All Bets Are Off

July 7, 2012 Leave a comment

Barack Obama is “Betting On America.”  That’s right.  Like most Democrats (Illinois Democrats are a prime example) BHO has made America his favorite slot machine.  The gambling analogy is very apropos. He wants to gamble away our earnings, our future.

People,  just keep giving BHO your money (or other people’s money) and he will keep pulling the lever for you until something good comes out. Expectations are big. Hope and Change are full tilt. This is Progress for Democrats: spend more, tax more, build more casinos.

But what comes out when the lever is pulled?  Excuses. Joblessness. Cronyism.

 Have you heard of the person who keeps doing the same thing while hoping for a different result? Insanity accounts for the actions of BHO the politician. Insanity also accounts for the votes of those people who continue to elect Democrats:  “We keep hoping something good will come out of this – that we will win big in this Grand Casino of life.” “If only we could win without putting any of our money in.  That would be all the better.”

 Has our good money been thrown into the government slot machine?  It wasn’t your money to lose?  Oh well, there’s more where that came from right?  Heard at the buffet table:  “The 1% need to do their fair share so we can keep playing the slots.”

 Your vote matters. 2012:  Vote insanity and excuses out and reality in, if not for yourself then at least for your children and grandchildren. Don’t gamble with our future.

When you wish upon Obama…

On higher plane:

Filed under 2012 election, commentary, Political Commentary, Politics, social commentary, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Independence Day Recast?

July 4, 2012 2 Comments

Have you seen the movie Independence Day? If you have then you would know that aliens have invaded our world.  There are aliens in the air and, you might agree, there are aliens on the ground in the form of the cast.

A blurb about the movie from the IMDb website:   “The aliens are coming and their goal is to invade and destroy. Fighting superior technology, Man’s best weapon is the will to survive.”

Man’s best weapon here may be to laugh off this farce.  I like sci-fi.  I think Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey and the original The Day the Earth Stood Still directed by Robert Wise are some of the best in that genre.  But this movie is epic as pathetic slap-stick sci-fi.  Of course you can’t take it seriously.

Will Smith’s pre~Men~In~Black typecasting of silly No Fear bravado and Randy Quaid’s dad~is~crazy~but~somehow~his~zaniness~endears~us~to~him role adds fuel to this trash can fire. The role of President Thomas Whitemore is played by a stiff whose part would have better played better by a  teleprompter. Jeff Goldblum as David Levinson portrays an MIT educated-computer expert~chess playing~environmentalist~satellite tech~you~name~it~he’s~got~the~answer~for~you~kind~of~guy who ‘triangulates’ the four corners of this going-nowhere movie.

The movie’s special effects won an Academy Award and I’ll never know why. The effects are third-rate at best. (I thought Twister should have won that year).   The movie does, though, offer something for the political observer ~ a perfect realization of the Obama presidency.

The dark, foreboding and humongous space ship hovering over Washington D.C. is a perfect archetype of the Obama Administration.  Out of the bottom of the ominous alien craft come lethal rays: Obamacare taxes and immigration fiats.  Cities and people’s lives are instantly destroyed. America is under attack.

There is no reason given for why this is happening other than America is America and the aliens say that America must die. So it is that Eric Holder, an onerous chief alien, sits in the mother ship’s ivory tower directing America’s destruction with reserved glee.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it.”  At least for America as we have known it.

…The space ship is hovering….

Constance (the President’s Press Secretary):  “Now what do we do?

President Thomas Whitmore:  “Address the nation.  There’s gonna be a lot of frightened people out there.”

Constance: “Yeah, I’m one of ’em.”

Wow!  Someone save us from the dialog!   Thankfully the brave and ‘wacky’ heros played by Will Smith and Randy Quaid) come to America’s aid and help bring an end to this distraction of a movie.

Using viral computer ‘implants’ and sexy aircraft maneuvering the alien ‘death’ ship is decimated but only after hundreds of minor skirmishes with the pesky alien ‘gnats’ (the larva born in Obama’s ideological intransigence or perhaps in Jeff Goldblum’s The Fly movie).

The next time you watch this movie listen to the dialog.  It deserves a Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot of Mystery Science Theatre  over dubbing!

We can turn a movie off when the Hollywood kitsch gets to be too much or when the credits (and debits) finally roll.  But  we can’t turn off government when it makes no sense.  Except if you and I begin voting it out of our lives.

Do you want freedom from annihilation by Obamacare taxation?  How about “Fighting for our right to live ~ to exist” without own government’s tyranny, oppression and persecution? How about freedom from government’s intrusion of our privacy and its coercive mandates? Will the middle class now go quietly into the night now that it is being taxed into oblivion?

America’s Independence began when it resisted taxation without representation. Now we have representation that doesn’t represent our best interests and that mimics King George’s taxation edicts. Let’s throw off the shackles of tyranny and vaporize the black cloud of government that overshadows us wherever we go.  Vote Obama and the Dems out.

It is confirmed.  There is alien life out there.  They are living among us:  Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Holder, Napolitano, Durbin, Charles Rangel, Barbara Boxer, Elizabeth Warren…

Filed under commentary, Life As I See It, Political Commentary, Politics, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Fear and Loathing in America

July 1, 2012 Leave a comment

I know, I know, I am polemical.  I polarize people with my words.  I piss people off because I am ever seeking to destroy pretense.  And yet at this juncture in my life I understand this irksome gift as a God-given trait that must be used.  This does not mean that I am perfect, of course, or exempt.  It does mean though that just like the prophets recorded in the Old Testament I cannot remain silent. I am will ever be forthright and forth telling…

 *****

Pervasive throughout our land is the avoidance of asking the hard questions.  We shun the real questions about life and death, about God, about good and evil, about the body and soul, about reason and revelation and about eternity and time. 

 Yesterday I happened to watch The Lord of the Rings (LTR):  The Return of the King.  Putting the above statement into LTR terms, we want to live peaceably in the shire with never having to venture out and deal with the Ring which has consequential power over us. We may say to ourselves, “Why destroy the ring when we can pretend it doesn’t exist? We may have doubts that all that the shire presents to us is all there is to life but we will ignore those doubts in order to avoid conflict and to live peaceably. We choose the immediate surroundings to avoid the dangerous quest that truth demands. We fear what it might take to make the journey.  We fear we will lose ourselves on the way and never return to the shire. We fear what it might take to fight the good fight.

