David Mamet

Hawaii Officials’ Focus On Equity and Climate | Not Safety

Published by Papa Giorgio

If there is indeed a social revolution under way, it shouldn’t stop with women’s choice to honor their [own] nature. It must also include a newfound respect for men. It was New York City’s firemen who dared to charge up the stairs of the burning Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. The death tally of New York City’s firefighters was:

  • men 343,
  • women 0.

Can anyone honestly say you would have wanted a woman coming to your rescue on that fateful day?

Suzanne Venker & Phyllis Schlafly, The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know — and Men Can’t Say (Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2011), 181-182.

EQUITY

OFF THE PRESS bullet points DAILY CALLER’S story for us:

  • Former Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Michael Brown blasted officials in Hawaii over their focus on “equity” prior to a deadly wildfire.
  • The West Maui Land Company accused M. Kaleo Manuel, an official with the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), of delaying a response to a request to use water to refill reservoirs used by the Maui Fire Department to fight the wildfire, Hawaii News Now reported.
  • A video of Manuel discussing the importance of having conversations about “equity” when it came to water use surfaced Thursday.

BREITBART has more:

A state water agency in Hawaii has been accused of delaying the release of water from a traditional farm that landowners reportedly wanted to use to protect their property as the Maui wildfire spread last week.

According to the Honolulu Civil Beat, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) initially refused a request from West Maui Land, a real estate development company, to provide water to protect properties that were at risk in the area.

Fingers have been pointed at one official in particular, M. Kaleo Manuel, DLNR’s deputy director for water resource management.

The Honolulu Civil Beat reported:

[….]

According to the sources, Manuel wanted West Maui Land to get permission from a taro, or kalo, farm located downstream from the company’s property. Manuel eventually released water but not until after the fire had spread. It was not clear on Monday how much damage the fire did in the interim or whether homes were damaged.

Manuel participates in the Obama Foundation’s Leaders Asia-Pacific program and prioritizes traditional local views on water.

Honolulu Civil Beat quoted Gov. Josh Green (D) as saying that there had been some local opposition in general to using the state’s scarce water resources to fight fires. A state bill to promote the use of state and private reservoirs for fire safety was proposed in 2022 by legislators from Maui, but was not passed….

Here is this “water official” using woke buzzwords like “holistic” — they just string words together to sound important / compassionate:

(WASHINGTON EXAMINER) ….“Meet M. Kaleo Manuel, the official who refused to release water in Maui, contributing to up to 106 deaths,” Jeremy Kauffman wrote on X, citing the original article. “A Hawaiian Studies major, Kaleo prefers a traditional, holistic ‘One Water’ approach where water is revered, not used. Water requires ‘true conversations about equity.'”

Kauffman, the CEO of a bitcoin company, included a Zoom interview video of Manuel, posted to YouTube about 10 months ago.

“Native Hawaiians treated water as one of the earthly manifestations of a god,” Manuel said in the video. “We’ve become used to looking at water as something that we use and not something that we revere. … We can reconnect to that traditional value set.”….

[….]

[….]

What a douche. The LEFT looks for religion in all the wrong places.

WATER & POWER

NEW YORK  TIMES

The government would rather blame “climate change” for the Hawaii wildfires than take responsibility for their own reckless disregard.

  • This event was not the result of climate change, Hurricane Dora, or an extended drought.  It resulted from an unusually intense mountain wave/downslope windstorm produced by a fairly rare convergence of conditions. (Cliff Mass Weather Blog)

And Steve Milloy points out another NEW YORK TIMES article that missed an opportunity to zero in on the issue:

And THE BLAZE notes the issue with the power companies

A number of Democrats and other leftists have blamed the deadly wildfires in Hawaii on the specter of anthropogenic climate change. They may be right, but only in a perverted sense.

Like the Biden administration, Hawaii’s Gov. Josh Green (D) and both the state’s 88%-Democratic House and 92%-Democratic state Senate are ostensibly keen to “lead the globe on clean energy and climate issues.”

It appears that the efforts by Hawaii’s largest energy provider to follow suit and satisfy a Democrat-mandated transition to renewable energy took priority over alternatively pragmatic efforts to maintain its equipment and deal with the known and documented threat of fuel buildup in the form of flammable vegetation…..

All these useless policies to make politicians fell good through “messianism” [saving the planet] have consequences. Like all the other policies with a stated outcomes by the Left – they hurt those they purport to want to help.

SAINTHOOD

It reminds me of the stellar [extended] quote by David Mamet:

One might say that the politician, the doctor, and the dramatist make their living from human misery; the doctor in attempting to alleviate it, the politician to capitalize on it, and the dramatist, to describe it.

But perhaps that is too epigrammatic.

When I was young, there was a period in American drama in which the writers strove to free themselves of the question of character.

Protagonists of their worthy plays had made no choices, but were afflicted by a condition not of their making; and this condition, homosexuality, illness, being a woman, etc., was the center of the play. As these protagonists had made no choices, they were in a state of innocence. They had not acted, so they could not have sinned.

A play is basically an exercise in the raising, lowering, and altering of expectations (such known, collectively, as the Plot); but these plays dealt not with expectations (how could they, for the state of the protagonist was not going to change?) but with sympathy.

What these audiences were witnessing was not a drama, but a troublesome human condition displayed as an attraction. This was, formerly, known as a freak show.

The subjects of these dramas were bearing burdens not of their choosing, as do we all. But misfortune, in life, we know, deserves forbearance on the part of the unafflicted. For though the display of courage in the face of adversity is worthy of all respect, the display of that respect by the unaffected is presumptuous and patronizing.

One does not gain merit from congratulating an afflicted person for his courage. One only gains entertainment.

Further, endorsement of the courage of the affliction play’s hero was not merely impertinent, but, more basically, spurious, as applause was vouchsafed not to a worthy stoic, but to an actor portraying him.

These plays were an (unfortunate) by-product of the contemporary love-of-the-victim. For a victim, as above, is pure, and cannot have sinned; and one, by endorsing him, may perhaps gain, by magic, part of his incontrovertible status.

[…..]

There is a Liberal sentiment that it should also punish those who take more than their “fair share.” But what is their fair share? (Shakespeare suggests that each should be treated not according to his deserts, but according to God’s mercy, or none of us would escape whipping.)

The concept of Fairness, for all its attractiveness to sentiment, is a dangerous one (cf. quota hiring and enrollment, and talk of “reparations”). Deviations from the Law, which is to say the Constitution, to accommodate specifically alleged identity-group injustices will all inevitably be expanded, universalized, and exploited until there remains no law, but only constant petition of Government.

We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law’s treatment.

But “fairness” is not only a nonlegal but an antilegal process, for it deals not with universally applicable principles and strictures, but with specific cases, responding to the perceived or proclaimed needs of individual claimants, and their desire for extralegal preference. And it could be said to substitute fairness (a determination which must always be subjective) for justice (the application of the legislated will of the electorate), is to enshrine greed—the greed, in this case, not for wealth, but for preference. The socialistic spirit of the Left indicts ambition and the pursuit of wealth as Greed, and appeals, supposedly on behalf of “the people,” to the State for “fairness.”….

….But such fairness can only be the non-Constitutional intervention of the State in the legal, Constitutional process—awarding, as it sees fit, money (reparations), preferment (affirmative action), or entertainment (confiscation)….

….“Don’t you care?” is the admonition implicit in the very visage of the Liberals of my acquaintance on their understanding that I have embraced Conservatism. But the Talmud understood of old that good intentions can lead to evil—vide Busing, Urban Renewal, Affirmative Action, Welfare, et cetera, to name the more immediately apparent, and not to mention the, literally, tens of thousands of Federal and State statutes limiting freedom of trade, which is to say, of the right of the individual to make a living, and, so earn that wealth which would, in its necessary expenditure, allow him to provide a living to others….

…. I recognized that though, as a lifelong Liberal, I endorsed and paid lip service to “social justice,” which is to say, to equality of result, I actually based the important decisions of my life—those in which I was personally going to be affected by the outcome—upon the principle of equality of opportunity; and, further, that so did everyone I knew. Many, I saw, were prepared to pay more taxes, as a form of Charity, which is to say, to hand off to the Government the choice of programs and recipients of their hard-earned money, but no one was prepared to be on the short end of the failed Government pro-grams, however well-intentioned. (For example—one might endorse a program giving to minorities preference in award of government contracts; but, as a business owner, one would fight to get the best possible job under the best possible terms regardless of such a program, and would, in fact, work by all legal and, perhaps by semi- or illegal means to subvert any program that enforced upon the pro-prietor a bad business decision.)*

Further, one, in paying the government to relieve him of a feeling of social responsibility, might not be bothered to question what in fact constituted a minority, and whether, in fact, such minority contracts were actually benefiting the minority so enshrined, or were being subverted to shell corporations and straw men. †

PAGE-NOTE  FROM PAGE 154

*No one would say of a firefighter, hired under rules reducing the height requirement, and thus unable to carry one’s child to safety, “Nonetheless, I am glad I voted for that ‘more fair’ law.”

† As, indeed, they are, or, in the best case, to those among the applicants claiming eligibility most capable of framing, supporting, or bribing their claims to the front of the line. All claims cannot be met. The politicians and bureaucrats discriminating between claims will necessarily favor those redounding to their individual or party benefit—so the eternal problem of “Fairness,” supposedly solved by Government distribution of funds, becomes, yet again and inevitably, a question of graft.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 134-135; 116-117, 122, 151, 154.

Deadly Altruism Marks the Left | Illiberal Egalitarianism

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Originally Posted May 5, 2015)

UPDATED MEDIA The original file can be found at Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co (HERE). I am uploading it here because there is no insurance that Bearing’s channel will stay up on YouTube. It is for my post, “Deadly Altruism Marks the Left ~ Illiberal Egalitarianism and the NYFD”

SOME COMMENTS FROM THE ABOVE VIDEO:

  • The same thing happened to my Forest Service initial attack crew back in 2001.  We had a 5’0″ 100lbs female who wanted on our crew.  We had physical standards tests we had to pass.  One was a simple three mile “hike” around a high school track with a mere 45lbs and our line gear.  She was simply too small and not strong enough to make the time.  Our overhead wanted more female representation so they passed her anyway.  All summer long she was given the cushy assignments, all while being paid the same as the rest of us.  It put us a person down all summer.  It also created divisions within our crew.  A rookie who got to do all the easy stuff while my squad of ass-kickers had to work even harder because we were a person short (no pun intended).
  • I was a fireman for over 35 years I worked with several woman, most of them did not have the upper body strength to do the job. Also these were younger women. At 35 years old and cannot pass the physical exam she will be pretty much useless on the scene. She will be a burden to her fellow firefighters she will most likely transfer to a job outside of operations where she won’t have to physically fight fires.  She will put other people’s life in danger because she cannot do the job, she sounds like a very selfish and self-centered person.

This comes by way of HOTAIR and makes clear that whatever the left touches, it destroys:

This promises to turn into a sticky wicket for the New York City Fire Department. One of their upcoming graduates is going to be accepted into the ranks and go to work as a firefighter despite having failed a grueling physical test multiple times. This comes as a result of recent changes to the city’s criteria for how graduates are scored.

Rebecca Wax, 33, is set to graduate Tuesday from the Fire Academy without passing the Functional Skills Training test, a grueling obstacle course of job-related tasks performed in full gear with a limited air supply, an insider has revealed.

“They’re going to allow the first person to graduate without passing because this administration has lowered the standard,” said the insider, who is familiar with the training.

Upon graduation, Wax would be assigned to a firehouse and tasked with the full duties of a firefighter. Some FDNY members are angry.

“We’re being asked to go into a fire with someone who isn’t 100 percent qualified,” the source said. “Our job is a team effort. If there’s a weak link in the chain, either civilians or our members can die.”

…..[she] failed to complete… climbing in full gear while carrying heavy equipment, rescuing victims in zero visibility, breaking down doors, and doing it all while breathing oxygen from a tank on a limited timer….

…read more…

This brings to memory two quotes that bring the point home, a point that a reader on my FaceBook blog pointed out:

  • “Hopefully the first person she has to LIFT out of a burning building will be a feminist…because obviously it will not matter, that she is unqualified.”

If there is indeed a social revolution under way, it shouldn’t stop with women’s choice to honor their [own] nature. It must also include a newfound respect for men. It was New York City’s firemen who dared to charge up the stairs of the burning Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. The death tally of New York City’s firefighters was: men 343, women 0. Can anyone honestly say you would have wanted a woman coming to your rescue on that fateful day?

Suzanne Venker & Phyllis Schlafly, The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know — and Men Can’t Say (Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2011), 181-182.

Here is the “CS LEWIS” of politics:

There is a Liberal sentiment that it should also punish those who take more than their “fair share.” But what is their fair share? (Shakespeare suggests that each should be treated not according to his deserts, but according to God’s mercy, or none of us would escape whipping.)

The concept of Fairness, for all its attractiveness to sentiment, is a dangerous one (cf. quota hiring and enrollment, and talk of “reparations”). Deviations from the Law, which is to say the Constitution, to accommodate specifically alleged identity-group injustices will all inevitably be expanded, universalized, and exploited until there remains no law, but only constant petition of Government.

