The Bill of Rumored Rights

March 21, 2019 Leave a comment

 

Retired prison psychiatrist Anthony Daniels (Theodore Dalrymple) speaks and writes with keen insight gathered from his experience of the human condition and of its surrounding culture. Here is a short introduction of Daniels from the website Goodreads:

Anthony Malcolm Daniels, who generally uses the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, is an English writer and retired prison doctor and psychiatrist. He worked in a number of Sub-Saharan African countries as well as in the east end of London. Before his retirement in 2005, he worked in City Hospital, Birmingham and Winson Green Prison in inner-city Birmingham, England.

Daniels is a contributing editor to City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, where he is the Dietrich Weismann Fellow. In addition to City Journal, his work has appeared in The British Medical Journal, The Times, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Salisbury Review, National Review, and Axess magasin.

In 2011, Dalrymple received the 2011 Freedom Prize from the Flemish think tank Libera!.

Not only is Anthony Daniels a prolific writer and well-read, as you’ll discover, he is also well-traveled. His accounts of staying in five countries (North Korea, Albania, Romania, Vietnam and Cuba), all five of which operate under leftist-ideology based regimes, is recorded in The Wilder Shores of Marx: Journeys in a Vanishing World. Would-be fellow travelers in the long march of cultural Marxism, both young and old, would do well to read about life in the totalitarian state under centralized government. Daniel’s accounts would be especially revelatory for the would-be fellow travelers promoting ‘democratic’ socialism, the ‘gateway drug’ to full-blown addiction to life under top down government. Democratic socialism is currently being promoted as the means to secure peace of mind (aka happiness) by coercively and exhaustively taxing the wealthy and then having unelected central planners redistribute the take. The uninformed traveler could also read about the state of Venezuela.

I first encountered Anthony Daniels via his essays in The New Criterion, a monthly literary magazine I subscribe to. His extensive bibliography is listed in the Wikipedia entry Theodore Dalrymple.

Having read several of his books, I recommend, for starters, the book noted above and the two books shown below.

Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass (start with this book)

Admirable Evasions: How Psychology Undermines Morality

Numerous articles written by Anthony Daniels appear in the Law and Liberty blog.

Below is a video of Anthony Daniels speaking at the Property and Freedom Society Annual Meeting last year (2018). His talk on multiculturalism begins with the subject of rights as misunderstood and misapplied today. My take: rights-gatherers employ victim status leveraged with inalienability to secure advantages in society. With their Bill of Rumored Rights they seek to bypass “the pursuit of happiness” and go directly to happiness.

 

How did our culture get turned on its head? “German Marxists”…”Marx and Freud”…”the Frankfurt school… left-wing academics… Columbia University”…

[Italian communist Antonio] Gramsci also looked to culture. If the Left truly wanted to win, it needed to first seize the “cultural means of production”: the culture-forming institutions such as the media and universities and even churches. He saw societal transformation coming about by a “march through the institutions.”…

Gramsci insisted that leftist intellectuals needed to question everything, including moral absolutes and the Judeo-Christian basis of Western civilization. They needed to frame seemingly benign conventions as systematic injustices that must be exposed. This is where we got professors fulminating against everything from “the patriarchy” to “white imperialism” to “transphobia.”

Marx at 200: Cultural Marxism’s Long Happy March Through the Institutions

 

How is the Cultural Revolution brought to bear on others? Enforceable Subjectivity (article by Theodore Dalrymple):

According to the Metropolitan Police, “evidence of the hate element is not a requirement. You do not need to personally perceive the incident to be hate related. It would be enough if another person, a witness or even a police officer thought that the incident was hate related.”

