Darwin’s Myopia, Our Dilemma

September 12, 2015 Leave a comment

Darwin’s Myopia, in excerpts: 

Darwin’s Myopia, in excerpts: “Once, Milton, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelly “gave me great pleasure” and “I took intense delight in Shakespeare.” -Charles Darwin ~~~ “In his old age Darwin admitted, “I have lost the power of becoming deeply attached to anyone.” He assured Tennyson that there was nothing in his theories to prevent anyone believing in a supreme being. But he did not think about God or the possibility of an afterlife. He closed his mind to speculation about the infinite and concentrated on worms. One is tempted to feel that he deliberately shut his eyes to the ultimate consequences of his work, in terms of the human condition and the purpose of life or the absence of one.” Paul Johnson (emphasis added) ~~~ “It is hard to believe that Darwin himself would have accepted this huge, bottomless emptiness of life. Or, rather, perhaps because he felt it yawning, he averted his eyes from the big issues and focused them on the small: climbing plants, orchids, insectivorous plants, worms. The truth is long before he died, he had lost control over his own theory. The point at which he lost control can be precisely identified. It was when he decided that natural selection, to be of internally coherent, has to be comprehensive and universal. But if this is so, then there is no essential difference between man and any other animal. The differences, however obvious and seemingly enormous, are of degree and not of kind.” Paul Johnson (emphasis added) ~~~ Enter the paradox, missed by Darwin: “It can more easily be grasped if we see natural selection as destructive as well as constructive-and not only destructive but self-destructive. Once natural selection had created man, it was in its own danger zone. Human beings think…are conscious, and self-conscious. It is at this stage in evolution that natural selection falters and ceases to work with all its previous triumphalism and certitude.” (emphasis added) ~~~ The above quotes are taken from Historian Paul Johnson’s insightful biography Darwin: portrait of a genius Copyright © 2015 From Johnson’s concise, detailed and deliberative biography we learn that Charles Darwin inherited genius stock-“a classic case of genetic inheritance”. We read of Darwin’s luminous and wealthy patriarchs-of his paternal and maternal grandfathers and of his father. We learn of Darwin’s moneyed care and education upbringing. Self-education would soon become a way of life for Darwin. Darwin married a godly wife, Emma Wedgwood, a “clever, educated, equable, hardworking, industrious, economical, and, not least, sensitive” woman. Together they had many children together. Darwin, a lover of botany and the author of On the Origin of the Species, we are told, never involved himself with the study of anthropology. He also never regarded math to any usable extent. Statistics were never his bailiwick. It is likely that Darwin never met up with and had never studied the Christian Monk Gregor Mendel’s foundational work, a well-read paper on genetics in 1866, a writing that would support natural selection and which also gave birth to the science of genetics. Darwin, during his Beagle voyage focused on botany, insects, flora and fauna in general and the facial expression of savages such as those of Tierra del Fuego. At home he read the local press, deeply concerned about how other people viewed everyone else, scientists in particular who differed from what he considered church dogma. Darwin’s s fear of being ostracized on earth with his published work coupled with his revulsion of any thought of eternal ostracization-punishment in hell forever-kept Darwin spiritually self-ostracized. He turned away from God and turned inward with a self-defensive mode of living. At one point Darwin, we read, became enthralled with Thomas Malthus’ theory of overpopulation, an unsubstantiated and later refuted theory that would become lifelong dogma for Darwin. At the same time Darwin also denied any Christian accounting of creation. “Ever since he became a systematic naturalist, Darwin had been an evolutionist. That is, he dismissed the account of Genesis of the separate creation of the species by Yahweh as symbolic and not to be taken literally. They had some way evolved. There was nothing new, surprising or alarming in this.” Others before him held similar views. See Chapter Three, “The Loss of God.” In the chapter titled “Evils of Social Darwinism” Paul Johnson postulates, and I agree with his assessment, that a hybrid of natural selection-Social Darwinism-has led to all manner of evil: “Those who studied progress were hugely attracted by Darwin’s notion of natural selection as a relentless self-driving machine, “daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation…silently and insensibly working…at the improvement of each organic being…” Darwin’s words “Struggle” and “Survival” would later be found in the works and placards of atheists and agnostics and of German philosophers. The words would be used to secure featherbedding in the humanist realm of law as well as in sociology, psychology and psychiatry. Culture would make the leap of Social Darwinism. “Struggle” and “Survival” would be the seed words for the monstrous propagandized outgrowths of Fascists and of Socialists and of a Hitler and Marx and Engels and for the crushing rollout of Stalinist Communism. These same words were used to foment the works of Francis Galton and his sterilization eugenics program, a program practiced in many nations! Under such a program it would be decided by someone(s) who was “desirable” or “undesirable”. If a person was found “undesirable”, then that person was “unfit to procreate” and then sterilized. Soon, the same eugenics process would be used to decide which races were “unfit to live.” You can take the thread of thought from here. Today, Progressives want to define life: who is “fit to live” and who is “unfit to live” (e.g., abortion, death panels); who is to benefit (the 99%) and who isn’t to benefit (the 1%). Here’s a sample from an apparent Epicurean atheist: The website Slate, a website where myopia studies itself in the mirror; where intelligence and moral absolutes proudly go to be reprogrammed, has a review of Johnson’s book by Mark Joseph Stern. Incidentally, Slate provides its sycophantic readers with atheistic Progressive hubristic feel-good dispersions and mostly Turkish Delight. The article written by “red in tooth and claw” Mark Joseph Stern apparently hoped to incite a circle of atheistic humanist commentator wagons around the theory of evolution by using a well-known electric atheist prod-a rant that desperately wanted make the point that the “Bible is wrong”. Though mostly accepting of historian Johnson’s overview of Darwin’s life and work, Stern’s feathers are ruffled by Johnson interpolation of Darwin’s natural selection. He ends his piece with reassuring hubris: “But no thoughtful reader could possibly tolerate Johnson’s stunning intellectual dishonesty.” The article: “New Darwin Biography Is Horribly, Almost Comically Wrong” – “The latest effort to smear evolution by natural selection.” ~~ Well, think again Mark Joseph Stern. In fact read the book again. See that in no way does Paul Johnson dismiss or “smear” evolution or natural selection (you stated this in the subtitle of your article). At the end of the book, Johnson does extrapolate what he sees as the natural and ideological outcomes of the humanist “survival of the fittest” thinking tied to Darwin’s natural selection theory and apart from a God-consciousness. As can be seen by reading Slate and other ideological publications, Social Darwinism is now an applied theory that will abide no reference to mankind as created by God. Social Darwinism must abide with “the will to power”. Slate readers, I fear, would hate the correlation between God and man as much as they do their own shadows (Paul Johnson’s book) cast on cave walls. Our Dilemma: Do we take to heart and flesh the words of Slate and the Progressives and let Social Darwinism and materialism define our lives? Do we, in the same vein, live like animals and subvert reason while claiming “science made me do it” and continue to make “unnatural selections (e.g., homosexuality)? Or, do we return to our Creator? I commend Paul Johnson’s book to you. Read it and discern for yourself. I believe in God as a theistic evolutionist. ~~~ Other Christians who think like I do regarding Creation: “Even before Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, many Christians had already accepted an old Earth. One of the first supporters of evolutionary science in America—Harvard biologist Asa Gray—was a devout Christian. Conservative theologian B. B. Warfield also accepted the science of evolution, and both he and Asa Gray rejected the idea that evolution leads to atheism. Even the authors of The Fundamentals, published between 1910 and 1915, accepted an old earth. It wasn’t until a century after Darwin that a large number of evangelicals and fundamentalists began to accept the combination of flood geology and 6-day creation promoted by Seventh-day Adventists.” -How have Christians responded to Darwin’s “Origin of Species”? (emphasis added) Copyright © 2015 The BioLogos Foundation “Given the stark difference between evolution and six-day creation, many people assume that Darwin’s theory shook the foundations of the Christian faith. In truth, the literal six-day interpretation of Genesis 1-2 was not the only perspective held by Christians prior to modern science. St. Augustine (354-430), John Calvin (1509-1564), John Wesley (1703-1791), and others supported the idea of Accommodation. In the Accommodation view, Genesis 1-2 was written in a simple allegorical fashion to make it easy for people of that time to understand. In fact, Augustine suggested that the 6 days of Genesis 1 describe a single day of creation. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) argued that God did not create things in their final state, but created them to have potential to develop as he intended. The views of these and other Christian leaders are consistent with God creating life by means of evolution.” -How was the Genesis account of creation interpreted before Darwin? (emphasis added) Copyright © 2015 The BioLogos Foundation https://youtu.be/niCgFJB2SGU

