tête-à-tête

October 8, 2011 Leave a comment

Though I am a political and social conservative with a strong libertarian streak I often read the opposition’s pabulum in order to discern whether I am holding on to what is good.  This deliberate questioning of my conservatism has helped me to further understand my own ideology and has helped put into contrast the false thinking that is prevalent today, most notably found in liberalism, progressivism and atheism.

 It should be noted here that I came to my understanding of my conservatism/libertarianism through my own reading (early on, Milton and Rose Friedman’s book Free to Choose) and by listening to programs such as Firing Line with the likes of William F. Buckley Jr..  My conservative ideology, as I told my attorney recently, is not the result of my viewership of FOX news. FOX News only highlights what I already know to be true and false.

An aside:  My attorney who is a Democrat once told me how he picks jurors for his accident injury trials:  The attorney asks perspective jurors if they watch FOX News or listen to Rush Limbaugh to determine if they are Republicans or Democrats. He pejoratively calls such Republicans “Rush Limbaugh Republicans”. The reason for his disdain of these Republicans:   he said that most Republicans believe in torte reform and ridding the courts of frivolous lawsuits.  My attorney won’t pick them to be a juror. They would likely vote against a substantial injury award. Ergo, my attorney wouldn’t win enough money for his client or himself (usually 40% take of the award compensation)

My attorney didn’t describe the Democrat jurors. He left me to believe that they were the opposite of Republicans with regard to willingness to make someone pay out.  Many attorneys are liberal Democrats (including their well-known lobbyists Obama, Eric Holder, Rahm Emmanuel, etc.). Many of these attorneys use frivolous lawsuits to make a living.  They are called the “ambulance chasers” (or, in Obama’s and Emmanuel’s case, the “crisis chasers”).

I let my attorney know that I did watch Fox News but that I didn’t listen to Rush Limbaugh, Jon Stewart or to Bill Maher. I told him I was my own conservative:   I related to him that I was a William F. Buckley Jr.-Milton Friedman-Neal Cavuto-Christian conservative. I wasn’t bought by what money I could weasel out of someone’s pocket. (BTW, as a Conservative I am not against accident lawsuits, only injustice.)

That aside, beyond my own research into political ideology, economics and morality, in school I also studied economics, finances, accounting and business among other related courses. These studies helped me see that free market enterprise and capitalism creates the most opportunities and the most wealth for everyone. And, that charity is both what you have to give (maybe a widow’s mite) and the desire to give.

 My belief in God came through my reading of the Bible and, specifically, the eyewitness accounts recorded therein. The historically factual account of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection as recorded in the Gospels was sufficient proof for me.

 I am currently reading two books:  essays by Christopher Hitchens in a book titled Arguably, copyright 2011, and The Thomas Sowell Reader, copyright 2011.

 Christopher Hitchens is a well-known left-winger and atheist, born in England and living in America.  He became an American citizen in 2007.  He is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, Slate and The Atlantic. His books include, among many, Thomas Jefferson: Author of America and God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

 I am reading Hitchens’ book even though I do not agree with his positions on most issues and most decidedly his atheism. His pronouncements against the fascism of Islam I do agree with.  I do like his breadth of knowledge in literature and his love of the English language. I enjoy his way of writing and his way of stating things. And, as I read I do make marginal notes wherever I disagree with his thinking. As a writer I continue to learn a lot about the art of essay writing from Hitchens.

 Here is a blurb about Hitchens’ book, ARGUABLY, from the Richard Dawkins Foundation website:

 The first new book of essays by Christopher Hitchens since 2004, ARGUABLY offers an indispensable key to understanding the passionate and skeptical spirit of one of our most dazzling writers, widely admired for the clarity of his style, a result of his disciplined and candid thinking. Topics range from ruminations on why Charles Dickens was among the best of writers and the worst of men to the haunting science fiction of J.G. Ballard; from the enduring legacies of Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell to the persistent agonies of anti-Semitism and jihad. Hitchens even looks at the recent financial crisis and argues for the enduring relevance of Karl Marx. The book forms a bridge between the two parallel enterprises of culture and politics. It reveals how politics justifies itself by culture, and how the latter prompts the former. In this fashion, ARGUABLY burnishes Christopher Hitchens’ credentials as-to quote Christopher Buckley-our “greatest living essayist in the English language.” (emphasis mine)

 Regarding this blurb, while I would certainly disagree with the relevance of Karl Marx as an answer to anything I would agree with what is said about Hitchens’ art. It is a product of one of the greatest living essayists in the English language.

