On your mouth I will tell it when the light shines.
And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine!…
(No one will know his name and we must, alas, die.)
Vanish, o night!
Set, stars! Set, stars!
At dawn, I will win!
I will win! I will win!
“Nessun dorma” (Italian: [nesˈsun ˈdɔrma]; English: “None shall sleep”)is an aria from the final act of Giacomo Puccini’s frequently performed opera Turandot and is one of the best-known tenor arias in all opera. It is sung by Calaf, il principe ignoto (the unknown prince), who falls in love at first sight with the beautiful but cold Princess Turandot. However, any man who wishes to wed Turandot must first answer her three riddles; if he fails, he will be beheaded. In the aria, Calaf expresses his triumphant assurance that he will win the princess. (Blogger’s note: This contest is reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice heroine Portia and her suitors having to choose the correct casket of three to win her hand.)
Oh, the sapling-like bliss of childhood: mommy and daddy, the “hoarders” of money, taking care of their forever young offspring. And, when Mother’s Day or Father’s Day comes around the kids will say, “Every day is kid’s day.” Therein lies a child’s basic understanding of economics: “gimme my allowance”; “finance ME.”
..and appropriating the Black Power/socialist fist to boot…
Without further ado, I present Keely Mullen, child provocateur, and her appropriation of the 1% as surrogate parents:
Here are just a few of the comical Dickensian socialist-memes:
“The movement, the Million Student March, is a movement for a more equitable and fair system of education as opposed to the really corporate model that we have right now,”
“the three core demands…”
“the 1% of people in society that are hoarding the wealth and are really, sort of, causing a catastrophe that students are facing…”
“one or two families are threatened with poverty…”
“85 people in the world hold more wealth than half the global population…”
“people earning over a million dollars a year should be contributing to the wellness of society…”
“we have to look at the injustice of the system we have right now.”
“a population that is doing nothing to contribute to the progression of society”
“the rich…’
“the injustice of the system”
Neil Cavuto graciously reasoned with Keely…
So many demands and no gratitude. None. Therein lies the root of socialism: ingratitude.
~~~
Well, it’s certainly a good thing that there are still some of us adults – what’s left of the work force after seven years of Mullen-type Obamanomics – who march to work every day to pay our bills, feed our kids, send them off to school and pay taxes using the corporate model.And we are not the 1%.
~~
It all seems so inequitable and unfair for me to support the low-information whiner-hand out-generation who spend their time protesting a work ethic and jack-booting to the beat of the income inequality drum of Democratic Socialists.
This little snowflake, Keely, epitomizes the “income inequality” cri de coeur of the Peter Pan Millennials directed at her parent’s generation: “I want my age-appropriate allowance and I want it now.”
~~~
Capitalism, the quiet revolution of the diligent, produces far-reaching positive results for those who work it.
Rest easy Keely. Here is some primal screaming protest therapy:
Every year on November 11th, Veterans Day, John B. always provides us few Veterans here at XYZ his appreciation for those who served this great country we call America. For all those who don’t know John, he went to Naval Nuclear School and served on the USS George Washington (SSBN-598) submarine. John is looking forward to his retirement from XYZ in March of 2016 and he’s decided to pass down the XYZ Veterans Guidon to me to provide words of wisdom, motivation and a personal thanks for your service.
For all those that don’t know me, I am Lee M., an Electrical Engineer of XYZ and I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 199% and Honorably Discharged in 20%%. During my time I was an Avionics Technician and Aerial Observer (AO) on attack helicopters. I am honored to take the guidon from John since he has always been a great mentor to me over the years.
With that, I would like for all of you to recognize the sacrifices you gave to preserve the wonderful freedoms this country has to offer, whether it was in time of conflict or in peace.No civilian can understand what it means to be a Veteran. Us Veterans, set higher standard in regards to work ethic when it comes to quality of our deliverables, communication and endless determination to meet our project schedules.We stand out like sore thumbs whether it’s our military jargon or our posture. Our military training and discipline carries with us since the moment we step foot in boot camp and/or office candidate school. Each one of you should be proud to have had a chance to earn that Eagle Globe and Anchor, the Army Star, the Naval Anchor or the Airforce Wings. In conclusion, never forget who you are, what you have achieved and always be proud to have served your country. We Veterans, make this company stronger because of our everlasting Honor, Courage and Commitment to whatever task that comes before us. Thank you for your service. God bless you and God bless the United States of America.
What happens when a pulse is no longer found on your wrist? That is an indication that your heart stopped pumping blood.
What would happen if income inequality stopped pulsating throughout the economy? That would be an indication that the beating heart of business is no longer pumping.
Income inequality is to be expected whenever growth occurs. To not grow is to be moribund.
