Aren’t You A Bit Epicurious?

January 18, 2015 Leave a comment

Little did he know at the time (341-270 B.C.) that he, Epicurus, a Greek philosopher, would be a founding father of the atheism sect, a sect which began its angry resistance movement when Jesus Christ appeared on the scene claiming to be God incarnate. Or, that he, Epicurus would be the gardener who would plant the seeds of the Enlightenment’s now perennial social Darwinism, seeds embedded with the DNA of Democritus’ dictum of random Atomism. Or, that he would be considered an ancient agnostic theologian who preached that the gods were out-of-the picture and the Roman gods were way too bossy. Or, that his philosophy would become an eponymous link with shameless pleasures.

an allegory of five senses. Still Life by Pieter Claesz, 1623. The painting illustrates the senses through musical instruments, a compass, a book, food and drink, a mirror, incense and an open perfume bottle. (via Wikipedia)

An allegory of five senses. Still Life by Pieter Claesz, 1623. The painting illustrates the senses through musical instruments, a compass, a book, food and drink, a mirror, incense and an open perfume bottle. (via Wikipedia)

Epicurus had concluded that any idea of the ‘gods’ had to be put upstairs in the ‘attic’-out of sight, out of mind. Not seen. Not heard from. They should be not be given any consideration much less be feared. Epicurus had an alternative universe to offer his disciples.

Epicurus lived and taught a moderate lifestyle, keeping to himself and to his close friends. He believed and taught that one could learn everything through one’s senses. He counted the senses as trustworthy.

Epicurus spoke of natural desires in life such as food and shelter which one could not live without (a no-brainer). And, he spoke of the natural desire for sex which one could live without (a no-boner). In practice, unlike today’s hedonistic Epicureans, Epicurus was pleasure-passive but not in the sense that he would waste away his time in Margaritaville.

Epicurus also taught that wealth and fame should be avoided because they are intrinsically narcissistic and appeal only to vanity. These things were to be considered ephemeral. (Al Sharpton and a host of politicians and Hollywood stars would not be examples of true Epicureanism.)

As Epicurus was a proponent of living a quiet and peaceful life, unnoticed by the world I am reminded of the Apostle Paul’s missive to the church in Thessalonica (circa Ad 52). Paul’s letter was likely written from Corinth the home of Aphrodite’s temple-a hedonist hangout. He encouraged the Christians in Thessalonica to “… make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you,” (I Thess. 4:11 )

Epicurean philosophy, detached from its sedate founder’s teaching, would later become associated with extreme pleasure seeking. Per Wikipedia, a “hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure (pleasure minus pain)”. And, with the angry ‘gods thought of as remote, unconcerned and out of the picture a hedonist could unleash and unlock the Animal House within him. But, Epicurus was not a Caligula in pursuit of untold ‘pleasures’. There were no toga parties at Epicurus’ home.

“Seek pleasure in peace and pursue it” was his cart’s bumper sticker-right next to his “COEXIST” bumper sticker.

 Due to his compartmentalizing, putting god upstairs and putting earthly pleasure as a priority, Epicurus can also be considered as one of the founding fathers of the fact/value split, a split where science and religion and politics and religion are deemed to have no common ground-in heaven nor on earth. This Epicurean dichotomy would eventually cause Americans to exile God from their thinking. To fill the vacancy America would welcome all manner of European philosophical and psychoanalytical nonsense as well as all manifestations of statistical ‘science’. (See my post “How Shall I Then Live” regarding the fact/value split.)

Sadly it was with an Epicurean mindset already in place that America’s founding fathers including Thomas Jefferson wrote the U.S. Constitution as the divorce papers to be served on God –God was not to be part of our nation’s public’ life: And though our currency reads “In God We Trust”, that has come to mean “God is our fall back position”. “You may worship God up there but just don’t bring him down from the attic into our Novus ordo seclorum” (see your after tax currency of the New World for both mottos).

It probably could be said that the Epicurean philosophy was the origin of Freud’s Pleasure Principle. The Principle simply stated, is that man’s default modus operandi is to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. Here it would appear that neo-Epicurean philosophy influenced at least Christopher Hitchens, a well-known provocateur atheist given to well-documented habits of smoking, strong drink and other ravishing appetites, a raison d’etre for a pleasure seeker like Hitchens-but only in his previous life.

Mr. Epicurus, on the other hand, took his afternoon delight in hammock contemplation of Atomism, the dictum of his day: life is reducible to invisible atoms which swerve and smash randomly into each other without a defining purpose. This dictum could well define the “angry atheists” Atomistic arguments against the existence of God. (During Epicurus time you had to walk by faith to believe in invisible atoms and no God. Later quantum physics via the LHC and other nuclear colliders would provide us with the silhouettes of nuclear particles including bosons but many scientists chose not to see God as Creator of this “Atomism”)

 Today, “angry atheists,” one such is Richard Dawkins, continue to swerve and smash their Atomistc-like arguments against God’s apologists but their pro-atheistic arguments never coalesce into anti-God anti-matter. And, when everything else they have said fails to discharge God from the universe these angry fellows and their devoted followers resort to ad hominem and strong drink.

Epicurus is the man for all reasons today. Here is someone who can say it better than I.

 N.T. Wright, a New Testament scholar, notes Epicurus’ influence on modern man in his recent book “Surprised by Scripture.” Here are some quotes from Chapter One “Healing the Divide Between Science and Religion”.

 “You could sum up Epicurus’ philosophy, at least in its desired effects, with the slogan Richard Dawkins and his associates put as an advertisement on London buses two or three years ago: “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life….

 So, for Epicurus, there was nothing to worry about. Draw a direct line from him to John Lennon: imagine there’s no heaven, no hell beneath us; now get on and live for today. The image of Epicurus as a hedonist is true, but it was a very refined hedonism, since he taught that the more obviously bodily pleasures didn’t last and produced less pleasurable effects.”

Wright goes on to say that

“The philosophy of Epicurus was given a major new lease on life by the Roman poet Lucretius, who lived about seventy years before Jesus….In Lucretius it all become clear and straightforward. The world is what is it is because of (what he called) atoms, which, free-falling through space, collide with one another, sometimes combining and sometimes bouncing off…major changes are caused by the inexplicable “swerve” that sometime happens to atoms so that they veer off in new directions and produce different results. But the main point is essentially what we would today call the evolutionary thesis: life in the world has developed under its own steam as the random by-product of chance collisions and combinations of atoms and the more complex life-forms they produce….

The second point I want to make about the rise of Epicureanism at the dawn of modernity, and particularly in the origins of the Enlightenment, is that it was seized upon not least because of it political implications. That is clear already in Machiavelli and Hobbes, but it comes to fore in the eighteenth century.”

 The Epicurean endorsed idea that random free-floating atoms made the world what it is ‘swerved’ into the mix of political ideologies which rejected monarchy and a ‘bossy-guy-upstairs’ rule. “Vox populi vox Dei is the cry-but then Deus himself disappears off into the far beyond, and vox populi is all we’re left with.” N. T. Wright, and again:

 “…Democracy can generate new forms of tyranny, and once we have sold our souls to a particular voting process there no way back. We need to return to the drawing board and think more clearly about whether the natural and proper human passion for freedom and the natural and proper need for order and stability are best served by the kinds of democracy we have developed, without the aid of the divine or monarchial intervention from above, on the model of the Epicureanism that has proved so popular and influential.” (I would add that it appears that radicalized Islam seeks to place their false god Allah on the world’s throne. N. T. Wright is referring to the One True God-YHVH-“I Am That I Am”.)

 The threads of Epicurus philosophy are woven throughout our life’s fabric. As Wright notes, “Basically, the American dream is that if you get up and go, you’ll succeed; the egalitarian hope is that the fittest will survive the economic jungle”. And, as I noted above Epicurean philosophy began the fact value split that modern man uses as his template for all of life’s questions, whether personal or political.

