him as an innocent in an impossible world. Why?
There have really always been two Barack Obamas: the mortal man and the cultural icon. If the actual man is distinctly ordinary, even a little flat and humorless, the cultural icon is quite extraordinary. The problem for Republicans is that they must run against both the man and the myth. In 2008, few knew the man and Republicans were walloped by the myth. Today the man is much clearer, and yet the myth remains compelling.
What gives Mr. Obama a cultural charisma that most Republicans cannot have? First, he represents a truly inspiring American exceptionalism: He is the first black in the entire history of Western civilization to lead a Western nation—and the most powerful nation in the world at that. And so not only is he the most powerful black man in recorded history, but he reached this apex only through the good offices of the great American democracy.
Thus his presidency flatters America to a degree that no white Republican can hope to compete with. He literally validates the American democratic experiment, if not the broader Enlightenment that gave birth to it.
He is also an extraordinary personification of the American Dream: Even someone from a race associated with slavery can rise to the presidency. Whatever disenchantment may surround the man, there is a distinct national pride in having elected him.
All of this adds up to a powerful racial impressionism that works against today's field of Republican candidates. This is the impressionism that framed Sen. John McCain in 2008 as a political and cultural redundancy—yet another older white male presuming to lead the nation.
The point is that anyone who runs against Mr. Obama will be seen through the filter of this racial impressionism, in which white skin is redundant and dark skin is fresh and exceptional. This is the new cultural charisma that the president has introduced into American politics.
Today this charisma is not as strong for Mr. Obama. The mere man and the actual president has not lived up to his billing as a historical breakthrough. Still, the Republican field is framed and—as the polls show—diminished by his mere presence in office, which makes America the most socially evolved nation in the world. Moreover, the mainstream media coddle Mr. Obama—the man—out of its identification with his exceptionalism.
Conversely, the media hold the president's exceptionalism against Republicans. Here is Barack Obama, evidence of a new and progressive America. Here are the Republicans, a cast of largely white males, looking peculiarly unevolved. Add to this the Republicans' quite laudable focus on deficit reduction and spending cuts, and they can be made to look like a gaggle of scolding accountants.
How can the GOP combat the president's cultural charisma? It will have to make vivid the yawning gulf between Obama the flattering icon and Obama the confused and often overwhelmed president. Applaud the exceptionalism he represents, but deny him the right to ride on it as a kind of affirmative action.
A president who is both Democratic and black effectively gives the infamous race card to the entire left: Attack our president and you are a racist. To thwart this, Republicans will have to break through the barrier of political correctness.
Mr. McCain let himself be intimidated by Obama's cultural charisma, threatening to fire any staff member who even used the candidate's middle name. Donald Trump shot to the head of the Republican line by focusing on Mr. Obama as a president, calling him our "worst" president. I carry no brief for Mr. Trump, but his sudden success makes a point: Another kind of charisma redounds to those willing to challenge political correctness—those unwilling to be in thrall to the president's cultural charisma.
Lastly, there must be a Republican message of social exceptionalism. America has more social mobility than any heterogeneous society in history. Isn't there a great Republican opportunity to be had in urging minorities to at last move out of their long era of protest—in which militancy toward the very society they struggled to join was the way ahead? Aren't Republicans uniquely positioned to offer minorities a liberation from both dependency and militancy?
In other words, isn't there a fresh new social idealism implicit in conservative principles? Why not articulate it and fight with it in the political arena? Such a message would show our president as unevolved in his social thinking—oh so 1965. The theme: Barack Obama believes in government; we believe in you.
Mr. Steele is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Among his books is "White Guilt" (Harper/Collins, 2007).