 We fear conflict. Conflict is the evil we most want to avoid.  Our “dialectics” begin with opposites and end in synthesis.  We seek conflict resolution, bargaining, harmony and therapy, no-fault divorce, etc.  Because of this we find it easier to believe nothing of import so that we do not have to fear disagreement, ostracism or even death for what one believes. And because we do not believe in anything then we cannot be responsible for outcomes.

 To choose to believe nothing means that absolute truth is discharged from our lives.  Its voice is no longer heeded.  In fact its voice is now being drowned out.  The commotion that you hear daily is man’s raucous resistance to leaving the shire ~ his tweeting and texting of empty words, the ever streaming pop/rock music filling the void, the Surround sound of ubiquitous blaring entertainment.  It is as if men and women were walking around in the dark calling out to each other and never finding the light switch. They have chosen to stay in the purgatory of their fears.

 The avoidance of pain and conflict has become our primary goal in life.  This is seen in the young voter’s desire for Obamacare.  The health care reform is seen by them as in line with their “values”.  The reform is also seen as providing a sense of self-esteem in that it affirms the young voters wish to avoid pain and insecurity at all costs. On the surface Obamacare appears to provide security for themselves and for others while in truth it is a compromise of what is good and what is evil – the good being the desire for your well-being and the well-being of others and the evil which is the lie that Obama and the government will somehow provide self-esteem and security for you and others and do it with altruism. Remember, God has now been replaced by social science, social science based on rationalism and egalitarianism (think John Rawls, Laurence Tribe, etc.) all under the banner of “Social Justice.”  Rationalism’s,’ “Social Justice” trumps God every time.  Social science is now becoming the creator of society’s values, e.g., God is not to be talked about in public but homosexuality must be.  All of this in spite of the fact that rationalism without revelation could never create value. As Benedict XVI said in 1969:

“What is essential is that reason shut in on itself does not remain reasonable or rational, just as the state that aims at being perfect becomes tyrannical. Reason needs revelation in order to be able to be effective as reason.”

 The avoidance of truth with its inherent conflicts with other than the truth affects our relationships, our sexuality, our creativity, our culture. In place of absolute truth Americans, as mentioned, have latched on to “values.” And our new “value” system has a new way of talking:  “lifestyle”, “Be Yourself;” “Be original;” “Let go and be;”  diversity;” “I have my rights.” But now “rights” are no longer the natural inalienable God-given rights “of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  Now “rights” have morphed into feelings worn on our sleeve.  We demand that others accept what we feel and that others be open and tolerant. This is what we value above all else. Right and wrong (and love (read not sex)) no longer have a place in our psyche. “Values” – a synthesis of good and evil dominates our diseased culture. And when we ignore serious questions we create words with synthetic meanings to describe our lives.

 “Charisma” is one of those words often heard today. Charisma was once considered a God-given grace but has been used as cover for the “banality of evil” as Hannah Arendt, political philosopher, notes when talking about Hitler’s appeal.

  Allan Bloom, another political philosopher, notes in his 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind:  How Higher Education Has failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students, “Charisma both justifies leaders and excuses followers.  The very word gives a positive twist to rabble-rousing qualities and activities treated as negative in our constitutional tradition.  And it s vagueness makes it a tool for frauds and advertising men adept at manipulating images.” Consider that both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have both been called charismatic leaders.

 In the introduction to his book, Bloom writes about what he sees in the classrooms of higher education: 

“There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of:  almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes that truth is relative….They are unified only in their relativism and their allegiance to equality….They have been equipped with this framework early on, and it is the modern replacement for the inalienable rights that used to be the traditional American grounds for a free society…The danger they have been taught to fear from absolutism is not error but intolerance.  Relativism is necessary to openness; and this is virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for more than fifty years has dedicated itself to inculcating.  Openness ~ and the relativism that makes it only plausible stance in the face of various claims to truth and various ways of life and kinds of human beings ~ is the great insight of our times. The true believer is the real danger.  The study of history and culture teaches that all the world was mad in the past; men always thought they were right, and that led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism, and chauvinism.  The point (now) is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all.”  (emphasis mine)

  In a later chapter titled The German Connection, Bloom relates how Nietzsche, Heidegger, Hegel, Weber, Freud have influenced American thinking.  Americans, within a “pro-choice” democracy, have assimilated this German thinking sometimes turning it on its head.   Bloom writes, 

“…there is now an entirely new language of good and evil, originating in an attempt to get “beyond good and evil” and preventing us from talking with any conviction about good and evil anymore.  Even those who deplore our current moral condition do so in the very language that exemplifies that condition.”

“The new language is that of value relativism and it constitutes a change in our view of things moral and political as great as the one that took place when Christianity replaced Greek and Roman paganism.”

…

“Value relativism can be taken to be a great release from the perpetual tyranny of good and evil, with its cargo and shame and guilt, and the endless efforts that the pursuit of the one and the avoidance of the other enjoin. Intractable good and evil cause infinite distress – like war and sexual repression – which is almost instantly relieved when more flexible values are introduced.  One need not feel bad about or uncomfortable with oneself when just a little value adjustment is necessary.  And this longing to shuck off constraints and have one peaceful, happy world is the first of the affinities between our real American world and that of German philosophy in its most advanced form, given expression by the critics of the President’s speech.”

 Here Bloom is referring to the clamor arising when President Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as the “evil empire.”  When yet at another time Reagan said that the Soviets had “different values,” this statement was met “at worst with silence and frequently with approval,” thus revealing our loathing of absolutism in the former statement.

 At the beginning of the chapter Values, Bloom, relates, “We have come back to the point where we began (in the book), where values take the place of good and evil.” (emphasis mine)

And so like Gollum we place the utmost value on the ring of power, becoming blind to its tyranny over us. Along with the ring we call our values “My Precious.”  Under the yolk of temporal “values” and without facing the serious questions of life we lose ourselves, we lose the real.  We lose love, romance, culture, art ~ everything meaningful to us.