 Do I look to God or to some form of science for life’s contextual meaning? Am I a random mix of atoms evolved into a human form? Is life only meant for pleasure seeking and pain avoidance and at any cost to me and to my fellow man. Should I vote to obtain pleasure? And so on…

 For Christians (for all, really) what does it mean that the Kingdom of God has been established on earth? N.T. Wright, in his book referenced above, goes on to explore the current thinking and a Christian response to an Epicurean worldview. For now, there is way too much of Wright’s insight to post today. Except to say that sadly the world now divides science and religion into separate rooms –one downstairs and one upstairs. This should not be. I am convinced that science and properly tuned philosophy support God’s existence, Scripture and the work of His hands. As Francis Schaeffer of L’ Abri once wrote, “He is there and He is not silent.” I’ll save that for other posts.

 

Final thoughts. As mentioned above Epicurus treasured his close friends. They were very important to him. And I would imagine they would be.

 In a universe where god is perceived as remote, uninterested, detached and at best considered as always-looking-down-on you angry and bossy it feels good to have close like-minded friends to commiserate with: “Dionysus my friend, pass the wine and let us sing ”Don’t Worry, Be Happy””.

 Now, you should know from previous posts that I accept the theory of theistic evolution with its old earth creationism. (BTW: after learning about Epicurus you should know that the Atomism dictum that he promoted well preceded any Darwinian theory of evolution.) Having said this I would offer the following friendly apologia.

 Each of us as God formed evolved humans can ‘recognize’ another person, the ‘other,’ via our evolved senses. Can we agree that this was done at a prehistoric man level? And, when one cave man was hungry and another cave man was also hungry they may have then formed a hunter/gatherer tribe to fulfill their basic need for food. Again, this was done at a prehistoric man level.

Now fast forward millions of years and hold on. Epicurus understood his friends at a basic human level-through his basic five senses. The fact the he held them dear meant that he looked outside of himself and considered the ‘other’ as worthy, perhaps starting from a place of tribalism. (I hope I’ve made you epicurious.)

Certainly myriad mutations have made our basic senses ‘alive’ and aware that another being in our presence is either friend or foe. But it is only God’s likeness incarnated into the once primate-now human form that can bring about an embrace, a love for the ‘other’. Human friendship and human love was born out of a different tribe, a tribe not of the Epicurean worldview-the Dancing Embrace of the Trinity Tribe.

“Joy to the World, the Lord has come, Let earth receive her King”:  The Kingdom of God is heaven and earth, science and religion and you and me in one eternal embrace with the Trinity.

At the beginning of Kingdom of God on earth and during his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus-I AM That I Am-reminds us that we are being watched over with love and care. Jesus nullifies Epicurean philosophy, if we let Him.

 

 

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Here’s an interesting recent snapshot of modern Epicurean thought: Raising Kids Without God (But Maybe Not Without Religion)

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Added 1-25-2015. Epicurean science dismissing fact becomes a fanatical ‘faith’ to avoid fantasy-future owies:

MIT Climate Scientist: Global Warming Believers a ‘Cult’

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I’m Getting Over Sentimental, And You?

December 27, 2014 Leave a comment

As we head into the New Year let’s take a moment to not look back… 

Ah, yes.

Ah, yes.

 Sentimentality is that taskmaster which keeps us longing for the leeks and garlic of Egypt, the known-knowns of past life, up to and including slavery.

 Sentimentality is gate keeper to the past, fending off reality to preserve sugar-plum memories.

 Sentimentality serves as wooer, policy maker and candlestick maker, ergo, The Great Society (aka “Let’s help the little people and feel good about ourselves in the process”, affirmative action (see The Great Society for further social science mishaps), education (aka job-security for union workers), amnesty (aka imported votes for Progressive Democrats) and multiculturalism (aka “We promote “Diversity” here, just stay off my lawn and don’t get near my rights, you fools.”)

 Sentimentality, the emo that keeps on giving, will keep an angry woman ever angry; never forgiving. For her the past will be kept stewing, waiting for the next victim to be boiled alive.

 Sentimentality will fight fires by removing the oxygen from the room: “This is the way we have always done it.”

 Sentimentality is not tradition. It is more like unclaimed baggage that keeps going around on the airport turnstile day after day. You watch it to see if anyone claims it. If not it’s yours to drag around forever.

 Sentimentality chooses the moldy and crusty bread of the past over the fresh gluten free, sugar-free crackers of the present ala “This white bread reminds me of mom.”

 Sentimentality can be good wine turned into vinegar; old wineskins never replaced.

 Sentimentality is the troll who guards the bridge to the New Year. The troll demands a toll. (Just tell the little bugger, ”I paid years ago, be off with you or I’ll call my Father Time. He’ll kick your little troll butt!”)

 Sentimentality calls up past fears and dreams for advertised future benefits, benefits created at any cost to reality. See the Social Security trust fund. See the Barney Frank everyone-needs-a-house bubble machine that unleashed the Kraken upon world finances when the bubbles burst.

 Sentimentality wants to relive the civil rights and war protests of the sixties and invoke the depression era bindle-bums of the thirties. OWS Millennials ‘must’ ‘re-live’, record and recreate a diorama of those events from a BA degree in Identity Politics perspective. The grapes of wrath must be re-trampled. Social justice must be served with an order of the freshest iPhones.

 Sentimentality “keeps me hanging on” by a thread of delusion. “Marriage is secular, a right, a ‘love-in’.” Sentimentality says “I do” to whatever makes me feel… sentimental. And, sentimental makes me feel all gooey inside like…cable TV lovers.

 Sentimentality demands that Mother Earth be saved from manmade people while avoiding fact-see leftist Pope Francis for further encyclical faldera. Does the Pope realize that the Green Movement believes that overpopulation of the world is the problem? Does the Pope realize that he is actually promoting abortion, assisted-suicide and humanist population control?  (BTW: does the Pope even understand that capitalism fills the coffers of DisneyVatican?)  And, forget “Seasons in the Sun”. We may be facing an Inferno or an Ice Age depending on which way the inverted dated is put up on the overhead. ALGore Rhythm has predicted inverted hockey stick apocalyptic weather conditions to occur at any second now. And this, my friends, despite the fact that CO2 makes growing things…green! We are told by dogged Gaia loving-tenure-loving-paycheck-loving scientists that CO2 is not green ‘making’ ‘stuff’ when man is involved. Mankind only creates off-green “problems,” “problems” that are only resolvable with enormous sums of green taxpayer money. And, to increase our awareness of the right uses for CO2 the greenie bible Mother Earth News reportedly reports “green is god, dude, especially when rolled and smoked.” Anyway “It’s hard to die when all the birds are singing in the sky.”

 Sentimentality: a Disney movie replaying your childhood over and over. You know, the time you spent fantasizing about being princess as a young boy. Animated cels have always portrayed our deepest feelings, the best of our culture and the highest aspirations of our humanity-remember? Who needs reality when you have “Frost”?

 Sentimentality is that trampoline you keep in your back yard just in case you need to jump up and down endlessly to walk away from the back and forth of everyday life.

 Sentimentality gets an Enlightened Epicurean Scientism big bang out of a singular boson appearance but considers God’s silhouette passé.

 “A sentimentalist“, Oscar Wilde wrote, “is one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it”.

 Use “Sentimentality” in a sentence/s: “I prefer my sentimentality over tradition, dudes. Tradition is so predictable whereas ad hoc sentimentality ushers in a new age of Progress as well as a proto-social justice that protests everything that isn’t sentimental.”