“Once, Milton, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelly “gave me great pleasure” and “I took intense delight in Shakespeare.” -Charles Darwin

~~~

“In his old age Darwin admitted, “I have lost the power of becoming deeply attached to anyone.” He assured Tennyson that there was nothing in his theories to prevent anyone believing in a supreme being. But he did not think about God or the possibility of an afterlife. He closed his mind to speculation about the infinite and concentrated on worms. One is tempted to feel that he deliberately shut his eyes to the ultimate consequences of his work, in terms of the human condition and the purpose of life or the absence of one.” Paul Johnson (emphasis added)

~~~

“It is hard to believe that Darwin himself would have accepted this huge, bottomless emptiness of life. Or, rather, perhaps because he felt it yawning, he averted his eyes from the big issues and focused them on the small: climbing plants, orchids, insectivorous plants, worms. The truth is long before he died, he had lost control over his own theory. The point at which he lost control can be precisely identified. It was when he decided that natural selection, to be of internally coherent, has to be comprehensive and universal. But if this is so, then there is no essential difference between man and any other animal. The differences, however obvious and seemingly enormous, are of degree and not of kind.”

Paul Johnson (emphasis added)

~~~

Enter the paradox, missed by Darwin: “It can more easily be grasped if we see natural selection as destructive as well as constructive-and not only destructive but self-destructive. Once natural selection had created man, it was in its own danger zone. Human beings think…are conscious, and self-conscious.

It is at this stage in evolution that natural selection falters and ceases to work with all its previous triumphalism and certitude.” (emphasis added)

~~~

The above quotes are taken from Historian Paul Johnson’s insightful biography Darwin: portrait of a genius   Copyright © 2015

Darwin Portrait of a Genius

From Johnson’s concise, detailed and deliberative biography we learn that Charles Darwin inherited genius stock-“a classic case of genetic inheritance”. We read of Darwin’s luminous and wealthy patriarchs-of his paternal and maternal grandfathers and of his father. We learn of Darwin’s moneyed care and education upbringing. Self-education would soon become a way of life for Darwin.

Darwin married a godly wife, Emma Wedgwood, a “clever, educated, equable, hardworking, industrious, economical, and, not least, sensitive” woman. Together they had many children together.

Darwin, a lover of botany and the author of On the Origin of the Species, we are told, never involved himself with the study of anthropology. He also never regarded math to any usable extent. Statistics were never his bailiwick.

It is likely that Darwin never met up with and had never studied the Christian Monk Gregor Mendel’s foundational work, a well-read paper on genetics in 1866 and a writing that would support natural selection. Mendel’s pea hybrid work would give birth to the science of genetics.

Darwin, during his Beagle voyage focused on botany, insects, flora and fauna in general and the facial expression of savages such as those of Tierra del Fuego. At home he read the local press. He was deeply concerned about how other people viewed everyone else, scientists in particular, who differed from what he considered church dogma..