~~~
The collapse of an economy is brought about by throttling the pulse of income inequality in order to create flat line “equality.” Immobility, as opposed to upward mobility, happens when wages become stagnant or “equalized” to a zero Gini Coefficient. Socialist economies, past and present, have been choked to death or near to death by those who promote the end of “income inequality!”
And while I see income inequality as a good healthy thing, opportunity inequality is not. But keep in mind that equal opportunity does not equate to or guarantee income. An individual response to opportunity is what matters. And, that is why leftists want to force the equal income issue – they know that people are by nature lazy and will respond to handouts of other people’s income.
Only effort tied to skills that increase in value over time will likely result in greater income. And here it should be noted that Progressives hate competition. The dynamics of supply and demand in the job market are anathema to them. They want to invoke their own economic “Nudge.” That is why they will push “Participant” trophy mindsets over competition.
Progressives consider most things to be of equal value (except their opinion). Progressives do not want you to even compete against yourself, to better yourself – “You are worth what we tell you are worth.”
But competition and pressure are necessary to proper functioning. As with your body, there would be no blood pressure if there wasn’t some resistance imposed by blood vessels. The vessels provide constriction necessary to maintain pressure. Proper blood flow feeds all veins and capillaries with life-sustaining oxygen.
So it is with competition. It constricts and channels the pressure in the form of your effort to those parts of your life that require sustainability, which is every part.
~~~
What are the causes of “income inequality!”? Is “income inequality!” the “fault” of Wall St. “fat cats”? Is shaking down Wall St. and the 1% the answer? Here is an excerpt from a recent book about the origins of inequality, a diagnosis that is spot-on:
“The distribution of income cannot be boiled down to one mechanism such as supply and demand in the labor market, nor can it be measured by a single measure of inequality like the Gini Coefficient. It is the result of many different processes working together. History matters, as do the market, politics, and demography.”…
“Over most of the past century, Americans have been acquiring more education, so that the supply of skill to the labor market has increased. If nothing else happened, this chain of events would have reduced the value of education and driven down the gap in wages between those with and without a college degree. Yet the gap has risen, not fallen, and it has done so particularly rapidly since the late 1970’s. When price rises even though supply has risen, we know that demand must be rising even more rapidly. Economists attribute this rise to the relentless increase in the skills required to work with new, information-based technologies. They believe that the acceleration in the skill biased technical progress over the past thirty years is the main engine driving increased inequality in earnings.” (emphasis added)- Angus Deaton, “The Great escape: health, wealth and the origins of inequality.” (Angus Deaton, in 2015, “was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare.”
The demonizing of Wall St. and the rich is the Marxist ranting of the Left. “Income inequality!” is created by a multiplicity of factors just as your good health is dependent a multiplicity of factors – the environment, your intake of nourishment, your exercise, etc. Blaming Wall St. for “income inequality!” is like blaming the existence of restaurants, those who trade in food, for those “fat cats” who eat more than others.
Do you blame restaurants for your poor physical health and not the choices you’ve made? If you do you must be a Blamocrat.
Blaming Wall St. is “Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!”
What other factors cause “income equality!”?
-Fiscal and monetary polices limit the flow of wealth and create hyper-“income inequality!”
The fiscal policies of Barack Obama’s administration, like those of a Marxist economy, have sown seeds of uncertainty. Investors, the economy’s job creators and the demonized ones of Wall St., are wary of investing due to the unknowns of government regulations and of taxes, specifically. The risk of investing any money is made considerably greater by government’s visible hand in the till.
The effect: we have had sub par 3% GDP for the last several years under Barack Obama. And, even though today’s job numbers are better than usual they are sub par also. The labor participation rate is still terrible. I know of four people who are currently struggling. Two of them have been out of work and/or underemployed for years. The other two have recently lost their long time jobs. There are men between the ages of 25 and 54 sitting on the couch at home eating Twinkies and watching ESPN. Obama’s fiscal policies have created “income inequality!” for millions of black and white lives, as if they didn’t matter.
The Keystone Pipeline project would provide significant jobs but the Obama administration has kept it from happening. The cult of climate change creates extensive “income inequality!”
And, with a zero percent interest policy the FED is pushing asset valuations up in the stock market. This is due to the fact that investors sensibly want to earn a return on their money. And since the FED has created no incentive to save with its zero percent interest rate investors must look to other financial vehicles for a return.
As investors buy into the market asset valuation climbs by pushing prices up. Hence investor wealth grows, at least on paper. Investors seek such havens to grow their wealth. This makes utter sense to me as an investor as opposed to accepting stagnation and even loss of income to due to today’s unspoken real inflation.
Again, the FED’s monetary policy of zero percent interest does nothing for middle class savings accounts. Here, again, disparity of incomes between Wall St. and Joe Schmo is created by those in power.