 Sentimentality as cultural entrenchment, as socio-political-economic-education policy-see Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality (subtitle in US editions: How Britain is Ruined by Its Children) by Theodore Dalrymple. Who could resist this book with chapter titles like these: Chapter Three: “The Family Impact Statement”, Chapter Four: “The Demand for Public Emotion”, Chapter Five: “The Cult of the Victim”, Chapter Six: “Make Poverty History!”

 Sentimentality-I could go on but, at this point, if I look back, I just might become sentimental. I won’t look back. Yes, there were good times but I keep those memories like a locket around my neck. And, don’t worry. Good memories have a way of making themselves known and sustaining you at the right time-that is if you create them first. (The Israelites used to create stone monuments as a place of remembrance where Jehovah had intervened. They did not carry the monument around with them. The thought that God is Infinite-Personal became a fixed place in their memory.)

 Taking sentimentality as a daily palliative pill will regurgitate acid reflux. Worse, making sentimentality your GroupThink Emo-a demand to relive all hurts whether real, perceived, projected or revived-leads to unresolved GroupThinkAnger and to “Stokely Carmichael’s idea that “before a group can enter open society, it must close ranks.”” And to the “Day of Rage” (’69, Cornell U) and to Black Panthers with billy clubs at polling places, to the NAACP, to the SPLC’s perverted “Hate-Watch”, to Al Sharpton, Eric Holder and their ilk.

 Looking back, as one who was told not to look back, did not work out well for Lot’s wife. She may have very well thought that God was like her-sentimental about what someone holds dear, in this case her life in Sodom. She may have very well thought that God would not destroy a place she called home. She got it wrong.

 A pillar of salt goes nowhere in life. 

A pillar of the community!

A pillar of the community!

 ~~~~~

Who needs the shallowness of sentimentality when you can have full-bodied hope! And, I’m not talking about “Hope” as found in the “Hope and Change” campaign come-on that was used to lull Millennial lemmings to follow Obama over the cliffs of insanity.

 I am talking real hope. And, real hope includes distancing yourself from sentimentality and going forward with God into sublime reality, as the Apostle Paul described here in his letter to the Church at Rome (Chapter 4-5): 

“…since we believe in the one who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was handed over because of our trespasses and raised because of our justification.

 The result is this: since we have been declared “in the right” on the basis of faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus the Messiah. Through him we have been allowed to approach, by faith, into this grace in which we stand; and we celebrate the hope of the glory of God.

That’s not all. We also celebrate in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patience, patience produces a well-formed character, and a character like that produces hope.

Hope, in its turn, does not make us ashamed, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the holy spirit who has been given to us.” (emphasis mine)

 

 

 ~~~

Credits:

The picture of Lot’s Wife –courtesy of MudPreacher.

Filed under Culture, Current Events 2014, New Year's Eve Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Back On Earth

December 25, 2014 Leave a comment

America's Christmas gift to the world - How to kill a dictator!

America’s Christmas gift to the world – How to kill a dictator!

Joy to the world! “The Interview” will be released, 

Let earthlings view this crap,

Let every one call it “Freedom”,

And Sony and Clooney chime in,

And Sony and Clooney chime in,

And Sony, and Sony and Clooney chime in.

 

 

 

 

 

Joy to earth, the “Frost” movie reigns  

Control Your Climate Change or Elsa!

Control Your Climate Change or Elsa!

No More Mr. Nice Gay

No More Mr. Nice Gay

Let LGBTers their fantasies employ

While diversity chills society

Repeat just “Let It Go”,

Repeat just “Let It Go”, 

Repeat, repeat just “Let It Go”.

 

Front & back door man Al Sharpton

Front & back door man Al Sharpton

No more let race relations grow

Nor love disperse our hate

Sharpton comes to make the money flow, 

Far as his race is found

Far as his race is found 

Far as, far as his race is found. 

 

 

Obama rules our world with Executive Fiat, 

(Spoken like a true dictator)

(Spoken like a true dictator)

And makes lawlessness his,

The mandates of his Imperialism,

And wonders of his lies

And wonders of his lies

And wonders, and wonders of his lies.

 

 

~~~~ 

Credits:

“The Interview” poster-wikipedia

Elsa’s Ice Palace

“No End In Sight” photo–Washington Post

“Al Sharpton and gay rioter photos–Common & domain.

Filed under Culture, Current Events 2014, Political Commentary Tagged with , , , , , , ,

The Slaughter of the Innocents: Ramos and Liu; Pakistani Children

December 23, 2014 Leave a comment

 “I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down.” 

  “It’s horrible that someone gets shot dead just for being a police officer,” Rafael Ramos’ son, Jaden, posted on Facebook.

 Flowers, candles, photos and written messages were placed outside of the station house in Brooklyn of two NYPD officers who were fatally shot while sitting in their marked cruiser. The family of one officer spoke at a vigil Sunday saying they forgive the shooter.

  

The darkness in men’s souls grows even darker.

To counter the darkness a Light came into the world. Christ was born.

“In him was life, and that life was the light for all mankind.”

Atheism thus was born. Atheists loved the darkness rather than the light.

Atheism rejected the world’s new King-the Word become flesh;

Atheism grew from its infancy into Darwinian Marxist materialism, evolving into Epicurean ‘Enlightened’ existentialist nihilism. 

Atheism slaughters everyone in its path to maintain its will to power.

Atheism slaughters with star, with crescent and sword, with ovens and gulags, with enabling terrorist professors, with paid and unpaid protesters.

Atheism slaughters with Herod, Stalin and Pol Pot regimes. Atheism terrorizes with 65 year-old pony-tailed anarchists and union riff-raff.  

Atheism enslaves with rulers who are a law unto themselves.

 The spirit of anti-Christ has been pervasive throughout our world, since the before the birth of Christ. You hear the sound of its revilement when…

Protesters yell “What do we want? Dead cops!” – anarchy and lawlessness must reign.

The Media exchanges good for “evil”, evil for “good”.

Amorphous slimy politicians and their front men hide their spiked tails and horns, play the narcissistic victim.

In the battle between good and evil, the Slaughter of the Innocents will continue….

 

 2 NYPD police officers ‘assassinated’; shooter dead 

Officer Rafael Ramos

Officer Rafael Ramos

 

 

Officer Wenjian Liu

Officer Wenjian Liu

 

In Pakistan school attack, Taliban terrorists kill 145, mostly children

 Photos of some of the children killed at Pakistani school

Photos of Pakistani children killed by Taliban

Photos of Pakistani children killed by Taliban

 

“I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down.”

 

Wisdom’s Rebuke, from the Book of Proverbs Chapter One;

20 Out in the open wisdom calls aloud,
    she raises her voice in the public square;
21 on top of the wall she cries out,
    at the city gate she makes her speech:

22 “How long will you who are simple love your simple ways?
    How long will mockers delight in mockery
    and fools hate knowledge?
23 Repent at my rebuke!
    Then I will pour out my thoughts to you,
    I will make known to you my teachings.
24 But since you refuse to listen when I call
    and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand,
25 since you disregard all my advice
    and do not accept my rebuke,
26 I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you;
    I will mock when calamity overtakes you—
27 when calamity overtakes you like a storm,
    when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind,
    when distress and trouble overwhelm you.

28 “Then they will call to me but I will not answer;
    they will look for me but will not find me,
29 since they hated knowledge
    and did not choose to fear the Lord.
30 Since they would not accept my advice
    and spurned my rebuke,
31 they will eat the fruit of their ways
    and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.
32 For the waywardness of the simple will kill them,
    and the complacency of fools will destroy them;
33 but whoever listens to me will live in safety
    and be at ease, without fear of harm.”