 About Christopher Hitchen’s athesim, I believe that those who are most adamantly opposed to knowledge of God are often those who are the closest to the Truth, as was the case of another profound English writer and apologist, C.S. Lewis.  Lewis was an atheist turned agnostic turned believer.   Lewis’s writings are characterized by a lightly carried erudition, critical thinking, psychological insight, humor and sympathy. 

It is my prayer that Christopher Hitchens will someday soon come “kicking and screaming into the Kingdom of God” just as Lewis, a reluctant convert. (Update:  Hitchens died recently.)

 Christopher Hitchens currently has throat cancer. He has difficulty speaking and certainly cannot lecture.  From a lover of the  English language perspective, this throat business must give him great pain and a deep sense of loss. Pray for him.

 Turning to Thomas Sowell’s The Thomas Sowell Reader I find a treasure trove of wonderful essays and articles written by a well read economist, social theorist, political philosopher and conservative Black American. Sowell uses easy to understand commonsense language in his writings. Most would find this book accessible and informative. It is this simplicity which more than anything defines truth and true conservatism. Liberalism, much like in Hitchens’ writing, seeks to overwhelm the reader with its own great knowledge and pompous profundity. Not so with Thomas Sowell. His plain spoken and humble writing speaks louder than any hubris.

 Here are some excerpts from a chapter titled The Survival of the Left, from The Thomas Sowell Reader:

 Biologists explain how organisms adapt to their physical environment, but ideologues also adapt to their social environment.  The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.

The academic world is the natural habitat of half-baked ideas, except for those fields I which there are decisive tests, such as science, mathematics, engineering, medicine—and athletics. In all these fields, in their differing ways, there comes a time when you must either put up or shut up.  It should not be surprising that all other fields are notable exceptions to the complete domination of the left on campuses across the country…

 You might think that the collapse of communism throughout Eastern Europe would be considered a decisive failure for Marxism, but academic Marxists in America are utterly undaunted.  Their paychecks and their tenure are unaffected.  Their theories continue to flourish in the classrooms and their journals continue to litter the library shelves.

 Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it..

 Nor is economic failure the worst of it.  The millions slaughtered by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot for political reasons are an even grimmer reality…

 Academia is only one of the places where totally subjective criteria rule—and where leftists dominate.

 Sowell goes on to list these “places”:  foundations, museums, cultural institutions such as the Smithsonian, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities and taxpayer supported “public” TV and radio.

 These endowed and insulated institutions, often full of contempt for the values of American society and Western civilization, are not the only bastions of the left counter-culture. So are Hollywood and Broadway.  Although show biz faces the financial need to get an audience, the truth of what they portray is hardly crucial.  If they can make it punchy and sexy, then those who complain about historical inaccuracies and ideological bias can be dismissed as irrelevant pedants.

 Why are leftists able to crowd out other kinds of people from these places?  Because those who are willing to subject themselves to the test of reality, whether as a businessman in the marketplace or as surgeon in an operating room, have many other places to work and live.They do not need special sheltered niches in which to hide and to cherish their precious notions.

 Darwinian adaptation to environment applies not only to nature but also to society. Just as you don’t find eagles living in the ocean or fish living on mountain tops, so you don’t find leftists concentrated where ideas have to stand the test of performance. (emphasis mine)

I have to get back to my reading… Here’s Christopher Hitchens and William F. Buckley Jr. in conversation.

Filed under C.S. Lewis, Christian character, Christianity, Conservatism, conservative, Culture, Current Events 2011, Education, Human Interest, Liberalism, Life As I See It, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Outsourcing

August 23, 2011 Leave a comment

 The radio message came at 22:01:44.9 Martian time:  “The Community-Organizer-in-Chief has left the Washington DC Bureau of Breadlines and has fled to his Martha’s Vineyard compound.”

 It was to be expected. The People’s Economy had turned on him. Unfed jobless (and tattooed) masses were walking the streets looting, robbing and killing for food. Washington, the center for The People’s Economy was no longer safe.  But, we felt safe in our star-ship Gorforit. That is, Friedrich and I felt safe.  My name is Milton.