Example given:

Had a message from Guildford police tonight about my tweets following an appearance on @GMB with Susie Green and Piers Morgan. Susie Green has reported me for misgendering her daughter.

https://twitter.com/CF_Farrow/status/1107779340723515392

“A British police force is investigating @CF_Farrow, a journalist, because of words that she published,” writes @jameskirkup

https://twitter.com/SpectatorUSA/status/1108144367716302848

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One Nation Under a Bed of Roses

July 22, 2018 Leave a comment

 

Our current notion of cultural diversity — trumpeted as the repudiation of racism and biological essentialism — in fact grew out of and perpetuates the very concepts it congratulates itself on having escaped. The American love affair with race — especially when you can dress race up as culture — has continued and even intensified. Almost everything we say about culture (that the significant differences between us are cultural, that such differences should be respected, that our cultural heritages should be perpetuated, that there’s a value in making sure that different cultures survive) seems to me mistaken. We must shift our focus from cultural diversity to economic equality to help alter the political terrain of contemporary American intellectual life.

–The Trouble With Diversity by Walter Benn Michaels, August 13, 2006

 

 What do you make of the above quote from the web article? What do you make of “We must shift our focus from cultural diversity to economic equality to help alter the political terrain of contemporary American intellectual life.”?

 

 

I thought of how everything the Left offers as societal ‘fix’ is off-kilter. I thought of how the Left seeks to alter the political and cultural terrain so as to espouse the “For the people” narrative for their own Ruling Class benefit.

Has dictator literature a future? If the absence of a sense of humor in public life is anything to go by, it very well might. Indeed, dictator-like literature seems to be increasingly common in academe, as a genre to be imitated rather than eschewed. It is either self-imposed or a manifestation of ideological conformism in the face of social pressure. – Author Authoritarians: The literary talent (or lack thereof) of tyrants at the typewriter by Anthony Daniels

I also was reminded of some of the clarion words of Thomas Sowell, economist:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Regarding the initial quote, there are certainly cultural differences and they are certainly not of equal worth to humans. A culture of cannibalism or animism or Voodoism or a culture of abortion where human life is deemed an inconvenience or a culture of hedonism where self-pleasure is god or a culture of enforced slavery to a socialist political state or a culture of ‘red in tooth and claw’ materialism…none of these are worthy of humans.

We must maintain what is worthy of humans. That would include the cultural heritages that have sustained and benefitted humans down through time: mother and father families, transcendent art, music, and literature, the rule of law, and Christianity. There are without doubt differences between us that are more significant than cultural. These differences come down to whether one believes in the one True God and His kingdom way of life. One cannot equalize light and dark

Regarding the income inequality narrative, promoted as “For the people”: the benefit is solely for those pushing it – the ruling class who want to maintain control of their narrative and of you to flesh out their narrative. But, income inequality should not be an impetus driving anyone to do anything. Income inequities like cultural inequities should be resolved by the free individual and not by coercion.

People, though born equally human, are not equal in ability, desire or will. What should happen: each inequity should be the impetus for us to assess our personal values and goals in the light of loving God and our neighbor. Coercive income redistribution, whether via taxation or increased minimum wages, does not enable human flourishing. Rather, coercion supports further dependence, class animosity and the intellectual’s narrative that goes toward tenure consideration in the ivory tower.

 

The Left’s focus on materialism under the guise of ‘righting’ the Left’s storied wrong (“income inequality”) will have the same devastating effects as defining our culture down to the lowest common denominator for equality’s sake: humans acting as irrational animals to survive.

By seeing every human being as a soulless captive to impersonal economic forces, socialism kills human dignity. After that, as we have witnessed too vividly and too frequently, killing the human body becomes inevitable. – Socialism Disregards Human Dignity, Eugénio Lopes

  In its attempts to “alter the political terrain”, the Left demands that there should be no work effort without income equality. Red clenched fists (an ersatz bed of roses) is the Left’s social justice poster.

 As a follower of Jesus in his kingdom on earth, I have no doubt whatsoever that the Evil One wants a social justice where people ‘love their neighbor’ vicariously through an impersonal government program. The Evil One does not want anyone to give directly to their neighbor. That is what Jesus wants – agape love. The Evil One would rather you move your mouse to virtue signal than do any heavy lifting for your neighbor. On the receiving end, the Evil One would rather you be one of the nine lepers would did not return to Jesus and give thanks to him for what he did for ten neighbors. The Evil One would rather you get what you want and not be grateful.

If the Left’s income equality narrative ever becomes reality you can be sure that we will become one nation under a bed of red-fisted roses.