We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law’s treatment.

But “fairness” is not only a nonlegal but an antilegal process, for it deals not with universally applicable principles and strictures, but with specific cases, responding to the perceived or proclaimed needs of individual claimants, and their desire for extralegal preference. And it could be said to substitute fairness (a determination which must always be subjective) for justice (the application of the legislated will of the electorate), is to enshrine greed—the greed, in this case, not for wealth, but for preference. The socialistic spirit of the Left indicts ambition and the pursuit of wealth as Greed, and appeals, supposedly on behalf of “the people,” to the State for “fairness.”….

….But such fairness can only be the non-Constitutional intervention of the State in the legal, Constitutional process—awarding, as it sees fit, money (reparations), preferment (affirmative action), or entertainment (confiscation)….

….“Don’t you care?” is the admonition implicit in the very visage of the Liberals of my acquaintance on their understanding that I have embraced Conservatism. But the Talmud understood of old that good intentions can lead to evil—vide Busing, Urban Renewal, Affirmative Action, Welfare, et cetera, to name the more immediately apparent, and not to mention the, literally, tens of thousands of Federal and State statutes limiting freedom of trade, which is to say, of the right of the individual to make a living, and, so earn that wealth which would, in its necessary expenditure, allow him to provide a living to others….

…. I recognized that though, as a lifelong Liberal, I endorsed and paid lip service to “social justice,” which is to say, to equality of result, I actually based the important decisions of my life—those in which I was personally going to be affected by the outcome—upon the principle of equality of opportunity; and, further, that so did everyone I knew. Many, I saw, were prepared to pay more taxes, as a form of Charity, which is to say, to hand off to the Government the choice of programs and recipients of their hard-earned money, but no one was prepared to be on the short end of the failed Government pro-grams, however well-intentioned. (For example—one might endorse a program giving to minorities preference in award of government contracts; but, as a business owner, one would fight to get the best possible job under the best possible terms regardless of such a program, and would, in fact, work by all legal and, perhaps by semi- or illegal means to subvert any program that enforced upon the proprietor a bad business decision.)*

Further, one, in paying the government to relieve him of a feeling of social responsibility, might not be bothered to question what in fact constituted a minority, and whether, in fact, such minority contracts were actually benefiting the minority so enshrined, or were being subverted to shell corporations and straw men.†

* No one would say of a firefighter, hired under rules reducing the height requirement, and thus unable to carry one’s child to safety, “Nonetheless, I am glad I voted for that ‘more fair’ law.”

† As, indeed, they are, or, in the best case, to those among the applicants claiming eligibility most capable of framing, supporting, or bribing their claims to the front of the line. All claims cannot be met. The politicians and bureaucrats discriminating between claims will necessarily favor those redounding to their individual or party benefit—so the eternal problem of “Fairness,” supposedly solved by Government distribution of funds, becomes, yet again and inevitably, a question of graft.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 116-117, 12

And here is some good commentary by JULIE BOROWSKI:

…The young woman couldn’t complete the job-related obstacle course in that allotted amount of time. She only completed the course once after multiple attempts and it took her 22 minutes.

She failed and she shouldn’t be graduating.

This shouldn’t be about sparing feelings.

Look, nothing against her personally. Being a firefighter clearly isn’t for everyone. It’s physically demanding work. A firefighter who doesn’t meet the stringent physical standards could put other firefighters and civilians in harm’s way.

This comes at a time when the fire department is under pressure by Mayor de Blasio to hire more women. They have even gone so far as making the FST test easier to avoid sex discrimination lawsuits.

Unbelievable….

….It doesn’t help them that the FDNY is hiring women who, frankly, aren’t capable of performing the job because they didn’t pass the test. I’m sure the 44 female firefighters in New York City aren’t too pleased about their work being devalued.

Physical fitness tests are not sexist. It is sexist to hire someone based on their gender, though.

…read it all… (Dead Site)

Transferring Sainthood [Moral Authority] of the Victim

Published by Papa Giorgio

Transferring moral authority for power…. or as playwright David Mamet noted years ago, “by endorsing the victim [historical or contemporary perceptions of a victim], the endorser or those who trumpet the newly found victim perhaps —  gain — by magic, part of his incontrovertible status [moral authority or power]” — adapted from below:

One might say that the politician, the doctor, and the dramatist make their living from human misery; the doctor in attempting to alleviate it, the politician to capitalize on it, and the dramatist, to describe it.

But perhaps that is too epigrammatic.

When I was young, there was a period in American drama in which the writers strove to free themselves of the question of character.

Protagonists of their worthy plays had made no choices, but were afflicted by a condition not of their making; and this condition, homosexuality, illness, being a woman, etc., was the center of the play. As these protagonists had made no choices, they were in a state of innocence. They had not acted, so they could not have sinned.

A play is basically an exercise in the raising, lowering, and altering of expectations (such known, collectively, as the Plot); but these plays dealt not with expectations (how could they, for the state of the protagonist was not going to change?) but with sympathy.

What these audiences were witnessing was not a drama, but a troublesome human condition displayed as an attraction. This was, formerly, known as a freak show.

The subjects of these dramas were bearing burdens not of their choosing, as do we all. But misfortune, in life, we know, deserves forbearance on the part of the unafflicted. For though the display of courage in the face of adversity is worthy of all respect, the display of that respect by the unaffected is presumptuous and patronizing.

One does not gain merit from congratulating an afflicted person for his courage. One only gains entertainment.

Further, endorsement of the courage of the affliction play’s hero was not merely impertinent, but, more basically, spurious, as applause was vouchsafed not to a worthy stoic, but to an actor portraying him.

These plays were an (unfortunate) by-product of the contemporary love-of-the-victim. For a victim, as above, is pure, and cannot have sinned; and one, by endorsing him, may perhaps gain, by magic, part of his incontrovertible status.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 134-135.

SEE MORE AT: Deadly Altruism Marks the Left ~ Illiberal Egalitarianism and the NYFD

History Is A Bitch! (Yellow Buttons for Vaccinated?)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This story about vaccinations and the Germans choosing yellow buttons to show they are vaccinated.

My youngest son asked why they would do that — after I noted the use of the yellow star for Jews during the Third Reich…

This brought me to an idea from David Mamet that answered my queries about similar subjects years ago.

One might say that the politician, the doctor, and the dramatist make their living from human misery; the doctor in attempting to alleviate it, the politician to capitalize on it, and the dramatist, to describe it.

But perhaps that is too epigrammatic.

When I was young, there was a period in American drama in which the writers strove to free themselves of the question of character.

Protagonists of their worthy plays had made no choices, but were afflicted by a condition not of their making; and this condition, homosexuality, illness, being a woman, etc., was the center of the play. As these protagonists had made no choices, they were in a state of innocence. They had not acted, so they could not have sinned.

A play is basically an exercise in the raising, lowering, and altering of expectations (such known, collectively, as the Plot); but these plays dealt not with expectations (how could they, for the state of the protagonist was not going to change?) but with sympathy.

What these audiences were witnessing was not a drama, but a troublesome human condition displayed as an attraction. This was, formerly, known as a freak show.

The subjects of these dramas were bearing burdens not of their choosing, as do we all. But misfortune, in life, we know, deserves forbearance on the part of the unafflicted. For though the display of courage in the face of adversity is worthy of all respect, the display of that respect by the unaffected is presumptuous and patronizing.

One does not gain merit from congratulating an afflicted person for his courage. One only gains entertainment.

Further, endorsement of the courage of the affliction play’s hero was not merely impertinent, but, more basically, spurious, as applause was vouchsafed not to a worthy stoic, but to an actor portraying him.

These plays were an (unfortunate) by-product of the contemporary love-of-the-victim. For a victim, as above, is pure, and cannot have sinned; and one, by endorsing him, may perhaps gain, by magic, part of his incontrovertible status.

  • David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 134-135.

I think these people think they are righting a historic wrong by choosing for themselves something meant to demean, now they have transformed it to mean good. They are doing “good works” to “save” those afflicted.

Wide Awakes vs #Woke (Destroying vs Building)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Yuri Bezmenov (1939 – 1993), known by the alias Tomas David Schuman, was a Soviet journalist for RIA Novosti and a former PGU KGB informant who defected to Canada. After being assigned to a station in India, Bezmenov eventually grew to love the people and the culture of India, but at the same time, he began to resent the KGB-sanctioned repression of intellectuals who dissented from Moscow’s policies. He decided to defect to the West. Bezmenov is best remembered for his anticommunist lectures and books from the 1980s:

(An Aside: I will highlight the reason for the posts name below. There will be many links included to fill in the history of ar for further knowledge about an issue discussed)

Armstrong and Getty discuss the toppling of statues… the rioters do not care a wit about the history of slavery, real change to better trained officers, etc. And the proof of this is their tearing down of heroes of abolition and people who fought and died to free the slaves.

And this toppling of statues of heroes fighting to protect and free slaves is an issue I want to explore a little bit. But keep in mind our President predicted this (which many people mocked at the time):

  • “So this week it’s Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week? And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?” President Trump asked on August 15, 2017.

I would submit that these people don’t really care about the history of slavery, they are just using this opportunity to further aims they are (a) either aware of, or, (b) merely acting out on misperceived injustices (ignorance), or, (c) filling a void‡ only God can fill (boredom [see #9] and no “Biblical Rest” [See more in the Appendix]), acting emotionally and without thought on the encouragement or behest of others to feel a sense of accomplishment.*

‡ VOID

What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words, by God himself.

Blaise Pascal, Pensees 10.148

*One might say that the politician, the doctor, and the dramatist make their living from human misery; the doctor in attempting to alleviate it, the politician to capitalize on it, and the dramatist, to describe it.

But perhaps that is too epigrammatic.

When I was young, there was a period in American drama in which the writers strove to free themselves of the question of character.

Protagonists of their worthy plays had made no choices, but were afflicted by a condition not of their making; and this condition, homosexuality, illness, being a woman, etc., was the center of the play. As these protagonists had made no choices, they were in a state of innocence. They had not acted, so they could not have sinned.

A play is basically an exercise in the raising, lowering, and altering of expectations (such known, collectively, as the Plot); but these plays dealt not with expectations (how could they, for the state of the protagonist was not going to change?) but with sympathy.

What these audiences were witnessing was not a drama, but a troublesome human condition displayed as an attraction. This was, formerly, known as a freak show.

The subjects of these dramas were bearing burdens not of their choosing, as do we all. But misfortune, in life, we know, deserves forbearance on the part of the unafflicted. For though the display of courage in the face of adversity is worthy of all respect, the display of that respect by the unaffected is presumptuous and patronizing.

One does not gain merit from congratulating an afflicted person for his courage. One only gains entertainment.

Further, endorsement of the courage of the affliction play’s hero was not merely impertinent, but, more basically, spurious, as applause was vouchsafed not to a worthy stoic, but to an actor portraying him.

These plays were an (unfortunate) by-product of the contemporary love-of-the-victim. For a victim, as above, is pure, and cannot have sinned; and one, by endorsing him, may perhaps gain, by magic, part of his incontrovertible status.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 134-135.

The people in category “c” are what Stalin understood as “useful idiots,” defined well by the OXFORD DICTIONARY (UK):

  • (Originally) a citizen of a non-communist country sympathetic to communism who is regarded (by communists) as naive and susceptible to manipulation for propaganda or other purposes; (more widely) any person similarly manipulable for political purposes.

…More on this in a sec…

You know they do not care about past injustices because they have vandalized black military monuments (examples: Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment; the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial; etc) or have toppled or defaced abolitionists who fought and died for the freedom of black slaves:

  • HANS CHRISTIAN HEG  — “Heg, an immigrant, early prison reformer, and leader of the abolition movement. At the start of the Civil War, Heg swiftly volunteered to fight for his adopted country. Heg led his men, all made up of volunteer immigrants, to numerous victories before he was killed by a Confederate snipers bullet. To remember his sacrifice, a statue of him was built by a fellow immigrant, overseeing his home state of Wisconsin’s capital.” (THE FEDERALIST) [….] He formed a secret society that acted as bodyguards for Republican (read that anti-slavery) politicians and combatted slave catchers called the Wide Awakes. When the Civil War broke out, he was commissioned by the Governor to raise the 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment. Because of his prominence in the Scandinavian community, he raised a regiment that was almost entirely Norwegian. (RED STATE)
  • Protesters in San Francisco defaced and toppled the statue of former President Grant, who led the Union Army during the Civil War. In attacking Grant, those desecrating our cities in the supposed name of racial justice besmirched the memory of one of the figures who was most important for pushing the nation forward on civil rights. (USA TODAY)
  • Matthias William Baldwin (December 10, 1795 – September 7, 1866) was an American inventor and machinery manufacturer, specializing in the production of steam locomotives. Baldwin’s small machine shop, established in 1825, grew to become Baldwin Locomotive Works, one of the largest and most successful locomotive manufacturing firms in the United States. The most famous of the early locomotives was Old Ironsides, built by Matthias Baldwin in 1832. Baldwin was also a strong advocate of abolitionism. (WIKI) [….] In Philadelphia, the statute of abolitionist Matthias Baldwin was attacked, despite his fight for black voting rights and his financial support for the education of black children. (JONATHAN TURLEY)

I was listening to David Horowitz the other morning being interviewed on the Glenn Beck Program, and he had a good insight to what the Marxists of his day were saying. They were saying then that the police are an occupying force [essentially standing in the way of toppling the capitalist system]. David was raised in a Marxist home and was a radical Marxist for years, editing a radical publication of his day (“…Root and Branch, which published essays embodying the political vision of the New Left.” – NATIONAL REVIEW) …here is more about David Horowitz from National Review:

…After publishing “Student”, Horowitz left California, taking his young family to Sweden. During the year he spent there, he wrote “The Free World Colossus”, a revisionist history of the Cold War. It was one of the first expressions of the New Left’s fixation with the repressive workings of an American “empire,” and was ultimately translated into several languages. In the U.S., The Free World Colossus became a handbook for the growing anti–Vietnam War movement, providing a litany of America’s “misdeeds” abroad — the coups in Iran and Guatemala, the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam — that became a staple of left-wing indictments of America.