The economics of the Keynesians, the Progressive’s go-to policy makers, is to have government and people spend all their money (consume) in order to make the economy grow. This nonsense, the AGW scientism of economics, is exactly opposite of what is needed to grow the economy and stunts savings and investment.
Both fiscal and monetary policies are political animals chained to the powers that be. And, that is not you, Joe Schmo.
The very people who rail against “income inequality!” during a campaign (Clinton, Sanders, Warren, etc.) are the ones who create the malignant disparity of unequal opportunity when they get into office.
As I write this Hillary Clinton is proposing a $12 minimum wage for federal employees. Yet, no quick fix-it “remedy” happens in isolation.
Do you want to guess who pays for this proposed redistribution? In effect, Clinton is asking taxpayers, those moms and dads who both work, to vote for her (and to reduce what’s left of their disposable income) so she can raise the minimum wage of federal workers, those folks who will vote for her. The bleeding heart liberal’s cure for “income inequality!” is pulse-robbing bloodletting of voters.
The money that comes out of your paycheck to pay for this minimum wage increase is money that you cannot spend in the economy yourself. It is redirected to others and becomes the gateway drug for more redistribution.
To redistribute your wealth as Hillary proposes is like putting a pacemaker in the heart of the flagging economy with a battery that will last only a fraction of an election cycle.
~~~
You don’t need to be a Nobel Prize winning economist to understand that your income changes (creating income inequality over time) by a change in age, from young to old, from inexperience and a wet behind the ears status to well-oiled maturity and grey-haired sagacity. And also by where you live (a tech corridor, for example, and not the Sahara) and by your enhanced skill set. There is no devious little secret behind “income inequality.”
In fact, “income inequality!” drives return on investment. Who would invest if you knew that you would never gain appreciated value in the form of dividends or capital gains (income) over time from your investment? Even non-Wall St. Folk will buy homes believing that a home will appreciate (simple income inequality) over time.
It’s a Hip Hop world kid! Get with the program!
~~~
The following parable provides a Kingdom of God finding on “income inequality!”
What I hope you will note is that “income inequality!” as approved by Jesus (and as recorded by Dr. Luke, Chapter 19) means that those who do not increase what they are given are relieved of what little they may have. Their portion is given to the one who has made a significant (ten-fold) return on investment. As is usual in the Kingdom of God, Jesus’ POV is completely opposite of the world’s POV.
The world under the rubric of “income inequality!” will take from those who have succeeded and give to those who have not made any significant effort. And, the world will do this using Caesar as Divine Redistributor. There is not one mention of Caesar in Jesus’ words.
The Parable of the Ten Talents
“There once a nobleman, “ he said, “who went into a country far away to be given royal authority and then return. He summoned ten of his slaves and gave them ten silver coins. ‘Do business with these,’ he said, ‘until I come back.’ His subjects, though, hated him, and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘we don’t want this man to be our king.’
So it happened that when he received the kingship and came back again, he gave order to summon these slaves who had received the money, so that he could find out how they had got on with their business efforts. The first came forward and said, ‘Master, your money has made ten times it value!’
‘Well done, you splendid servant!!’ he said. ‘You’ve been trustworthy with something small; now you can command ten cities.’
The second came and said, ‘Master, your money has made five times its value!’
‘You too – you can take charge of five cities.’
The other came and said, ‘Master, here is your money. I kept it wrapped in this handkerchief. You see, I was afraid, because you are a hard man: you profit where you made no investment, and you harvest what you didn’t sow.’
‘I’ll condemn you out of your own mouth, you wicked scoundrel of a servant!’ he replied. ‘So, you knew that I was a hard man, profiting where I didn’t invest and harvesting where I didn’t sow? So why didn’t you put my money with the bankers? Then I’d have had the interest when I got back!’
‘Take the money from him,’ he said to the bystanders, ‘and give it to the man who’s got it ten times over!’ (“Master,” they said to him, “he’s got ten times that already!”)
“Let me tell you: everyone who has will be given more; but if someone has nothing, even what he has will be taken from him…”
“The history of the 20th century is full of examples of countries that set out to redistribute wealth and ended up redistributing poverty. The communist nations were a classic example, but by no means the only example.”
– Thomas Sowell, economist
~~~
On the heels of a previous post, Resident Evil: Redistribution, I now dispatch a warning about recent alien attacks on human flourishing. And in this brief post, I will also present you with some initial understanding of wealth disparity so that you will be able to withstand the alien invasion.
First, the humanity invading spores of socialism:
Run for your lives! Wealth snatchers are coming!
The socialist spores, planted next to you while you sleep in the twilight of Progressive thoughts, will make you into “pod people.”