 

 

 

Added 7-23-2018:

 

Filed under Christianity, Current events 2018, Economics, socialism Tagged with , , , ,

Michael Novak – Catholic Scholar and “celestial philosopher”

May 21, 2017 Leave a comment

 

“Capitalism forms morally better people than socialism does,” Mr. Novak said in a 2007 interview with Crisis, a magazine he and the scholar Ralph McInerny founded in 1982. “Capitalism teaches people to show initiative and imagination, to work cooperatively in teams, to love and to cherish the law; what is more, it forces persons not only to rely on themselves and their own moral qualities, but also to recognize those moral qualities in others and to cooperate with others freely.”- Michael Novak, Catholic Scholar Who Championed Capitalism, Dies at 83

“At the heart of the Novakian vision is freedom—free people, free markets, free institutions. But Novak’s vision of freedom, like [Irving] Kristol’s, is not the doctrinaire libertarianism that the word evokes for many today. Much less is it the “me generation” liberal counterfeit of freedom that licenses people to do whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want, with whomever they want, so long as there is no immediate palpable harm to others.

Rather, it is the idea of unleashing the human spirit for the creative pursuit of excellence.”

” –Michael Novak, 1933–2017, by Robert P. George, On the life and influence of the prolific Catholic philosopher

 

~~~

On February 17, 2017, we lost a great Catholic intellectual and “celestial philosopher.”

This Acton Institute video introduces Ambassador Novak and offers a conversational look at his life and work. Novak’s valuable experience and his wealth of wisdom makes this video well worth viewing.

Novak’s masterpiece:  The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Pope John Paul II was one of many admirers of Michael Novak. It would be worth your while to read this entire encyclical written in 1991. It addresses social issues, Marxism, socialism and capitalism.

CENTESIMUS ANNUS, JOHN PAUL II

42. Returning now to the initial question: can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress?

The answer is obviously complex. If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”. But if by “capitalism” is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.

 

“New Things”:

43.…Man fulfils himself by using his intelligence and freedom. In so doing he utilizes the things of this world as objects and instruments and makes them his own. The foundation of the right to private initiative and ownership is to be found in this activity. By means of his work man commits himself, not only for his own sake but also for others and with others. Each person collaborates in the work of others and for their good. Man works in order to provide for the needs of his family, his community, his nation, and ultimately all humanity.

 

Centesimus annus

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Marx the Merciless and the Deadly Socialist Ray

April 24, 2016 Leave a comment

 

…Kulaks to conquer, Kulaks to enslave in Clay, property to plunder…

flash gordons trip to mars 1

THIS JUST IN!!

A mysterious beam has been focused on Earth’s citizens. It is sucking the wealth out of people!  The ray is said to be coming from the dead planet Marx. But wait. Professor Zharkov had miscalculated.  The deadly beam is coming from the planet Ruling Class.

It seems that there is a new emperor in town:  Marx the Ideologically Merciless!  And he is using a powerful integrated Collectivist Ray against the people of earth.  The deadly Supreme Socialist Ray or SSR is focused directly on Earth’s citizenry and right on their property. The citizens of earth are fleeing, taking their possessions and hoping not to feel the burn.

I am being told that the wicked Queen Hillary Azura has formed a partnership with the evil emperor Marx the Merciless on planet Ruling Class.  This witch’s powers include the ability to transmute people into figures of living clay, condemning them to live in darkened caves.  She employs the incense of forgetfulness to subdue her enemies.  She is hated and feared by the country class.

Marx the Merciless has also allied himself with other nefarious characters and groups:  the Red Hammer of Sanders organization, the unscrupulous Queen Rubia E. Warren, BHO the shape shifter and the Carnage Corporation. With his life altering ray focused directly on you, Marx the Merciless hopes that “individual economic actions and individual property, rights will be altered and abridged” forever.

 

dale arden 1—Reporting for the Daily Altoid, this is Happy Hapgood’s daughter Snappy Hapgood.

(Snappy has video of the Ruling Class Planet’s attack on the Country Class Planet and the valiant efforts being made to stop Marx the Merciless in his tracks…) Flashs_Ship_movie

 

<<<>>>

 

“In any event the Commission is convinced by its interpretation of available empirical data that the actually integrating economy of the present day is the forerunner of a consciously integrated society, in which individual economic actions and individual property, rights will be altered and abridged.”

“Conclusions and Recommendations for the Social Studies, Carnegie Corporation, 1934.”

The Supreme Socialist Ray’s unearthly effects are being directed at your children in the classroom…

From Investigation of the Social Studies in the Schools

“8. Under the molding influence of socialized processes of living, drives of technology and science, pressures of changing thought and policy, and disrupting impacts of economic disaster, there is a notable waning of the once widespread popular faith in economic individualism; and leaders in public affairs, supported by a growing mass of the population, are demanding the introduction into economy of ever wider measures of planning and control.

9. Cumulative evidence supports the conclusion that, in the United States as in other countries, the age of individualism and laissez faire in economy and government is closing and that a new age of collectivism is emerging. “

 

Earth must find a way to destroy Marx’s Socialist ray before the Earth is doomed!!!

Caution: A Faraday shield will only protect your electronic gadgets from Electromagnetic Pulses (EMPs). It won’t protect you from Egregious Redistribution Impulses (ERIs)!!!

Filed under Economics Tagged with , , , , , ,

Guess Who Came to Dine on You?

April 9, 2016 Leave a comment

The Ruling Class Cannibals!

