Egalitarianism. Is It Equal To The Task?

February 5, 2014 Leave a comment

The 2014 Olympics is fast approaching… starting-line

 Should Olympians ‘race’ when everyone gets the same prize at the finish line?

 Egalitarianism = equal outcomes.  And equal outcomes are what Progressives want to have happen within our legal system, within our education system ~ within society as a whole.

 Egalitarianism is posited as a means to create the unspoken Utopian bureaucratic island where near-perfect socio-politico-legal systems exist and where no one has advantage over another except for the so-called elite who have been ‘blessed’ with “superior intellect.” Only they know enough to define life for you. (e.g., Cass Sunstein’s recent Nudge book).

 In my younger days I was a sprinter.  I would run many heats and then the final events.  To do so I had to prepare for the weekly track meet. I will use my own ‘summer event’ experience to help you to consider whether egalitarianism is equal to the hard work and discipline required for life’s trials and to decide whether the rise of “egalitarianism” will benefit or hurt our society.

 I wrote the following as a ‘real-life’ depiction of my understanding of the “Constrained Vision” and the “Unconstrained Vision” as delineated by Thomas Sowell in his own favorite book A Conflict of Visions:

A Tale of Two Foot Races

Race Number One:

Eight men enter a race.  They are roughly about the same height and weight but come from very different backgrounds. The eight men enter the race knowing that there will only be one winner.  It was for this outcome that they had prepared themselves with rigorous discipline during the past four years.

Months prior to the track meet the eight men are told of the rules:  A runner must run in qualifying heats. If the runner is successful in those heats the runner will then be allowed to compete in the final race with the other qualifying runners;  a runner who jumps the gun twice at the starting line will be disqualified as having a “false start”;  the commands “Ready”, “Set” and a gun shot will be used by a track official to start the race fairly;  each runner must stay in his lane or he will be disqualified;  runners will be timed and the first runner to cross the finish line will be the winner of the race.

The runners all agree and sign off on the rules before the race.

On the day of the race and after qualifying in the heats eight runners come to the starting line.  They know that they must run straight ahead in their own lane to reach the one-hundred meter line. They know that if they jump the gun twice they will be disqualified from running. They know that they must sprint as hard as they can to cross the finish line first. They are knowingly competing for first place. The race before them has now become the culmination of years of exhausting training and dedication to finishing the race and receiving first prize.

When the race is announced the runners shed their sweats and come to the starting line. The track official then announces, “Ready”. The runners will then carefully position their legs into the starting blocks and place their open hands stretched behind the starting line.  

Once the runners have settled the track official then snaps “Set”.  The runners immediately come up to a “set position”, coiled in their starting block. With the burst of the starting pistol eight men bolt from their starting blocks and run down the track as fast as their disciplined bodies will carry them.

The winner of the race is the one who breaks the tape. There is also a second, a third and fourth place finisher. The runners-up each congratulate the winner for his speed and, implicitly, for his fidelity to the rules and his commitment to the sport of racing.

The first three finishers receive medals, adulation and wreaths of honor from the thousands who have come to watch a fair race between those who have so vigorously prepared themselves. The experience of the race has bolstered each runner’s self-esteem. The cheering crowd is also moved by each runner’s self-sacrifice, dedication and self-discipline. This spectacle has confirmed the crowd’s understanding of athlete’s playing by the rules and aspiring to excel within those rules. Those who witnessed the race that day are stirred, encouraged to excel at what they do.

All eight racers later return home.  The runners-up are now more dedicated than ever to prepare for another day of racing and to receiving their own crown of victory. Ciltius, altius, fortius.

Race Number Two:

Eight men enter a race.  They are roughly about the same height, weight but come from very different backgrounds. The eight men entered the race knowing that everyone will be a winner.  It was for this outcome that they saw no need to prepare themselves with rigorous discipline during the past four years. They just had to show up.

Months prior to the race the eight men are told the rules.  They are told the rules are subject to change at the time of the race based on the current ad hoc articulated reasoning of one superior intellectual with unquestionable virtue.  A runner must run in qualifying heats but this will not be a constraint. Whether or not a runner is successful in those heats he will be allowed to compete in the final race with other ‘qualifying’ runners. The heats are basically events created to satisfy the need for more equality.

More rules: a runner who jumps the gun twice at the starting line will not be disqualified from running. Instead he will be given another chance; the commands “Ready” and “Set” and a gun shot will be used by a track official to start the race fairly, though any sincere attempt to cooperate with the official will be accepted; each runner must stay in his lane or he will be disqualified unless, of course, their background is such that they have never stayed within the lines; runners will not be timed because such keeping of minutes would be discrimination against slower runners.  The first runner to cross the finish line will wait at the finish line so that everyone will be considered a winner of the race. This must be done at any personal cost to the first one crossing the finish line.

The runners agree and sign off on the rules before the race.

On the day of the race all of the runners come to the starting line.  They know that they are supposed to run down to the finish line before the outcome-determining patrons. They know that there will be equal prizes and the egalitarian appreciation of well-wishers to look forward to. They are going to run for this reason. This race is now the culmination of years of knowing that the battle is just showing up and doing what you are told.