 You should know that there were many Capitalists in The People’s America when the Hope and Change Desolation began ten years ago. But, since that time, there is now only a small remnant left.

 Back then we were called the “Free-Market-eers.”  As such, we were constantly booed and jeered by The People’s Media.  Flash mobs of union workers, guided by The People’s Media, attacked us. And though we were peace-keeping people, many of us were battered and some lost their lives.  At one point it became so bad that corporate jet owners were being hung openly on the Mall, right in front of Lincoln Memorial.

 How did this all begin? A Progressive candidate (The Candidate) won the presidential election in 2008. This newly elected president began to stir up class warfare among the people.  He incited people to turn against each other, neighbor against neighbor, because of money. The People’s Media joined in.

 In 2011 a “Lean Forward” campaign was launched by the People’s Media.  Soon, the slothful, the dimwitted and the envious began to call themselves “The Forward Thinkers” or the “Lean-Forward Thinkers” – commonly known as the “LFT”. Their numbers, mostly union workers and unemployed college graduates with useless degrees, grew rapidly.

 The People’s Media which had once campaigned for The Candidate in 2008, now campaigned for the Lean-Forward group.  The campaign encouraged these marauders to take from the rich (those who had a job and some income) and to give to the “under-privileged” – those who saw what others had and wanted the same things.

From the Oval office the president, via regular People’s Media broadcasts, told the citizens that government was the best mechanism to handle society’s problems.  So, with the help ‘elected’ representatives he began to take away the people’s money through taxation. People were no longer able to donate to charities or to directly help their neighbor.  Every dollar was excised from the people for the people in The People’s Economy.

 The People’s Media, rousing the animal passions of the LFT members, encouraged demonstrations to take place against Free-Marketeer businesses.  Soon, though, the demonstrations were replaced with random looting and pillaging of stores.  Strife increased between merchant and customer, neighbors and friends.

 Our nations’ economy, once strong and vibrant because of free-market exchange, was now subject to the whims of recalcitrant, angry mobs and inept tyrannical leadership.  It quickly deteriorated until our present time.

 So, a plan was decided at our last Capitalist conclave held in a secret hiding place near Mount Rushmore.  Two of us would go to Mars and begin a free market economy on a new planet. Both Friedrich and I volunteered to go.  We were the oldest in the group.  If something happened we were both prepared to die.

 We had the star-ship Goforit but not the fuel.  The People’s Economy rationed both fuel and food. So, we had to put our heads together to find a solution. Now, we had done similar things like this before so we were not overly concerned but time was running out.

There was no IPO for this venture, no influx of cash.  The US dollar had folded.  Instead, we had to learn to create fuel out of gold bullion.  And, as it turned out, a small amount of this fuel would take us all the way to Mars. Once there we could also use it to barter with the Martians.  They have no gold on Mars but they do have good underground living quarters for the two of us. We could set up shop very quickly. In fact, it was the Martians who had offered to help us.  They would benefit from us. It would be a mutually beneficial relationship, something no longer found in The People’s America.

 We all believed, the Free-Market-eers, that is, that there would be defectors from the People’s Economy but we didn’t know when. Things were getting nasty in The People’s America.  So we decided to plan ahead and get ready for the influx of homeless and hungry. We had to start somewhere new.  Somewhere that wouldn’t be affected by The People’s Media. 

It seemed to us that Mars was the best option since there was a significant time delay for any radio signal to reach that planet. And better yet, The People’s Media Broadcasts would easily get lost within the noise of space radiation and our own Sun’s solar flares. “Bingo,” I said when I heard this.

*****

 “Milton”, Friedrich spoke glancing out Goforit’s small window at the silent Martian orb, “soon you and I will be able to start our booming life again, but this time, on the Red Planet!”

Milton replied, “A laissez-faire world at last. To Mars or bust, my friend, to Mars or bust.”

© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved

Filed under 2012 election, capitalism, Conservatism, conservative, Culture, Current Events 2011, Economics, Political Commentary, science fiction, short piece, social commentary Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Pretense, Part 2: The World Has Become a Jerry Springer Show

August 17, 2011 Leave a comment

The following short article was written six years ago.  Read it and take a look around today. What do you see?