Who are these Kulakovores?  They are Ruling Class America and the minions who do their hunter-gatherer bidding.  They are the Democrats and Republicans who accrue power unto themselves.  They are the bureaucrats, the administrative state, the regulators, the social engineers, the ones whose careers are dependent on the government, the ones with secret servers, the “saviors of the planet”, those in the “know”, Progressives, the entitled, the “living Constitutionalists”, the “settled science” purveyors, the “green agenda” evangelists, the #SJW, #BlackLivesMatter, the gerrymandering, the eminent domain Dishonest Johns, the union bosses, the public school educators, the “It takes a village” people…the Hannibal Lecturers.hannibal

Obama finger gun

The power-hungry…

They came for your family:

“The ruling class is keener to reform the American people’s family and spiritual lives than their economic and civic ones. In no other areas is the ruling class’s self-definition so definite, its contempt for opposition so patent, its Kulturkampf so open. It believes that the Christian family (and the Orthodox Jewish one too) is rooted in and perpetuates the ignorance commonly called religion, divisive social prejudices, and repressive gender roles, that it is the greatest barrier to human progress because it looks to its very particular interest — often defined as mere coherence against outsiders who most often know better. Thus the family prevents its members from playing their proper roles in social reform. Worst of all, it reproduces itself.

Since marriage is the family’s fertile seed, government at all levels, along with “mainstream” academics and media, have waged war on it. They legislate, regulate, and exhort in support not of “the family” — meaning married parents raising children — but rather of “families,” meaning mostly households based on something other than marriage. The institution of no-fault divorce diminished the distinction between cohabitation and marriage — except that husbands are held financially responsible for the children they father, while out-of-wedlock fathers are not. The tax code penalizes marriage and forces those married couples who raise their own children to subsidize “child care” for those who do not. Top Republicans and Democrats have also led society away from the very notion of marital fidelity by precept as well as by parading their affairs. For example, in 1997 the Democratic administration’s secretary of defense and the Republican Senate’s majority leader (joined by the New York Times et al.) condemned the military’s practice of punishing officers who had extramarital affairs. While the military had assumed that honoring marital vows is as fundamental to the integrity of its units as it is to that of society, consensus at the top declared that insistence on fidelity is “contrary to societal norms.” Not surprisingly, rates of marriage in America have decreased as out-of-wedlock births have increased. The biggest demographic consequence has been that about one in five of all households are women alone or with children, in which case they have about a four in 10 chance of living in poverty. Since unmarried mothers often are or expect to be clients of government services, it is not surprising that they are among the Democratic Party’s most faithful voters.

While our ruling class teaches that relationships among men, women, and children are contingent, it also insists that the relationship between each of them and the state is fundamental. That is why such as Hillary Clinton have written law review articles and books advocating a direct relationship between the government and children, effectively abolishing the presumption of parental authority. Hence whereas within living memory school nurses could not administer an aspirin to a child without the parents’ consent, the people who run America’s schools nowadays administer pregnancy tests and ship girls off to abortion clinics without the parents’ knowledge. Parents are not allowed to object to what their children are taught. But the government may and often does object to how parents raise children. The ruling class’s assumption is that what it mandates for children is correct ipso facto, while what parents do is potentially abusive. It only takes an anonymous accusation of abuse for parents to be taken away in handcuffs until they prove their innocence. Only sheer political weight (and in California, just barely) has preserved parents’ right to homeschool their children against the ruling class’s desire to accomplish what Woodrow Wilson so yearned: “to make young gentlemen as unlike their fathers as possible.” — The Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution by Angelo M. Codevilla

They came for your children and their “privilege. They came to put them on the menu:

Here is what is going on in social engineering social studies.

Privilege Quiz

Hey kids, how much privilege do you have? Quiz riles Florida parents

They came for your wealth:

Ruling Class Cannibals (RBC) Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump et al, all have a taste for power. And that means that your hard-earned tilled-the-earth money is on the menu so as to whet the appetites of would be RBC voters.

Oh sure, these social warriors will tell you that they want to make things “fair and equal and right”.  But, these Kulakovores are bibbed up and ready to devour you and yours at a power lunch trough feeding.  Their mere mention of “Wall St.” has already marinated your tender #Occupywallstreet minds.  Hannibal Lecter power lunch

Raising the minimum wage by coercive law is an injustice done to business owners and stockholders.  Such increases steal the owner/investor’s income. Period.

It is immoral for someone to take my wealth and give it to someone else.  Only when there is an injustice between two parties should there be restitution. (Being born black is not an injustice unless you are deemed unworthy of being born by the Ruling Class. Welfare and Domination are the perverted restitutions offered by Democrats).

The Ruling Class Cannibals are at the gate!

They came for your…  Hold on!  Don’t do me like that! Time for a bit of truth telling. The following will give the Ruling Class indigestion!

This New York Daily News interview was pretty close to a disaster for Bernie Sanders

GE CEO: Bernie Sanders says we’re ‘destroying the moral fabric’ of America. He’s wrong.

Swedish Economist Schools Sanders On the Ravages of Socialism

And now for the Big Gulp!

Filed under Culture Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Your Thoughts Will Be Narrated by Groupthink

March 12, 2016 Leave a comment

 

“it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence but their social existence that determines their consciousness” ―Karl Marx