 Love or charity, a virtue which must be constantly worked at, is replaced with easy sex. Consider that in our culture sexual activity is not to be repressed or disciplined but rather it is to be given preeminent unrestrained “value.” Think Sandra Fluke and contraception. Think in-your-face homosexuality. Does America “confirm her soul in self-control” or not?

 Romance, apart from truth is portrayed in movie after movie as just a response to nihilism. Nowhere to be found is the expectation, the unrequited desire and the hoped-for revelation of real romance. Without absolutes there can be no true romance.

 We are a culture that seeks therapeutic counseling.  Yet modern psychology, the sworn enemy of shame and guilt, refuses to talk about good and evil and therefore offers nothing for the soul. Freudian psychology only brings the patient back to repressed sex.

 Modern art has nothing of consequence to offer. Consider the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

 Deafening music, pop or rock, pummels our ear drums daily evoking barbaric passions and depriving the soul of its senses.

 Tattoos deface our bodies so as to reveal our disdain for the discipline that purity of mind and body requires. Inking is given the (non-)value of counter-culture and rabble-rousing.

 Religion, wherein serious questions are faced, is being replaced by positive thinking as preached from the temples of TV.

 In view of the fact that our nation is becoming increasingly devoid  of absolutes and truth while at the same time becoming  increasingly laced with relativism and sliding scale “values” consider this:

 Jesus, the Son of the Living God, says, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Free from what? Free from fear.  All fear:  the fear of the unknown, the fear of facing accountability, the fear of death, the fear of loss and personal suffering, the fear of evil.  Jesus’ perfect love casts out all fear. Because of this we can face the serious questions of life head-on knowing that He loves us, that He stands with us and that He has gone before us through the same difficult places. Seek Him and He will be found.

 Going back to the LTR analogy do you remember how Frodo and Sam and the rest rejoiced that the ring had been destroyed, that their arduous life and death journey had been accomplished? Their courage and resoluteness saved the shire, themselves and Middle Earth even while the others in the shire had no clue as to what was going on.  You and I are about to do the same.

Filed under Christianity, commentary, essay, short piece, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Adventures With Paradise

June 17, 2012 Leave a comment

  

It was supposed to be a quiet evening dinner – just me, myself and I – Epicurious at a local food trough. But, the gods of Saturn had other plans for this mortal this Saturday.

Living alone I typically stay home at night. I make my own dinner and eat by myself, dribbling on clothes I know are predestined for the laundry.  But yesterday, a beautiful sun bathed Saturday, I decided to head out of the house for a meal in early evening.  This restaurant visit would be the first time I would have a dinner meal out in well over two years. Saturday breakfast at the Copper Fox is usually my big meal out.

At the Fox I down a repast big enough to choke a horse – eggs over easy, sausage, potatoes and multi-grain toast all drowned in black coffee. At that point having been sated for the rest of the week I then just eat simple throw-together meals.  But last night was different.  I was twitching to get out of the house.  I wanted to cool my ever-burning jets and pay for someone else to make me a meal. And, my serendipity was showing.

So I gussied up.  With some Ann Taylor hugging my bones and a smacking smudge of lipstick I headed out my apartment door and to my car.  Pulling out of the driveway the sun, heading in the opposite direction, shot a ray of reflected light onto my face from the rear view mirror.  I winced and thought, “This will have to do.  I can’t grow another.” I drove over to the next town.  There I knew I would find some restaurants that still served something beyond over-sized plates of Tex-mex carbohydrates with giant big gulps to wash it all down.

Once downtown I parked my car near the hundred-twenty year old county court-house and began to stroll down the makeshift-quaint First Avenue.  As I had learned this suburban hamlet became historic in one day.  All this happened when the city council decided it was time for their town to clone an Immigrant History.  This is verifiable.  The false histrionics I mean.

I once met the town’s historian (a full-time position in this small town!) at a bar about five years ago. While drinking down his bitters, gin and sweet vermouth he told me the whole spiel – the town wanted to appear folksy so it came up with an embellished history – two actual immigrant families who arrived in America from Sweden and who made their home in this town many years ago would come to define the town’s heritage.  With this little tinge of history the town councilmen whitewashed the town hoping to attract crowds to its festivals, art shows and local businesses. Voila!  A smorgasbord of fantasy folklore was created to charm the out-of-towners.

I was reminded of this as I walked past the town’s ‘historical’ center.  I continued to walk along the brick-paved street past the faux-historical showcase of facades.  Everywhere I looked there were gaggles of doe-eyed arm-in-arm couples taking advantage of the romantic spectacle that is this revisionist-town.

I walked by several restaurants, none of them appealing to my appetite, none of them worthy of my ‘thrill-of-the-moment’ twenty-bucks.

I walked on past the New-Age Gem store and its wafting cloud of incense. I passed Mama’s Gratto, a patio padded with doting couples – men doting their Miller Lites and women doting their chilled chards, both poking at a plate of shared antipasto.

I skimmed past the darkened window of Kwasimodo Sushi. Silhouettes stood out above the counter.  I passed the ever-strumming ever-piped mariachi music of the Mexican restaurant and crossed the street looking both ways for food, my stomach now on high alert.

There it was directly across the street – a new restaurant right on the corner.  An Italian wood-burning oven restaurant.  I walked over to the front door .  The menu was posted on a side window.  Inside the doorway stood a sidewalk sign offering “Special – Baked Oysters.”  This caught my attention.  The last time I had baked oysters was during a New Orleans Madri-Gras week that should never be remembered. ‘Nawlins food though, my palette can never forget, is delectable.  So in a trance-like state I ventured inside hoping to create a little culinary heaven for about one hour. Instead what I received was purgatory, a purgatory inducing purge-atory.

(Did I mention I live alone?  There is a reason for that.  I remain single because of George Bush. I went through a divorce while he was president. This is why I eat alone every night.  This is why I never hear Dream Weaver while I’m showering. This is why I don’t eat my Italian Wedding soup looking at some dreamy-eyed Spaniard whose thirst for life is matched only by his roaring appetite for friends to enable him. And besides this, there aren’t many real men anymore.  I don’t mean macho. I mean real as in solid stainless steel, not Formica veneer.  We have Formica veneer in the White House right now but I live alone because of George Bush.)