~~~~~~

For What It’s Worth

Recorded by Buffalo Springfield

Written by Stephen Stills

Song explained: http://www.reasontorock.com/tracks/for_what_its_worth.html

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Don’t Feed the Multiculturalists

December 7, 2014 Leave a comment

to the boil cartoon by Eray Ozbek

When I eat at a Chinese, Thai, Mexican, Korean, Nigerian, Caribbean and you-name-it restaurant I am not force fed. I go there to freely eat the food of another culture. But for some ‘intellectual’ elites Multiculturalism is their bread and butter. And they want to force feed you and yours the same because for them-tah, tah-tah tah!-“Diversity!” has become the bread of life (think tenure).

 Noted British psychiatrist and prison doctor Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Daniels) has made a spot-on ‘diagnosis’ of the Multiculturalism doctrine. The doctor is very familiar with the bizarro world this liberal doctrine has engendered, having retired in culturally presumptuous Britain after a lifetime of up close human experience. The following quote is taken from his book “Anything Goes,” under the section “from Melting Pot to Stir-Fry”:

 “Whatever our foreign policy should be-whether we believe we ought to promote the welfare of others or merely to pursue our interests-there is no reason at all for us, indeed there is no real possibility for us, to be multiculturalists at home, if by multiculturalism is meant the granting of legal and social equality, recognition and protection to all customs, traditions, beliefs and practices whatsoever of immigrants, as if multiculturalism were merely a kind of fusion cooking. Of course, we will spontaneously take from immigrants aspects of their traditions that we find congenial, but this will be an informal assimilation, not mediated by government decree. Multiculturalism as a doctrine is just another instance of the tendency of a portion of the intelligentsia to exhibit its virtue and generosity for all the world to see, as well as provide a minor if lucrative source of employment to cultural bureaucrats.

As anyone who has ever tried it knows, understanding another culture is a Herculean labour, even when the culture is comparatively close to one’s own…

 In case should I be accused of insensitivity towards immigrants, I should like to point out that I am descended on both sides from refugees, whom integration, brought about informally, without any official direction, served magnificently. Multiculturalism was not a doctrine in their day, a fact for which I am grateful, for otherwise I should now be in the clutches of social workers, housing departments and assorted political entrepreneurs.” (emphasis mine)

 

 Now, from the New World, I offer a West Coast perspective. The clarion passage exposes the Left’s need to have everyone conform to their Cult of Difference. The passage, taken from playwright David Mamet’s book “The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of the American Culture,” is found in the chapter is titled “Hope and Change.” Let’s start here:

 .”…To inspire the unsophisticated young to demand “change” is an easy and cheap trick-it was the tactic of the Communist Internationale in the thirties, another “movement.”

 The young and spoiled, having not been taught to differentiate between impulses. Frightened of choice, they band together, dress, speak, and act alike, take refuge in the herd, and call it “individualism.” …

Why is the call (to “change”) attractive? It appeals to the Jacobin, the radical, the young, and those who never matured-the perpetually jejune of my generation. We were taught in the sixties to award ourselves merit for membership in a superior group-irrespective of our group’s accomplishments….For we were the culmination of history, superior to all those misguided who had come before, which is to say all humanity. Though we had never met a payroll, fought for an education, obsessed about the rent, raised a child, carried a weapon for our country, or searched for work. Though we had never been in sufficient distress to call upon God, we indicted those who had. And continue to do so.

 (Mamet has set the stage. Now the tour de force…)

 Those we loved, ‘the oppressed,” were those whose consciousness we denigrated sufficiently to presume they would believe in our pretensions. (This is why the Left prefers Arabs to the Israelis, it, mistakenly, considers Arabs backward, and, thus, stupid. And, this is also why the Left obsesses over our country being “liked.”)

 But how manipulable are we? We have been exhorted and have encouraged each other to empty the national treasury, to chain our children to inflation, debt, and a descending standard of living, taxed business sufficiently to ship overseas those jobs which would support our country. And we have abdicated our position as world leader, as if our desire were not for security, but for exploitation-another example of that decried Colonialism which the left sees everywhere, which cry is the one trick of the Remittance Men who make up the United Nations.

 What greater act of colonialism than to bind a segment of our own population to shame and poverty through government subsidy and by insistence that they be judged by lower standards than the populace at large? We have created a permanent underclass through the ignorant and sententious operations of the mis-educated and ignorant. And we compound the legislative enormity by insistence in education on “diversity,” and “multiculturalism.” These are a codependence similar to the insistence in the prewar south on the Biblical support for Slavery.

~~

The sleepy youth of my child said a Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of school, and then was done with it. This was a ritual acknowledgement that we lived in a good land, and in a good society, and that our elders wished us to continue it. How different from the constant insistence on the “celebration of differences” which one finds in today’s schools.

 Who are the performers of this show, and for the benefit of whom?

 They are parents, teachers, administrators, and school boards, indulging in a cheap orgy of self congratulation…To expand their brief (their teaching-my note) into the correction of social injustice is improper and intrusive-like the teaching of sex education: it is simply none of their business.

 Diversity (and “multiculturalism”) is a pat on the head from the White members of my generation sufficiently inexperienced and self-absorbed to feel they are entitled to “bless their inferiors.”

 

Mamet added a footnote to the bottom of page 200. This insightful note is the reason I say “Don’t feed the multiculturalists.”

“Multiculturalism” and “Diversity”-now insisted upon as a basic tenet of education, is, of course, directed at Whites. What Black or Hispanic enclave or group insists upon the presence of Whites? Why should they? Why, then, is the White population devoted to this show-and-tell? It is the essential counterweight to affirmative action-the postmodern version of busing. The enormity of these programs is less that they, fatuously, endorse the exposure of whites to People of Color, but they operationally support the inverse, the idea that these People of Color benefit from White condescension. As such, “diversity” is the stalking horse of affirmative action-it is a happy proclamation of Black inferiority.” (all emphasis mine)

 ~~~~

Consider that President Obama has declared, by illegal Executive fiat, amnesty for millions of illegals. As I write this, these illegals will receive Social Security numbers, welfare benefits and the whole shebang-at our economic, moral and national security expense.

 These illegals won’t be required to learn English. They will not be required to read and be tested on the U.S. Constitution. They won’t be required to be in sync with American values in any way, shape or form (think Sharia Law accommodation).

These illegals won’t be ‘nationalized’ due to the national self-hatred infused throughout our land. Those in authority and those in the media and those in “white-privilege”–colonialism-Christian-Jew-Capitalism hating education positions will ‘whack-a mole’ any head that pokes itself above the surface for some non-toxic air.

Many illegals, seeking “the promise of a better life” will become willing victims of the systematic poisoning of America: “Multiculturalism” stir-fry laced with homegrown hemlock and its starchy side dish “Diversity.” Hemlock described

~~~~~

Gluten-free, Hemlock-free food for thought:

 Immigration Fiat Meet Multiculturalism or Don’t Pass the Fiat Fondue Melting Pot

 Vote American and Do Look Back

~~~~~

I can’t take all the…Credits:

http://www.eliyah.com/Forum/ubbthreads.php/galleries/115030/Hemlock_A_Sedative_That_Advers.html

 “To the Boil” cartoon by Eray Özbek

Filed under Culture Tagged with , , , ,

Evil Marches On. Good Will Stop To Help And Pray

November 30, 2014 Leave a comment

You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.…”

Jesus from the eyewitness account of Matthew 5:43-44

A painting that was for sale in Hidden Treasures, Andrews's store, before it was burned on Nov. 24, 2014. Image: Amanda Wills, Mashable

A drawing that was for sale in Hidden Treasures, Andrews’s store, before it was burned on Nov. 24, 2014.
Image: Amanda Wills, Mashable

 

A gofundme account was created on November 27th, 2014 for Jeniece and her husband. This money will help them to rebuild their retail business, Hidden Treasures. The store was destroyed by lawless rioters and looters in Feguson, MO. See my previous post.

Give evil its marching orders. Overcome evil with good: donate and bless Jeniece.  She is one of the Kingdom of God’s no longer hidden treasures.

 

Hidden Treasures Ferguson Rebuild

 

“And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.” Job 42:10

Filed under Charity, Culture, Evil Tagged with , , , , ,

COEXIST Cigars For Sale. Cheap!

November 26, 2014 Leave a comment

 Michael Brown’s strong arm robbery of cigars has led to hundreds of victims. These would include his parents, Officer Wilson and his family, the community of Ferguson including a young Christian woman who owned a store named Hidden Treasures (store demolished in flames by rioters) and the hundreds who have been injured physically, financially and emotionally. It takes a lawless child to raze a community. 

Hidden Treasures on South Florissant in Ferguson on Tuesday, Nov. 25, the night after the grand jury decision. Image: Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Hidden Treasures on South Florissant in Ferguson on Tuesday, Nov. 25, the night after the grand jury decision. Image: Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

The Ferguson rioters and looters, BTW, are just like the North Koreans threatening nuclear war to defend their human rights record. The distributive injustice of the rioters and looters is the flagrant opposite of true Social Justice: “Love your neighbor as your self.” More Scripture later.

 Black America as a whole is victim to a significant deficit of leadership from the WH and AG Holder. Black America is also being used by Al Shaprton, Jesse ‘PUSH” Jackson and the race industry, an ‘industry’ which strives to diminish knowledge about black neighborhood violence for the sake of the increased reimbursable victim ‘hood.’ Throw money at the problem.

Here is another example of black-on-black crime coexistence, this time from the Milwaukee Police Chief:

 An indisputably good and prayerful Black American, Dr. Alveda King, who has spoken up so many times in public, would never tacitly encourage the barbarian acts of the rioters while the above mentioned culprits are in serious and silent denial.  Coexist

 

Truth is another victim.

 Several ‘eyewitnesses’ perjured themselves when they gave testimony to the grand jury, apparently so that the fires of outrage could “burn, baby, burn.” But self-immolation will never be the pathway to society’s success.

 Thank god we have a gigantic redistributive Progressive government that has created a booming economic milieu in Ferguson! Not! “Consume , baby, consume and at all costs” is a similar war cry but coming from Keynesian economists. But that is not going to happen in Ferguson for a long while. Oops! Another ‘fixit’ diversion is required!

And here it comes, and, of course, it does nothing for the Ferguson human crisis unless you are worried about the after-riot ozone levels.

 While tempers flare and torch the town of Ferguson even now Obama and Bureaucratic Czar #1, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, seek to control the Kulturesmog via new regulations.  As I write this they are planning ways to burn billions of taxpayer dollars in their war against SMOG. They seek to save our lawless society from itself by snuffing out non-existent man-made global warming (GW)!! No doubt the next concocted report out of the UN regarding GW will presume that human anger is directly correlated to GW!!

 Michael Brown. We need a folk song to sing the praises of your cigar-stealing-pot-smoking-“f**k-the-man-“f**k you” ways. Al Sharpton, you can buy the rights to help finance the race industry’s fight with itself.

 And since Obama is now (mis)quoting Scripture…

“Like a dog that returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” Proverbs 26:11

“Keep away from angry, short-tempered men, lest you learn to be like them and endanger your soul.” Proverbs 22: 24-25

“Don’t rob the poor and sick! For the Lord is their defender. If you injure them, he will punish you.” Proverbs 22: 22-23 

Hidden-Treasures-Painting

A painting that was for sale in Hidden Treasures, Andrews’s store, before it was burned on Nov. 24, 2014. Image: Amanda Wills, Mashable

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~~

Is this post too sardonic? Perhaps. But Americans need a cup of cold water splashed on their over heated zeitgeist. People in this country, people who ride the train to work with me seem to be clueless about the incident and the relevant evidence regarding the Michael Brown case.

 It was in a previous post that I made note of one such person (And no, he does not know that I write a blog.). I wrote,

“About two weeks ago I was riding the Chicago Metra train to my downtown workplace. After a stop near the city several passengers boarded from what many consider an ‘uppity’ neighborhood near Chicago. Before we reach that stop I put my away my book, knowing that I will be standing in the train vestibule discussing whatever topic is broached among the three or four of us heading to Chicago.

 One day, right the out of the beautiful climate change blue, a forty-ish Oak Park man, a ‘regular’, says that there are ad companies who will not do ad work for any company that is a “climate change” denier. He proudly let me know that he was all was for this sanctioning of companies based on “climate change” theory (acceptance). I rolled my eyes but held my tongue.”

Well, this same guy this past Tuesday wondered out loud why Michael Brown wasn’t just tasered by Officer Wilson instead of being shot. He was incredulous. He was also absurdly concerned. He went on to say, “That could happen to anyone of us.”

 I replied “No! Of course not! Not unless you are going to rob a store and will not stop when a peace officer asks you to stop and you are holding stolen property in your hands and you decide to charge at the officer and take his service revolver from its holster because you are caught red-handed and you feel you can take him by brute force.””

 He: “Shouldn’t we have a reasonable expectation that an officer will not use a gun to stop someone? ”Why didn’t he wait for backup?”

 Me: “Shouldn’t a police officer have a reasonable expectation that a person will stop when asked to stop (while waiting for backup!). If Michael Brown had done nothing wrong then why would he charge at Officer Wilson?”

 At this point I went through the physical evidence. I also mentioned that several African American eye-witnesses confirmed that Michael did not have his hands raised and that he was not shot in the back. In other words they negated the false testimony of other witnesses. I then went through what I knew about the shooting. –H/T Andrew Branca at LegalInsurrection.Com

 The ‘train’ guy appeared to be clueless about the facts. It was as if he believed and accepted the Ferguson lynch mob’s narrative carte blanche.

 He went on to say, in a way dismissive of what I was saying, “We will never know.”

 I answered that “the record of the grand jury will be released. We will know who perjured themselves and get some idea how the grand jury came to decide as they did. Police officers are trained for aggressive situations. An officer has a right to defend himself in a life or death situation.”

 Michael Brown apparently didn’t care about Officer Wilson or the law or his parents or care enough even to defend his own life from folly.

And, sentimentality is no Savior. Sentimentality is a stolen Swisher Sweet wrapped in the Progressive “COEXIST” label-a real slow burner.

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Vote American and Do Look Back

October 25, 2014 Leave a comment

There is no need to remind you that election season is once again upon us. The blitz of TV ads, mailers and phone messages infiltrates our homes with a “he said, she said” type of campaign red-lining. Some of the accusations will ring true while others, sadly, most of the others, will be deceitful, stretching or deleting compelling truth for the sake of pocketing your vote. By now you have noted that the Golden Rule has never been used to measure politician’s noses.

 Be so reminded that Tuesday, November 4th, 2014 is the day when you cast your vote or even earlier, if necessary and allowed.

 The issues at hand-you already know them. You embrace some or all of them with various degrees of importance: immigration, homeland security, foreign policy, the economy, rights of others-which I believe must include a very vocal upholding of due process (i.e., the Ferguson Missouri lynch mob mindset and the ubiquitous college campus kangaroo courts). Other interpretative rights include women’s rights, worker’s rights, and rights, more rights, and la-di-dah rights…

 You won’t hear, “Thank God for our country and for our freedoms” or “Responsibility and self-government are meant to be egalitarian with any ‘right’ afforded to us.” Our last two presidential elections told us in word and deed “God damn America!”