Marxism, the origin of leftist thought, and its Progressive offshoot Democratic Socialism will require the means ultimately to abolish the individual and their private property along with the elimination of truth and religion. This will be done to accomplish the ends of redistribution of wealth and the creation of proletarian banality.
In its negation of the individual to further collective materialism, Marxism must necessarily denigrate humanity down to the lowest common statistic. Marxism does so through exacting means: you are forced to live within the lie once you allow the lie to overtake you. It is your vote to elect a Democratic Socialist that makes you complicit with the lie. In so doing it would appear that…
Pods hatching
“Each person somehow succumbs to a profane trivialization of his or her inherent humanity…In everyone there is some willingness to merge with the anonymous crowd and to flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudo-life. This is much more than a simple conflict between two identities. It is something far worse: it is a challenge to the very notion of identity itself.” –Vaclav Havel
The tearing down of your sacred humanity begins after socialism spores have attached themselves to you:
“When the [revolutionary] political state…comes violently into being…[it] can and must proceed to the abolition of religion, to the destruction of religion.” -Karl Marx
Because…
“…”to abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness; the demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs that needs illusions.” –Karl Marx
What is the “illusion” of religion being replaced with in Marx’s scheme and in neo-Marxist Bernie Sander’s scheme? The “un-masking” of collectivized materialism. Nothing more, nothing less.
Oh, and this, too…
“The historian of ideas Leszek Kołakowski said that Marxism (the philosophy) and Karl Marx (the man) had become fetishized and rendered into commodities; that such a form of intellectual reductionism could be construed as a secular, materialist faith that substituted for supernatural religion.” (emphasis mine)
Self enserfment: your vote for and your surrender to Democratic Socialism will, as history has shown, evolve into acquiescence to totalitarian rule. Then you will live hand to mouth:
“Totalitarian regimes created a debilitating psychology of complicity. Because they owned and controlled everything, and recognized no limits to their own power, every mouthful of food, every moment of rest, every item of consumption, was enjoyed solely by their grace and favor, which could be withdrawn at a whim.” -Theodrore Dalrymple, The Wilder Shores of Marx: Journeys in a Vanishing World.
Enter the neo-apparatchik: the contemporary followers of Marxism, the beguiling ideological sycophants called Democratic Socialists, will destroy the growth of wealth and prevent human flourishing for the sake of centralization and the commodification of one’s life. Under them, truth becomes what is commanded to be believed by State – unsalable things becoming salable.
The Democratic Socialism political ads are enticing commercials promoting a prescription of socialism spores. They are, of course, presented without contraindications.
Uncle Sanders wants…your wealth!
~~~
Sadly, as I quoted in my previous post (linked above) regarding the Me Generation…
“What do students value, and are those values any different from those of previous generations? … [studies of] students…reveal further characteristics that distinguish Generation Me from prior cohorts. A consistent trend in these data is the decline in interest in abstract and intellectual concerns and the increase in practical and materialistic ones.” –Jean M. Twenge, The Rise of Self and the Decline of Intellectual and Civic Interest, The State of the American Mind by Mark Bauerlein and Adam Belllow, copyright 2015 Templeton press (emphasis mine)
Do this in order to find out what the socialist world becomes via a personal eyewitness account provided by Theodore Dalrymple.
If you can care about your sacred humanity over and above collectivized material concerns then maybe there is hope for you and this generation.
You’re Dead Meat Under Democratic Socialism!
Most important, if you carry an attitude of thanksgiving with you wherever you go and use it in every situation, then envy won’t fester into “income inequality” obsession. Thanksgiving EveryDay is the best immunization against envy and materialism and the pursuit of other’s money.
If you can keep from taking in the poisonous alien banter about “income inequality” then you will be better able to flourish in a healthy and natural way, as opposed to allowing another life form to take over your pocket-book and leaving you dependent and devoid of humanity.
The videos below provide some intellectually organic safeguards against socialism’s spores. To further inoculate yourself you will need to read the accessible Basic Economicsand Wealth, Poverty and Politics. Both books are by economist Thomas Sowell. In doing so you will gain a basic understanding of economics, an understanding that is currently deficit in the general public’s intellect. You will also then be able to comprehend the dire warnings I have presented here and will be able to guard yourself against the soul-encroaching socialist spores and The Invasion of the Wealth Snatchers.
Ahhh…
~~~
Before I turn you over to the videos I must not leave this out: The earmark of socialism is shortages. First and foremost, socialism must unsettle you with a shortage of certainty:
“Society” (originally by Jerry Hannan); Copyright: Record High Publishing, Bike Music
~~~~
“Materialism, sometimes called naturalism, is the belief that matter — molecules in motion — is all that exists. Everything else: mind, consciousness, spirit — must somehow be reduced to the orchestrated firing of neurons.”