As I entered the restaurant I saw a throng of waitresses standing at the end of the bar.  Dressed in black from head to toe the girls were all in their early twenties.  The manager appeared to be giving them their instructions for the evening.  I waited at the door but there was no response from the crew so I sought a small table along a wall. I sat down on the long bench that ran the length of that wall. I sat facing the room.  From there I could see that there were only three patrons in the restaurant, myself and two young women.  A handful of diners were outside on the patio. It was just after five o’clock in the afternoon.

A waitress broke free from the meeting.  She welcomed me as she handed me a menu.  I ordered a Stella. When she came back with the drink I ordered the baked oysters.

I sat in the extremely chilled room and watched the crew scurry around the bar and in and out of the patio door. I wondered if flies would take advantage of the open invite. After a short while an older couple, a grandfather and grandmother, came in with three of their very young grandkids. They were shown a table along the wall, one table away from me. I sipped my cold beer trying to warm up.

Soon a young couple entered the restaurant.  They had brought with them their four daughters.  The daughters looked to be all under the age of ten.  This family was seated right next to me along the wall – the four girls sat on the same bench seat.  I soon learned that the youngest girl did not want to be there. She was adamant in her disapproval.

“Muh-maaaaa.”  Muh-maaaaa.” The youngest one whined repeatedly, “I don’t want to be here.  I don’t want to be here.” as she crawled from the bench to her father and then to her mother and then back to the bench. I was hoping my food would arrive soon.  I was quickly becoming de-romanticized about my evening out.  The Minestrone Moderne had morphed into Kinder-Kare.

With four children of my own, all now grown, I had brought my own kids to a restaurant early in the evening just like these parents had so as to not disturb the other patrons. But that was years ago and I had forgotten about the family hours.

My baked oysters arrived after thirty minutes.  They must have been fresh.  The half-dozen looked just dandy sprinkled with bread crumbs, Asiago cheese and some chopped herbs and shallots.  But as you know oysters are not eaten in the most delicate of ways.  So right then I wanted to be home – alone with the mollusks and far from the madding crowd

After downing the first oyster in the door walks another young couple with kids.  Guess where they were seated.  Yep.  On my left side.

To my left and to my right were antsy children, antsy children all wanting to go home or to go to MacDonald’s for supper.  Both sets of parents and the grandparents eager for a Saturday night on the town ordered wine.  Ah, the memories of wine’s sedative affects amidst the wails of youth’s discontent.

It certainly seemed odd to me that the three families with children were seated alongside me as the whole restaurant lay open.  But then it clicked.  I would naturally sit where parents of young children would sit on an early Saturday night. A lot of wine had passed under the bridge.

I finished my dinner, gulping down oysters five and six as fast I could with swigs of Stella.  When I was through I pushed the plate of disgorged oyster shells forward and almost off the edge of the table. I was hoping to get the waitress’ attention.  No such luck.  It would be another fifteen minutes before she would make her appearance at the kitchen doorway.  By now my stomach and head were both reeling from parenting’s noble strife.

When the waitress finally arrived she asked me if there was anything else I needed. I shook my head “No.”  I didn’t think they would have ear plugs on the desert menu and I didn’t want to ask for a bucket, either.

The check arrived after another curious disappearance.  I pulled out a wad of dollar bills hoping for enough cash so that I didn’t have to wait on her again.  I was in luck.

I set the bill folder down with the cash tucked inside. I looked around for my waitress but she was nowhere to be found again.  I grabbed my purse and headed out the door.  Ah. I heaved a sigh of relief as the warm summer air decompressed my thoughts.

Retracing my steps through Ersatz village I found my car and drove home.  Thinking that my parenthood had lost large quantities of its patience along the way I vowed that I would never go out for dinner again at night when the young and the restless were about. At least not until I become a grandparent and retrace my steps while sipping wine.

© Sally Paradise, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Filed under Life As I See It, Romance, short piece, Writing Tagged with , , , ,

Ray Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012): Igniting Our Imaginations

June 9, 2012 1 Comment

Ray Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) 

 As a high school student in the 1960s I was required to read several of Ray Bradbury’s works. Included were his novels Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes and a short story The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit. 

 Bradbury’s writings were my introduction to the world of science fiction and fantasy.  Written at the right psychic temperature, his writings set the kindling of my imagination aflame, burning holes in my scripted life prior to graduation. 

 It was during this time in high school that my off and on desire to write became an imperative. And with it came the urgency to feed those necessary flames with countless books. Logocentric, I was enthralled with the written and spoken word and their power to create, inform and inspire. Since those days I continue to fan those flames as I am ever fireside.

  In honor of Ray Bradbury, below are plentiful excerpts from a June 8th, 2012 article by Bruce Walker of the American Thinker website titled “The Conservative Legacy of Ray Bradbury.”

 Ray Bradbury is dead.  His literary career spanned an incredible 73 years, and his influence was felt across the broad spectrum of American thought.  Bradbury was very conscious of the fact that he grew up in almost a pre-technological society; “[w]hen I was born in 1920,” he told The New York Times Magazine in 2000, “the auto was only 20 years old. Radio didn’t exist. TV didn’t exist. I was born at just the right time to write about all of these things.

Although he eschewed squabbling over the political issues of the day, Bradbury embraced the idea that there are grand and common themes to the human condition — and nowhere more piercingly than in his Fahrenheit 451.

 Fahrenheit 451 focuses on a single, salient aspect of human life: the written word.  Bradbury’s dystopia is fantastically simple.  Firemen exist to burn books: the final immolation of all the collected writings of men will liberate us from our past and from the long heritage of civilization.  Mass communication and particularly mass amusement have replaced the solitary acts of reading and of writing.  What Bradbury saw, of course, is the world we live in today, and what he was defending was, in the purest sense of the word, conservatism. (emphasis mine)

It is a fact of modern history that conservatism is inextricably connected with the written word.  The Torah and the Christian Bible, preserved so deliberately by believers over many centuries, are touchstones to conservatism.  Documents like our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution prescribe the purposes and limits of government and void the ambitions of power-hungry leftists.

The solemn beauty of Chambers’ Witness or Koestler’s Darkness at Noon or Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago lay open the ghastliness of souls sold to Marx’s nightmare.  The flawless spiritual rhetoric of C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, the brilliant theories in Hayek’s Road to Serfdom and Thomas Sowell’s Vision of the Anointed, and the passionate indictment of collectivism in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged use simple words to make truth clear. 