Earlier, when he was seeking a publisher for his manuscript, Horowitz wrote to the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and was somewhat surprised to receive a job offer. Horowitz had only a casual relationship with Russell, but while in London he became close to and profoundly influenced by two European Marxists: Ralph Miliband, whose two sons eventually became leaders of the British Labour Party, and the Polish Trotskyist Isaac Deutscher, the famed biographer of Stalin and Trotsky. Under the tutelage of Deutscher, Horowitz’s career as a New Left intellectual flourished. He wrote Empire & Revolution: A Radical Interpretation of Contemporary History, which offered a New Left perspective on imperialism, Communism, and the Cold War. Horowitz returned to the U.S. in 1968 to become an editor at Ramparts magazine, the New Left’s largest and most successful publication, with a circulation of a quarter-million readers….

He is now – of course – a long time outspoken anti-Marxist, anti-Leftist.

This brings us back to the idea that many of these brainwashed youngins may not realize what they are doing with all the information they get from elementary on up through university. They are useful idiots who are yelling at (or what I have seen termed as “whitesplaining”  black cops calling them racist [and they need to be killed].

(See this humorous look at this via MTV [I am not agreeing with their purported reason for the video, all I am saying is that it is funny]) Or tearing down history.

And we have others, for instance, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors who said in a newly surfaced video from 2015 that she and her fellow organizers are “trained Marxists” – making clear their movement’s ideological foundation.

They are pushing or guiding the “manipulable for political purposes,” or, useful idiots.

What has perpetuated this movement of ideologues and morons in part is the labeling that has occurred since the New Left has gotten into education after the Vietnam War. Today this labeling is on steroids, and easily remembered as S.I.X.H.I.R.B.

  • sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted | HILLARY’S version: “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”

What this does is allow a person to disregard any information that would usually happen during normal dialogue. (It creates a self-imposed “safe-space” for the individual, a “cone of silence” so-to-speak – Get Smart TV series… before your time.) If you label someone “racist” you do not have to listen to them any longer.

I mean, who would want to dialogue with a racist?

My two favorite examples of this is a very short excerpt from a documentary I love called Indoctrinate U. It is a Leftist professor saying that there is no push back on Left leaning students because countering ideas are censored… making for an incomplete person/education (I adapted that a bit). Here is that video:

And this is still one of my FAVORITE clips I uploaded to my YouTube via Dennis Prager:

In an article I just read from THE FEDERALIST, they make note through history that when this starts happening, bloodshed typically follows. Here is there title: “Everywhere Statues Are Torn Down By The Mob, History Promises People Are Next: The promise of bloodshed coming alongside or following shortly after is an historic certainty. The symbols of a people never satisfy: People themselves must always come next.”

Here is a small excerpt:

…In 1790, mobs looted and pillaged Paris’s treasured Notre Dame. To the revolutionaries, the cathedral symbolized everything that was wrong with France’s history and society — a history of kings, tradition and religion, and a society beset by royal injustice and systemic inequality.

Over the next three years, the 12th-century church’s riches and artifacts were stripped, stolen, and destroyed, their remnants hidden by the faithful and sold off by the faithless. Statues of the Virgin Mary were removed and statues to the Goddess of Liberty took their place on desecrated altars.

At nearby Sainte-Chapelle, the revolution pulled the apostles from the pedestals where they had stood watch over Christ’s Crown of Thorns. The 12 statues were vandalized and buried — half so badly they are still undergoing attempts at restoration. As the destruction of religious art unfurled, priests who did not swear allegiance to the new order and those who aided them were sentenced to death.

Back at the cathedral, the revolutionary government mistook the 28 statues of the kings of ancient Judah for French kings (rich old men and all), dragging them into the public square for decapitation. Their buried heads were not rediscovered for nearly 200 years.

In the Place de Louis XV, the large statue of the square’s namesake was torn down and the plaza renamed Place de la Revolution. A guillotine was raised, and the “liberated” space would see the execution of more than 1,200 prisoners, from King Louis XVI and his wife to the executions’ ringleader himself, Maximilien Robespierre….

We may be seeing this violence against person in an increased way if this movement is not rebutted and refuted. Either by force, but preferably by true dialogue and Godly renewal or Salvation. In compiling this post I spoke to one of my mentors in the faith. He mentioned a podcast that I am a good way through. The name of the YouTube podcast is “Conversations That Matter.” The title of the episode is, “Why are All My Friends Marxists?.” Here is the video as well as the description of it:

While friends and family are lamenting their “white privilege” and vowing to own their complicity in “systemic oppression,” Jon explains how a Marxist revolution is actually taking place, and it’s not just a political movement—it’s a new religion.

 

The video is wonderful, I had figured out the title of my post before watching it and it lined up quite well. Also, earlier posts and uploads of mine coordinate well with the topic dealt with, for instance:

Here was an upload of radio talk show host Larry O’Connor discussion the “Collective Guilt”

Larry O’Connar references two excellent articles. One is from SPIKED ONLINE: “I Did Not Kill George Floyd: The Attempt To Hold All Whites Responsible For The Death Of Floyd Shows What A Dead-End Woke Politics Is:

And a FEDERALIST article, again, both articles are top notch: “The Left’s Normalization Of Collective Guilt Is Ripping America Apart: All Decent Americans Stand Against Racism. But If We’re To Live As Brothers, We Must Stop Indicting All Those Who Share A Skin Tone For The Sins Of Others”

And the appendix are some excerpts from a friend and mentor. I post these in relation to finding fulfillment in God. Enjoy

APPENDIX

Created for Glory (Part One)
We must behold glory now in order to safely reach glory
By Jay Wegter

An entranced vision of God begins with seeing God as He is revealed in His Word and seeing ourselves in light of His sef-revelation (Ps 139). By ‘entranced’ we mean much more than entertaining or holding to a ‘god concept’. No, an entranced vision of God takes possession of the whole man. It generates an experience of both delight and trauma, of both wonder and repentance, and of both affection and reverential awe. This sets up a line of sight in which our utter dependency upon the Lord begins to stagger us and knock us off balance. When the sinner is first confronted with the gospel in the hands of the Spirit it creates a kind of crisis. Self is dethroned, our imagined sovereignty is demolished and we are cast down as ruined wretches.

[….]

Do not settle for anything less than an entranced vision of God. For, nothing less than beholding the glory of the Lord has the power to transform you and transport you. Refuse to settle for spiritual stagnancy and unfruitfulness.

[….]

In this experience of beholding God’s sublime glory is beauty, pleasure, purpose, sweetness, and relational love. Edwards called it ‘sweet entertainment’. This enjoyment of God in the soul is essential to our Christian walk.

[….]

Jonathan Edwards got is right; true religion resides primarily in the affections. It has everything to do with what you love. The great blessing of receiving spiritual eyes and ears is not merely to feed off spiritual principles but to behold the glory of the Lord as His unveiled ones (Mt 13: 16ff.; 2 Cor 3: 18). The spiritual sight and savor for the glory of the Lord is the key to consecrated living. For, God’s glory story in Christ is a plot so compelling, the cosmos was created to be its stage. Beholding glory fits us for glory. The reverse is also true; for where there is no awe of God, there will be no lasting pursuit of holiness. Let us remember that beholding His glory for the first time is how the Lord saved us (2 Cor 4:6). Continuing to behold His glory is essential to our ongoing transformation (2 Cor 3:18), and seeing His glory face to face will someday glorify us in an instant (1 Jn 3:2).

Created for Glory (Part Two)
We must behold glory now in order to safely reach glory
By Jay Wegter

…The effect of His mediatoral glory is salvfc (He secures our salvation, “He obtained eternal redemption;” Hebrews 9: 12). For the sinner who believes and repents, the sight of God’s glory in the face of Christ evicts from the soul the darkness and the hostility that is inherent in original sin (Col 1:21-23)

[….]

You don’t have to climb up to heaven to see that the sun is there-you are bathed in its warmth and brightness. You do not need to go into heaven to see f Christ is interceding for us. For, we behold Him in the Word interceding, and we can look into our own hearts. Are they quickened and inflamed in prayer? Can we cry “Abba, Father? By this interceding of the Spirit who dwells within us, we may know Christ is interceding above for us. Faith is an act of recumbency, of reclining upon Christ, our ‘new and living way’ of access…

[….]

It is the experimental knowledge of Christ’s love and glory that gives us the disposition to love one another, and to bear one another’s burdens (Phil 3:7-11). His love gives us the disposition to please and obey our Heavenly Father. His precepts give us the specifics of how to please God; He directs our love by His precepts. We must understand that our being “in Christ” is our strength. Our union with Christ is vital, living, transformative, and organic; it is not merely federal representation (Rom 5: 17-19). The mind of Christ is available, the might of Christ is available-we don’t have to fulfill a single command by ourselves, in our own strength. We operate in the realm of His grace full and free (Rom 5: 1-2)

[….]

…Those who make it their full purpose of heart to behold His glory will be changed into His image (2 Cor 3: 18). What is this transformation? Answer: when our trust in Christ is constantly exercised, virtue proceeds from Christ to purify our hearts, increase our holiness, strengthen our graces, and fill us with joy-at times, “joy inexpressible filled with glory” (1 Pet 1 :8). Christ’s glory beheld quickens the understanding at the same time as His love is communicated to the heart…

[….]

…Our sin, guilt, lust, cravings, insecurities, and desire for happiness-all combine to make the soul restless. Christ has everything the sinner needs. In all things, He is perfectly suited to all the needs and cravings of the immortal soul. “All my springs are in Thee” (Ps 87:7)…

[….]

We have seen that feeding on the glory of Christ fits us for prayer, communion, worship, hope, and service. Just as the Israelites in the wilderness did not grow their own food, but merely gathered the manna, so also, it the privilege and duty of the saint to gather his soul’s daily food that his spirit might be fully nourished on the glory of the Lord.

Created for Glory (Part Three)
We must behold glory now in order to safely reach glory
By Jay Wegter

…Christ fulfilling the terms of the covenant is responsible for every dimension and facet of grace: “… blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Eph 1 :3). The covenant purpose of God, to bruise His Son at Calvary is the greatest reality in the history of humanity (it is why there is a human history; this reality must fill our consciousness) …

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Destruction of Women’s Sports No Big Deal… To the Left

Published by Papa Giorgio

A friend posted a picture of the back of my van, a sticker I print based off of him saying the “equal” sign looks like a “pause button” on a remote control:

Some interesting conversation ensued on his Facebook after this was posted. My main response is to the idea expressed by one person that this is not a big deal:

  • How is this such a huge topic? The percentage of the population on the planet is significantly low(< 1%). No one deserves to be discriminated against-but your over stating calling it a Huge topic as a whole. The vast majority of the general public doesn’t even know a transgender person.

I wish to reprint ans add to my response to the original ideas for cataloging here at RPT. My general first point was to note a very recent article by tennis legend, Martina Navratilova….

Martina Navratilova earlier had commented about the issue being unfair. She was slammed, and said she would educate herself better. She went and studied the issue more and came back MORE convinced about her position. I think she is still wrong in part thinking that a removal of a sex organ of mutilation to the body changes her statement “A man builds up muscle and bone density, as well as a greater number of oxygen-carrying red blood cells, from childhood,” —- BUT, even her position is anathema to the Democrat Party withing the past 5-years.

….Navratilova was chastised in December when she tweeted, “You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women,” but then apologized and said she would “educate myself better” after she was accused of being transphobic.

After doing the research, however, she said that if anything, “my views have strengthened.”

“To put the argument at its most basic: a man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organization is concerned, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he so desires,” she said.

In a Tuesday article, Out Magazine called her a “TERF,” or trans-exclusionary radical feminist, and said her comments were “scientifically unsound,” while McKinnon told Reuters that the tennis legend “trades on age-old stereotypes and stigma against trans women.”