Darwin’s s fear of being ostracized on earth with his published work coupled with his revulsion of any thought of eternal ostracization-punishment in hell forever-kept Darwin spiritually self-ostracized from the Creator. He turned away from God and turned inward with a self-defensive mode of living.

At one point Darwin, we read, became enthralled with Thomas Malthus’ theory of overpopulation, an unsubstantiated and later refuted theory. Malthus’ theory would become lifelong dogma for Darwin. At the same time Darwin also denied any Christian accounting of creation.

“Ever since he became a systematic naturalist, Darwin had been an evolutionist. That is, he dismissed the account of Genesis of the separate creation of the species by Yahweh as symbolic and not to be taken literally. They had some way evolved. There was nothing new, surprising or alarming in this.” Others before him held similar views. See Chapter Three, “The Loss of God.”

In the chapter titled “Evils of Social Darwinism” Paul Johnson postulates, and I agree with his assessment, that a hybrid of natural selection-Social Darwinism-has led to all manner of evil: “Those who studied progress were hugely attracted by Darwin’s notion of natural selection as a relentless self-driving machine, “daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation…silently and insensibly working…at the improvement of each organic being…” Darwin’s words “Struggle” and “Survival” would later be found in the works and placards of atheists and agnostics and of German philosophers. The words would be used to secure featherbedding in the humanist realm of law as well as in sociology, psychology and psychiatry. Culture would make the leap of Social Darwinism.

“Struggle” and “Survival” would be the seed words for the monstrous propagandized outgrowths of Fascists and of Socialists and of a Hitler and Marx and Engels and for the crushing rollout of Stalinist Communism.

These same words were used to foment the works of Francis Galton and his sterilization eugenics program, a program practiced in many nations!

Under such a program it would be decided by someone(s) who was “desirable” or “undesirable”. If a person was found “undesirable”, then that person was “unfit to procreate” and then sterilized. Soon, the same eugenics process would be used to decide which races were “unfit to live.” You can take the thread of thought from here.

Today, Progressives want to define life: who is “fit to live” and who is “unfit to live” (e.g., abortion, death panels); who is to benefit and who isn’t to benefit (class and race warfare). Here’s a sample of the Progressive’s rejection of anything that might rattle their cages, written by an apparent Epicurean atheist:

The website Slate, a website where myopia studies itself in the mirror; where intelligence and moral absolutes proudly go to be reprogrammed into “who’s the bigger hypocrite” moral relativism, has a review of Johnson’s book by Mark Joseph Stern.

Incidentally, Slate provides its sycophantic readers with atheistic Progressive hubristic feel-good dispersions and mostly Turkish Delight.

The article written by “red in tooth and claw” Mark Joseph Stern apparently hoped to incite a circle of atheistic humanist commentator wagons around the theory of evolution by using a well-known electric atheist prod-a rant that desperately wanted make the point that the “Bible is wrong”.

Stern wanted to protect the atheist’s raison d’etre-a material world without moral agency (read accountability) and certainly one without Absolutes. A Darwinian Social scientism in lieu of God is more to their liking, more controllable and less scary.

Though mostly accepting of historian Johnson’s overview of Darwin’s life and work, Stern’s feathers are ruffled by Johnson’s interpolation of Darwin’s natural selection. He ends his piece with reassuring hubris:   “But no thoughtful reader could possibly tolerate Johnson’s stunning intellectual dishonesty.” The article:

“New Darwin Biography Is Horribly, Almost Comically Wrong” – “The latest effort to smear evolution by natural selection.”

~~

Well, think again Mark Joseph Stern. In fact read the book again. See that in no way does Paul Johnson dismiss or “smear” evolution or natural selection (you stated this in the subtitle of your article).

At the end of the book, Johnson does extrapolate what he sees as the ideological outcomes (Social Darwinism, humanism, nihilism, eugenics, etc.) of Darwin’s natural selection theory, a theory deliberately configured apart from God-consciousness as it was detached from Mendel’s foundational statistics experiments over time. (By way of information, before Darwin someone else would coin the phrase “survival of the fittest”.)

As can be seen by reading Slate and other smug ideological publications, Social Darwinism is now an applied theory that will abide no reference to mankind as created by God. Instead, Social Darwinism must abide with “the will to power”. Slate readers, I fear, would hate the correlation between God and man as much as they do their own shadows (i.e., Paul Johnson’s revelatory deductions) cast on cave walls.

Our Dilemma:

Do we take to heart and flesh the words of Slate and the Progressives and let Social Darwinism and materialism define our lives? Do we, in the same vein, live like animals and subvert reason while claiming “science made me do it” and continue to make “unnatural selections (e.g., homosexuality, abortion)?

Or, do we return to our Creator?

I commend Paul Johnson’s book to you. Read it and discern for yourself.