Theodore Dalrymple
Law Isn’t Enough

City Journal, Autumn 2005

Recently in London a correspondent of a left-liberal Dutch newspaper interviewed me, a decent, civilized sort—one of us, in short. I am sure that he brought up his children to say please and thank you, probably in several languages.

He asked me why I had chosen recently to move from England to France. I said that I thought France was a decade or two behind Britain in cultural decline. It had maintained certain standards a little better than Britain—though, I added, I could see that it was heading in the same direction.

He asked me what evidence I had for my claim. Well, I replied, crime in France was approaching British levels; in some places, it was even worse, at least for serious crimes of violence.

Another straw in the wind was the rising number of tattooed and pierced young people on view, as well as tattoo and piercing parlors. Ten years ago, you hardly ever saw a tattooed person in France: now they are everywhere. The small and ancient town, solidly bourgeois, near where I live has such a parlor, purveying savage kitsch to young fools. Le Monde published a little while back a profile of the acclaimed French writer Ann Scott, whose work makes Baudelaire’s seem a bit like that of Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Scott has a large and prominent tattoo of a swallow on her neck. Critics claim that her latest book, describing heroin addiction and lesbian love, has a terrible beauty, as well as near-emetic properties.

The correspondent asked me: what was wrong with tattooing, if that was how people wanted to adorn themselves?

I asked him whether he would have himself tattooed—whether he would be happy if his teenaged children had themselves tattooed—and if not, why not? After all, if he would not like it, he must have some inner objection to tattooing.

True, he said, but tattooing was not illegal. And since even I, who deprecated it, did not think that it should be illegal, there was nothing further to say about it. If tattooing was legal, it was thus of no social, moral, or cultural significance.

I tried to point out some of the cultural meanings of the vogue for tattooing. First, it was aesthetically worse than worthless. Tattoos were always kitsch, implying not only the absence of taste but the presence of dishonest emotion.

Second, the vogue represented a desperate (and rather sad) attempt on a mass scale to achieve individuality and character by means of mere adornment, which implied both intellectual vacuity and unhealthy self-absorption.

And third, it represented mass downward cultural and social aspiration, since everyone understood that tattooing had a traditional association with low social class and, above all, with aggression and criminality. It was, in effect, a visible symbol of the greatest, though totally ersatz, virtue of our time: an inclusive unwillingness to make judgments of morality or value.

But the correspondent’s premise that the legality of an act was the sole criterion by which one could or should judge it chilled me. It is a sinister premise. It makes the legislature the complete arbiter of manners and morals, and thus accords to the state quasi-totalitarian powers without the state’s ever having claimed them. The state alone decides what we have or lack permission to do: we have to make no moral decisions for ourselves, for what we have legal permission to do is also, by definition, morally acceptable.

Even worse than the correspondent’s implicitly totalitarian assumption was his lack of awareness of how societies cohere, and how social existence becomes tolerable, let alone pleasant. After all, the law does not prohibit rudeness, boorishness, and an infinity of unpleasant habits. But it is clear that if, for example, the prevalence of boorishness increases, life in society becomes more filled with friction and danger.

What I found so odd about the correspondent were his perfect manners and refined tastes. But so little confidence did he have in the value of the things that he valued that he seemed indifferent to the mechanism of their disappearance or destruction. This is the way a civilization ends: not with a bang but a whimper.

 (Emphasis mine)

 From this article:

 http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_diarist.html

 THEODORE DALRYMPLE: Anthony (A.M.) Daniels (born 11 October 1949), who generally uses the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, is a British writer and retired prison doctor and psychiatrist

Filed under Conservatism, conservative, Culture, Current Events 2011, Human Interest, LGBT, Liberalism, THEODORE DALRYMPLE Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The True Gospel

July 17, 2011 Leave a comment

I am a conservative Christian. What this means is that I believe that the Bible is God’s Word, that Jesus Christ is God Incarnate and that our salvation is only through Jesus Christ, His death on a cross and His resurrection. There is no other means of salvation.

How do I know? The Bible is a collection of writings penned by ordinary men whom God has spoken through. These writing are God-breathed.  They reveal the truth about God. 

The Bible contains True myth (the Creation) along with historical eyewitness accounts, wisdom literature, prophecy and letters written by the early apostles.