Martina Navratilova Has Decided to Pivot to TERF 

— Dr. Rachel McKinnon (@rachelvmckinnon) February 20, 2019
Gay Tennis Legend Martina Navratilova on Transgender Athletes: ‘It’s Insane and It’s Cheating’ 

— CNSNews.com (@cnsnews) February 19, 2019
Navratilova argued that it wasn’t enough to require reduced hormone levels, as many sports governing bodies have done in response to transgender athletes (CNS NEWS)

“A man builds up muscle and bone density, as well as a greater number of oxygen-carrying red blood cells, from childhood,” she wrote. “Training increases the discrepancy. Indeed, if a male were to change gender in such a way as to eliminate any accumulated advantage, he would have to begin hormone treatment before puberty. For me, that is unthinkable.”

The 62-year-old Navratilova also blasted those who wield the “transphobe” label to silence critics, calling it “just another form of tyranny.”

“I’m relatively tough and was able to stand up for myself in my Twitter exchange with McKinnon, but I worry that others may be cowed into silence or submission,” she said…..

(WASHINGTON TIMES)

Now, here is my direct response to the above “what’s the big deal” quoted:

…it is a huge topic because the professional Left is taking that less than 1% and demanding the majority change their concept of gender by state force and rules in women’s sports. In other words, in only 5-years this has changed women’s sports dramatically. Can’t wait for the next decade [<sarcasm]. The Washington Times notes just how unfair this issue is in high school sports.

Transgender Sprinters Finish 1St, 2Nd At Connecticut Girls Indoor Track Championships

  • “She” [Andraya Yearwood] recently finished second in the 55-meter dash at the state open indoor track championships. The winner, Terry Miller of Bloomfield High, is also transgender and set a girls state indoor record of 6.95 seconds. Yearwood finished in 7.01 seconds and the third-place competitor, who is not transgender [a girl*], finished in 7.23 seconds.

Parents spend time and money to have their girls compete to attain a level of competition to enter either the Olympics or get a scholarship at a prestigious college (or both). This is no longer the case. The professional Left is ruining women’s sports in the name of “equality.”

Remember, you either want liberty, or equality, but you cannot have both.

* CR Commented On My Friend’s Original Post (OP):

  • There is so much wrong with your statement but your point I do agree with. A woman born in a male body should not be allowed to compete against a woman born in a female’s body. It’s not fair. I agree. I’m just not sure where the line should be drawn….

I try to help draw a line:

…it is simple to draw a line. If you have double X chromosomes, a vagina, a uterus, ovaries, menstrual periods and lactating breasts, you are a female. You should compete in female sports. If you dope (by taking estrogen to mask some male qualities) or were born with a penis and XY chromosomes, you should not compete in women’s sports. 

Don’t be a racist and transphobic for attacking these two beautiful young Nubian queens who placed first and second in a high school track event.

I also expressed publicly a question many ask. That is, why do people simply support — uncritically — or promote actively these issues with little or no countering information to balance their knowledge of the issues? I always encourage people to be logically coherent and support these other “categories” of persons who “feel” someway about themselves:

Trans-Topics

These are issue being muddied with the arguments put forward by those pushing “equality.” BUT MY QUESTION IS WHY? I think David Mamet* has a reasonable answer. It is the transferring of “Sainthood” to a growing secular culture. It gives people a sense of worth they think is beyond them… what use to be in the realm of faith, is now internalized. It offers a “metanarrative” for people to view the world. For instance, in a wonderful National Review article by Andy Ngo (last name sounds like “Noh”), he notes of Jussie Smollet’s bio line on his Twitter (the actor who faked a hate crime):

  • “While I can only speculate as to Smollett’s motives, perhaps a clue can be found in his bioline on Twitter. Smollett writes: ‘I am simply here to help save the world’.” (NATIONAL REVIEW | See more on my site: Hate Crime Hoaxes In The Trump Era)

The hubris involved in a political movement that thinks through legislation it can change gender and weather patterns is legend. And it is really a transfer of Sainthood:

MAMET

*  [David Mamet] …is an American playwright, film director, screenwriter and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). He first gained critical acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway 70s plays: The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo. His plays Race and The Penitent, respectively, opened on Broadway in 2009 and previewed off-Broadway in 2017.

Feature films that Mamet both wrote and directed include House of Games (1987), Homicide (1991), The Spanish Prisoner (1997), Heist (2001), and Redbelt (2008). His screenwriting credits include The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), The Verdict (1982), The Untouchables (1987), Hoffa (1992), Wag the Dog (1997), and Hannibal (2001). Mamet himself wrote the screenplay for the 1992 adaptation of Glengarry Glen Ross, and wrote and directed the 1994 adaptation of his play Oleanna (1992). He was the executive producer and frequent writer for the TV show The Unit (2006–2009).

Mamet’s books include: The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (2004), a Torah commentary with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism; Bambi vs. Godzilla, a commentary on the movie business; THE SECRET KNOWLEDGE: ON THE DISMANTLING OF AMERICAN CULTURE (2011), a commentary on cultural and political issues; and Three War Stories (2013), a trio of novellas about the physical and psychological effects of war.

(WIKI)

QUOTE ONE

One might say that the politician, the doctor, and the dramatist make their living from human misery; the doctor in attempting to alleviate it, the politician to capitalize on it, and the dramatist, to describe it.

But perhaps that is too epigrammatic.

When I was young, there was a period in American drama in which the writers strove to free themselves of the question of character.

Protagonists of their worthy plays had made no choices, but were afflicted by a condition not of their making; and this condition, homosexuality, illness, being a woman, etc., was the center of the play. As these protagonists had made no choices, they were in a state of innocence. They had not acted, so they could not have sinned.

A play is basically an exercise in the raising, lowering, and altering of expectations (such known, collectively, as the Plot); but these plays dealt not with expectations (how could they, for the state of the protagonist was not going to change?) but with sympathy.

What these audiences were witnessing was not a drama, but a troublesome human condition displayed as an attraction. This was, formerly, known as a freak show.

The subjects of these dramas were bearing burdens not of their choosing, as do we all. But misfortune, in life, we know, deserves forbearance on the part of the unafflicted. For though the display of courage in the face of adversity is worthy of all respect, the display of that respect by the unaffected is presumptuous and patronizing.

One does not gain merit from congratulating an afflicted person for his courage. One only gains entertainment.

Further, endorsement of the courage of the affliction play’s hero was not merely impertinent, but, more basically, spurious, as applause was vouchsafed not to a worthy stoic, but to an actor portraying him.

These plays were an (unfortunate) by-product of the contemporary love-of-the-victim. For a victim, as above, is pure, and cannot have sinned; and one, by endorsing him, may perhaps gain, by magic, part of his incontrovertible status.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 134-135.

This next quote deals with “saint-hood”… but notes that people support it at others cost. When it happens to them, it isn’t fair.

QUOTE TWO

There is a Liberal sentiment that it should also punish those who take more than their “fair share.” But what is their fair share? (Shakespeare suggests that each should be treated not according to his deserts, but according to God’s mercy, or none of us would escape whipping.)

The concept of Fairness, for all its attractiveness to sentiment, is a dangerous one (cf. quota hiring and enrollment, and talk of “reparations”). Deviations from the Law, which is to say the Constitution, to accommodate specifically alleged identity-group injustices will all inevitably be expanded, universalized, and exploited until there remains no law, but only constant petition of Government.

We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law’s treatment.

But “fairness” is not only a nonlegal but an antilegal process, for it deals not with universally applicable principles and strictures, but with specific cases, responding to the perceived or proclaimed needs of individual claimants, and their desire for extralegal preference. And it could be said to substitute fairness (a determination which must always be subjective) for justice (the application of the legislated will of the electorate), is to enshrine greed—the greed, in this case, not for wealth, but for preference. The socialistic spirit of the Left indicts ambition and the pursuit of wealth as Greed, and appeals, supposedly on behalf of “the people,” to the State for “fairness.”….

….But such fairness can only be the non-Constitutional intervention of the State in the legal, Constitutional process—awarding, as it sees fit, money (reparations), preferment (affirmative action), or entertainment (confiscation)….

….“Don’t you care?” is the admonition implicit in the very visage of the Liberals of my acquaintance on their understanding that I have embraced Conservatism. But the Talmud understood of old that good intentions can lead to evil—vide Busing, Urban Renewal, Affirmative Action, Welfare, et cetera, to name the more immediately apparent, and not to mention the, literally, tens of thousands of Federal and State statutes limiting freedom of trade, which is to say, of the right of the individual to make a living, and, so earn that wealth which would, in its necessary expenditure, allow him to provide a living to others….

….I recognized that though, as a lifelong Liberal, I endorsed and paid lip service to “social justice,” which is to say, to equality of result, I actually based the important decisions of my life—those in which I was personally going to be affected by the outcome—upon the principle of equality of opportunity; and, further, that so did everyone I knew. Many, I saw, were prepared to pay more taxes, as a form of Charity, which is to say, to hand off to the Government the choice of programs and recipients of their hard-earned money, but no one was prepared to be on the short end of the failed Government pro-grams, however well-intentioned. (For example—one might endorse a program giving to minorities preference in award of government contracts; but, as a business owner, one would fight to get the best possible job under the best possible terms regardless of such a program, and would, in fact, work by all legal and, perhaps by semi- or illegal means to subvert any program that enforced upon the pro-prietor a bad business decision.)*

Further, one, in paying the government to relieve him of a feeling of social responsibility, might not be bothered to question what in fact constituted a minority, and whether, in fact, such minority contracts were actually benefiting the minority so enshrined, or were being subverted to shell corporations and straw men. †

* No one would say of a firefighter, hired under rules reducing the height requirement, and thus unable to carry one’s child to safety, “Nonetheless, I am glad I voted for that ‘more fair’ law.”

† As, indeed, they are, or, in the best case, to those among the applicants claiming eligibility most capable of framing, supporting, or bribing their claims to the front of the line. All claims cannot be met. The politicians and bureaucrats discriminating between claims will necessarily favor those redounding to their individual or party benefit—so the eternal problem of “Fairness,” supposedly solved by Government distribution of funds, becomes, yet again and inevitably, a question of graft.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 116-117, 122, 151, 154.

THE BLAZE posts on this excellent response to a question at a Heritage Foundation seminar. MOONBATTERY says this of Dr. Cretella: “Dr. Cretella is President of the American College of Pediatricians. No doubt social engineers are out for her head.”

Inclusion of Women in Front-Line Combat

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is with a hat-tip to CHICKS ON THE RIGHT via DAILY MAIL:

US Army drops grenade throwing as a requirement to graduate because new recruits can’t throw far enough (but do they mean women?)

  • US Army will no longer require recruits to show adequate hand grenade skills
  • Change is being made because many enlistees ‘can’t throw it far enough’ 
  • Recruits also won’t be required to pass land navigation course to graduate 
  • Army’s redesign of Basic Combat Training is aimed at instilling more discipline 
  • Army would not comment on whether the specific requirements are particularly a problem for women 
  • Many on Twitter used the development to attack influx of female enlistees 

[…..]

The new policy was reported by Military.com.

‘What we have found is it is taking far, far too much time,’ said Maj. Gen. Malcolm Frost, the commanding general of the US Army Center of Initial Military Training.

‘It’s taking three to four times as much time … just to qualify folks on the hand grenade course than we had designated so what is happening is it is taking away from other aspects of training.’

‘We are finding that there are a large number of trainees that come in that quite frankly just physically don’t have the capacity to throw a hand grenade 20 to 25 to 30 meters,’ he said.

The above was originally uploaded by myself to my MRCTV account on April 26th, 2012. I wrote a post on it on my blog with the same date. I am uploading the audio to my YouTube for easier embedding. Here is the description from the original post being updated today:

Dennis discusses the purpose of the Marines, to win. For the same reason a professional baseball team does not have women on its team is because they cannot perform as well as a man in most situations similar to the analogy of baseball and combat. If so, why not make full fledged women brigades for the front lines? Also, a woman caller who served in the Air Force mentions her not qualifying for the K-9 unit because she could not carry 70lbs. She agreed with that policy… that is, if a women cannot physically meet the demands, then, they should not be allowed into such a position.

Another caller that was in the ARMY when they integrated training points out some of the below in rough terms:

It was July 1959. With about 60 other recruits, I was being welcomed to basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C. According to John Leo’s “A Kinder, Gentler Army” (in U.S. News & World Report on Aug. 8, 1997), such a welcome is now out. Today’s Army manual dictates, “Stress created by physical or verbal abuse is nonproductive and prohibited.” Forget whether traditional adversative training produced a first-class military throughout our history.Why the changes? Partly, it’s because today’s youth are unaccustomed to discipline and authority, but mainly it’s because our lovelies want to be fighting persons. To accommodate them means the military must lower standards. Carrying a stretcher used to be a two-man job, now it’s a four-person job. The Navy finds that few of its females can manage shipboard emergency tasks such as hefting fire hoses or carrying wounded personnel up a ladder on a stretcher.