I believe in God as a theistic evolutionist.

~~~

Other Christians who think like I do regarding Creation:

“Even before Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, many Christians had already accepted an old Earth. One of the first supporters of evolutionary science in America—Harvard biologist Asa Gray—was a devout Christian. Conservative theologian B. B. Warfield also accepted the science of evolution, and both he and Asa Gray rejected the idea that evolution leads to atheism. Even the authors of The Fundamentals, published between 1910 and 1915, accepted an old earth. It wasn’t until a century after Darwin that a large number of evangelicals and fundamentalists began to accept the combination of flood geology and 6-day creation promoted by Seventh-day Adventists.” –How have Christians responded to Darwin’s “Origin of Species”? (emphasis added) Copyright © 2015 The BioLogos Foundation

 

“Given the stark difference between evolution and six-day creation, many people assume that Darwin’s theory shook the foundations of the Christian faith. In truth, the literal six-day interpretation of Genesis 1-2 was not the only perspective held by Christians prior to modern science. St. Augustine (354-430), John Calvin (1509-1564), John Wesley (1703-1791), and others supported the idea of Accommodation. In the Accommodation view, Genesis 1-2 was written in a simple allegorical fashion to make it easy for people of that time to understand. In fact, Augustine suggested that the 6 days of Genesis 1 describe a single day of creation. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) argued that God did not create things in their final state, but created them to have potential to develop as he intended. The views of these and other Christian leaders are consistent with God creating life by means of evolution.” –How was the Genesis account of creation interpreted before Darwin? (emphasis added) Copyright © 2015 The BioLogos Foundation

Filed under Apologia, Christianity, Creationism, Culture Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

A License to…Look Out For Number One

July 18, 2015 Leave a comment

Living in a Material World, Part Two

Atlas Shrugged and Went About his Own Business

Atlas Shrugged and Went About his Own Business

Not long ago, while riding the commuter train home, I sat down on an upper row seat not far from a young Indian woman. Her head was covered so I believed her to be a devoutly religious person. On her lap was Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”. I wondered what interested her in Rand’s lengthy novel.

***

As you know there has been much in the media-the politically biased-media-about corporate greed, fairness and income inequality. The “social justice “rhetoric is ubiquitous, whether here in the U.S. or in re-salvaged unrepentant Greece.

In op-eds and news commentaries we are lectured to with the by-products of the liberal elites (e.g., Paul Krugman (see my previous post about economist Krugman’s $225K payday in return for his thoughts on Income Inequality!), by Progressive politicians (e.g., Hillary Clinton and Liz Warren) and by their media puppets (e.g., MSNBC), all of whom feign a disdain for money, that “filthy lucre”, while quietly reaping enormous capital gains of their own (See also Vanity Fair’s glossy wealth-guilt sympathy card dated August 2015, the article “The Charlie War”, regarding the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo coming into mega-Euros.) Looking out for number one has never been so savoir faire.

Then not long ago we were accosted by the “commoners” – the OWS protesters. Though largely unfocused and self-trivializing we were told by our ‘betters’ that these poor folk just wanted to generate a discussion about what is ethically the “right thing to do” in the world of money and specifically money as a power or a force to use for “good” and not for selfish materialistic pleasure (ahem, Vanity Fair). The Wall Street bulls and bears became the effigies they wanted to burn or, rather, smoke to get their solvency high.

The OWS’ trashy 60’s bohemian style protest became a mixed message diatribe against a ‘rigged” system, a system that didn’t appear (in their cloud computing at least) to offer them a break into the big leagues of the adult material world. Apparently, the OWS protestors ‘just’ wanted to “survive” materially, debt-free, well-off and on their own terms-no pain, all gain, Greek style.

OWS! May Day!

OWS! May Day!

It was noted though by those standing head and shoulders (a stock chart term) above the “Leaning Forward” genuflectors that the protestors was certainly compromised in their messaging. Their signage/texting revealed the protesters demands.

Their demands included gaining “justly” (a word replacement for “freely”) the same materialistic “well-being” that someone else had achieved under the rubrics “income equality” and “free tuition” and “social justice”. Their socialist mantras were remarkably self-centered, covetous and Marxist.

Is the OWS’ ‘just’ quest for materialism-looking out for number one-any different from the Wall Street gang “running with the bulls” down Wall Street in hopes of not being gored by unleashed regulators? And, rigged or not rigged, Materialism, in the light of day, wears the same “envy green” scrubs.

***

Unions are all about looking out for Number One.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) a federal union, is fighting against reforms of the badly run VA administration. You won’t see AFGE publicly decrying a measure that would mean that their union members may be held responsible and they may be fired or their bonus withheld. AFGE is currently working in Congress to stop VA reform. From a Daily Caller Article:

A union representing government employees on Tuesday condemned a bill meant to reform how bonuses are awarded at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“It’s time to turn the page on morale-busting measures like Rep. Miller’s proposal and focus on the mission of delivering top-quality care to America’s veterans,” AFGE President J. David Cox Sr. declared in a statement.

Yeah, it’s about time to focus on others…

Here is why AFGE’s is against VA reform:

A Koch Brothers-funded front group called the Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) has been making waves on Capitol Hill lately, promoting a long list of anti-VA, anti-worker proposals that would break this sacred promise and leave veterans out to dry. Led by former Wall Street bank employee and failed Senate candidate Pete Hegseth, CVA has been the driving force behind efforts to dismantle the VA health care system and trim service members’ hard-earned disability and other benefits.

Yeah, those evil Koch Brothers trying to help veterans by removing bad employees-not Number One on AFGE’s list.

Why make the VA better for our wounded veterans when union members are more G_d-Damn important?

Looking out for Number One leaves the robbed and wounded man left for dead alongside the road…until the Good Samaritan comes along to care for him.

 

***

Going Number One Onto Others:

The recent abominable SCOTUS decision made it possible for homosexual couples to look out for their Number One mission-use their new-found legal licentiousness to bash Christians and to seek material gain via law suits against Christian wedding cake bakers who refuse their demands. All done under the guise of ‘true love’ and “equality” (actually, unabated unnatural desires).

Looking out for number one has never been so “User friendly” for lawyers and bullies.

***

A well-known looking out for Number One persona:

Objectivism is my Game.

Objectivism is my Game.

Ayn Rand’s (1905-1982) novels portray the philosophy of Objectivism. The (paper) weighty “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead” clearly identify the key tenets of Objectivism: objective reality, reason, individualism over group-think, self-interest and ego-ism.

Ayn Rand’s Objectivism:

There are four pillars to Rand’s objectivism: objective reality, reason, self-interest and capitalism.

Reason: direct stimuli from nature; there is no God, no soul, no intuition, nothing beyond what we determine though reason.

For Rand Man is all there is. There is no spiritual reality of angels, demons and God. The heroism of man was to be worshipped, as did the Greek stoic philosophers and the food-and-wine-friendly Epicureans who avoided God and enjoyed the ‘heroics’ of pleasure.

Early Greek philosophers taught that man was mortal, corporal, and that sensory inputs were the only reality available to mankind. God was described as elsewhere and angry so therefore the true God was not of any material benefit to mankind. Avoid pain, seek pleasure. Be your own hero. Be Number One.

Rand’s Self-interest: your own self-interest and happiness is what life is all about. You take care of Number One.

Capitalism for the Objectivist is all about individual rights and private property; self-reliance, free trade, entrepreneurship and initiative all operate freely and without coercion within capitalism and the free market system. I have no issues with Rand’s objective definition of capitalism. As a Christian in the Kingdom of God I do have a problem with Rand’s use of capitalism as a means to flee from God and from responsibility towards others and to use it as self-promotion, as a prosperity gospel.

Ayn Rand’s described herself as a romantic-realist. Her Objectivism is atheistic, rejecting faith and religion. It believes only in reason and what the self can determine. For her it was every man for himself, the survival of the fittest. This viewpoint is born out of a godless Darwinian materialist view of life, the Enlightenment era and philosophical naturalism. Objectivism is blind faith in Number One-Yourself.

Rugged individualism, for Rand, was a force like other forces of nature and something to be reckoned with. As you might imagine this type of thinking would certainly feed the ego and especially if the person who embraces Objectivism is successful in life. For these people pride of place means you’ve made it to the top of the heap. Your self-esteem is rewarded. You are recognized by your peers as having objectively “made it.”

Ayn Rand’s extreme philosophy is most likely a reaction to her early life in Russia during the Communist Revolution. As a child she learned to despise coercion, government intrusion and totalitarianism. She came to oppose statism and collectivism while she promoted social systems which protected individual rights and personal initiatives. As a romantic realist she hated the dystopian effects created by those seeking to create a man-made utopia. Though a polemic, Rand never insisted that others be made to accept her philosophy. She was “laissez faire” with respect to others.

A Christian Perspective:

The Kingdom of God’s answer to Looking Out for Number One: kenosis- a ‘self-emptying’ of one’s own will and becoming entirely receptive to God’s divine will.

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” The Apostle Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, II Corinthians 8:9

A Christian’s response to Ayn Rand

***

The call of "Number One"

The call of “Number One”

Before Ayn Rand another voice of philosophical naturalism had chosen the similar atheistic force with which to respond to “the law of life”: Jack London (1876 – 1916).

Remember Buck and the rugged ‘individual’s’ response to “The Call of the Wild”? It’s a tale of primitive and bestial survival, of self-interest, of the strong seeking to overcome nature. It’s a tale of reversion to innate instincts and characteristics of our evolutionary heritage-a looking out for Number One and a dog eat dog meal ticket.

Filed under Economics, Political Commentary, Progressivism Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

COEXIST Cigars For Sale. Cheap!

November 26, 2014 Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://youtu.be/ncRGoqNUb1w

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

 

Truth is another victim.

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

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

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

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

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

 And since Obama is now (mis)quoting Scripture…

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

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

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

Hidden-Treasures-Painting

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Quoth the Paradise: Nevermore!

December 30, 2012 2 Comments

Quoth the Paradise:  Nevermore!

 Please!  No more tattoos.  Cover up your butterfly, your Mayan symbol of fertility, your undulating butt cheeks covered with spider webs.  Cover up your magic marker body.  I do not want to see it.

 Please! No more women talking endlessly on cell phones while driving an SUV or a mini-van.  They are multi-tasking my patience. 

 Please, no more skinny jeans.  If I wanted to look at a blue toothpick then I will go puncture a Smurf. 

 Please, no more make-your-skin-crawl women: Rachel Maddcow, Ellen, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi. 

 Please, no more city mayors telling us we can’t drink a biggie size drink or carry a gun or have a Chic-fil-A restaurant in our district.

 And please.  No more government!

When you voted for Obama you voted to make your life harder. I know I know. You thought life would be better but you were deceived by the “social justice” propaganda.

 Voting for tax and spend Democrats (Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi) means that you spend less time with your family and more time working to pay your bills.  Sure Barrack and Michelle will continue to get Hawaiian vacations and Barrack will continue to play hundreds of hours of golf but your family will have to put off vacations because of … 1) rising Federal and State taxes, 2) because of government regulations affecting your workplace which affects your pay and 3) because of rising consumer prices due to corporation taxes. And, tax rate increases for the wealthy do not occur in a vacuum.  Increasing the tax rates for the wealthy affects everyone negatively.

 With Democrats you are placed in what I call a Moronic Squeeze:  government through taxation (including the newly tax-mandated Obamacare) demands more of your money.  So now you will have to work more hours in order to take care of your family.  Then because you are both working so much you can’t spend time with your kids, time the kids desperately need.  Instead,  a public school takes over your children.  Then the public school system demands more money to teach your children and then government will come back for more tax money from you.  Phew! You and your children are put in an ever tightening vise by government.

 More devastating, government creates fiscal and moral poverty; “social justice” is the scam that is used to take money from your pocket and put it where it best serves a politician and his reelection needs.