 And, you won’t hear: these aspiring words: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

 The vintage words of Abraham, Martin and John have been trampled under the rush of man’s “me-first” wrath. Their blood stained words are now swept away with dust. Forgotten, also, as are the words of Theodore Roosevelt. Political correctness now governs our lexicons, our lives and our American legacy, all to the detriment of our nation.

It is now intellectually vogue to be anti-American. The “we deserved 9/11” crowd invokes cocktail party ‘pat on the back’ self-righteousness conferred onto sycophants who hang on their every anti-American rant.

Their myopic critiques have become standard fare in college courses dealing with social sciences, the humanities, history and wherever a professor can raise a high brow over America.

 You know some of the ‘black flag’ crowd: : Norman Mailer, Robert Lowell, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Coover, E.L. Doctorow, Joseph Heller, Elizabeth Hardwick, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Robert Altman. 

“When I see an American flag flying, it’s a joke.” Robert Altman, American Film Director, b.1925

 It is not anti-American to critique America. Free speech, freedom of assembly, etc. are American rights which give us elbow room to squabble and to even critique America’s rights.

 But, it is anti-American when that is all that is said about America is the negative.

 The fact that you can write and publish anti-American literature, create movies that promote anti-Capitalism in favor of ‘been-there-done-that failed-socialism’ and educate college kids with your perverse version of Americana/sacrosanct collectivism reveals the greatness of our country. Totalitarians demand control of your words, your thoughts and your loves. America gives you the freedom to even pronounce judgment on your own freedom.

 As a timely reminder of what America is about I offer the following from Theodore Roosevelt. His words spoke to the same issues we are now voting for or against on November 4th.

 Below is part of a letter written by Theodore Roosevelt-to Solomon Stanwood Menken, the head of the National Security League and the chairman of its Congress of Constructive Patriotism, on January 10, 1917. Roosevelt’s younger sister, Mrs. Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, read the letter to a national meeting of the organization on January 26, 1917.

 Americanism means many things. It means equality of rights and therefore equality of duty and of obligation. It means service to our common country. It means loyalty to one flag, to our flag, the flag of all of us. It means on the part of each of us respect for the rights of the rest of us. It means that all us guarantee the rights of each of us. It means free education, genuinely representative government, freedom of speech and thought, equality before the law for all men, genuine political and religious freedom, and the democratizing of industry so as to give at least a measurable quality of opportunity for all, and so as to place before us, as our ideal in all industries where this ideal is possible of attainment, the system of cooperative ownership and management, in order that the tool-users may, so far as possible, become the tool-owners. Everything is un-American that tends either to government by a plutocracy or government by a mob. To divide along the lines of section or cast or creed is un-American.  All privileges based on wealth, and all enmity to honest men because they are wealthy, are un-American-both of them equally so. Americanism means virtues of courage, honor, justice, sincerity, and hardihood-the virtues that made America. The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life. (emphasis mine)

 Preparedness must be of the soul no less than of the body. We must keep lofty ideals steadily before us, and must train ourselves in practical fashion so that we may realize these ideals. Throughout our whole land we must have fundamental common purposes, to be achieved through education, through intelligent organization and through the recognition of the great vital standards of life and living. We must make Americanism and Americanization mean the same thing to the native-born and to the foreign-born; to the man and to the woman; to the rich and to the poor; to the employer and to the wage-worker. If we believe in American standards, we shall insist that all privileges springing from them be extended to immigrants, and that they in return accept these standards with whole-hearted and entire loyalty. Either we must stand absolutely by our ideals and conceptions of duty, or else we are against them. There is no middle course, and if we attempt to find one, we insure for ourselves defeat and disaster. (emphasis mine)

 Next up from Theodore Roosevelt, an April 1894 article from The Forum Magazine titled “True Americanism.” Here are some excerpts:

 “the class of hypocrites and demagogues, the class that is always prompt to steal the watchwords of righteousness and use them in the interests of evil-doing….

 We Americans have many grave problems to solve, many threatening evils to fight, and many deeds to do, if, as we hope and believe, we have the wisdom, the strength, the courage, and the virtue to do them. But we must face facts as they are. We must neither surrender ourselves to a foolish optimism, nor succumb to a timid and ignoble pessimism. Our nation is that one among all the nations of the earth which holds in its hands the fate of the coming years. We enjoy exceptional advantages, and are menaced by exceptional dangers; and all signs indicate that we shall either fail greatly or succeed greatly. I firmly believe that we shall succeed; but we must not foolishly blink the dangers by which we are threatened, for that is the way to fail. On the contrary, we must soberly set to work to find out all we can about the existence and extent of every evil, must acknowledge it to be such, and must then attack it with unyielding resolution. There are many such evils, and each must be fought after a fashion; yet there is one quality which we must bring to the solution of every problem,- that is, an intense and fervid Americanism. We shall never be successful over the dangers that confront us; we shall never achieve true greatness, nor reach the lofty ideal which the founders and preservers of our mighty Federal Republic have set before us, unless we are Americans in heart and soul, in spirit and purpose, keenly alive to the responsibility implied in the very name of American, and proud beyond measure of the glorious privilege of bearing it….

 Regarding immigration:”

 “It is urgently necessary to check and regulate our immigration, by much more drastic laws than now exist; and this should be done both to keep out laborers who tend to depress the labor market, and to keep out races which do not assimilate readily with our own, and unworthy individuals of all races – not only criminals, idiots, and paupers, but anarchists of the Most and O’Donovan Rossa type. From his own standpoint, it is beyond all question the wise thing for the immigrant to become thoroughly Americanized. Moreover, from our standpoint, we have a right to demand it. We freely extend the hand of welcome and of good-fellowship to every man, no matter what his creed or birthplace, who comes here honestly intent on becoming a good United States citizen like the rest of us; but we have a right, and it is our duty, to demand that he shall indeed become so and shall not confuse the issues with which we are struggling by introducing among us Old-World quarrels and prejudices.

There are certain ideas which he must give up. For instance, he must learn that American life is incompatible with the existence of any form of anarchy, or of-any secret society having murder for its aim, whether at home or abroad; and he must learn that we exact full religious toleration and the complete separation of Church and State. Moreover, he must not bring in his Old-World religious race and national antipathies, but must merge them into love for our common country, and must take pride in the things which we can all take pride in. He must revere only our flag; not only must it come first, but no other flag should even come second. He must learn to celebrate Washington’s birthday rather than that of the Queen or Kaiser, and the Fourth of July instead of St. Patrick’s Day. Our political and social questions must be settled on their own merits, and not complicated by quarrels between England and Ireland, or France and Germany, with which we have nothing to do: it is an outrage to fight an American political campaign with reference to questions of European politics. Above all, the immigrant must learn to talk and think and be United States. The immigrant of to-day can learn much from the experience of the immigrants of the past, who came to America prior to the Revolutionary War. We were then already, what we are now, a people of mixed blood.” (emphasis mine)

 …

“Above all we must stand shoulder to shoulder, not asking as to the ancestry or creed of our comrades, but only demanding that they be in very truth Americans, and that we all work together, heart, hand, and head, for the honor and the greatness of our common country.”

 Theodore Roosevelt quotes;

 “Let us pay with our bodies for our souls’ desire. Let us, without one hour’s unnecessary delay, put the American flag at the battle-front in this great war for Democracy and civilization, and for the reign of justice and fair-dealing among the nations of mankind.”

***

“If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at the hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let’s remember, as True Americans, to vote with a clear regard for others and for our country, giving no allegiance to the false flags wafting for our attention.

 