~~~

Your personal property, including your thoughts, must be submitted to the Narrative…

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Unions, Socialism and RoadKill?

September 19, 2015 Leave a comment

Just the other day I was verbally assaulted with socialism.

Per my usual workday I was taking the morning commuter into downtown Chicago. As I stand in the train’s vestibule I visit with my fellow travelers. Our conversations run the gamut of silly to bordering on the unspoken: politics, religion and money.

Well, just as I mentioned, I was slimed by socialism.

As I was talking with my friends a guy comes into the vestibule to wait out the rest of the ride. He was apparently eager to get off the train and light up a smoke.

Victory cigarettes

Victory cigarettes

Wearing a chartreuse tee-shirt of a union pipefitter (seen around Chicago) and with a pack of smokes in his one breast pocket, this guy proceeded to let us know that he arrived.

One of our group asked him where he worked and what he did. (We usually try to engage everyone who ‘visits” the vestibule.)

The guy mentioned that he was working in a building downtown “putting in 24” pipe.” He spoke with the raspy demonic-sounding voice of a heavy smoker.

Then, without prompting and like striking flint, he said, “I hate corporate America. I hate the rich, highly paid CEOs. Who needs gold toilet seats?!” “You think union workers get paid a lot. You should see what they take out of my paycheck!”

“OK?” I said to myself. Well, here we go again: typical union griping, now on a Thursday morning.