Females pass physical training because of gender-norming. Yellow lines are put on climbing ropes. Male trainees have to climb to the top, but for our lovelies the yellow line will do. As for those awful push-ups, men have to do 20 and women just six. Then there’s the “confidence course,” called the obstacle course in the pre-P.C. days. At Quantico’s Marine training facility, a visitor noticed a footstool placed in front of an 8-foot wall so no trainee would fail to climb over it.

There’s one male/female strength difference quite worrisome. At Parris Island, it was discovered that 45 percent of female Marines were unable to throw a hand grenade far enough to avoid blowing themselves up. Translated in Williams’ terms: If I were in a foxhole with a woman about to toss a hand grenade, I’d consider her the enemy.

Walter Williams book, “More Liberty Means Less Government,” [see: http://tinyurl.com/zdxxkk4], also his article: “Double standards in military could be scary in actual combat”

MORE

Similarly, when it comes to first responders, we want the best person to protect civilians in the best possible manner. Suzanne Venker and Phyllis Schlafly in their book, The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know — and Men Can’t Say, note the following:

If there is indeed a social revolution under way, it shouldn’t stop with women’s choice to honor their [own] nature. It must also include a newfound respect for men. It was New York City’s firemen who dared to charge up the stairs of the burning Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. The death tally of New York City’s firefighters was: men 343, women 0. Can anyone honestly say you would have wanted a woman coming to your rescue on that fateful day?

(Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2011), 181-182.

To further make the point, here is David Mamet — of Glengarry Glen Ross fame — noting the above in a very erudite manner:

There is a Liberal sentiment that it should also punish those who take more than their “fair share.” But what is their fair share? (Shakespeare suggests that each should be treated not according to his deserts, but according to God’s mercy, or none of us would escape whipping.)

The concept of Fairness, for all its attractiveness to sentiment, is a dangerous one (cf. quota hiring and enrollment, and talk of “reparations”). Deviations from the Law, which is to say the Constitution, to accommodate specifically alleged identity-group injustices will all inevitably be expanded, universalized, and exploited until there remains no law, but only constant petition of Government.

We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law’s treatment.

But “fairness” is not only a nonlegal but an antilegal process, for it deals not with universally applicable principles and strictures, but with specific cases, responding to the perceived or proclaimed needs of individual claimants, and their desire for extralegal preference. And it could be said to substitute fairness (a determination which must always be subjective) for justice (the application of the legislated will of the electorate), is to enshrine greed—the greed, in this case, not for wealth, but for preference. The socialistic spirit of the Left indicts ambition and the pursuit of wealth as Greed, and appeals, supposedly on behalf of “the people,” to the State for “fairness.”….

….But such fairness can only be the non-Constitutional intervention of the State in the legal, Constitutional process—awarding, as it sees fit, money (reparations), preferment (affirmative action), or entertainment (confiscation)….

….”Don’t you care?” is the admonition implicit in the very visage of the Liberals of my acquaintance on their understanding that I have embraced Conservatism. But the Talmud understood of old that good intentions can lead to evil—vide Busing, Urban Renewal, Affirmative Action, Welfare, et cetera, to name the more immedi­ately apparent, and not to mention the, literally, tens of thousands of Federal and State statutes limiting freedom of trade, which is to say, of the right of the individual to make a living, and, so earn that wealth which would, in its necessary expenditure, allow him to provide a living to others….

…. I recognized that though, as a lifelong Liberal, I endorsed and paid lip service to “social justice,” which is to say, to equality of result, I actually based the important decisions of my life—those in which I was personally going to be affected by the outcome—upon the principle of equality of opportunity; and, further, that so did everyone I knew. Many, I saw, were prepared to pay more taxes, as a form of Charity, which is to say, to hand off to the Government the choice of programs and recipients of their hard-earned money, but no one was prepared to be on the short end of the failed Government pro­grams, however well-intentioned. (For example—one might endorse a program giving to minorities preference in award of government contracts; but, as a business owner, one would fight to get the best possible job under the best possible terms regardless of such a pro­gram, and would, in fact, work by all legal and, perhaps by semi- or illegal means to subvert any program that enforced upon the pro­prietor a bad business decision.)*

Further, one, in paying the government to relieve him of a feeling of social responsibility, might not be bothered to question what in fact constituted a minority, and whether, in fact, such minority con­tracts were actually benefiting the minority so enshrined, or were being subverted to shell corporations and straw men.†

* No one would say of a firefighter, hired under rules reducing the height requirement, and thus unable to carry one’s child to safety, “Nonetheless, I am glad I voted for that ‘more fair’ law.”

† As, indeed, they are, or, in the best case, to those among the applicants claiming eligibility most capable of framing, supporting, or bribing their claims to the front of the line. All claims cannot be met. The politicians and bureaucrats discriminating between claims will neces­sarily favor those redounding to their individual or party benefit—so the eternal problem of “Fairness,” supposedly solved by Government distribution of funds, becomes, yet again and inevitably, a question of graft.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 116-117, 122, 151, 154.

What this boils down to is people wanting to feel good about themselves…. but like Mamet noted, would rather not “feel good” about themselves if their own family member is involved.

FLASHBACK: Are Michele Bachmann Gaffes Really Gaffes?

Published by Papa Giorgio

— Originally posted June 28, 2011 —

Obviously some are (to answer my own question). Who is perfect? What the press and many following them do is make opinions after viewing skewed or twisted fact. This will be a post I will return to and add to as the election cycle continue. Enjoy.

This has been a fun week for me. It allows me to explain to people I like how their opinions are often mislead by not lining up their thinking with the facts. A unfounded trust of media sometimes misleads these persons, or an underlying bias. I will change the names of the people involved to keep their identity (as many are friends) private and the embarrassment level low.

In conversation with a friend the term kook was used in referencing Michele Bachmann. I footnoted that as I was surprised because she is a self-avowed Republican and must know of all the attacks leveled at Reagan, a person whom she admires. However, when I posted the following video for her and mentioned this demeaning term, she wrote:

Here is her first response:

Yes, and I stand by my opinion. She is a ranter and a raver. Ha I think he has a crush on her ;)…one can be a conservative kook. I am. No one said she is not bright, one can be bright and a kook. The left respects us as much as we respect them, not at all, we demonize them they demonize us, around and around we go. It is tiresome and a waste of time when there is so much real work to do in this country.

Another lovely lady added:

  • Michelle Bachmann is an embarrassment to me! And ya don’t get ANY MORE conservative than ME!!!!

I politely continue the conversation:

Okay, for both you ladies. You have stated some things (“[s]he is a ranter and a raver,” and, “Michelle Bachmann is an embarrassment”). Please, since I do not know as much about her as you ladies about her, enlighten me. [A generalization is a good one if it points to reality.] A side note. I would respectfully disagree — also — with the point that demonization is of equal value between Left and Right (How Does the Left View the Right?). Chris Matthews, Michael Moore, and others can walk onto a campus and give a speech and be treated like celebrity’s. Ann Coulter, David Horowitz, have to employ personal body guards and the university has police in large numbers. From gatherings on the Mall in Washington (union/Democratic meetings leave it in shambles — Tea Partiers leave it cleaner than when they found it), to supposed violence/racism at Tea Parties compared to the Left’s gathering [the most recent was the teacher unions joining forces in L.A. with common-and-on (Welcome To Los Angeles). The conservative Republican has a different demeanor than that of their compatriot on the Left. Why, because the largely secular left has as their religion, not the Judeo-Christian ethic, but the “Rousseaulian animal” which they are founded on. Or as Ann Coulter points out, the “mob mentality.” A great quote I just added to my quotes page from a book I am reading is this (see my notes):

There is a Liberal sentiment that it should also punish those who take more than their “fair share.” But what is their fair share? (Shakespeare suggests that each should be treated not according to his deserts, but according to God’s mercy, or none of us would escape whipping.)

The concept of Fairness, for all its attractiveness to sentiment, is a dangerous one (cf. quota hiring and enrollment, and talk of “reparations”). Deviations from the Law, which is to say the Constitution, to accommodate specifically alleged identity-group injustices will all inevitably be expanded, universalized, and exploited until there remains no law, but only constant petition of Government.

We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law’s treatment.

But “fairness” is not only a nonlegal but an antilegal process, for it deals not with universally applicable principles and strictures, but with specific cases, responding to the perceived or proclaimed needs of individual claimants, and their desire for extralegal preference. And it could be said to substitute fairness (a determination which must always be subjective) for justice (the application of the legislated will of the electorate), is to enshrine greed—the greed, in this case, not for wealth, but for preference. The socialistic spirit of the Left indicts ambition and the pursuit of wealth as Greed, and appeals, supposedly on behalf of “the people,” to the State for “fairness.”….

….But such fairness can only be the non-Constitutional intervention of the State in the legal, Constitutional process—awarding, as it sees fit, money (reparations), preferment (affirmative action), or entertainment (confiscation)….

….”Don’t you care?” is the admonition implicit in the very visage of the Liberals of my acquaintance on their understanding that I have embraced Conservatism. But the Talmud understood of old that good intentions can lead to evil—vide Busing, Urban Renewal, Affirmative Action, Welfare, et cetera, to name the more immediately apparent, and not to mention the, literally, tens of thousands of Federal and State statutes limiting freedom of trade, which is to say, of the right of the individual to make a living, and, so earn that wealth which would, in its necessary expenditure, allow him to provide a living to others….

…. I recognized that though, as a lifelong Liberal, I endorsed and paid lip service to “social justice,” which is to say, to equality of result, I actually based the important decisions of my life—those in which I was personally going to be affected by the outcome—upon the principle of equality of opportunity; and, further, that so did everyone I knew. Many, I saw, were prepared to pay more taxes, as a form of Charity, which is to say, to hand off to the Government the choice of programs and recipients of their hard-earned money, but no one was prepared to be on the short end of the failed Government pro-grams, however well-intentioned. (For example—one might endorse a program giving to minorities preference in award of government contracts; but, as a business owner, one would fight to get the best possible job under the best possible terms regardless of such a program, and would, in fact, work by all legal and, perhaps by semi- or illegal means to subvert any program that enforced upon the pro-prietor a bad business decision.)*

Further, one, in paying the government to relieve him of a feeling of social responsibility, might not be bothered to question what in fact constituted a minority, and whether, in fact, such minority contracts were actually benefiting the minority so enshrined, or were being subverted to shell corporations and straw men. †

*No one would say of a firefighter, hired under rules reducing the height requirement, and thus unable to carry one’s child to safety, “Nonetheless, I am glad I voted for that ‘more fair’ law.”

† As, indeed, they are, or, in the best case, to those among the applicants claiming eligibility most capable of framing, supporting, or bribing their claims to the front of the line. All claims cannot be met. The politicians and bureaucrats discriminating between claims will necessarily favor those redounding to their individual or party benefit—so the eternal problem of “Fairness,” supposedly solved by Government distribution of funds, becomes, yet again and inevitably, a question of graft.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 116-117, 122, 151, 154.

(See more Mamet quotes HERE)

Example One

Melissa Etheridge

Then the response:

Here is one for you Sean, I personally think it shameful and not in the spirit of her Christianity that in one old anti-gay speech of hers in ’04 she singles Melissa Etheridge out, she expressed the hope that a breast-cancer-stricken Melissa Etheridge would take advantage of her illness to quit being a lesbian. I have more current faux pas’ but that one sticks with a person.

My response:

….Now on to the Ethridge thing which is one of ten listed of her craziest statements floating about the internet. Note that I am not here to defend lists against her, I doubt she will ultimately be the nominee, but this is a prime example of why one should investigate beyond pop-culture things said of Republicans (or for that matter, Democrats) filtered through the Huffington post or the Daily Kos which ends up digested by mainstream audiences.

Here is the Left’s understanding of her statement:

  • Michele Bachmann hopes Melissa Etheridge’s cancer will teach her to stop being gay

Here is the fuller quote about this 2004 point:

  • “Unfortunately she is now suffering from breast cancer, so keep her in your prayers. This may be an opportunity for her now to be open to some spiritual things, now that she is suffering with that physical disease. She is a lesbian**.”

In that same speech she intimated a bit more about her views saying that, “almost all, if not all, individuals who have gone into the lifestyle have been abused at one time in their life, either by a male or by a female.” Let me post a statement by a lesbian pro-choice pundit on this topic:

◆ … and now all manner of sexual perversion enjoys the protection and support of once what was a legitimate civil-rights effort for decent people. The real slippery slope has been the one leading into the Left’s moral vacuum. It is a singular attitude that prohibits any judgment about obvious moral decay because of the paranoid belief that judgment of any sort would destroy the gay lifestyle, whatever that is…. I believe this grab for children by the sexually confused adults of the Gay Elite represents the most serious problem facing our culture today…. Here come the elephant again: Almost without exception, the gay men I know (and that’s too many to count) have a story of some kind of sexual trauma or abuse in their childhood — molestation by a parent or an authority figure, or seduction as an adolescent at the hands of an adult. The gay community must face the truth and see sexual molestation of an adolescent for the abuse it is, instead of the ‘coming-of-age’ experience many [gays] regard it as being. Until then, the Gay Elite will continue to promote a culture of alcohol and drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, and suicide by AIDS. — Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values (Roseville: Prima, 2003), 90, 99.