A Lefty Explains What the Election Is All About

 Added 1-28-2014: 

Chicago Activists Unchained, Destroy Black Leadership

 

Resource:

 http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/23771

 

Filed under Culture, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Income Inequality Anonymous

October 18, 2014 1 Comment

 “Hello, my name is Sally. I am addicted to income inequality.”

 Group: “Hello Sally.”

 Group Leader: “We’ve asked Sally here tonight to please tell us her story, how she deals with income inequality addiction.”

 “Thank you for the invite Charis and Irene!”

 “Well, my income inequality addiction began at a very early age. At five years of age I saw kids in my neighborhood receiving an allowance from their parents.

 These friends of mine were able to buy gum, baseball cards, dolls, G rated Archie comic books, you name it. They bought it with their 25 cents or with their 50 cents or with their dollar bill right in front of me. I felt deprived, anxious and angry.”

 Group Leader: “You must have felt a tremendous urge to make demands of your parents.”

 “Yes I did. Income inequality anger began to grow deep inside me. I began to covet my friend’s hoard of pennies. “It’s not fair!” I told my parents.

 Well, my parents, good folk that they were, gave me an allowance but only after I had washed the supper dishes, made my bed daily, memorized my Scripture verse for Sunday and completed other value-received chores.

 Still, you must know, my allowance of 25 cents wasn’t enough. I couldn’t buy what my friends could buy. They had bags of marbles. I had a handful. “It’s not fair,” I told my parents again.

 So, I was given the option of washing the family car for two dollars once a week. Cutting the grass was a regular chore so no money was gained from yard work. I had to really think hard as to how to compete for that societal equality that would ultimately, I thought, make me bubble-gum ice cream happy.”

 Group Leader: “What did you do?”

 “Well, nothing for a while. I stewed and, sometimes, I stole candy and small items from the “Five and Dime” stores.” I wanted my fair share.

 As I grew older I did receive COLA allowances but I also received W-O-R-K obligations to match the COLA allowances.

 So, you must know, I began working at age 12. The pastor of our little church must have seen the march for equality goose stepping its way though my nervous system as I sat squirming in the pew every Sunday. One day he recommended me for a job at a local photo shop. The store owner, upon the pastor’s recommendation, hired me for PT work. Every week after that day I received a paycheck.

 With that piece of the monetized industry I began to spend, to save and to tithe. I stopped saying “It’s not fair!” on a regular basis. “Minimum wages”, unheard of in my youth, were what I got for what I agreed to do. I did not complain. In fact, I beamed.

 Still, you must know, that after two years of behind the counter film canister envelope prep and returning unexposed or badly lit pictures to irate customers I was promoted to selling cameras. Nikons, Canons, Hasselblads-the whole gamut of photo gadgetry. I was paid more and beginning to forget about childhood’s income inequality fixation until someone else was hired.

 The addition of the another staff member made me wonder if I was paid more or less than the new hired help. I became anxious, secretly hoping to exercise my detective skills to determine income inequality. My addiction was flaring up once again.

 Group Leader: “Did you ever find out about the other worker’s pay?’

 “No, I didn’t. Circumstances changed: the high school bus started arriving every week day morning. What I hadn’t thought about till then was that the owner of the photo shop had anticipated my leaving for high school and needed to hire a replacement. I kept my anxiety in tact anyway. I wasn’t sure I could trust people to be fair. Nobody else knew how important I was.

 Still, you must know, I was at financial odds with my generation. People I knew were going to Woodstock or to San Francisco or to Paris. The unlucky went to Vietnam-no envy was elicited from me on that matter.

 And, you must know, that in high school, I wasn’t equal with a good friend who got a car from his parents. It was a car with an eight-track player! “It’s not fair,” I revved up again.

 Well, my dad-he worked two jobs-let me use the family car. I became somewhat mollified. I could then at least listen to WLS with Larry Lujack, “Little Tommy” and “Animal Stories” on the punch dial radio. Not only that, the Top Forty Countdown aired between a dozen or so commercials. I sat in the family car or drove the car just for the existential experience of radio “ON” and windows open. Music helped soothe the savage inequality beast.

 High school was a challenge for me. I was too busy with band, orchestra, track, tennis, honors math, boyfriends, etc. to worry out loud about income inequality. But, I did want the same clothes, the same shoes, the same pink troll pen tops-you know, the essentials.

 Group Leader: “How did you manage without money during high school?”

 “It wasn’t easy. My dad worked two jobs and my mom worked a night shift. They were both tapped out. I babysat my younger siblings gratis, biting my nails and watching “Father Knows Best.” I had to wait till summer to abate my income inequality anxiety.

 Every summer between my high school years I worked my butt off. Each job was different and demanding. I gained knowledge quicker than I gained income, but again, I would leave my envy intact as a backup. There was always something I felt that was missing, something that I thought I needed to have even when I couldn’t picture it in my mind or on the TV.

 Group Leader: “What happened after high school?”

 “My father and mother gave me $750.00 and sent me off to Moody Bible Institute, a tuition-free school. That was all the money I ever received for my college education. I worked PT at Garrett’s Popcorn shop and did janitorial work for Moody to cover room and board.

 After Moody I began working in the only jobs that I could find-industrial jobs. It had become clear to me that childhood had run its course and that now I must provide for myself. This was scary anxiety driving stuff. Envy was still waiting in the wings hoping that I would rejoin her party.

While I worked different shifts I began studying correspondence courses from Moody-New Testament Koine Greek, New Testament Survey and other courses.

 Later, working at various day jobs I made myself learn what I needed to increase my income. So, at night and the weekends I went to a community college.

 There, I studied sundry subjects: computer programming, trigonometry, physics, macro and micro economics, accounting, business, and welding! I could stick weld, MIG weld, TIG weld, flame weld, use a blow torch, calculate rates of acceleration, balance your books and code Programmable Logic Controllers. This unique skill set paid more, much more. I found that if I made myself indispensable to my employer I earned more and was kept on staff when there were layoffs. And there were layoffs.

 Group Leader: “It sounds like you began making personal decisions that turned your life around.”

 “Yes, I forced myself to grow. I am inquisitive by nature so most learning comes naturally. Some learning comes the hard way-through stupid stuff and not paying attention to detail.

 At one point after I had worked as electrical panel builder I taught myself how to use CAD software. After that I began doing design work. I then became a designer of electrical automation schematics. I enjoyed the creative aspect of engineering. Income inequality became less of an issue because I felt I was in the game. Then I had a family.

 Little materialists popped onto the scene and like the rest of us they were contentment challenged.

 Being a Tiger That-Eats-Ones’-Self Parent that I am I put more pressure on myself when I decided to become a partner in a newly formed corporation.

 To make a long story short, three of us, two guys and me as Tiger Parent, started a manufacturing business. Each of us brought a different set of skills accrued over time. We felt we could make it happen and we did. The company became a worldwide multimillion dollar company. It also became a 24/7 job in my role a VP of Engineering. So, after fifteen years and thousands of miles of air travel I sold my shares and quit. A little late, but family needed to come first.

As a business owner I certainly had plenty of income as well as other perks. Income inequality addiction was no longer a driving force of my life. In fact a quest for learning had replaced it.

 My life’s paradigm shift occurred somewhere along the path of pages and paychecks.

 And, as a parent I wanted to make sure my kids knew God and they understood how the world works from God’s perspective.

 Group Leader: “”Can you tell us how you came to that perspective?”

 “Sure. As I mentioned I studied Scripture. Three verses stand out: “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added.” and “Godliness with contentment” and w/o The Real Housewives of Orange County” “is great gain.” Also, “To whom much is given, much is required.”

 My addiction to income inequality began to erode when I chose to cling to those things which are eternal above me, in me and in my children. Then, I was able to love others and rejoice when they gained. I did not need to be equal. I needed to be thankful.

I had finally realized that income inequality addiction is a character flaw. I had used my envy like a baseball bat. I beat the air hoping to smash open the paper mache piñata that held the material goodies I felt should rain down on me.

“I dropped the bat and put away childish things. Thanks for having me here tonight.”