Have you watched the “The Real Housewives of Entrenched Materialism”? How about “American Democratic Greed is Good?”
The word “materialism” is a broad range category label. The word covers our known physical universe: the 118 known chemical elements that make up earth and those that make up our bodies. The word is hard science evocative and yet has been used to promote social ends by physical reductionists: Marx’s dialectical materialism along with Social Darwinism. As a hardcore metaphysical scheme, materialism presented solely by scientific fact is believed to be all the truth you need to know while ignoring theism altogether. As transformed into an ideology by evil men using a hammer and sickle formulation of Darwin’s theory of natural selection, Lenin, Marx and Trotsky could “justify” class struggle.
These days the class struggle continues. The word’s now inferred meaning is typically approbated to denounce Wall St. “fat cats” by Leftists (Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, et al) who want to bring the 1% to their knees with inordinate taxation (so as to enable Social Democratic redistribution or materialism as agreed upon consumer envy. Ergo, we are all to become “fat cats” until the money runs out).
Leftists hate Wall St. “greed”. They want to create a more palatable shared widespread greed.
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist, is egalitarian when it comes to creating Unitarian greed:
“Bernie Sanders says it’s not just Wall Street and corporate America that would pay more if he’s elected president: All workers would face a slight payroll tax hike.
The Vermont senator who’s seeking the Democratic presidential nomination said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that the across the board increase would come as part of his push to guarantee paid family leave.”
Sounds so benign and reasonable, doesn’t it? Tell me. Why does government need to “interpret” your money and your life decisions?
“…He acknowledged that tax would apply to everyone.
“Yes, it would,” he said. “But it would mean that we would join the rest of the industrialized world and make sure that when a mom has a baby, she can, in fact, stay home with that baby for three months rather than go back to work at the end of one week.”
Sanders, who has been elected to the Senate as an independent, has advocated for several other new taxes to pay for his potentially pricey policy proposals.” (Emphasis mine)
Bernie Sanders, Greed Monger
Sanders is, of course, goading the Me Generation, in the midst of unprecedented wealth:
“What do students value, and are those values any different from those of previous generations? … [studies of] students…reveal further characteristics that distinguish Generation Me from prior cohorts. A consistent trend in these data is the decline in interest in abstract and intellectual concerns and the increase in practical and materialistic ones.” –Jean M. Twenge, The Rise of Self and the Decline of Intellectual and Civic Interest, The State of the American Mind by Mark Bauerlein and Adam Belllow, copyright 2015 Templeton Press (emphasis mine)
So, how about we remain free and act not like the rest of the industrialized world and pay for our time off ourselves without middlemen exacting their overhead fees?
Why is mom working? If she is married then likely her family needs a second income. Payroll taxes and government mandated health care come out her check. If she is a single mom, then likely she needs to work and/or wait upon government assistance. Payroll taxes and government mandated health care come out her paycheck. The idea that a materialist ridden government will be altruistic towards you with your own money is utterly absurd.
If Bernie Sanders is sounding so generous with your own money then why not let us each keep more of it? Why doesn’t he tell government to get out of our pockets instead of deeper into them?
Well, if he did that then he couldn’t run as a Democratic Socialist and bureaucracy wouldn’t get its controlling “share” of your money and life.
Now tell me, why can’t people take off work and spend time with their families. Is it because they do not have enough money? How does taxing people more solve this problem?
This, my friends, is the essence of democratic socialism – fixing problems created by government (excessive taxation in this case) with more government (excessive taxation). Aren’t we already being forced to pay Federal, State, Medicare and Social Security taxes along with an Obamacare SCOTUS “mandated” (read coerced) health insurance?
Did you receive a raise this year? If you did then Sanders wants to take away 0.2% of that increase to finance just his family leave policy, a policy that you could finance with your own untaxed money.
Why is government involved in your quality of life decisions beyond national defense? Are you not able to govern yourself and your time and money? Or is it that you hope that someone else under coercion from the government will pay for your quality of life decisions? Now tell me. How do singles benefit from a Family Leave Policy or men in having to pay for maternity care or breast exams? These “bennies” are political handouts to certain focus groups (read special interest groups) in return for votes, nothing more. Big Brother does not care about you or the unintended consequences of myopic thinking.
Like “Participant” trophies given to children who played in inter-city sports competitions their parents paid the fee to join, so Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders wants to award citizens “trophies” from a coerced offering of your tax monies-your gold earrings. Bernie Sanders and those like him have decided that you and your husband are not smart enough to manage your own money and affairs. You get the booby prize instead!
The Booby Prize!