I have heard the same sort of discontent (putting it nicely) from union postal workers, train conductors, teachers, electricians, plumbers, service workers-from all of them. And, whether the gripe is about pay grade, work time, pecking order, vacation time, labor management (a partial list of complaints, to be sure) I have heard it all. Union people have left their destiny in the hands of others in hopes of being insured against unhappiness. Guess again. Socialism takes regular drawdowns on your account of happiness.

I have heard the same sort of morbid discontent as campaign vote pandering. It slips off the politician’s tongues (here paraphrased) as “zero sum anthropogenic poverty caused by the rich and CO2”, “…limited pie…”, “…we need unlimited government…”, and (verbatim) “Fair share”; “The 1%”.

Victory Gin

Victory Gin

All such materialism driven policies enacted to “unionize” society, in my estimation, reduce life to a boring unromantic dystopia. In other words these politicians want you to, “go drink your 1984 Victory Gin and be happy. We will take care of you. Do what you were told with what we gave you. There is no romance in Socialism so don’t even think of love, only of sex.” (Hah, imagine Hollywood under socialist financial constraints! Morally, Hollywood is already dependent on the lowest common cultural denominator.)

I decided not to talk to the union guy unless others broached a response and decided to go there. I could tell by his demeanor that this guys’ mind was probably as darkened as his lungs must be.

He went on to speak about his working on and off again depending on … when work is made available to him…through the union. Months would go by until he got a call.

Then he spoke of his heart’s desire: “My precious!”-The long awaited-for pension. With wide-eyed craving he spoke of his retirement: “Only six more years of this stuff left.”

Unions have a unique way of making people ache for the ring of retirement. I’ve seen it firsthand. It comes, I believe, from the on and off nature of union work along with boredom and plenty of worrisome smokes in between, a situation this guy and others let others control. Socialism is losing control of your life while waiting for the day you can retire and live off your meager pension and then, likely, smoke and drink yourself to death within a short time. Union-socialism roadkill.  I’ve seen it over and over.

At this point I wanted to ask him who runs his pension and ask if it was invested in something more than a saving account making 0.01% interest or a CD making 0.09 % interest. Or, was his pension invested in equities and bonds, more appreciable (and risky) financial vehicles.

One could easily figure that the “highly paid” union lords control his pension (and get their cut) and that the union pension fund itself is managed by outside financial managers who manage stock and bond purchases of the union’s pension fund.

The “highly paid” overseers of his pension as fiduciaries must look at the composite financials of companies with stock and bond offerings to determine the best option to apply to a conservative pension, to have it grow while minimizing risk.

Obviously this union guy knew pipefitting and welding. But he did not know finances let alone how to find work on his own. He, instead, left others in charge of providing him work and with overseeing his “precious” pension.

Right then and there I wanted to say to this guy that when you leave your life in the hands of others they will charge you for their effort, including “highly paid” labor leaders (e.g., Richard Trumka).

Union treasuries—filled by dues paid by union members—not only fund programs benefiting union members and their families. The money also 

Richard Trumka "highly paid" Union boss

Richard Trumka
“highly paid” Union CEO

pays six-figure salaries and benefits for labor leaders and their top staffs, and provides tens of millions of dollars for Democratic causes and candidates.

-“Scores of union leaders earn six-figure salaries”

Here’s the arrogant and petty AFL-CIO union thug Richard Trumka tweeting his call for “two minutes hate” directed at Gov. Scott Walker who is dropping out of the 2016 presidential race:

 

 

“Highly paid” CEOs are charged with managing a company so as to make its value grow and to make its stockholders happy with the company’s prospects for future earnings. The company’s worth must appreciate in value. And when a company’s stock appreciates in value many people benefit. This includes employees who receive stock as a bonus. Pension funds invested in such a company’s stock also grow in value. Somehow I think any such statement to him would not meld with his union-socialist-collectivist way of life. He would go into Elizabeth Warren override.

I left out this: companies run by “highly paid” CEOs hire people and pay them to function within the company. Together CEOs and the people make the company profitable or otherwise. The people are free to stay or move on depending on their satisfaction with any number of things including pay, management, location, etc. “Highly paid” CEOs increase value. Collectivist governments, socialist governments and unions depreciate value-especially, your value, via coercive egalitarianism.