Filed under Culture, Economics, Education Tagged with , , ,

Mission Probable: Self-made Victims

October 15, 2014 Leave a comment

 “Should you decide to accept this mission to self-victimize the IMF (Inane Meme Force) will disavow any knowledge of your subsequent misbehavior if caught in the act.”

 Consider the following IMF missions of self-made victimization:

 Social media participants as victims: every moment of one’s-no depth of field life must become selfie-important.

 We may knowingly expose ourselves à la NY Rep. Anthony Weiner or as Jennifer I’ve-got-a-million-of-them Lawrence and exclaim “others have been messing with my ‘stuff.’

 After the damage is done to reputations it necessarily follows, in this day of dispositive scapegoating, that we then must present ourselves as victims even when we are victims of our own devices. Who would ever look at Jennifer Lawrence’s collection of nude pictures? I mean, the world is so….out there.

 Victims of circumstance or of circus stance on the high wire of notoriety?

 Illegal immigrants as victims: here we see bus loads of victims moving in. Yet, we must remember that these victims are the renewable energy source for Progressive votes. And this, despite the fact that any lack of border control, any lax enforcement by the Obama administration, any amnesty that adds more illegal immigrants to our country equals with other detriments more CO2, more crime, more narcotics, more narco-terrorists, more infectious disease, more gang members, more homeland terrorism and a huge drain on our national resources. But damn it, “victims” they must be for our purposes. We are America, the land of the free from taxation for half the nation and the home of the Black Panther monitored ballot box.

 Environment as victim and victimizer: Well, by now you should have come to your senses and have realized that global warming crisis is man-made. It has been manufactured by the likes of Al Gore and climate scientologists with dubious reports. These ‘scientologists’ or data shufflers dare not cross the red line of truth and lose their collegial credit card status points, their weather stations for life.

 Not only is the environment a victim but just like a Russian nesting doll you, too, can become a victim-of the environment. And, universal victim hood makes each of us eligible to be “insured” under the UN One World global warming whole life redistribution insurance plan. Benefits accrue to those who want to become wealthy off of other’s fears.

 Voter as victim: From the well-known Legal Insurrection blog, a post of Oct. 10th, 2014: “Judge tosses out Texas voter ID as U.S. Supreme Court blocks Wisconsin voter ID The ruling by the U.S. District court finds that such law…creates an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, has an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African-Americans.”

 This ruling by both courts is slap in the face for blacks and Hispanics. It essentially claims that blacks and Hispanics and too stupid, too inept to get an ID and to provide such ID at a polling place. To put it another way, there are millions of people who can secure a proper ID and present it at the time of voting. I am sure that Dr. Ben Carson, a self-made African-American neurosurgeon, can provide a proper ID. He would also help you figure out what to do.

Ask yourself: How do blacks and Hispanics acquire cable TV when they do not have ID?

 Note: The Texas ruling was recently reversed for the Texas Nov. elections but the matter is still in the courts

 Politically biased, blindfold taken off high courts have affirmed blacks and Hispanics as victims-a protected class of victims-so as to garner the un-ID’d ‘victim’s’ weight in votes-for the Progressive side of the scale, of course. Preferential treatment by the courts makes the rest of us truly victims of injustice. Preferential treatment by Progressive bureaucratic Lois Lerner types within our current heavily politicized government negates Democracy in favor of totalitarianism. The Tea Party non-profit groups became true victims of injustice with the administration’s silent approbation.

 The poor as victims: Here is what we are told by the supercilious politicians and Keynesian economists (NYT’s Paul Krugam, Thomas Piketty, et al) : “There are poor people because there are rich people. The global wealth pie is a one fixed-size feeds all pie.  The rich have the larger share. Redistribution is the only answer-it is socially just.”

 It doesn’t matter to the above mentioned wisdom impoverished that the rich have made personal choices that create wealth or that the poor have most often made personal choices which have made them poor and keep them poor. And, somehow, the poor find a way (trading food stamps for cash or bit coins online, for instance) to buy lottery tickets, to gamble in Vegas and to buy enormous HDTVs so they can watch “The Real Housewives of Orange County!”

Our government enables the self-victimization of the poor. Obama and slave master Progressives have created cradle to grave dependency on government.  The “Julia” website is a first hand account about a lifeless victim of gargantuan government gone wild.

 Fiscal and monetary policies-The New Deal, The Great Society, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), TARP, the FED’s tinkering to create artificially low interest rates, ETC.- direct money away from savings and investment, capital that would ultimately create jobs and individual wealth. 

Each one of these government ‘fixits’ creates bubbles that ultimately burst.  There should be a History Channel just for this.  First came the dot com bubble and then the housing bubble. And, most home buyers are now government subsidized. Uh-oh!

Printing money creates ever more debt and puffs up the economy with lighter than air dollars. 

Our government is creating an even greater balloon (Let’s call it the “Keynesian Economic Balloon”) that will soon go bust “Big Time”, as Peter Gabriel sang. Then your dollars will be almost worthless.  The IMF endorses such politically ‘safe’ and economically disastrous inane activity. Just don’t get caught holding USD.

That 47 MILLION people are on food stamps tells me that government enables poverty in our nation.  And there are even ‘victims’ who complain that 99 weeks of unemployment benefits isn’t enough! Use your head and your ID and vote for people with integrity, character and business sense, avoiding lethargic professorial panty waists unless, of course, you should choose the mission of self-made victimization.

 Addicts as victims: Consider this recent “addiction help” advertisement heard on the radio: “Addiction is a disease, not a character flaw.”

 Whoa! Calling an addiction a disease takes the onus off of the addicted, removing them from the light of day and placing them under the dark cloud of victim hood where the sun doesn’t shine on your addled behavior.

 And, it most certainly as advertised, places the addicted under the expensive ‘guidance’ of medical professionals who will’ ‘altruistically’ be your savior. “Victim status is where you belong, why try to fight it. Give us the money that you are now giving to pay for your addiction. Character flaws mean personal responsibility and they may not result in insurance payments to our treatment facility.”

 Homosexuals as victims: Where to begin? When acting out homosexual desires you are told that you are not responsible for your behavior. Rather, what you are dealing with is a quirk, a queerness that exists in the universe. Homosexuals do not even try to overcome your desires and use self control. You will become sexual minority stressed. God knows that you have enough to worry about when you do unnatural things to your self and to others. AIDS is our problem, not yours. You are sexual minority stressed transmitters and no more.

The Politically Correct as victims: it is not easy being totalitarian all the time but the Politically Correct, the language police, must enforce ‘safe’ societal boundaries or bubbles where nothing offensive to their delicate yet ‘diverse’ palettes enters the void. Truly they are victims of their own demands.

 One more IMF mission out of dozens of putative instances:

 Civil Rights victims: The omniscient and all powerful Oz, Eric Holder, and his Race Swami-Tsunami spiritual advisor the ‘reverend’ Al Sharpton have made sure by their appearances that the citizens of Ferguson, MO-the black citizens-received their fair share of victim status. They both spread their special mixture of racial rat poison and silent approbation, disguised as legal fertilizer, on the community lawns of Ferguson, Mo.

 Weeds of lawlessness now spring up daily in Ferguson, Mo. The encroaching and choking weeds are growing in place of flourishing businesses and a thriving community.

 

“Should you decide to accept this mission of self-aggrandizing self-victimization the IMF (Inane Meme Force) will disavow any knowledge of your subsequent misbehavior (unless, of course, it benefits Progressive’s talking points).”

 

In this age of self made victims it is impossible to balance the empathy budget. The stockpile of care is all out of love. Your self-immolation will have to go down in flames without me. In any case your actions will be disavowed by me.

 ~~~~

 There are people in this world who are hurting. And, “Shame on you” is not a strong enough indictment for those who claim victim status when they do “stupid stuff.”

 Pastor Saeed Abedini, Irani, returned to Iran to help Iranian children. He was arrested and placed in prison. He has been in an Irani prison over two years. He is in prison for being a Christian, a Christian seeking to help orphaned Irani children. Pastor Abedini doesn’t play the part of victim. The God of Israel watches over him.

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