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
The Right to YOUR Life is at Stake
This is as about as clear as the issue gets. Yaron Brook speaks to the doctors.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Generation Wee
This is a frightening video of what the Progressives are working to cause. Some of the kids who are angry will kill their parents out of this justification – that everyone older than they left them a fucked-up world. They live the sob-story, born-victim life. (Remember the sob stories that Obama, Michelle, the Clintons, Pelosi and many others have trotted out?) There’s a violent future embedded here because of its naked appeal to hatred and no power but political power - power by numbers – not ideas, not values, not reason, not productivity, not self-esteem. Why don’t I get from this message their claim of political tolerance? These are the coming revolutionaries.
Progressives control our government. Those who openly claim to be Progressives are Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Van Jones, all the statist czars in this Administration, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid. Soros claims to be a one-worlder, which is the same thing. The Progressives which are nothing more than the old time communists, socialists, welfare statist, social justice people in new clothes are here to do the individual in. Individual Rights, that’s right, your individual life, is the ultimate political sin in their world. In the video, you can hear the collectivism. This is Generation We.
Stop being a zombie. Wake up. Challenge this wherever you find it.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Time to End the Lure of Forced Redistribution for Humane Purposes
The horrors of the Nazis have been seen, told, recorded. The horrors of the socialists/communists have not. Here begins humanity getting past that despicable evil. Let's hope this eventually uproots the idea that there is something benign, beautiful, humane about being a socialist or a current-day liberal.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Liberty's Vision
Liberty's vision affirms the only proper role of government: to protect the Individual Rights of all citizens at the expense of none; to protect its citizenry from force, fraud, and breach of contract, thereby allowing all citizens to dispose of the products of their thoughts and labor, their property, as they see fit.
Liberty's vision defines the only proper way to associate with our fellow men: by voluntary trade and the prohibition of force. Free trade and free markets are both practical and morally necessary for human dignity, prosperity, and enjoyment of life on earth.
Liberty's vision rejects the premise that one person's alleged need constitutes an enforceable claim on another's life, and that such a claim can or should be fulfilled through government force or coercion. We reject slavery in all forms, including coercive wealth redistribution.
Liberty's vision rejects the premise of politicians and bureaucrats who assume the right to subject us to their schemes and controls, to force us into servitude to them and to their cronies, to take our hard-earned wages, to disrupt our economy and burden us with unconscionable liabilities, and to sacrifice our beloved soldiers and our resources in wars where our national interest is dubious, and where winning is prohibited.
This is Liberty's Vision. Is it America's? Is it yours?
_____________________________
"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair." - George Washington.
_____________________________
(If this was penned by someone other than me and you can prove it, I would love to give that person credit. I was sent this by a friend who had gotten it from me. He gives me credit for it and it sounds like something I may have written, but I'm not fully confident that I did. No matter, I publish it because it is important today as we sort out who we are as a nation.)
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
KEEPING FEAR ALIVE
The motivation behind the Left, the Democrats and all the political systems not based on liberty and individual rights is to KEEP FEAR ALIVE. This video demonstrates this. The people Van Jones appeals to are already politically free. Immigrants may or may not be, but they can be with some paper work.
The work to be done is not political. It is personal. It is stoking one's brain with knowledge so that one can see the choices available, screwing up the courage to act, then acting. That's how the real work is done.
Obama trots out the sob story, making sure that people are present to their fear. He, Michelle, Pelosi, Reid and thousands of others all like these stories - the more miserable the better. In the vacuum of non-creation - fear and hopelessness - they can step in and offer them any lie as hope. Now you see why a campaign of HOPE is attractive to some people, the hopeless people. The politician can offer no real solution as the real work is not political. The single root purpose of all of this activity is to KEEP FEAR ALIVE. Our politicians especially on the Left, thrive on their constituents' fear.
Geithner threatens us with the collapse of the financial system if he doesn't get to borrow more money. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson tell us that an American black person cannot make it unless he's given a break - affirmative action. On and on and on they KEEP FEAR LIVE.
The Right does its share of fear-mongering too and ends up making the Left's programs workable. Both are soul-eroding.