…
The left lives on emotions and images.  There is no leftist counterpart to Thomas Sowell or C.S. Lewis or Ayn Rand or Alexander Solzhenitsyn.  Bradbury grasped the unique vitality of the written word.  Bradbury once said, “Libraries raised me.  I don’t believe in colleges and universities. (emphasis mine)

Ray Bradbury:

Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years. (emphasis mine)

Bradbury on Bradbury:

 In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap opera cries, sleep walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction.

From Wikipedia:

Bradbury was a strong supporter of public library systems, and helped to raise money to prevent the closure of several in California due to budgetary cuts. He iterated from his past that “libraries raised me”, and shunned colleges and universities, comparing his own lack of funds during the Depression with poor contemporary students. He exhibited skepticism with regard to modern technology by resisting the conversion of his work into e-books and stating that “We have too many cellphones. We’ve got too many internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.” (emphasis mine)

 Ray, I agree. And thanks for igniting our imaginations.

****

Bradbury quotes sourced from Wikipedia.

Ray Bradbury website

Filed under Ray Bradbury, science fiction, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Just, Fair and Equal: the Stooges of Progressivism

June 3, 2012 Leave a comment

“Creating a world that is just, fair and equal.”  This Progressive mantra was recited again yesterday. I heard it during a television interview of two historians at a history writer’s convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The black historian’s words sounded so right, so full of righteous human endeavor but in reality his words were the sounds of empty utopian piety deficit of any moral context.

 A world that is just is a world where every man gives the other his due.  Yet government’s redistribution of wealth does the opposite. It takes away from the taxpayer what is due him, his earnings and property and gives to someone else that which is not due him. This confiscation and redistribution of personal property is for no other reason than to turn unequal incomes into equal outcomes.  This highway robbery is currently termed “social justice” by progressives today who were yesterday’s socialists. 

Here is Josef Stalin, a murderous dictator, talking about his desire to see socialism dominate the world (meaning you and me):

“…Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the capitalists and organising their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world …”

St.Thomas Aquinas in his On the Book of Job (8,1) said:

 “Justice is destroyed in twofold fashion:  by false prudence of the sage and by the violent act of the man who possess power.” 

 As we see our nation become increasingly secular we see its structure being pulled away from its Judeo-Christian cornerstone.  And in so doing we the ‘homeowners’ are becoming displaced and disordered much like furniture during a house relocation.  Without realizing it we are becoming objects devoid of human nature, becoming the un-created or the walking dead.  Removed from life’s foundation man is devoid of God-given inalienable rights as well. And with out individual inalienable rights there is only left to mankind the justification of totalitarian power, a totalitarian power that promises a “just, fair and equal world.” This secular utopian promise is not new to mankind:  Hitler and Stalin among others promoted such ‘worlds’.

 Justice can rightly be discussed only within a complete moral context that includes prudence, temperance, fortitude, charity and a host of other God-derived virtues.  To replace that moral context with a secular humanism is to presume that God did not create humans.  It presumes that God did not create man as a person, as a whole unto himself as a spiritual being that exists for itself and of itself and that wills its own proper perfection.  On these grounds secular humanism denies individual God-given inalienable rights in favor of the general ‘good.’ This denial is imposed on us today in our democracy by majority rule – voters enthralled by the secular humanism advocated by the main stream media, by our president and by Democrats in particular are voting to empty man of his individual nature through law and fiat.  They are doing so in the name of communal “social justice.” No one seems to notice except a few on the right.

 Because of human nature there will always be those in a small camp who think to themselves “every man for himself” and “screw the other guy so I can get ahead.”  And likewise, on the other hand, there will always be those who believe that each of us should give up our person, our property and our individualism for the good of the whole. Neither of these political philosophies should ever be put in power.  And yet with high-sounding, pious jingoism pumped out by the main stream media propaganda machine the left is now succeeding into promoting the latter.  We already know who the willing recepient is:   “a sucker is born every day.”

 As individuals each of us should act with justice toward our neighbor giving him his due.  What is his due?  My neighbor is due his inalienable God-given right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  I owe him truth.  I owe him the same love I give myself.  I owe him freedom from coercion. Beyond that the mantras of “social justice,” fairness and egalitarianism become the Godless mind control pumping the ever marching jackboots of rank and file humanism.  Once a sufficient numbers of useful idiots and stooges have succumbed to humanism’s opiate effect a sure and complete enslavement of our nation under a totalitarian regime will occur. Welcome to the world of the godless if Obama’s regime is re-elected in 2012.

 For a world to be “fair” someone in power has to determine what is fair.  Do you really want to use your vote for that kind of self-subjugation?  Certainly there is no Biblical a priori for demanding that life must be fair. Where does this understanding of the need for fairness come from?  Is there a philosophical argument for fairness?  A moral one?

My guess would be that much of the “fairness” allure comes from popular psychology and socialist rhetoric both which absolve people of personal responsibility and seeks to rectify a person’s losses and hardships by pointing blame at others.  Class warfare rhetoric is a prime example, as it defines others as being the reason for your lack.  More devastating to our culture and its preoccupation with fairness is our nation’s increasingly secular nature, a secular nature of envy and jealousy actively promoted by president Obama in his many “fair share” speeches.  Obama is a secularist wolf in Soros’ bought sheep’s clothing.

  A world that is “equal” is a world that removes difference for the sake of bringing every one down to the same low common denominator and nothing more.  Imagine our government choosing your husband or wife, your doctor, your food, your home and your words based on what is thought to be equal for everyone. Equal-outcome based thinking destroys incentive, destroys each man’s uniqueness, his God-given differences, his inalienable rights and eats away at civic life-like a flesh-eating disease feeding on its host. 

According to Allan Bloom in his book The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Soul’s of Today’s Students in the chapter entitled Values “Egalitarianism is conformism…Egalitarianism is founded on reason, which denies creativity”

 Imagine a world where there is no creativity and no aspirations only sameness.  Imagine being a citizen of North Korea.

Without moral-based justice as an inoculation against greed and envy people would constantly be looking at others to compare themselves with their neighbor. Forget contentment in a world that is egalitarian.