 When both parents are working who’s with the kids?  Are you letting the public school inculcate its “diversity” values into your children because you don’t have the time to spend with them, because you work so many hours to pay government for the first five months of the year?

 Social justice, better simply, “justice”,  is learned at home.  Invest your money there and not in government:  spend time with your children, teach them what is good.  The returns will be great.  Government gives you pennies on the dollar return on your tax payments.

 When you keep more of your own money you have more options and more time to spend with family.  Voting for more government – more Democrats – does not give you more time with your precious family.  Instead you must work all the harder to meet government’s demands.  Obamacare is only one of the huge financial demands now placed on the middle class.

 2014 & 2016:  Think about your family before you vote for more government (and less take home pay) in the form of a Democrat candidate.

Added Dec 31st, 2012:  The Best Bumper Stickers of 2012 – the Legal Insurrection edition. Here’s one example:

Bumper-Sticker-Gypsum-CO-Forward

I have to ask:atlanta-Freedom

Filed under 2014 election, commentary, Economics, family, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“That’s What We Are Creating…”

December 8, 2012 Leave a comment

This is where my hard-earned taxpayer money is going…strum, strum, strum right down the drain:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DL-a-r7iJIU

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The Taxonomy of The No-Class Warrior’s Obamanomics

August 23, 2012 Leave a comment

Hyperboleconomics: the promotion of the Keynesian fallacy that increasing the national debt by spending trillions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars to create a handful of “not-so shovel ready jobs” is money well spent. Keynesian economics can easily be described as the economic stimulus theory whereby your wife tries to spend her way out of her depression.  Sound familiar?  It’s deny side economics.

Cronyeconomics:  The channeling of billions of dollars to fund green projects and then rerouting the money to the pockets of those who know how to spend your money.  Bailouts for supporters of the Obama regime: big unions, big auto manufacturers, big banks, etc..  No bailouts for the little guys – the small businessmen and women struggling to make payroll.

Feareconomics:  “Republicans will push granny over the cliff.  We must live for today.  We promise that there will be no death panel for Medicare.  (That’s reserved only for Obamacare patients.)  Medicare will die soon of natural causes anyway.  Besides, your grandkids are young.  They can fend for themselves.”

Hopeychangeyeconomics:  year one – pass no budget, spend, demand higher taxes; year two – pass no budget, spend, demand higher taxes; year three – pass no budget, spend, demand higher taxes; year four – pass no budget, spend, demand higher taxes

Fairshareconomics: the proposition that even though half the nation pays taxes and the other half who does not pay taxes benefits from the revenue is considered not fair enough.  The proposition that those who pay taxes pay 100% more in taxes than those who do not is considered not fair enough.  The proposition that even though there is a progressive tax structure in place which rises in percentage as you earn more, this is not fair enough.  “Fair share” economics ultimately is where you pay until there is no more to pay and then its still not fair because you don’t have even more to pay.   Adam Corolla on taxes and fairness (caution:  language).

BlameBusheconomics:  “It’s not my fault.”  “We were handed a raw deal – the Presidency and the Senate.  We will need more time and all your money to throw at this.  Just look how much has been accomplished since we came into office.  We need four more years to pass no budget, spend your money and demand higher taxes.”

Nocarbonfuelseconomics:  wind turbines and solar are the best energy sources to transmit renewable campaign money through companies like GE, Solyndra and others. Besides, with EPA regulations we will make it impossible to generate fossil fuels in this country because we want the world to like us.  Government regulations are key to snuffing out any enterprise which uses natural resources.  “The loss of jobs and homes along the way is collateral damage in our socially conscious war against big oil, big coal and big gas. Remember we hate Imperialistic America abroad but it is OK, though, to be thoroughly imperialistic about green energy here at home.  Our righteous ends demand it. Buy the light bulb we tell you to buy or else.”

Chomskyesquesconomics:  The Industrial-military complex is evil.  America is Satan.  America is a terrorist.  Capitalism is colonialism.  Helping poor nations flourish increases Americanism around the world.  America is to blame for the problems in the world. America should be like Mahatmas Noam, the swami of “universal grammer” and peaceful denial.

“Youdidntbuilthat”economics: :  the presumptuous economic theory that says that because the government has taxing authority over you this same government can take credit for your hard work.  This economic theory assumes that roads and bridges were all it took to create Apple – no human initiative whatsoever is necessary either to create tax revenue or to create products for consumption.  The machinery of government “allowed” Apple to create the iPods, iPads, the Mac Book Pros.  In other words, government is the kid next to you in class, the kid who didn’t study for his finals and who now looks over your shoulder for the answers that will eventually propel him on to greater opportunities to take credit for other’s hard work.

Nannystateconomics:  government is to be your provider, your parent, your priest and your panacea. You should be thankful to be another brick in the wall. “Trust me.”

Obamacare:  receiving political “clap” from Big Brother.  “The time has changed for come.” (at 2:58)

    Antidotes:  Romney-Ryan Tea –  great taste, less filing

Click here for the The Broke Party

Filed under commentary, Economics, Life As I See It, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Lord of Ism’s Prayer

July 22, 2012 Leave a comment

Our Obama which art in the White House

Wallowed be thy fame.

Thy -ism come,

Thy will be done nationally

As it is in North Korea.

Give us this day our daily ration.

And forgive us our liberty,

As we forgive those who use their liberty to pay their own way.

And lead us not into the debt-free living,

But deliver us from clarity

For thine is the government, the IRS and the media

For as long as we vote.

Ahem.

© Sally Paradise, 2012, All Rights Reserved

 

Here is an interesting statement from Chairman Mao, April 30, 1971: 

“China should learn from the way America developed, by decentralizing and spreading responsibility and wealth among 50 states.  A central government could not do everything.  China must depend upon regional and local initiative.  It would not do [spreading his hands] to leave everything up to him [Mao].

 https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/harris/1973/02/sincelin.htm

Filed under commentary, Liberalism, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Fog of Controversy Has Lifted Leaving Us With…

March 15, 2012 Leave a comment

   …Obamacare in the light of day:  “…the bill is substantially more expensive – twice as much as the original $900 billion price tag.” (emphasis mine)

Move over Greece, Portugal and Europe.  The US will join you soon with its own version of bankruptcy, a bankruptcy due to the ill-advised actions of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Hussein Obama and the Democrat Party.