Every lesbian that felt close enough to share their thoughts on this issue with my mom during her hippie days to her trailer park days has been abused, usually by a male family member. And the two homosexual men I have been close enough to talk about their positions on same-sex marriage and their past have intimated a sodomistic experience at a very young age; one by a stranger, and the other by a family member. (They are both against same sex-marriage by-the-by, as are many homosexuals… just not the vocal part of that community.) That is not to say this has been the case in all homosexual experiences, as the last caller intimates via the Michael Medved Show (load and listen at the 15-minute mark: Observations About Public Perception of Homosexuality).

I believe Bachmann had this larger thought in mind (as she has most likely read every book by Tammy Bruce) when talking about this topic as well as the hope that one reflects on spiritual things more when sick than when not,

  • “But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” — C.S. Lewis.

Mind you she may not be very well spoken on issues that I have written an entire chapter on (Roman Epicurean’ism – Natural Law and Homosexuality), but she certainly didn’t say or mean what the Left accuses her of. Yeah? Can you see the subject/object distinctions? I am sure that if pressed on the issue by a knowledgeable person she would admit the only real sin is rejecting the finished work on the Cross offered by God through His Son. Which is the hope she intimated — not so clearly — in her speech.

** Just to be clear… I do not think cancer is caused necessarily by sin… we ALL are guaranteed with a 1-to-1 stat in regards to life and death. This will NOT change via a lifestyle choice. There are [though] serious health issues that are often ignored from this lifestyle, more is said on this via a post and under the heading, “Homosexuality and the Public Health”

After some other posts I end with this:

I wanted to wrap this topic of conversation up by showing how many bumper sticker mantras/beliefs enter into what we view as fact and what we base opinions off of. Opinions should always be based on truth, or what we can best understand as truth. The truth of the example given above is ACTUALLY that Bachmann asked her audience to pray for Melissa Etheridge, and tried to encapsulate what any apologist of the faith may try to point out — that God will at times use our toughest trials to evolve our spiritual thinking in leaps and bounds. I would agree that Michele Bachmann may not be able to make the point as eloquent as a “CS Lewis.”

[….]

For those who wish to understand how such thinking — as exemplified herein — becomes mainstream understanding, I will recommend a dated book that is one of the best at explaining this phenomenon:

That is a great read for fellow bibliophiles here. Much, Much thought.

Example Two

Obama’s $2-Million a Day Trip

After some fun I asked this of another friend who posted info on Bachmann’s “gaffes”:

  • …. Tell me, what most bugs you about Bachmann besides your ad hominem attacks.

He responded in large, but I will shorten the response:

Bachman’s ideology bugs me. Her extreme “Christian” values. My first impression of her was her HUGE lie about Obama’s 2 Million dollar a day” trip to India- she lied right to the camera! She’s just a miserable angry bitch to me, and you could only say “Obama Sucks” soooo many times without offering anything of value in return before it gets stale.

I respond:

I don’t think that was a lie Greg? I think people may have said some things based on bad information, this is different than a lie. For example, liberals tend to say Bush lied about WMDs. If he “lied,” then so did the French, German, Russian, Israeli Saudi Arabia, and Jordanian intelligence as well as the CIA. This would also make Madeline Albright, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John F. Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, Robert Byrd, and others liars (for more info, see my PAGE on WMDs). This is one word that is thrown around by libs almost as much as the race card. It would be like me saying Obama lied when he said there were 57 states. There has to be some leeway here on both side, yeah?

So before going further, let’s get this straight, if Michele Bachmann got her info from a source of good standing and repeated it, she would be wrong, and not a liar, right?

So news orgs and financial sites like http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/, and http://www.ndtv.com/, as well as the http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ basically said the following in some manner:

A top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit has reckoned that a whopping $200 million (Rs 900 crore approx) per day would be spent by various teams coming from the US in connection with Obama’s two-day stay in the city. “A huge amount of around USD 200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit,” the official said in Mumbai.

Michele Bachmann then picked this up (maybe a staff member?) and ran with it. She didn’t lie Greg. Stop it. She was mistaken and took some bad information that the Indian press ran with. Right? This is your first main point and we need to reach agreement on this so that I [we] may know this conversation is one that maturely takes facts into consideration and changes our thoughts on the matter to fit the facts. Again, the main issue here is media bias… why would the press run with this and blame Bachmann as they did? Yes she said it, but she was not the author of this info. One of the most recent examples is this thanking by Michelle Obama to the press for leaving her kids alone and mediaites telling Michele Bachmann to her face all of her 23 foster children will be investigated (PJ MEDIA).

So she didn’t lie, right Greg?

He then retorts:

‎”a half truth is a while lie”. The false claim is in the same vein as John Kyl’s “over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is aortions” – selective information meant as slander, and not for any other purpose other than to spread lies, and just now on the news Michele wouldn’t address her “misstatements” other than she’s a “serious candidate”. You’re just trying to polish a turd with me on the Obama India trip, I’m not buying it.

I stay on topic after he rambles on on a myriad of topics:

(Stay focused.) We are still talking about one of your first points (outside of your use of “extremist” in describing a conservative woman of faith) and haven’t even made it to a second yet. Back up what you say, or, when what you believe doesn’t fit the facts – lay your pride aside and say, “you know, I may have jumped the gun with that.”

Okay, Bachmann didn’t even use a “white lie” when she passed on that information. She sisn’t twist any of it, she didn’t know it was false… she or her handlers ran with it based on the fact that it came from typically reliable sources:

Even as far back as Oct 23 the Economic Times said, “There will be US naval ships, along with Indian vessels, patrolling the sea till about 330-km from the shore. This is to negate the possibility of a missile being fired from a distance,” the officer said. (Economic Times)

ETC., ETC., ETC.

So, are you willing to say on this point you may have jumped the gun? …. (My Facebook video [June 28, 2011] transferred to my YouTube):

Example Three

Believing  Scientists Holding Nobel Prizes

He never answered my direct and clear questions or answered the evidence that challenged his embedded bias. Instead he used a tactic that 16-years of discussions on the www. have taught me… change the subject and bombard the person with many questions or topics… all at once. However, in his posting a “top-ten” list from online, I chose this one and then posted:

  • 7. “There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.” -Rep. Michele Bachmann, Oct. 2006

I respond:

Okay, since you are dodging my question/statement, I will give an example from your list. I guarantee that more than half of those can be explained away using the same common sense I did in the position above that you seem to not want to engage in, the example I gave of Melissa Ethridge near the beginning, and this one.

Bachmann said…. this: “There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.”

Okay, Nobel Laureates who believe in I.D. or some form of it:

Here Uncommon Descent has a few listed, please, see their post for more info on each of these gentleman:

  1. Nobel Laureate and Intelligent Design proponent: Dr. Brian Josephson (winner of the Nobel prize for Physics, 1973)
  2. Nobel Laureate and Old Earth creationist: Dr. Richard Smalley (winner of the Nobel prize for Chemistry, 1996)
  3. Abdus Salam (1926-1996), a winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics
  4. Sir John Eccles (1903-1997), winner of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1963.
  5. Nobel Laureate Ernst Boris Chain (1906-1979), winner of the 1945 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology
  6. Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1945.
  7. Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937), winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics

1) Charles Hard Townes, winner of a Nobel Prize in Physics and a UC Berkeley professor; 2) Nobel Laureate Eugene P. Wigner (1963, physics); 3) I would argue that Einstein accepted a form of I.D.; 4) Richard E Smalley, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry, as asked to present the keynote address at Tuskegee University’s 79th Annual Scholarship Convocation/Parents’ Recognition Program; 5) Max Plank, Nobel Laureate in Physics; 6) Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Laureate in Physics; 7) Erwin Schrödinger, Nobel Laureate in Physics; 8) Robert Millikan, Nobel Laureate in Physics; 9) Arthur Schawlow, Nobel Laureate in Physics; 10) William Phillips, Nobel Laureate in Physics; 11) Sir William H. Bragg, Nobel Laureate in Physics; 12) Guglielmo Marconi, Nobel Laureate in Physics; 13) Arthur Compton, Nobel Laureate in Physics; 14) Arno Penzias, Nobel Laureate in Physics; 15) Alexis Carrel, Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology; 16) Sir John Eccles, Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology; 17) Joseph Murray, Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology; 18) Sir Ernst Chain, Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology; 19) George Wald, Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology; 20) Sir Derek Barton, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry; 21) Christian Anfinsen, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry; 22) Walter Kohn, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry; 23) T. S. Eliot, Nobel Laureate in Literature; 24) Rudyard Kipling, Nobel Laureate in Literature; 25) Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Laureate in Literature; 26) François Mauriac, Nobel Laureate in Literature; 27) Hermann Hesse, Nobel Laureate in Literature; 28) Sir Winston Churchill, Nobel Laureate in Literature; 29) Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Laureate in Literature; 30) Sigrid Undset, Nobel Laureate in Literature; 31) Isaac B. Singer, Nobel Laureate in Literature; 32) Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Laureate for Peace; 33) Theodore Roosevelt, Nobel Laureate for Peace; 34) Woodrow Wilson, Nobel Laureate for Peace; 35) Nelson Mandela, Nobel Laureate for Peace; 36) Kim Dae-Jung, Nobel Laureate for Peace; 37) Dag Hammarskjöld, Nobel Laureate for Peace; 38) Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Laureate for Peace; 39) John R. Mott, Nobel Laureate for Peace; 40) Nathan Söderblom, Nobel Laureate for Peace.

Of course there are many scientists who were or are leaders in technology/science, literature and the like that are believers in some form of Intelligent Design. The example I give (and have given to you in past discussions is….

1) The guy most credited in getting us to the moon, Wernher von Braun: von Braun began work at the US Army Ordinance Corps testing grounds at White Sands, New Mexico. In 1952 he became technical director of the army’s ballistic-missile program. It was in the 1950’s that he produced rockets for US satellites (the first, Explorer 1, was launched early 1958) and early space flights by astronauts. He held an administrative post at NASA from 1970-1972 as well. We would have never made it to the moon if it were not for von Braun.

2) Dr Raymond V. Damadian is one that’s invention was key in diagnosing me with Multiple Sclerosis. He invented the MRI and his first working model is forever in the Smithsonian Institution‘s Hall of Medical Sciences

The MRI scanner has revolutionized the field of Medical Science. In 1977, Dr. Raymond Damadian invented the MRI scanner. The recipient of the 2001 Lemelson MIT achievement award, and the 1988 National Medal of Technology from President Ronald Regan, his name stands among those of the greatest inventors in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Join us in this rare personal interview of Dr. Damadian as he describes the invention and comments on multiple scientific controversies related to the origin of life. His answers will surprise you and leave you pondering your own worldview. See amazing Medical MRI images and state of the art animations. Expand your mind.

3) Benjamin S. Carson, M.D., one of the world’s foremost pediatric neurosurgeons, is professor and chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. Born on September 18, 1951, in Detroit to a single mother in a working class neighborhood, Ben showed promise from a young age. A graduate of Yale and the University of Michigan Medical School, he was rated by a Time issue titled “America’s Best” as a “super surgeon.” Dr. Carson was also selected by CNN and Time as one of the nation’s top 20 physicians and scientists, and by the Library of Congress as one of 89 “living-legends.”

These three men are young earth creationists (YEC) and support their claims by evidence and faith. One last point here are lists found on my blog

You can read more bio’s of professors, scientists, and researchers who are young earth creationists – HERE.

  1. Creation WIKI’s list of current creationist scientists;
  2. Creation WIKI’s historical list of creation sciuentists;
  3. Creation WIKI’s history of science.