 Finally both fairness and egalitarianism, as laws enacted via secular humanist congressmen and presidents voted for, remove individual moral choice (justice) along with charity, fortitude and temperance from life. If the government does your thinking and makes your choices for you then you as an individual are absolved from any moral duty whatsoever.  What than is the purpose of the individual?  Without you the state becomes the all-powerful meat grinder and you along with everyone else become the human sausage extruded into the casings of humanism. Digest that if you will.

“A government big enough to give you everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have….” President Gerald Ford

Filed under 2012 election, Christianity, commentary, Human Interest, Liberalism, Life As I See It, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Joseph and the One Percent

June 2, 2012 2 Comments

You should know that jealousy and envy disguised as “fairness” and “equality” play important roles in a liberal’s political drama.

 Remember the Bible story of Joseph and the coat.  Joseph’s eleven brothers, assuming that Joseph was their father’s favorite son, became extremely jealous when Joseph received a beautiful coat as a gift from his father.  So jealous were they in fact that they plotted to kill Joseph.  But after much hand wringing and intervention by the oldest brother they sold Joseph into slavery.  This was deemed a more humane solution.

 The brothers in order to deflect their guilt gave their father a bloodied garment as proof of their ‘sincere’ lie that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.  The brothers then considered their “problem” to be out of sight and out of mind.  What mattered most to them was to maintain status quo – everybody was to remain equal.

 From a mature point of view the brothers should not have been jealous. Joseph’s father Jacob had every right to give the coat to whomever he wanted.  But the brothers grumbled and cried foul amongst themselves as do liberals today whenever there is a perceived breach of societal equity.

 Today’s popular psychology helps feed the popular jealousy by reverse thinking.  Instead of providing a positive unselfish viewpoint Freudian based psychology points the finger back at dad the authority figure:  “you feel that you didn’t get your fair share of love from your father.” “Your father treated your brother with more love and affection. “Your father should have given you more.  He should have been fair with you so let’s help you figure out how to get your fair share.” This nonsense is played out day after day in the liberal media and by president Obama with “fair share” rhetoric. 

 These liberal folks will tell you as they have been counseled that life has not given you your fair share so you must demand fairness: “Look at your life.  Do you have what he has?  No?” “Then demand it.” “Demand your right to healthcare. Demand your right to force the 1% to pay higher taxes. Demand your right to live off another person’s property.” This type of debilitating psychology streams from media outlets day and night promoting jealousy, envy and unrest in the people who hear it.

 Co-opted, high-sounding and sanctimonious words hide the real motivation behind the left’s policies:  jealousy and envy hiding in the wings waiting for the chance to ‘correct’ the unfairness.

 Consider this assessment of the Left’s use of innocuous language to achieve their ‘righteous’ ends. Here is Thomas Sowell, economist :

 “The left has a whole vocabulary devoted to depicting people who do not meet the standards as people who have been denied “access.” Whether it is academic standards, job qualifications or credit requirements, those who do not measure up are said to have been deprived of “opportunity,” “rights” or “social justice.”

 The word games of the left – from the mantra of “diversity” to the pieties of “compassion” – are not just games.  They are ways of imposing power by evading issues of substance through the use of seductive rhetoric.

 “Rights,” for example have become an all purpose term used for evading both facts and logic by saying that people have a “right” to whatever the left wants to give them by taking from others.

 For centuries, rights were exemptions from government power, as in the Bill of Rights.  Now the left has redefined rights as things that can demanded from the taxpayers, or from private employers or others, on behalf of people who accept no mutual obligations, even for common decency.”

 Joseph was one of twelve brothers.  He was 1/12th or 8.333 % of the whole.  8.333% had something the 91.667 % didn’t have.  Rounding off, the 92% were envious of the 8% so the 92% decided to bring the 8% down to zero, thus making things fair in their eyes. Removing Joseph from the picture also meant that their inheritance was now larger, divided only eleven ways instead of twelve.  Because of envy and jealousy the 92% proceeded to sell the 8% into slavery and bondage, though murder was considered.  Think about that before you vote for Obama and the Democrats. Think about that when you hear them demanding that the 1% should dish out their shovel ready wealth for your benefit.

 Being your brother’s keeper is so much more than keeping him around and keeping him in his place by only giving him his “fair share.”  It is dealing justly with him by giving him what is due him.  So if a man has been given a gift or has a talent bless him and do not curse him.  If a man receives more than you be thankful to God for what you do have and for his gain. But,  if you by jealousy and envy, in order to make yourself feel better about yourself, your situation and the world at large, confiscate another man’s property,  if you subjugate his person and sell him into slavery or if, when envy has matured into its final state you seek to murder the man better off than you then know that his blood will cry out for justice. Know that God will avenge those treated unjustly.

Filed under 2012 election, commentary, Liberalism, Life As I See It, Progressivism, social commentary, Wisdom, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Return to Failure is Not a Step Forward

May 31, 2012 Leave a comment

 Three and a half years into Obama’s presidency it would be naïveté and simplemindedness to blame George Bush for the economy’s problems.  During his term as president Obama, the Amateur, has taken all the wrong actions or no actions at all when action was called for.  His reign of malignant incompetency has passed the onerous Dodd-Frank act and Obamacare legislation further crippling our nation. And, Obama has surrounded himself with incompetent and partisan people who promote racial strife, class warfare and division – a second civil war has been forced onto our nation.

Obama is a president who is proud of the fact that more people of this nation are on welfare and receiving food stamps than at any time in our nation’s history.  He encourages dependence on government  Yet, one would think that an American president would work to produce the opposite effect – more people able to care for themselves.  Instead, Obama’s incompetence and his top down government policies are forcing our nation into indentured servitude fit for his plantation.  Obama and the government will become your taskmasters.  As once free people of a great nation you become slaves beholden to the whims of the masters. A political civil war must be fought to oust the slave market creators – Obama and the Dems.

If you voted for Obama in 2008 here are only some of the overall economic effects of his Hope and Change administration.  These are economic facts and they do not convey the pain, the suffering and the lost hope that millions of the unemployed feel:

From the post “The Great Obama Welfare State:”

 Much has changed in America since Barack Obama was sworn into office as the 44th president of the United States on January 20, 2009.  In less than 1,000 days as chief executive of the U.S., President Obama’s failed policies and initiatives have resulted in a dizzying array of dismal economic statistics.  As it stands now, Obama appears headed toward an economic legacy that may very well surpass Jimmy Carter in its level of failure.