What good is democracy when you use it to f— yourself and others!

Democrats like to think of themselves as touchy-feely people who care about things (“things” being the operative word).  The “things” they care about are rights, animals, abortion (a fetus is a “thing” to them), licentiousness and the environment.  They are so focused on how their world is affected by these “things” that the never look beyond their own stage one thinking to see the consequences of their voting actions.  They shoot themselves and others in the foot when they elect politicians who pass bills which do so much more harm than good.

A vote for Obama and the Democrats in the 2012 elections will keep the continuum of STUPID in place.

***

That was the bad news.  Here is the worse news, as reported by the CBO (emphasis mine): 

“Obama’s budget would increase the size of the national debt held by the public from $10.1 trillion today to $18.8 trillion in 2022, according to CBO. “

Filed under 2012 election, Life As I See It, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Minimum Wage Or The Price We Pay For Stupid

February 4, 2012 Leave a comment

I have noticed a definite pattern emerging ever since before the 2008 election of BHO:  many voters have given up thinking and have decided to vote for the popular shills of humanism, otherwise known as the educated elite.

 BHO, the POTUS, is surrounded by Harvard grads, each of whom has been steeped in liberal mores taught by educators who have risen to the level of their incompetence (the Peter Principle).  I like what Tomas Sowell, economist, said about these professors:

 “Too often what are called “educated” people are simply people who have been sheltered from reality for years in ivy-covered buildings.  Those whose whole careers have been spent in ivy-covered buildings, insulated by tenure, can remain adolescents on into their golden retirement years.”[1]

And, Walter E. Williams:

“People who denounce the free market and voluntary exchange, and are for control and coercion, believe they have more intelligence and superior wisdom to the masses. What’s more, they believe they’ve been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Of course, they have what they consider good reasons for doing so, but every tyrant that has ever existed has had what he believed were good reasons for restricting the liberty of others.”

In my estimation the American voter, though often degreed, has become less educated and intellectually apathetic. This voter has become a stage-one thinker – someone who finds some humanist value in a policy, votes for the person promoting it and doesn’t want to think any further about it, believing that they have done their good deed for the day.  Yet, the policy does not operate in isolation and, typically, havoc and damage control ensues when the policy is implemented. Our nation is left ever more crippled.  The Minimum Wage Law (MWL) is one prime example of this stage one thinking implemented and voted for by people who let others do their thinking.

Thomas Sowell in his excellent book the Thomas Sowell Reader, a compendium of his many newspaper articles and essays, wrote an article titled Minimum Wage Laws. Here are some of his thoughts from that article to ponder deeply before the next election:

 “By the simplest and most basic economics, a price artificially raised tends to cause more to be supplied and less to be demanded than when process are left to be determined by supply and demand in a free market.”[2]

 “The unemployed are made idle by wage rates artificially set above the level of their productivity.  Those who are idled in their youth are of course delayed in acquiring the job skills and experience which could make them more productive – therefore higher earner – later on.”[3]

 “Although most industrial societies have minimum wage laws, not all do.  Switzerland and Hong Kong have been among the exceptions – and both have had very low unemployment rates.”[4]

 “Higher costs for a given quantity and quality of labor tend to produce less employment, just as higher prices for other things tend to produce fewer sales. Moreover, higher costs in the form of mandated benefits have the same economic effect as higher costs in the form of minimum wage laws.  The explicit minimum wage rate understates the labor costs imposed by European governments, which also mandates various employer contributions to pension plans and health benefits, among other things.  Europe’s unemployment rates shot up when such government-mandated benefits to be for by employers grew sharply during the 1980 and 1990s.”[5]

 Average hourly compensation in Europe of manufacturing employees in the European Union countries in general is higher than in the United States or Japan.  So is unemployment.”[6]

 “Labor unions also benefit from minimum wage laws, are among the strongest proponents of such laws, even though their members typically make much more than minimum wage rate.”[7]

 “Just as businesses seek to have government impose tariffs on imported goods that compete with their products, so labor unions use minimum wage laws as tariffs to force up the price of non-union labor that competes with their members for jobs.”[8]

 “…when all is said and done, most empirical studies indicate that minimum wage laws reduce employment in general, and especially the employment of younger less skilled, and minority workers.”[9] (emphasis mine)

Thomas Sowell’s article is chock full of empirical information and common sense economics.  I could continue to quote many of his insightful words.  I’ll provide one more series of quotes about minorities and the implementation of MWLs the past century:

 “Again, it is necessary to note how price is a factor even in racial discrimination…It was only after a series of minimum wage escalations began that black male teenage unemployment not only skyrocketed but became more than double the unemployment rates among white male teenagers.”[10] (emphasis mine)

 Stage-one voting creates unemployment.  Obama, the educated One, Jesse Jackson and the Congressional Black Caucus should know the facts.   But in ignoring the economic data they choose “navel-gazing, hand-wringing or self-dramatization” to preach a Liberal Utopia that will never arrive on this earth. MWLs produce the opposite effect, in fact!

 Don’t ignore the data. Read. Understand. Think beyond stage-one.  Uncle Sam needs You more than ever.

Again, Thomas Sowell:

 “People who cannot be bothered to learn both sides of the issues should not bother to vote.”[11]

 

[1] Thomas Sowell, The Thomas Sowell Reader, p. 401

[2] Ibid., p. 108

[3] Ibid., p. 108

[4] Ibid., p. 109

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid., p.110

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid., p.111

[10] Ibid., p. 115 & 117

[11] Ibid., p.397

Note:  Mitt Romney has come out in favor of auto-increasing the MWL.  I am voting Newt Gingrich in the Illinois GOP primary.

Update:  In a 02/07/2012 RCP article regarding Mitt Romney’s faux conservatism, Thomas Sowell said:

“Nor are such consequences of minimum wage laws peculiar to blacks or to the United States. In Western European countries whose social policies liberals consider more “advanced” than our own, including more generous minimum wage laws and other employer-mandated benefits, it has been common in even prosperous years for unemployment rates among young people to be 20 percent or higher.