A few other examples of current men of science who are young earth creationists:

  • Professor Dr Bernard Brandstater—pioneer in anesthetics. Amongst many other achievements, he pioneered assisted breathing for premature babies with prolonged incubation and developed an improved catheter for epidural anesthesia, both adopted around the world.
  • Prof. Stuart Burgess—a world expert in biomimetics (imitating design in nature). He is Professor of Engineering Design, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bristol (UK) and leads the Design Engineering Research Group at the university. Dr Burgess is the author of over 40 papers published in science journals, and another 50 conference proceedings. He has also registered 7 patents and has received various awards, the Wessex Institute Scientific Medal being the most recent.
  • Professor Dr Ben Carson—pioneer pediatric neurosurgeon. He was long-term director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. He was the first surgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins joined at the head and also pioneered surgery to cure epilepsy in young children, and much else. He has been awarded 51 honorary doctorates, including from Yale and Columbia universities in recognition of his outstanding achievements. He is a member of the Alpha Honor Medical Society, the Horatio Alger Society of Distinguished Americans, and sits on numerous business and education boards. In 2001, CNN and Time magazine named Ben Carson as one of the nation’s 20 foremost physicians and scientists. In that same year, the Library of Congress selected him as one of 89 ‘Living Legends’. In February 2008, President Bush awarded Carson the Ford’s Theater Lincoln Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the USA’s highest civilian honors.
  • Dr Raymond Damadian (see above)—largely responsible for developing medical imaging using magnetic resonance (MRI). He has been honored with the United States’ National Medal of Technology, the Lincoln-Edison Medal, and induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame alongside Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and the Wright brothers. In 2001 the Lemelson-MIT program bestowed its lifetime achievement award on Dr Damadian as “the man who invented the MRI scanner”. It is commonly recognized that he was discriminated against in not at least sharing a Nobel Prize for his work (two others shared the award), although Damadian was the discoverer that diseased tissue would have a different signal from healthy.’
  • Dr John Hartnett—developed the world’s most precise atomic clocks, which are used in research and industry around the globe. He is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award (DORA) fellow at the University of Adelaide, where he is an Associate Professor. In his relatively short career, he has published more than 200 papers in scientific journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings.
  • Dr Raymond Jones—solved the major problem of the indigestibility of Leucaena (a tropical legume) for grazing cattle in Australia, among other achievements. This research has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to the Australian beef industry. He was honored with the CSIRO Gold Medal for Research Excellence, and the Urrbrae Award.
  • Dr Felix Konotey-Ahulu—many pioneering contributions, especially in sickle cell disease management. He is Kwegyir Aggrey Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics, University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and Consultant Physician Genetic Counsellor in Sickle Cell and Other Haemoglobinopathies, Phoenix Hospital Group, London, UK. Ironically, sickle cell disease is often incorrectly held up as a ‘proof of evolution’ in science textbooks. Dr Konotey-Ahulu has received many awards in recognition of his work.
  • Dr John Sanford—has been granted over 30 patents arising from his research in plant breeding and genetics. His most significant scientific contributions involve three inventions, the biolistic (`gene gun’) process, pathogen-derived resistance, and genetic immunization. A large fraction of the transgenic crops (in terms of both numbers and area planted) grown in the world today were genetically engineered using the gene gun technology developed by John and his collaborators. Dr Sanford was honoured with the Distinguished Inventor Award by the Central New York Patent Law Association in 1990 and 1995)
  • Dr Wally (Siang Hwa) Tow—groundbreaking research in ‘molar pregnancy’, a poverty-related disease. He was invited to lecture in some fourteen top Obstetrics-Gynaecology departments in America in 1962-3, including leading universities such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, New York, UCLA, Cornell, and Stanford. He was awarded the William Blair Bell Lectureship by the RCOG in recognition of the importance of this work. He served as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, National University of Singapore.

Don Batten, “Creationist Contributions to Science,” Creation 36(4):1 September 2014, 17-18. See also, creation bios.

European Happiness and Crime Rates Compared To America’s

Published by Papa Giorgio

“It’s become common knowledge that Denmark, Sweden and Norway routinely rank highest on lists of the world’s happiest nations…” (The World’s Happiest Countries Take The Most Antidepressants)

(As usual, all graphics/pics are linked to other resources.) Often I hear about how much lower the crime rate is in Europe, at times having the “Peace Index” thrown into the conversation without any meditation on what exactly this “index” says. Happiness is another moniker often thrown around without any comparisons of “what constitutes ‘happiness’.” So lets deal first with happiness, and then get into the peace index and gun-control/stats.

HAPPINESS

What constitutes happiness between the States and Europe? Let’s delve — quickly — into this topic via Forbes (2006):

The average American works 25 hours a week; the average Frenchman 18; the average Italian a bit more than 16 and a half. Even the hardest-working Europeans–the British, who put in an average of 21 and half hours–are far more laid-back than their American cousins.

Compared with Europeans, Americans are more likely to be employed and more likely to work longer hours–employed Americans put in about three hours more per week than employed Frenchmen. Most important, Americans take fewer (and shorter) vacations. The average American takes off less than six weeks a year; the average Frenchman almost 12. The world champion vacationers are the Swedes, at 16 and a half weeks per year.

Of course, Europeans pay a price for their extravagant leisure. The average Frenchman produces only three-quarters as much as the average American, even though productivity per hour is slightly higher in France.

This raises more than one interesting question. First, why do Americans choose to work so much? (Or, if you prefer, why do Europeans choose to work so little?) Second, who’s happier?…..

Why indeed.

I think this is answered a bit later in a newer poll/study, found at Live Science (see also FoxNews):

Americans really do love to work, it seems, while Europeans are much happier if they skip burning the midnight oil in favor of leisure. That’s according to a new study finding longer work hours make Europeans unhappy while Americans get a very slight (albeit not statistically significant) bliss boost from the extra grind.

“Those who work longer hours in Europe are less happy than those who work shorter hours, but in the U.S. it’s the other way around,” said study author Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn, a clinical assistant professor of public policy at The University of Texas at Dallas. “The working hours’ category does not have a very big impact on the probability of happiness of Americans.” [Happiest States’ List]

The study, based on survey data, can’t tease out whether work causes happiness or unhappiness, though the researchers speculate the effect has to do with expectations and how a person measures success.

Okulicz-Kozaryn used surveys of European and American attitudes for the study. The surveys included questions about the number of hours worked and asked respondents to identify if they were “very happy,” “pretty happy” or “not too happy.”

They found that the likelihood of Europeans’ describing themselves as “very happy” dropped from around 28 percent to 23 percent as work hours climbed from under 17 hours a week to more than 60 hours per week. Americans, on the other hand, held steady, with about a 43 percent chance of describing themselves as happy regardless of working hours.

The results held even after the researchers accounted for possible confounding factors, such as age, marital status and household income….

[….]

“Happiness depends upon satisfaction with your income, satisfaction with you family life, satisfaction with your work, satisfaction with your health,” he said.

“People trade off work and leisure,” Easterlin explained, and so any attempt to explain the results of this study would have to take that into account. “[Happiness] has to do with what you think the goals are of people in the two countries.”

American happiness is a pursuit important enough to include in one of our Founding documents, right next to life and liberty. This “pursuit” we are use to (and is being harmed/deformed by the welfare state growing larger) creates innovation. For instance David Mamet notes the following:

In my family, as in yours, someone regularly says, “Hey, you know what would be a good idea … ?” And then proceeds to outline some scheme for making money by providing a product or service the need for which has just occurred to him. He and the family fantasize about and discuss and elaborate this scheme. Inherent in this fantasy is the unstated but ever-present truth that, given sufficient capital and expertise or the access to the same, the scheme might actually be put into operation (as, indeed, constantly, throughout our history, such schemes have), bettering the lives of the masses and bringing wealth to their creators. Do you believe such conversations take place in Syria? In France?

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), [FN] 120.

Some can be happy with less pay and trusting the state will care for them enough to go on 12-week vacations. While doctors, for instance, may enjoy a month-long vacation in France [mandatory vacation], this “happiness” rather than hard-work often has deadly consequences, one being — for instance — nearly 15,000 people dying in a heat wave in France in 2003 (a record for Europe… previously Italy held it with 3,000).

  • …Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei has ordered a separate special study this month to look into a possible link with vacation schedules after doctors strongly denied allegations their absence put the elderly in danger. The heat wave hit during the August vacation period, when doctors, hospital staff and many others take leave…

So Europe being “happier” than the United States is something of a misnomer.

“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We pursue it, not expecting government to provide it for us. If government doeas, a simple economic law states — basically — that creativity is squelched:

  • “A fundamental principle of information theory is that you can’t guarantee outcomes… in order for an experiment to yield knowledge, it has to be able to fail. If you have guaranteed experiments, you have zero knowledge”

George Gilder, Interview by Dennis Prager {Editors note: this is how the USSR ended up with warehouses FULL of “widgets” (things made that it could not use or people did not want) no one needed in the real world.}

When people do, austerity more-often-than-not leads to riots and collapse. And why in many European countries the EU is being rejected, and conservative parties are getting landslides (like UKIP in the UK). People are fed up with horrible health care, no incentive to succeed, taxes, crime, and immigration issues. 

Okay, I feel my point has been made. Innovation comes by a drive to work hard, as much as you wish in fact… whereas Europe forces people to work less, and thus is stagnant in relation to this said innovation. What about crime rates and violence, yes, even gun violence? Lets see. Firstly, I deal with some of the more pressing issues with the Peace Index here. But in this conversation, I wanted to deal with violent crimes… which include more than gun violence. As Europe gives birth to a generation divorced of their cultural heritage, you will see a rise in violence, and then a rise in reaction to it. Maybe an over-reaction?

VIOLENCE

Firstly, if you are an in-depth kind of reader, at this link you will find multiple debates and appearances of John Lott on CNN and other programs discussing gun crime. But let’s deal with a place that has for years made gun ownership illegal, the United Kingdom. Here is the headline from The Telegraph on the topic:

UK is violent crime capital of Europe: The United Kingdom is the violent crime capital of Europe and has one of the highest rates of violence in the world, worse even than America, according to new research.

Analysis of figures from the European Commission showed a 77 per cent increase in murders, robberies, assaults and sexual offences in the UK since Labour came to power.

The total number of violent offences recorded compared to population is higher than any other country in Europe, as well as America, Canada, Australia and South Africa.

Opposition leaders said the disclosures were a “damning indictment” of the Government’s failure to tackle deep-rooted social problems.

The figures combined crime statistics for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The UK had a greater number of murders in 2007 than any other EU country – 927 – and at a relative rate higher than most western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain. 

 It also recorded the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU, and the highest absolute number of burglaries, with double the number of offences recorded in Germany and France.

Overall, 5.4 million crimes were recorded in the UK in 2007 – more than 10 a minute – second only to Sweden.

Chris Grayling, shadow home secretary, said: “This is a real damning indictment of this government’s comprehensive failure over more than a decade to tackle the deep rooted social problems in our society, and the knock-on effect on crime and anti-social behaviour.

“We’re now on our fourth Home Secretary in this parliament, and all we are getting is a rehash of old initiatives that didn’t work the first time round. More than ever Britain needs a change of direction.”

The figures were sourced from Eurostat, the European Commission’s database of statistics. They are gathered using official sources in the countries concerned such as the national statistics office, the national prison administration, ministries of the interior or justice, and police.

A breakdown of the statistics, which were compiled into league tables by the Conservatives, revealed that violent crime in the UK had increased from 652,974 offences in 1998 to more than 1.15 million crimes in 2007.

It means there are over 2,000 crimes recorded per 100,000 population in the UK, making it the most violent place in Europe.

Austria is second, with a rate of 1,677 per 100,000 people, followed by Sweden, Belgium, Finland and Holland.

By comparison, America has an estimated rate of 466 violent crimes per 100,000 population.

France recorded 324,765 violent crimes in 2007 – a 67 per cent increase in the past decade – at a rate of 504 per 100,000 population. 

…read more…

Which segways into a recent comparison in crime and gun-control in a Wall Street Journal article by Joyce Lee Malcolm, entitled: “Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control: After a school massacre, the U.K. banned handguns in 1998. A decade later, handgun crime had doubled.” Here is an interview of her in regards to the article, followed by excerpts from said article:

Larry Elder Interview & Wall Street Journal Article

Here are portions of the article:

…Great Britain and Australia, for example, suffered mass shootings in the 1980s and 1990s. Both countries had very stringent gun laws when they occurred. Nevertheless, both decided that even stricter control of guns was the answer. Their experiences can be instructive.

In 1987, Michael Ryan went on a shooting spree in his small town of Hungerford, England, killing 16 people (including his mother) and wounding another 14 before shooting himself. Since the public was unarmed—as were the police—Ryan wandered the streets for eight hours with two semiautomatic rifles and a handgun before anyone with a firearm was able to come to the rescue.

Nine years later, in March 1996, Thomas Hamilton, a man known to be mentally unstable, walked into a primary school in the Scottish town of Dunblane and shot 16 young children and their teacher. He wounded 10 other children and three other teachers before taking his own life.

Since 1920, anyone in Britain wanting a handgun had to obtain a certificate from his local police stating he was fit to own a weapon and had good reason to have one. Over the years, the definition of “good reason” gradually narrowed. By 1969, self-defense was never a good reason for a permit.

After Hungerford, the British government banned semiautomatic rifles and brought shotguns—the last type of firearm that could be purchased with a simple show of fitness—under controls similar to those in place for pistols and rifles. Magazines were limited to two shells with a third in the chamber.

Dunblane had a more dramatic impact. Hamilton had a firearm certificate, although according to the rules he should not have been granted one. A media frenzy coupled with an emotional campaign by parents of Dunblane resulted in the Firearms Act of 1998, which instituted a nearly complete ban on handguns. Owners of pistols were required to turn them in. The penalty for illegal possession of a pistol is up to 10 years in prison.

The results have not been what proponents of the act wanted. Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is. Armed street gangs have some British police carrying guns for the first time. Moreover, another massacre occurred in June 2010. Derrick Bird, a taxi driver in Cumbria, shot his brother and a colleague then drove off through rural villages killing 12 people and injuring 11 more before killing himself.

[….]

Six weeks after the Dunblane massacre in 1996, Martin Bryant, an Australian with a lifelong history of violence, attacked tourists at a Port Arthur prison site in Tasmania with two semiautomatic rifles. He killed 35 people and wounded 21 others.