How about we cut out the middle-men altogether and spend our time and own money on our own family instead of sending our money through a labyrinth of government money laundering sieves which only shower havoc on families and small businesses, to name two prominent victims. Such a process leaves “we the people” with pennies on the taxed dollar. This “policy” makes no sense in any way, shape or form. But, people buy into the nonsense because its sounds socially and paternally idealistic.
~~~
Resident Evil m-Virus (“m” for Marx)
The Resident Evil Virus (the one that kills the host; the one created by Umbrella Collective) as mutated…
According to Karl Marx, “Rousseau correctly described the abstract idea of political man as follows:
“Whoever dares undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. He has to take from man his own powers, and give him in exchange alien powers which he cannot employ without the help of other men.”
All emancipation is a reduction of the human world and relationships to man himself.” (emphasis mine)
Golden Calf created from gold earrings melted down.
Here we see the recreation of man as materialism’s Golden Calf and the ideological assumption of Communism or what I call “Resident Evil: Redistribution.”
Karl Marx wanted to abolish all personal property and all religion to establish an anthropocentric materialist utopia. Now consider that redistributive taxation is removing your personal property and giving it to the Collective. And, I don’t have to tell you that Theism is being abolished, with Marx’s beyond-the-grave-blessing, under the guise of separation of church and state. Theism is being replaced by scientism, “the metaphysical belief that science tells us all that can be known or is worth knowing.” (-John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in the Quest of Truth)
Both acts are Karl Marx inspired dialectical materialism.
~~~
“The richness of human life only begins to make sense if mental experience is more than epiphenomenal froth on the surface of a purely materialist reality. If we were simply machines, human discourse could be no more than automatic mouthing, with no true exchange of rational argument taking place.”
Our exponentially growing government does not want competition from you or from your business or from your religion. Those in power want utter social control. Do you realize this?
We can see this in the Social Democrat’s penchant to control your money, your words and your guns. We are moments away from unmitigated tyranny. There are people rallying the flag for tyranny in its most beguiling form: “Social Democracy.”
And while Europe has decided to accept paycheck tyranny in the form of Social Democracy they have done so in order to have government be the treasury that supplies their material needs. By believing that their greed is justified because it is socialized they have signed on to the government broker’s whole life enslavement policy – “a greed with which we have agreed.”
Contrast that statement against the following:
“Watch out,” he said to them, “and beware of all greed! Your life doesn’t consist of the sum total of your possessions…Don’t be anxious about your life – what you should eat; or about your body — what you should wear. Life is more than food! The body is more than clothing!…Which of you by being anxious can add a day to your lifetime?…Yes: where your treasure is, there your heart will be too.”
-Jesus, from Dr. Luke’s Gospel account.
~~~
Consider the following statements:
“Of course many supporters of European integration have an ideological dislike of competition…For many Euro integrationists, much of the appeal of the project lies in the fact that it is an alternative to the “jungle capitalism” that supposedly defines the United States.” (emphasis mine)
-Daniel Hannan, British MEP, “The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter of Warning to America.”
“All too many confuse a market economy with consumerism, seeing a buy-buy-buy mentality as the outcome and goal of economic liberty. But consumerism is the muddled idea that only in having more can we be more. Rather than the Cartesian formulation, “cogito ergo sum” (“I think therefore I am”), some have come to believe that shopping is the proof of existence: “Consumo ergo sum.” Consumerism is wrong not because material things are wrong. Consumerism is wrong because it worships what is beneath us.”
And,
“The problem isn’t just a numbers game, and it can’t be solved by simply tweaking this or that budget line, or wringing a little waste out of the system here or there. What threatens to bring freedom to an end is that we have forgotten the end of freedom, in the other sense – its aim and purpose.
The confusion is all around us. Liberty is confused with license, cronyism with capitalism, mere schooling with education, Social security with genuine intergenerational solidarity, and real social responsibility with taking money from one group and giving it to another – and never mind the cultural devastation wrought upon the recipients by this Orwellian form of “welfare.” We have come to believe that the government is a Good Samaritan.” (emphasis mine)
Amid the Middle East terrorist tempest and menacing misinformation, evils generated by anti-Israel forces, the vitriolic cries of haters hope to discharge any goodwill towards Israel. Their vituperous discharge also comes in this form – Palestinian rock and firebomb throwers.
“With just 300 meters to go before reaching the peak of Mount Everest, Israeli mountaineer Nadav Ben-Yehuda saw a Turkish climber lying unconscious in the snow, and in an instant gave up a lifetime’s dream to save his fellow climber’s life.”
I came across this story as I read Dr. Amir Aczel’s book Why Science Does Not Disprove God.
From Chapter 12, The Limits of Evolution:
“…So truly altruistic behavior—which we know has existed in the world since time immemorial—is not well explained by evolution.