Those of us in the Kingdom of God must not take the wide way that is offered to us either by a self-described socialist such as Bernie Sanders or by a self-described “Christian” magazine called Sojourners which uses the banner of “social justice.”

Government is not altruistic. Government could never hit the moving “socially just” target without being totally controlling. Government can never offer a hurting person what a Good Samaritan can-one on one help. Government is impersonal, indifferent, insouciant.

And, as we have seen, redistribution of our wealth, filtered through the labyrinth of government funnels, distributes only fractional amounts of money to people government cannot even begin to keep track of and large amounts just to make bureaucracy function. Socialism burgeons while you diminish.

The unions, the Collective, Progressives, liberal “Christians” and even Pope Francis want “Social Justice”. What is this carrot on a stick dangled in front of us?

~~~

I have written elsewhere about this subject before. When I have I’ve turned to the parable of the Good Samaritan to make the point that we need to be involved in one another’s lives personally (like our Savior) and NOT via the million degrees of separation known as bureaucratic “Social Justice.”

The Rev. Robert Sirico, “American Roman Catholic priest and the founder of the Acton Institute”, provides us with clear-cut insight into the bureaucratization of “good intentions” versus the personification of good (good becoming man):

“The Marxist political analysis that remains popular (if now usually disguised) in many universities and even seminaries, tends to pit the poor against the rich—it’s all about class warfare and alienation. The alternative vision that I have been trying to paint in these pages is beautifully distilled in the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story that has held a persistent fascination for the religious and non-religious readers alike. Of course, like all parables, its primary meaning is Christological and moral, rather than political. But it’s also possible to discern other messages in this story.

In Luke’s Gospel, a Samaritan man (someone on the margins of Jewish society in this period) stops to help a man who was beaten and left for dead on the side of the road. When the Samaritan comes upon him, he helps the beaten man from his own resources. Even when the Samaritan has to delegate the care to the man for a time to an innkeeper, he promises to pay the innkeeper back. The Samaritan was on the scene to see and understand the fallen man’s specific needs—he was the man’s “neighbor”—and he went about meeting those needs. From this standpoint, the Samaritan might be justly described as the principle subsidiary in action. Notice, too, that he would have been hard-pressed to meet the needs of the injured man if he hadn’t first possessed enough personal wealth to hire services of the innkeeper. Lady Thatcher’s memorable insight about this text is to the point: “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well.”” (emphasis added)

Passage from “Why Smart Charity Works—and Welfare Doesn’t”, “Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for the Economy” by Rev. Robert Sirico

Rev. Sirico recommends reading “Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass” by Theodore Dalrymple. I have read it and recommend it as well.

~~~

Added 9-20-2015:

It’s “1984” all over again…

“Within the book [George Orwells’1984], the purpose of the Two Minutes Hate is said to satisfy the citizens’ subdued feelings of angst and hatred from leading such a wretched, controlled existence. By re-directing these subconscious feelings away from the Oceanian government and toward external enemies (which probably do not even exist), the Party minimizes subversive thought and behavior.” (emphasis added)

“Ostensibly, [Emmanuel] Goldstein serves as a convenient scapegoat for the totalitarian regime in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and justifies its surveillance and elimination of civil liberties.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate

Union members, as with so many others of the media-collectivist-“It takes a village…” persuasion make use of the “Goldstein Effect”, a term coined by legal scholar Cass Sunstein.

As mentioned above the effect is a means of scapegoating but it is also a means of psychological distraction and redirection.

The subverted thinking of the union member as revealed in my anecdote above is directed with anger at the “highly paid CEOs” and therefore away from the ”highly paid’ labor leaders and away from the “highly paid” Big Brother candidates those “highly paid” labor leaders support. The “enemies” generalized and amorphous existence is a product of the media’s PC Ministry of Truth, the collective’s means to larger-than–life vilification.