At the time, Australia’s guns laws were stricter than the United Kingdom’s. In lieu of the requirement in Britain that an applicant for permission to purchase a gun have a “good reason,” Australia required a “genuine reason.” Hunting and protecting crops from feral animals were genuine reasons—personal protection wasn’t.

With new Prime Minister John Howard in the lead, Australia passed the National Firearms Agreement, banning all semiautomatic rifles and semiautomatic and pump-action shotguns and imposing a more restrictive licensing system on other firearms. The government also launched a forced buyback scheme to remove thousands of firearms from private hands. Between Oct. 1, 1996, and Sept. 30, 1997, the government purchased and destroyed more than 631,000 of the banned guns at a cost of $500 million.

To what end? While there has been much controversy over the result of the law and buyback, Peter Reuter and Jenny Mouzos, in a 2003 study published by the Brookings Institution, found homicides “continued a modest decline” since 1997. They concluded that the impact of the National Firearms Agreement was “relatively small,” with the daily rate of firearms homicides declining 3.2%.

According to their study, the use of handguns rather than long guns (rifles and shotguns) went up sharply, but only one out of 117 gun homicides in the two years following the 1996 National Firearms Agreement used a registered gun. Suicides with firearms went down but suicides by other means went up. They reported “a modest reduction in the severity” of massacres (four or more indiscriminate homicides) in the five years since the government weapons buyback. These involved knives, gas and arson rather than firearms.

In 2008, the Australian Institute of Criminology reported a decrease of 9% in homicides and a one-third decrease in armed robbery since the 1990s, but an increase of over 40% in assaults and 20% in sexual assaults.

What to conclude? Strict gun laws in Great Britain and Australia haven’t made their people noticeably safer, nor have they prevented massacres. The two major countries held up as models for the U.S. don’t provide much evidence that strict gun laws will solve our problems.

Ms. Malcolm, a professor of law at George Mason University Law School, is the author of several books including “Guns and Violence: The English Experience,” (Harvard, 2002).

Of course America’s worst massacre involving a school is the Bath Bombing (below), Michigan (1927). And a bomb killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City Bombing. So if someone wants to kill another… no amount of government regulation will decrease this fact:

  • “…we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

John Adams, first (1789–1797) Vice President of the United States, and the second (1797–1801) President of the United States. Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 11 October 1798, in Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull (New York, 1848), pp 265-6.

2016: Obama`s America ~ Saw It Last Night-Cannot Recommend Enough

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Posted on my Facebook)

Went to Canyon Country Edwards last night to see the box office #1 movie (update, dropped to 4th): 2016: Obama’s America. A high recommend!

One of the producers for this movie, Gerald R. Molen, produced: Rain Man, Minority Report, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, and Days of Thunder to name a few of his bigger movies.

I didn’t realize Shelby Steele was in the documentary, this was a pleasant surprise. Something Steele mentioned about why some people voted for Obama brought to mind a section in David Mamet’s book that I will quote in its full context, but know that the last sentence is the main point (Remember that Mamet either wrote, produced, or directed some of these hits: Glengarry Glen Ross, The Untouchables, Hannibal, House of Games, American Buffalo):

—————————————————
One might say that the politician, the doctor, and the dramatist make their living from human misery; the doctor in attempting to alleviate it, the politician to capitalize on it, and the dramatist, to describe it.

But perhaps that is too epigrammatic.

When I was young, there was a period in American drama in which the writers strove to free themselves of the question of character.

Protagonists of their worthy plays had made no choices, but were afflicted by a condition not of their making; and this condition, homosexuality, illness, being a woman, etc., was the center of the play. As these protagonists had made no choices, they were in a state of innocence. They had not acted, so they could not have sinned.

A play is basically an exercise in the raising, lowering, and altering of expectations (such known, collectively, as the Plot); but these plays dealt not with expectations (how could they, for the state of the protagonist was not going to change?) but with sympathy.

What these audiences were witnessing was not a drama, but a troublesome human condition displayed as an attraction. This was, formerly, known as a freak show.

The subjects of these dramas were bearing burdens not of their choosing, as do we all. But misfortune, in life, we know, deserves forbearance on the part of the unafflicted. For though the display of courage in the face of adversity is worthy of all respect, the display of that respect by the unaffected is presumptuous and patronizing.

One does not gain merit from congratulating an afflicted person for his courage. One only gains entertainment.

Further, endorsement of the courage of the affliction play’s hero was not merely impertinent, but, more basically, spurious, as applause was vouchsafed not to a worthy stoic, but to an actor portraying him.

These plays were an (unfortunate) by-product of the contemporary love-of-the-victim. For a victim, as above, is pure, and cannot have sinned; and one, by endorsing him, may perhaps gain, by magic, part of his incontrovertible status. ~ David Mamet

A Question Posed to Me By an Open-Minded Young Man About `Affirmative Action,` Via My Face Book

Published by Papa Giorgio

A young man [A childhood friend of one of my sons] who does not agree with my viewpoints on some issues (many issues in fact) still is open minded enough to ask a serious question expecting some serious input to continue his thinking on the matter. Learning should not become stagnant, but should be a lifelong adventure. This person is doing just that, in the least trying to understand the opposing viewpoint. For this I laud him.

Here is the question:

✌ “Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on affirmative action?”

Here is my response:

Not a big fan at all. It is interesting, I just finished a book entitled, “Wrong on Race: The Democrat Party’s Buried Past,” and at the end of the book he gave some ideas that the Republicans could spearhead some ideas to end racial preferences altogether. One is (and I don’t know how much I like his ideas… but at least he is being innovative) that blacks would not have to pay Federal Income Tax for a generation or two, and then all race based programs could be ended… and we could truly be a color blind society. At least as the government is concerned. (You will never be able to change human nature and its depravity.)

A book I highly recommend (and is relatively short) that help zero in on this topic is a book by Thomas Sowell, “Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality?” It is a bit dated but there are timeless ideas in it. A more academic study is his book, “Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study,” by Sowell. (Although I haven’t read the book, I trust Walter Williams input from his newest book [on my 2013 reading list]: “Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?“).

Again, two books easily digested that should be read by the serious student that are short and full of timeless wisdom:

★ “Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality?” by Thomas Sowell;
★ and, “White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era,” by Shelby Steele.

I look at it like this. Let’s say you have a law firm and many of your cases are with Hollywood moguls and you have even had a couple of your lawyers argue before the Supreme Court. You need lawyers that know their law and have a record of academic achievement. You go to Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, etc. to pull from the pool new Lawyers. Walking around are future graduates with signs around their necks that say:

★ I got into ______________ because I competed and scored higher than most on my SATS and was near the top of my undergraduate classes;

★ I got into ______________ because my parents or grandparents gave millions of dollars to their alma mater;

★ I got into ______________ because I am black.

(By-the-by, I used the example of a rich privileged “white” student because I know this person views much of the world through the lenses of the liberal trinity, that is: race, class, gender. I used an example he would agree with, so if “a” is true [rich privileged kid], why isn’t “b” true [poor privileged kid].) I would be just as skeptical of the uber-rich kid who has parents building wings in the university as I would about a person getting in due to affirmative action. And if you ran a business that by nature [all] are competitive, you are looking for people who can be the best.

Not only does this hurt the workforce, but it hurts the educational system as well. To wit, I just uploaded a 5-minute blurb from Thomas Sowell. It is worth listening to:

Here is likewise a short audio with Larry Elder making some key points in a 6-minute audio. What this shows is that like with many “feelings based” policy, the people harmed are the intended target of help.

I finished off my thinking with David Mamet, an ex-progressive, explaining the idea of feelings based laws:

There is a Liberal sentiment that it should also punish those who take more than their “fair share.” But what is their fair share? (Shakespeare suggests that each should be treated not according to his deserts, but according to God’s mercy, or none of us would escape whipping.)

The concept of Fairness, for all its attractiveness to sentiment, is a dangerous one (cf. quota hiring and enrollment, and talk of “reparations”). Deviations from the Law, which is to say the Constitution, to accommodate specifically alleged identity-group injustices will all inevitably be expanded, universalized, and exploited until there remains no law, but only constant petition of Government.

We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law’s treatment.

But “fairness” is not only a nonlegal but an antilegal process, for it deals not with universally applicable principles and strictures, but with specific cases, responding to the perceived or proclaimed needs of individual claimants, and their desire for extralegal preference. And it could be said to substitute fairness (a determination which must always be subjective) for justice (the application of the legislated will of the electorate), is to enshrine greed—the greed, in this case, not for wealth, but for preference. The socialistic spirit of the Left indicts ambition and the pursuit of wealth as Greed, and appeals, supposedly on behalf of “the people,” to the State for “fairness.”….

….But such fairness can only be the non-Constitutional intervention of the State in the legal, Constitutional process—awarding, as it sees fit, money (reparations), preferment (affirmative action), or entertainment (confiscation)….

….”Don’t you care?” is the admonition implicit in the very visage of the Liberals of my acquaintance on their understanding that I have embraced Conservatism. But the Talmud understood of old that good intentions can lead to evil—vide Busing, Urban Renewal, Affirmative Action, Welfare, et cetera, to name the more immedi­ately apparent, and not to mention the, literally, tens of thousands of Federal and State statutes limiting freedom of trade, which is to say, of the right of the individual to make a living, and, so earn that wealth which would, in its necessary expenditure, allow him to provide a living to others….

…. I recognized that though, as a lifelong Liberal, I endorsed and paid lip service to “social justice,” which is to say, to equality of result, I actually based the important decisions of my life—those in which I was personally going to be affected by the outcome—upon the principle of equality of opportunity; and, further, that so did everyone I knew. Many, I saw, were prepared to pay more taxes, as a form of Charity, which is to say, to hand off to the Government the choice of programs and recipients of their hard-earned money, but no one was prepared to be on the short end of the failed Government pro­grams, however well-intentioned. (For example—one might endorse a program giving to minorities preference in award of government contracts; but, as a business owner, one would fight to get the best possible job under the best possible terms regardless of such a pro­gram, and would, in fact, work by all legal and, perhaps by semi- or illegal means to subvert any program that enforced upon the pro­prietor a bad business decision.)*

Further, one, in paying the government to relieve him of a feeling of social responsibility, might not be bothered to question what in fact constituted a minority, and whether, in fact, such minority con­tracts were actually benefiting the minority so enshrined, or were being subverted to shell corporations and straw men. †

————————————————————–

*No one would say of a firefighter, hired under rules reducing the height requirement, and thus unable to carry one’s child to safety, “Nonetheless, I am glad I voted for that ‘more fair’ law.”

† As, indeed, they are, or, in the best case, to those among the applicants claiming eligibility most capable of framing, supporting, or bribing their claims to the front of the line. All claims cannot be met. The politicians and bureaucrats discriminating between claims will neces­sarily favor those redounding to their individual or party benefit—so the eternal problem of “Fairness,” supposedly solved by Government distribution of funds, becomes, yet again and inevitably, a question of graft.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 116-117, 122, 151, 154.

After the First Ladies 16th Vacation in 3 Years, Class Warfare Is Top Priority for Michelle Obama

Published by Papa Giorgio

Keep in mind also that Obama played more golf in his first two years than Bush did his entire 8-years in office! Gateway Pundit riley notes,

Michelle Obama bashed the rich during a big donor luncheon today in Cincinnati. She just returned from the family’s 16th vacation in three years.
The Examiner reported:

First lady Michelle Obama has joined her husband’s bandwagon to hit the rich and spread the wealth, questioning how well-off families can feel good if others are struggling.

To about 300 supporters wealthy enough to pay $300-$10,000 to attend the mid-day event, the first lady said, “If a family in this country is struggling, we cannot be satisfied with our own families’ good fortune.”

She also rapped the rich, as has her husband. “Who do we want to be?” Obama asked. “Will we be a country where success is limited to the few at the top? This country is strongest when we are all better off.”

Fundraising in Cincinnati, Ohio as her husband raised cash in Florida, she also said that the change President Obama offered in 2008 “does not come easy.” And she added, “change is slow, but we will get there,” according to a pool report of the event.

Didn’t Michelle come from humble beginnings? Then why is she lecturing Americans on a country where “success is limiting to the few at the top?”

This reminds me of a small portion where David Mamet is explaining how the irrational is defended by the left. He gives an example of taxes and jobs:

Here is an example. President Obama, in a speech in July 2010, declared that the Government should be ready to support Green Business—that if anyone wanted to create these jobs, the Government would be there to help.

What was the help? He was offering rebates. But what are rebates but tax cuts?

To suggest that giving back (to approved entities) some of the money drained from them in taxes, and to characterize this as “help,” is like a mugger pausing in administering his beating and characterizing this pause, to his victim, as assistance.

If, as President Obama announced perceptively, cutting taxes creates jobs (as it does; as anyone not blinded by theory knows: when taxes are raised, businesses close), then why not cut all taxes?

This inconsistency is ignored only by those who benefit from it (the administration), and the confused (Liberals).

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture(New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 113.