An example that, to use one of [Richard] Dawkins’s favorite expressions, “deals a knockout blow,” to evolution as an acceptable explanation for altruism is the following. In May 2012, several groups of individuals attempted to climb Mount Everest, as happens every spring. One of the climbers, a young Israelis, was well on his way to the top when he came across a fallen Turkish climber who had lost his face mask, his oxygen supply, and much of his equipment. He clearly was going to die very soon because the extreme cold and oxygen-poor air near the summit.
The Israeli, who was in excellent shape and about to achieve a lifelong dream he had been training for all his life, stopped immediately and spent several hours helping the disabled Turk get back down the mountain. He saved the Turkish climber’s life, at a loss of three of his own fingers and four toes to frostbite, and also lost the chance to make it to the summit of Everest.
Turkey and Israel have been political enemies since the Turkish-led flotilla in May 2010. There was no love lost between these nations. The Turkish flag, with its star and crescent, was visibly sewn on the climber’s outfit, so the Israeli saw it.
Other climbers had given up the Turk for dead…”
Nadav Ben-Yehuda Everest-climber
NADAV BEN-YEHUDA and Aydin Irmak
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Have you heard this true story?
“This is my command: love one another, in the same way that I have loved you. No one has a love greater than this, to lay down your life for your friends.”
-Jesus, as recorded in the Gospel according to eye-witness John, chapter 15, vs. 13.
A stone’s throw away…
…from a summit, from an enemy, from exclusion or embrace.
From the perspective of having worked with a para-church group that has ministered to free people from the cycle of homosexuality, I would like to address a concern of mine…
Recently I saw a huge sign outside a mega-church that offered a “Biblical” approach to gender. The wording was directed at teenagers. Though seemingly innocuous this is a type of inferred legalism.
When a Church or seminar group puts the word “Biblical” in front of its messaging it is clearly inferring that this is the domain of Christians, that this is what a Christian in this subset must do or be.
But desired male and female “characteristics” or conformism should never be taught as gilded pages of Scripture lifted out and fashioned into tablets of “Biblical” mandates. One may say that these approaches are just “guidelines” but the word “Biblical” in front of something conveys the idea of de facto Sola Scriptura truth.
As mentioned, in the past I have been around and served in a para-church ministry based on what was termed “gender symbolism issues” (a cautious reference to Carl Jung). The speaker’s main thrust was to employ an admixture of psychology terms, quotes of the Inklings and of Scripture with the application of soul-healing prayer. It all sounded good to me at the time.
Within this context seminar leaders and counselors urged attendees to pray and ask God for the “True Masculine” and the “True Feminine.” But, these prayers, of course, will not be answered because there is no such thing. The best a man or woman can ever become is being Spirit-filled. It was out this time that I came to realize how insidious this kind of psycho-spirituality was.
It is not hard to understand the Christian Church trying to stabilize the culture surrounding it. But, in this case, it is doing so by adding unnecessary “traditions” onto the message of the Gospel. By placing added strictures and burdens regarding the masculine and the feminine, the Christian Church removes itself from the Gospel and becomes, in a sense, the fashion police.
Recall the early Christian Churches of Jerusalem and Galatia which demanded that new Christians follow the strict tradition “soaked” Law along with the teachings of Jesus? Today’s church in similar manner, as I see it, is seeking to propagate men and women of the “Biblically” masculine or feminine tradition. It would appear that the Christian church is in the process of “canonizing” romantic notions of what they consider to be masculine and feminine qualities.
As a former student of Moody Bible Institute and over the course of a lifetime having read through the Bible several times I have yet to find any description of “Biblical” manhood or womanhood.
What is written are what characteristics a man likes about a woman (see Song of Solomon and Proverbs 31) and what characteristics a woman likes about a man (see Song of Solomon). None of these “characteristics” – physical and pragmatic – carry the moral weight of the Ten Commandments. These “characteristics” should never be used to propagate more sons and daughters of the “Biblically” masculine and feminine.
I believe that the Church with regard to its “genderfication” of males and females has become a stumbling block for the weak.
There are those in the church who are perfectly comfortable conveying the macho role that men play in on TV. And there are some in the church who base gender roles on the corn-fed lyrics of country music. There are women’s conferences about “Biblical” womanhood based on Proverbs 31. And there are many more instances of role play.
I have no problem with role play. Role play is a given in relationships. But I have a problem with a rite of conventionality outside of conforming to the image of Christ. This statement may be too much for some people in the church, I understand.
Yet, the weak, the searching, may easily stumble when such stereotyping is placed askance to their faith.
One could say that Proverbs 31 was written by patrician authors who imagined the qualities of an ideal woman to be in relationship with or for King Solomon’s court. Proverbs 31 definitely speaks of a pragmatic woman and not of a physical woman, as does Song of Solomon. (Platonic men would later consider woman’s physical beauty a type of entrapment and something to avoid.)