Until you and I realize this is no way to live and step in with the proper orientation, conversations and moral support, we are not able to act on the political freedom we already have. And soon enough, we will no longer be free. We will have forged our chains in the form of government laws and hardware to keep us under control.
The work to be done is not political. It is personal. It is stoking one's brain with knowledge so that one can see the choices available, screwing up the courage to act, then acting. That's how the real work is done.
Obama trots out the sob story, making sure that people are present to their fear. He, Michelle, Pelosi, Reid and thousands of others all like these stories - the more miserable the better. In the vacuum of non-creation - fear and hopelessness - they can step in and offer them any lie as hope. Now you see why a campaign of HOPE is attractive to some people, the hopeless people. The politician can offer no real solution as the real work is not political. The single root purpose of all of this activity is to KEEP FEAR ALIVE. Our politicians especially on the Left, thrive on their constituents' fear.
Geithner threatens us with the collapse of the financial system if he doesn't get to borrow more money. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson tell us that an American black person cannot make it unless he's given a break - affirmative action. On and on and on they KEEP FEAR LIVE.
The Right does its share of fear-mongering too and ends up making the Left's programs workable. Both are soul-eroding.
Until you and I realize this is no way to live and step in with the proper orientation, conversations and moral support, we are not able to act on the political freedom we already have. And soon enough, we will no longer be free. We will have forged our chains in the form of government laws and hardware to keep us under control.
Untitled from Breitbart on Vimeo.
When The Left and most politicians inspire us with livable ideals rather than the false ones requiring the government's gun to institute, there will be a new day for America. Until then, we live as slaves to our fear.
What are the two words one can say to himself when he finds himself granting this drivel a listening? Or gets scared? Or feels hopeless and powerless?
CREATE VALUE.
Another Way to Look at the Nation's Budget
This came to me in one of those email "send arounds" that we all get. I like it because it brings the huge figures and the problem down to manageable size.
2011 FEDERAL BUDGET
Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
Income: $2,170,000,000,000
New debt: $1,650,000,000,000
Amount cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1% of the total budget)
Harry Reid is calling this an "historic amount." The President said it is an "historic deal." John Boehner simply said, "We have come to an agreement."
Let's put this in perspective. It helps to think about these numbers in terms that one can relate to.
Let's remove the nine zeroes from the ends of these numbers and pretend this is a monthly household budget for the fictitious Jones family.
Amount of money the Jones family spent this month: $3,820
Total income for the Jones family this month: $2,170
Amount of new debt added to the credit card this month: $1,650
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $14,271
(This represents our national debt.)
So last night, the Jones sat down at the kitchen table and agreed to cut $38 from their monthly budget, an historic amount.
What is wrong with this picture? Is it no wonder that one cannot live lower in respect than a politician? Most families don't spend 43% more than they make. Why do we let our government do it?
______________________________________
We know that changing the direction of how we handle our national finances is going to cause pain. No politician likes being blamed for causing pain unless he considers his constituents throwaways. There is no case I know when a dire situation is exorcised by short term pain that I am not immensely happy when it is over and on the right track. If a person outside myself is the cause, he is my hero.
But, it takes a man, a true leader, to do that. Who among us stands upright? Who among us commands the respect of all people and considers no one a throwaway?
It is going to take such a man because it is going to require a commitment to our friends and neighbors which we do not ordinarily practice. The government will not be able to take care of all the people - which most of us have known all along. The pain will be especially acute for those who think the government ought to take care of them.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Atlas Shrugged - The Movie
As one who read Atlas Shrugged 40 years ago and was inspired, when someone says they are going to make a movie, you are happy. Not until the movie is shown on the big screen do you realize that there is no place to hide any longer. Always before when I would talk about Rand's ideas, I could recommend one of her books. But even then, there are all kinds of misunderstandings that can occur. But when a movie is shown, the worldview of the movie is obvious. There is no more obscurity.