Jesus, the central figure of the Bible, is a historical figure in space and time. This cannot be denied. And, after fifty eight-years of following Christ I know that Jesus Christ is alive and that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true. I have no doubt whatsoever.

I use the word conservative because there are those who superimpose teaching which projects their own thoughts and feelings onto Scripture thus making their version of the gospel a synthesis of good and evil.  Also, consider that some churches will teach that homosexuality is acceptable because of some romantic and cheapened version of grace.

There are also those who teach that the Bible teaches you how to become wealthy and prosperous. And there are those, social gospel proponents like Jim Wallis and his Sojourners group, who believe that the Bible tells us to rid the world of hunger and poverty, that the wealthy need to do their “fair” share. These same people will tell you that their ‘righteous’ ends justify the means.

There are many who teach a Gospel that is not from God. Their gospel is based on a very human desire to augment the truth with feelings of social compassion, wish-fulfillment and downright denial of its truth to further their political and social agendas. Many people will folow these teachings because the message is one they want to hear:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!”

The Apostle Paul in his letter to the church in Galatia.

What is the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
1. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament of the coming Redeemer.
2. Jesus Christ is the Messiah.
3. Jesus Christ lived a perfect sinless life for us. He became sin for us.
4. Jesus Christ died for my sins, once and for all.
5. Jesus Christ rose from the dead. He conquered death that I might have eternal life.
6. Jesus Christ ascended to heaven.  There,  He intercedes for me before the Father. If I sin I have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.
7. Jesus Christ is coming back to take His people home to heaven.

What can you do?
Confess that you are a sinner in need of Christ’s salvation.
Pray:
“Lord Jesus Christ Son of God have mercy upon me a sinner.”
“Lord Jesus Christ save me.”
Tell God that you willingly repent of your sins.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and Be saved. Tell the Lord that you believe on Him.
Attend a Bible teaching church where the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is offered each week. You will need both, not just preaching, or you will fall away.
Be baptized as testimony of your conversion to Christ.

If you do not hear these words at the church you are attending, if instead you hear about how to clean the environment, how to work to get the government to redistribute wealth, how to make money following Christ or how to become an advocate for the earth, the air, the water, the animals, sexual orientation and a host of other causes, then you are not hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you do not hear teachings about sin, the coming judgment, about heaven and hell than you are not hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

“Social gospel” is someone’s version of a “kinder, gentler” version of the gospel.  Presenters of this gospel teach that the rich should be shaken down and despoiled for the sake of the poor. They will teach that government should do this through taxes and wealth redistribution. They elevate government to a place of god-like status. Further, this type of gospel avoids the tragic view of man and his need for redemption.  It presents only what it deems the more ‘positive, social’ aspects of the gospel.  Its saccharin message is much like Al Franken’s Stuart Smalley telling us to think “Happy Thoughts.” Stay away from the placebo-like effects of “social gospel” preaching. If the Lord tells you to give to the poor, then give to the poor out of your own pocket.

There are false ‘gospels’ everywhere which will appeal to your ego, to your grandiosity.  The preaching of this ‘gospel’ will compel you to go out and change the world, to save our planet, to seek social fairness and social justice, to accept homosexuality and sexual perversity as just human foibles and to not call homosexuality what the Bible calls it – sin.  Beware. The “weeds” are presenting their gospel to you. Who are the weeds?  Listen to what Jesus said in the Gospel according to Matthew:

” Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.  But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.    “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.  “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’  “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them.  Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

“Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”  He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man.  The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.  “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age.  The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.  They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is simple and straightforward.  If after hearing the Gospel you filled with a desire to change the world then you have not heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  You have heard your own ego boasting with pride of its own greatness.  The Good Seed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ starts growing in the person who knows he is a sinner and desperately needs Christ’s salvation.  Christ does not need your salvation of the planet or of the poor. Beware of false gospels.  There is “No other Gospel” than what is stated above.

Filed under Christian character, Christianity, conservative, Culture Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Five-O’Clock World

June 25, 2011 Leave a comment

Listen:
Bruce Wolf and Dan Proft (WLS890 AM, weekends) talk with author David Mamet about his new book, “The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture”

Filed under 2012 election, Culture, Politics Tagged with , , , , , ,

Newer posts →