But in this day and age Christian men also enact Proverbs 31, do they not? Should we delineate gender based on Proverbs 31? My answer is “No.”
Why create extra yokes called the “Biblical Masculine and Feminine” to be placed on people’s necks? Isn’t a “Biblical” manhood and womanhood referenced only at the conjunction of men and women? And, isn’t marriage of man and wife the nexus that is the positive anti-thesis to same-sex anomalies.
Now it is common knowledge that people do not like ambiguity. We demand black and white. We demand inerrancy. And, we demand “Biblically masculine and feminine” males and females. Our minds are wired to alert us to any differences to a norm. When a perceived threat to a norm occurs we seek to reconcile things as quickly as possible.
Any ambiguity comes off as a potential threat to our understanding of how life should be. As related to gender we tend to overemphasize male and female “roles” in order to reduce our anxiety over ambiguity. Here it is, I believe, that some of the fear of non-conformity has grown out the Christian Fundamentalist movement that was raised up in the early twentieth century against the threat of Liberal theologian’s textual infractions. The Conservative Christian world sought to tighten its reins on what is and isn’t “Biblical.” And in so doing it is also now putting a noose around each gender.
Yet, there is no gender typecasting or stereotyping in Scripture, only sacrosanct relationships established and reinforced. And, more importantly, the message of the Gospel offers everyone freedom from fear. This includes freedom from the fear of the ambiguous and the unknown, whether the fear is of material nature or of the fear of gender “status.”
We should not live with the fear of the not being able to follow the letter of the Law and especially as conjoined with the added impedance of “Biblical” gender.
The current falderal about “Biblical” manhood and womanhood are gooey sentimental and romantic notions mandated under the banner of the “Biblically” acceptable. Let’s not go there. Let’s not make the freedom and fun of romantic role play into religious rule pretense. Let’s be free to be men and women without the yoke of the man-made gender laws placed on our necks. And then, perhaps, homosexuals will then feel free to come home and find new hope under the roof of Christ-like relationships.
In my estimation the best how-to books to lead a Spirit-filled life are the Bible and My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. Forget the OTC self-help books and seminars on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. You would be wasting your time and money. Worse, you would most likely seek to adapt to someone else’s notion of what it is to be a man or a woman. Run from this nonsense. GIGO.
~~~
“Jewish Wedding” by Jozef Israels (Dutch, 1824-1911)
The closest we come to “Biblical” manhood and “Biblical” womanhood in the Bible, as I read it, is within the Apostle Paul’s circular letter to the churches at and around Ephesus (Ephesians chapter 5). It is there that he instructs Christians as to how men and women should relate to each other and he does so with equanimity and, more importantly, in the context Christ and His Bride, the Church.
Paul’s circular letter should be read in the context of Ephesus being the protectorate of the Temple of Artemis aka Diana. “There was no other Greco-Roman metropolis in the Empire whose ‘body, soul and spirit’ could so belong to a particular deity as did Ephesus to her patron goddess Artemis.” (Oster 1990:1728) Many in the Greco-Roman world came to Ephesus take part in the seductive sexuality of Diana’s worship, worship which included prostitution. Adored as life givers women were given inordinate prominence. As such, they were placed above men.
Sadly, so many sermons and books and seminars parse out “wives submit to your husbands” and “husbands love your wives”. As I see it, Paul wrote to these churches – churches situated in the context of the worship of the female deity Diana, and specifically this passage to promote a Kingdom view of women as opposed to the Artemis view. In the Spirit’s way, Paul let it be known that women were not to be placed on a pedestal as an idol or to be used– not as a Madonna or as a whore.
Paul writes to the Ephesian church outlining a Kingdom of God view of relationships. Husbands are to love their wives and not submit to prostitutes. Wives are to submit to their husbands and not to those who would put them on a pedestal to worship or in a bed as a prostitute. Paul advances the true characteristics of Kingdom of God people: concomitant respect and love of husband and wife.
More than any pretense of “Biblical” gender teaching, the Scriptures order our relationships as it orders our loves: Love God with all your heart, mind, body and soul and love your neighbor as yourself.
Husbands who love their wives love their closest neighbor and are in fact submitting to the Lord within her.
Wives who submit to their husbands submit to their closest neighbor and do so out of love for the Lord within him.
This gamboling of submission and love resembles, I imagine, the relationships of the Trinity and Their dancing embrace.
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
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“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
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“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
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“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
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To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
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“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
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Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
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If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
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“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
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“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
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Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
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“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
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From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
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“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
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One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
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“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
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God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
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“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
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“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
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“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
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“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
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Cindy Wity 