Government dependence, which is defined as the percentage of persons receiving one or more federal benefit payments, is at a staggering 47%, its highest level in American history, while 21 million households are reliant on food stamps. 

…

According to the August employment report from the Department of Labor, the nation’s unemployment rate remained at 9.1% with a total of zero jobs added to the economy during the month.  Among demographic groups, Latinos had an unemployment rate of 11.3%, while African-Americans posted a rate of 16.7%.  For blacks, that represents the highest unemployment rate for this group since 1984 and a rate more than double that of whites (8%).

When Obama took office in January 2009, the nation’s unemployment rate stood at 7.8%, a rate higher than the historic norm, yet far below the current rate, and above any rate during the Bush administration.  Since June 2009, six months into Obama’s term, the nation’s unemployment rate has been at or above 9% during 25 of 27 consecutive months.

…

The economic numbers are especially poor for the demographic groups that most supported Barack Obama at the polling booth in November 2008.

Take Wayne County, Michigan, for example, where President Obama made a Labor Day economic speech.  This county, which includes the city of Detroit, voted for Obama at a rate of 74% in 2008.  It has been estimated that Detroit’s “Real Unemployment Rate” might be upwards of 45%, and Michigan remains the state with the dubious honor of having the highest unemployment rate.

 …

These woeful economic figures have come during a time in which we have experienced the most government involvement in the economy since the days of FDR and government spending without parallel in our nation’s history.

The list of taxpayer-paid government bailouts and government spending under the Obama administration is seemingly endless and has resulted in our national debt now above $14.7 trillion.

…

President Obama has thrown billions upon billions of dollars at the U.S. economy with nothing to show for it.  His so-called stimulus policies have been, in fact, contractionary and his presidency stands to be remembered as nothing short of an economic failure. (emphasis mine)

 Can anyone in their right mind believe that any of the above is good?  Can anyone in their right mind vote for Obama and Democrats again?

In November vote for anyone but Obama and you will go Forward. End the growth of failure now.

Filed under 2012 election, commentary, Culture, Human Interest, non-fiction, Political Commentary, Politics, Writing Tagged with , , , , , ,

The Rectitude of Silence

May 28, 2012 Leave a comment

The Memorial Day weekend and the recent retirement of my boss, a Vietnam veteran, tugged at some heart-strings drawing me back home…

 At 6:00 am dad nudged me out of a dream where I had been standing over Grandma Johnson’s gravesite.  Half awake I got out of bed and dressed being sure not to wake the rest of the family.  When I reached the kitchen I could see from the window that dad was already in the car waiting for me.  The car was running.  I walked quietly back to my bedroom, grabbed my trumpet case and walked out the door.

In the car I sat silently as Dad drove us to the nearby Village Hall. There the Memorial Day ceremony would take place on the front lawn.  Earlier in the year of ‘69 my father had become the village’s mayor. He was now to deliver the Annual Memorial Day Speech during this service of remembrance.

 As we drove up a podium with a microphone was placed on the lawn outside the entrance to the village hall.  All around us dozens of people were streaming out of their cars and joining the semi-circle facing the podium.  Behind the podium there stood several men from the local VFW. 

These veterans were decked out in their dress uniforms. Several of the uniforms bore chevrons and gold braids with medals festooning their chests.   Thin ribbon bars, their colors revealing the military campaigns, the theaters of battle, they had been involved with.  Bronze and silver stars and medals of commendation glinted in the morning sun light. An aged vet who had served in WWI sat in a wheel chair. There were many there who had served in WWII.  And there were some, home from their first tour in Viet Nam, who looked like teenagers compared to the older vets.

I watched as front and center on the grass a detail of vets, each representative of a different branch of the armed services, practiced presenting the colors, recalling a formation they had learned years ago.

To one side of the podium my father talked about the order of the service with the speakers and presenters.  A pastor would pray for the men and women in the military. A Marine captain would present the colors. A Navy ensign would recall Guadalcanal. An army vet would speak about things he held dear such as duty, honor, sacrifice and friendship.  He would choke up as he spoke about comrades lost in battle.

At fifteen years old it was not lost on me that guys at the age of seventeen were going off to war and some were not coming back.  The specter of going to war loomed ever larger for me, especially as horrific scenes of the Viet Nam war were shown on almost every nightly newscast.  There seemed to be no end to the conflict in sight. 

  I knew guys just two years older than me who were being drafted.  I knew that I could possibly be drafted and sent to off to Vietnam.  I knew that would have to register with the selective service when I turned seventeen.  The possibility sent chills down my spine.  I picked up my horn out of its case and began nervously pumping the valves.  Buzzing my lips against the mouthpiece I blew warm air through my trumpet. I wondered if I was good enough horn player to play with the U.S. Army Band.

 At 7 am my dad moved to the podium and spoke a welcome to all who had “come out on this beautiful Memorial Day morning.”  He acknowledged the members of the VFW and each Village trustee who had attended.  To open the service he asked a pastor to come forward and lead the service with a prayer.

 Before my father gave the pastor the microphone he asked that there would be a moment of silence in memory of those who had fallen. We bowed our heads. 

Before me stood a WWII vet, head uncovered, head bowed.  Overhearing him earlier talking to another vet I understood that he knew full well the horrors of war better than any acid-eyed tie-dyed peace protestor. This veteran had paid a significant price for any protestor’s right and the rights of Europeans and Asians to live free from tyranny’s aggression. 

American men and women were able to assemble and protest because of the sacrifices men like this soldier made on their behalf. The strength of our republic lay in our individual resistance to evil where ever it threatens us – at home or abroad. And, here at home, an evil grew which was just as insidious as foreign aggression– licentiousness.

 Carl Sr., a Presbyterian minister and the father of one of my close friends, prayed a blessing on the cherished memory of the fallen and their families.  He prayed for those in the midst of battle that very day in Southeast Asia.  He sought comfort and succor for those who live on with injuries received in battle, both physical and mental.  He prayed for all those friends and families who had grieved the loss of loved ones.  He then prayed for our nation, a nation openly riddled with discord and godlessness, submitting our country “to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.”  