[The] “Goldstein Effect”, [is] described as “the ability to intensify public concern by giving a definite face to the adversary, specifying a human source of the underlying threat.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Goldstein

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

Humanity Thrives on Moral-Guided Free Market Economics and Acts of Creation

April 12, 2015 Leave a comment

In response to the collectivist ideologies of Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren and their proposed free market epitaph “You didn’t build that…” I offer two videos that provide insights about our humanity, creation, transcendence and economics. Epicurus, by the way (see previous posts regarding Epicurus), knew about humanity at a base level. Epicurus withdrew from transcendent.
The first video includes an interview with Rev. Robert A. Sirico of the Acton Institute. I first heard this interview while watching Fox Business’ Varney & Company. It contains a surprise ending.

In the second video Rev. Robert A. Sirico speaks at Creighton University about his conversion from Marxism and socialism and his reckoning of justice with a God-given humanity and transcendence. He speaks of going on to embrace a morals-directed free market economics which in the act of creation produces a bigger pie for all to share in.
Transcendence takes acknowledgement and submission to the Sublime. It takes one to be faithful in small things. .And, what you create-“build”-transcends all the output of man-made ideologies and political jingoisms. Grab some coffee first before you sit back and enjoy truth.

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Epicurus Wins Greek Election or Pain Must Be Shared to Be Fully Enjoyed

January 31, 2015 Leave a comment

My last two posts took you for a ride in the “Wayback Machine”. The ride, with no cost to you and minimal effort on your part, took you back to the time of Epicurus, the Greek philosopher. Then I forwarded the machine to our present time, the age of the Angry Atheists. Today’s post will take you for a ride in the “Lean Forward” Machine.

 The “Lean Forward” Machine is not like the “Wayback Machine”. Whereas the “Wayback Machine” records and regards history in its travels as an annotated time line worthy of informing present decision-making regarding morals, social concerns, spirituality, politics and economics the “Lean Forward” Machine says “phooey with all of that”:

 “Let’s go full steam ahead to the future. “We have the omniscient and omnipresent being-‘perfected’-as-we-speak-with-your-tax-dollars Government (of Titanic proportions mind you) to pilot us (in ad hoc fashion mind you) to the Elysian Fields of the Brave New World.”

 At this point you should know that the “Lean Forward” Machine is regarded by some as a religious temple. Some even call it by the sacred name of its goddess-“Progress”.

 But, before we “Lean Forward” into unreality let us take at quick look at Epicurus’ homeland today to get a reality check on effects of his philosophy:

 

Epicurus' party pic

Epicurus’ party pic

Left-Wing Syriza Party Wins Big as Greece Rejects Austerity

ATHENS — Greece’s left-wing Syriza appeared on course to trounce the ruling conservatives in Sunday’s snap election and could win the absolute majority it wants to fight international creditors’ insistence on painful austerity measures.

Tsipras’ campaign slogan “Hope is coming!” resonated with voters, weary of austerity after six years of constant crisis that has sent unemployment over 25 percent and threatened millions with poverty.

“Hope is coming!” Wait! Where have I heard that before?

 Anyway, Greece, the land of the ancient philosopher Epicurus, has rejected austerity and forsaken posterity!: “My friends, let us make Epicurean lifestyle the epicenter of things! Eat, drink and be merry with impunity! Run up the tab! The gods don’t care. Why should we?”

 There you have it my friends. Sorry to say but it appears that the ticket for the “Lean Forward” Machine return trip would cost you everything. And, if you did go, you would not see your children and grandchildren flourishing. Rather, you would not find them at all, having vanquished in the Farmworkers’ Grape Pickers Camp; having been cast into the great winepress of the wrath of Progress.

 

I’m not going with you to look for my future in the “Lean Forward” Machine. I have not lost the Spirit or my faith in God. I have the Kingdom of God here on earth to tend to whether or not my belly is full. The Kingdom of God is my vocation, my calling, my camp.

 

“Instead, make your top priority God’s kingdom and his way of life, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew’s Gospel 6, verse 33

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Income Inequality Anonymous

October 18, 2014 1 Comment

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

 Group: “Hello Sally.”

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

 “Thank you for the invite Charis and Irene!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Group Leader: “What did you do?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Group Leader: “What happened after high school?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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