The economic reason is not complicated. When you set minimum wage levels higher than many inexperienced young people are worth, they don’t get hired. It is not rocket science.

Milton Friedman explained all this, half a century ago, in his popular little book for non-economists, “Capitalism and Freedom.” So have many other people. If a presidential candidate who calls himself “conservative” has still not heard of these facts, that simply shows that you can call yourself anything you want to. “

Thoughts from Uncle Miltie:

Filed under 2012 election, Economics, Liberalism, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Occupy Thanksgiving

November 24, 2011 Leave a comment

Words you will never see on a OWS or union protest placard:  “THANK YOU”.

At the table this Thanksgiving there will be those who give thanks. There will also be those who pull up to the table demanding more. This latter group will echo Obama’s class warfare rhetoric griping about inequities and fairness.

There are those who do not give thanks. They will be waiting for their demands to be met. They will beg for “this, that or the other thing”, bemoaning their own situation as being intolerable.  For them there is never a thought of thanksgiving even when their most dire needs have been met.  I am reminded of the historical account of Jesus healing the Ten Lepers:

 “As he (Jesus) was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” (emphasis mine)

As this account reveals people will gladly seek benevolence from others but they will often do so out of the understanding that they deserve such gifts or benefits.  This is especially true if government has become the benefactor.  And because our government has deep pockets full of other people’s money these same people may certainly feel that they have “right”  to demand things from the government bureaucrats who have set themselves up as demi-gods of benevolence. These people believe that they “justly” deserve government beneficence because they feel that they are victims of society and also because the politicians they have put in office promised them “hope and change”; “hope and change” outcomes promised in terms of benefits on the barrel head in exchange for their vote.

Our U.S. Constitution provides for the protection of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The 5th Amendment offers protections to our “life, liberty, or property,” noting we cannot be deprived of any of them without due process of law. Our Constitution does not guarantee the end results under that protection.

In effect, you are promised a fence around the rose garden but not the roses themselves. I learned from my Dutch grandfather that roses require sun, rain, good soil, fertilizing, protection from frost and rabbits and substantial pruning. It takes lots of time and energy, lots of individual attention to create an American Beauty rose. Yet, some people don’t want to work that hard or to be so dedicated.  So, they ask the government for the cut roses from someone else’s garden. They do this to make their lives just a little “nicer”, a little “richer”.  But, these cut roses quickly whither and dry up and the same people are back asking for more of them.

Dismissing the U.S. Constitution’s accumulated knowledge, wisdom and Judeo-Christian roots as outmoded and not rational for today’s society, social justice advocates demand equal outcomes.  They do so by demanding that others be deprived at any cost so that others will receive the benefits they so desire.  They do not care about another’s personal property, property such as an accumulated wealth. They care solely about their own accumulated gain. They see inequity not as a summit to climb but as a lot of work and effort that can be easily circumscribed with political action.

These advocates make their demands through willing politicians like Obama, Reid , Pelosi, Barney Frank (MA), Dick Durbin (IL), etc.  These politicians campaign with promises of changing the social landscape to favor their own version of utopian socialism. They usurp the black and white meaning of our U.S. Constitution by “intuitively” reading it so as to give the government the power to mandate social change via taxation, via the commerce clause and via the politician’s own self-interest of encapsulating power via re-election.

Speaking of self-interest, capitalism is a person who out of self-interest seeks to barter or sell a good or a service to another. The ‘other’, thinking he will benefit from the exchange, makes the trade-off. The exchange is made and both parties are happy, satisfying each their own self-interest.

Utopian socialism is a one-way exchange. It is taking from Peter to pay Paul. It is depriving Peter of what he has earned, grown, protected with his life, it is taking his savings and his wealth and then giving it to Paul for no other reason that Paul may need or want the same things. This is what is now being called “social justice” but it is not justice. It does not give Peter what is due him – the right to his property. It does not give Paul what is due him – the right to pursue happiness. This exchange is more accurately described as highway robbery.

These social justice advocates presume that the U.S. Constitution meant for them to have equal outcomes or perhaps even that the Constitution is outdated, archaic and without justice as they see it.  The social justice protestors cry out “Have pity on us, government, give us what we think we need and what we so badly want. You have the means. We gave you the place of authority.”

In 1993, during a lecture titled “The Meaning of “Justice””, Russell Kirk of the Heritage Foundation said:

“In this disordered age, when it seems as if the fountains of the great deep had been broken up, our urgent need is to restore a general understanding of the classical and Christian teaching about justice. Without just men and women, egoism and appetite bring down civilization.  Without strong administration of justice by the state, we all become so many Cains, every man’s hand against every other man’s. The humanitarian fancies himself zealous for the life impulse; in reality, he would surrender us to the death impulse.  The humanitarian’s visions issue from between the delusory gates of ivory; justice issues from between the gates of horn.”

 Today’s OWS protestors plead for pity from others using lawlessness.  They are being urged on to political violence by men who should know better. They also do not seek God for their daily bread. That would require humility on their part.

Just as ten lepers were healed and only one returned to give thanks, nine out of ten of us may likely think that we deserve such a “gift” and just walk away, pleased with ourselves having pled for pity and receiving something in return for our “effort”.  The exclusion of “Thank You” from the placards of men’s lives reveals the lifting up of “MY Rights” and the idolatrous nature behind most dissent and protest. The idea of justice, “to each his own”, is being  replaced with “feed me and then ask of me virtue.”

The Greatest Disparity in our society is between those who with contentment give thanks to God and their neighbor and those who, like leeches, demand ever more and more from government and their neighbor.

  It is time to Occupy Thanksgiving without asking for anything in return. And, let us give God what is due Him:

“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”   Psalm 107:1

Filed under 2011, Christianity, Culture, Economics, essay, Liberalism, Life As I See It, Non-fiction, Political Commentary, Politics, social commentary, Writing Tagged with , , , , , ,

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