This whole evening since seeing the film this afternoon, I've been in a sacred space. Silent for hours now. I am present to the joy it was to sit in the value-space of Atlas Shrugged - to be among men who know that amazing, here-to-fore unthought feats are possible and they can be caused to happen. That space occurs for me as luminous - glowing with an underlying joy - the joy of knowing oneself as a creator.
The other thing that remains is my gratitude to have a film in existence that I can be proud of. It was really an accomplishment and I recommend anyone who has not seen the film go see it. If you love life, you shall have no regrets.
This whole evening since seeing the film this afternoon, I've been in a sacred space. Silent for hours now. I am present to the joy it was to sit in the value-space of Atlas Shrugged - to be among men who know that amazing, here-to-fore unthought feats are possible and they can be caused to happen. That space occurs for me as luminous - glowing with an underlying joy - the joy of knowing oneself as a creator.
The other thing that remains is my gratitude to have a film in existence that I can be proud of. It was really an accomplishment and I recommend anyone who has not seen the film go see it. If you love life, you shall have no regrets.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
On the Value of Light
After seeing this video, I got that the Obama Administration is the descent of darkness over the United States. Obama is systematically squelching the light of millions of ideas being able to take root in a political environment of freedom/capitalism for the purpose of controlling people to his and his ideological "like-minders" narrow values. "Yes," they say, "It is for your own good." But rudimentary logic tells it isn't so.
We live in the Age of "Endarkenment."
We live in the Age of "Endarkenment."
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Burn Quran AND Murder and Pillage
So, a preacher in Florida owned a Quran, decided he wanted to burn it, burned it and showed some pictures to prove he burned it. End of story.
In America you can burn a Bible, a flag or yes, a Quran if it is your property. People make what they will of that.
Some people in Afghanistan committed murder and destroyed property. Those are crimes and they ought to be dealt with appropriately. There is no cause and effect relationship between these two stories unless you are willing to say that the Afghans are not human and DO NOT possess free will.
When we hold men to possess free will and therefore responsible for their actions, we cause better men. When we don't, we cause worse men. Can it not be said that Lindsey Graham, Harry Reid, journalist Joe Klein, General Petraeus and NATO Ambassador Mark Sedwill are detriments to a society of men because they are causing worse men?
Rather than use their voices to point out what works and doesn't work and how we can all be better men by being responsible for our actions, they throw themselves on the pyre of failed leadership. Is it no wonder that we are having such a rough time in America right now? Has the entire world turned into the Jerry Springer show?
This gratuitous ass-kissing has a name: Preemptive capitulation. Here's an article on it. My thanks to Robert Bidinotto for his lead to this article.
Here's a response by Leonard Peikoff to the Geert Wilders trial revolving around the same issue - hate speech: Go HERE and click on Episode 160.
In America you can burn a Bible, a flag or yes, a Quran if it is your property. People make what they will of that.
Some people in Afghanistan committed murder and destroyed property. Those are crimes and they ought to be dealt with appropriately. There is no cause and effect relationship between these two stories unless you are willing to say that the Afghans are not human and DO NOT possess free will.
When we hold men to possess free will and therefore responsible for their actions, we cause better men. When we don't, we cause worse men. Can it not be said that Lindsey Graham, Harry Reid, journalist Joe Klein, General Petraeus and NATO Ambassador Mark Sedwill are detriments to a society of men because they are causing worse men?
Rather than use their voices to point out what works and doesn't work and how we can all be better men by being responsible for our actions, they throw themselves on the pyre of failed leadership. Is it no wonder that we are having such a rough time in America right now? Has the entire world turned into the Jerry Springer show?
This gratuitous ass-kissing has a name: Preemptive capitulation. Here's an article on it. My thanks to Robert Bidinotto for his lead to this article.
Here's a response by Leonard Peikoff to the Geert Wilders trial revolving around the same issue - hate speech: Go HERE and click on Episode 160.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