 After the prayer my father spoke. Dad’s words honored those who had gone to battle to protect our liberties and the liberties of our allies. He spoke of their commitment to freedom, to a higher purpose. He spoke of their courage not often found among men and women of this age.  He spoke of their ultimate sacrifice:  “greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for his friend.”  In closing, he hallowed their memory, echoing Abraham Lincoln’s words, saying, “…that these dead shall not have died in vain.”

 The flag ceremony began.  White gloved hands unfolded the American flag. Two vets held the corners of the flag, keeping it from ever touching the ground.  Unfolded the flag was hoisted to the top of the nearby flag pole. My father, placing his hand over his heart, began:  “I pledge allegiance to the flag…” I could see that the Stars and Stripes, at ease on this serene morning, moved the veteran’s hearts to their throats, pushing tears into their eyes.  There were no placards of “Make Love Not War” here this morning.  The bearers of those signs must have been sleeping in, secure in their beds.

 After the pledge of allegiance a high school senior came to the microphone and led the singing of our national anthem.  There were more tears and more memories halting reverent shaky voices. 

I sang the anthem thinking about the year before:  while young men and women were fighting in the steamy death-laden jungles of Southeast Asia east coast hippies gathered at the Fillmore East in New York City to hear Grace Slick sing about a White Rabbit.

 Even at fifteen I knew that the peace-loving hippies had ceased fighting against the tyranny of drugs and the unbridled desires that come with it. They thought that all they needed was “Love.” And while “Peace” and “Love” became the mantras of their drug-infused songs, some of the protesters became aggressive and violent in their anti-war protests.

Bill Ayers the co-founder of the Weather Underground, a communist revolutionary group, began bombing public buildings as a sign of contempt over theU.S.involvement in the Viet Nam War. The contradiction, violent murderous aggression to obtain peaceful ends, didn’t make sense to me and it surely didn’t respect the freedom they clearly enjoyed, freedom paid for with the lives of decent peace-loving men and women.

 “Now we will have the presenting of colors”, the loud-speaker sputtered dad’s words.

 The honor guard, waiting in the background, marched to the front of the assembly.  The commander led them through the drill.  Once the men were in formation the American flag was presented and the other flags were lowered. The vets came to attention and saluted the flag.

 Commands were given to the small rifle squad.  Rifle barrels were inspected and loaded.  The vets were then commanded to raise their rifles. “Ha-Ready,” “H-Aim,” “Fire!”  The crack of twenty-one bombastic gun shots sent shock waves to my ear drums.  The air began to fill with the smell of sulfur, chalk and burnt paper – gun powder. Smoke, in small billows rose above the rifles, seeming to carry the memory of fallen soldiers up into heaven.

 After the twenty-first shot there was a long silent pause, lasting five minutes.  Then my father nodded over at me. I stood outside the assembly with two other trumpeters, the three of us standing at fifty yard intervals within a cluster of cottonwood trees. Taking a long deep breath I began to play Taps.  The second horn echoed a response after the first phrase and then the third trumpet echoed the second horn. From the corner of my eyes I could see the vets with their hands on hearts, their caps off and their heads bowed in solemn reverence:   the fallen are remembered.  Honor.  Chivalry.  Courage.  Sacrifice. The fallen are remembered.  Not forsaken. Never forsaken.

 Day is done, gone the sun
From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky
All is well, safely rest
God is near.
Fading light dims the sight
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright
From afar, drawing near
Falls the night.
Thanks and praise for our days
Neath the sun, neath the stars, neath the sky
As we go, this we know
God is near.

 A gust of wind lifted the branches above me as the third trumpet’s final echo fell silent in the distance.  The leaves shuddered and then the wind seemed to hold its breath, as if muted by grace.  In that ethereal silence with ears already deafened by the sound of a twenty-one gun salute I was reminded of love’s supreme sacrifice, of a mother’s prayers rising up, of songs tearfully sung at gravesites and of sacred words commemorating lives offered in the line of duty.  Though war will always be near because of mankind’s ungodliness God is always nearer.

That Memorial day I mournfully sounded the last trumpet call “Day is done” as a prayer of eternal rest for those men and women in the United States military who made the ultimate sacrifice.  And since that day, as I’ve grown more silent, my soul again hears that last trumpet call.  It is calling me to live a life worthy of the lives laid down for me, a life near to God.

© Sally Paradise, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Filed under History, Human Interest, Life As I See It, Memorial Day, Memorial Day, Military, non-fiction, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

No Way But Up

May 27, 2012 Leave a comment

What’s at the core of America’s problems today? Is it partisan politics or is there a greater rift in the American people?

 Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Soviet and Russian novelist, dramatist, and historian during his commencement address delivered at Harvard University, June 8, 1978, gave us his diagnosis.  His speech is a stinging indictment of the West –  its materialism, its enabling of the abuse of individual freedom, its self-serving inbred media and its disavowal of its spiritual roots:

 However, in early democracies, as in the American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted because man is God’s creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual could be granted boundless freedom simply for the satisfaction of his instincts or whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were discarded everywhere in the West; a total liberation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. … State systems were becoming increasingly and totally materialistic. The West ended up by truly enforcing human rights, sometimes even excessively, but man’s sense of responsibility to God and society grew dimmer and dimmer.

 And…

“If humanism were right in declaring that man is born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one’s life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President’s performance be reduced to the question how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.” (emphasis mine)

And…

“It would be retrogression to attach oneself today to the ossified formulas of the Enlightenment. Social dogmatism leaves us completely helpless in front of the trials of our times. Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction. We cannot avoid revising the fundamental definitions of human life and human society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man’s life and society’s activities have to be determined by material expansion in the first place? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our spiritual integrity?”

Take a look at what drives you and perhaps you will see why America is no longer a nation under God, no longer a nation of civil courage, of moral decency.  Perhaps you will see why people would vote for a president who uses class warfare rhetoric to promote the sands of material security as foundational to life and not the rock of spiritual fortitude.

Filed under 2012 election, Christian character, Christianity, commentary, History, Human Interest, Life As I See It, social commentary, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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