When all the runners are in their starting blocks and their hands are behind the starting line the track official then says, “Ready”.  After a long moment of reasoned judgment the official says “Set”.  The runners come up to set position.  Then the race official shoots the starting gun. The eight men come out of their starting blocks and run down the track as fast as their unfocused discipline has trained them.

At the finish line everyone is a Finisher, even those who left the race due to being out of breath. There are hand-shakes and kudos all around for having shown up for such an event.

At the awards ceremony all the runners receive medals and congratulations. Thousands have come to watch a race between runners who have shown up for a race where the outcome was predetermined to be fair ~ fair as defined by the few judges of superior intellect and of unquestioned virtue.

Later, all the runners return home and rest for another day of showing up.

*****

A Tale of Two Foot Races:  Equal Opportunities vs. Equal Outcomes by Sally Paradise © Sally Paradise, 2013, All Rights Reserved

Added 2/7/2014:

Communism Leads to Slavery Not To Equality

Filed under Egalitarianism, Political Commentary, Politics, social commentary Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Three Atheists I Listen To

January 5, 2014 1 Comment

Becoming a follower of Jesus Christ and an heir of the King and a fellow servant in the Kingdom of God began when I first believed that God existed. What followed was the understanding that God not only existed but that He is an Infinite-Personal God who, though having created the vast universe ex nihilo using the Big Bang and evolution, loves me.

 Beyond my own personal encounters with God through my reason and through the testimony of others, there are the historical facts supporting the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is also astounding supporting evidence in nature. God exists.

But there are some who say otherwise: “Atheism exists, this I know, for my reason tells me so.” These would be the angry atheists Richard Dawkins, the former Christopher Hitchens (Hitch) and others.

 I have at one time or another heard these atheists give their arguments of disbelief and I have found their words wanting for any real substance. They often come across as superior and snobbish.  And, their arguments are certainly unfettered by the factual account of the resurrection or of the fine tuning of the universe that makes life and thought and argument possible at all. Their anger exists.

 There are three atheists I pay attention to.  I tune in to them because what they often say through words or music reveals the truth about God in a way they may not even realize. The three atheists are Thomas Sowell, Dr. Theodore Dalrymple and Frederick Delius

Thomas SowellFirst, Thomas Sowell.  Start at his web page Thomas Sowell. And, here is a short bio from the Townhall.com web page: http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/

“…writing for the general public enables him to address the heart of issues without the smoke and mirrors that so often accompany academic writing.”

  Sowell is an economist, a common sense economist.  You will get that sense as you read his books and articles.  Of late, I have read The Thomas Sowell Reader (start with this book for short articles addressing current issues both economic and social) and A Conflict of Visions.

  The Thomas Sowell Reader, a compilation of articles and essays written by Thomas Sowell, economist:

 “From an early age, I have been convinced with trying to understand the social problems that abound in any society.  First and foremost, this was an attempt to try to grasp some explanation of the puzzling and disturbing things going on around me.  This was all for my own personal clarification, since I neither had political ambitions nor the political talents required for either elective or appointed office.  But, one having achieved some sense of understanding of particular issues ~ a process that sometimes took years – I wanted to share that understanding with others.  That is the reason for the things that appear in this book.”

 A Conflict of Visions, also written by Thomas Sowell:

 “What are the underlying assumptions behind the very different ideological visions of the world being contested in modern times?  The purpose here will not be to determine which of these visions is more valid but rather to reveal the inherent logic behind each of these sets of views and the ramifications of the assumptions which lead not only to different conclusions on particular issues but also to wholly different meanings to such fundamental words as “justice,” “equality,” and “power.”

 A sample article by Thomas Sowell:  The Fallacy of Redistribution

 519px-TheodoredalrympleRegarding Dr. Theodore Dalrymple and some of his recurring themes from books and articles note the following from his Wikipedia entry.  I confirm these themes having read his book Life at the bottom. The Worldview that makes the Underclass:

 -The cause of much contemporary misery in Western countries ~ criminality, domestic violence, drug addiction, aggressive youths, hooliganism, broken families ~ is the nihilistic, decadent, and/or self-destructive behavior of people who do not know how to live. Both the smoothing over of this behavior, and the lexicalization of the problems that emerge as a corollary of this behavior, are forms of indifference. Someone has to tell those people, patiently and with understanding for the particulars of the case, that they have to live differently. (Life at the bottom. The Worldview that makes the Underclass)

-Moral relativism can easily be a trick of an egotistical mind to silence the voice of conscience. (‘The Uses of Metaphysical Skepticism’, in: In Praise of Prejudice. The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas, p. 6 (chapter 2).

-Multiculturalism and cultural relativism are at odds with common sense. (“Multiculturalism Starts Losing Its Luster”. City Journal. Retrieved 12 July 2009)

-The decline of civilized behavior ~ self-restraint, modesty, zeal, humility, irony, detachment – ruins social and personal life. (Not with a Bang but a Whimper)

-The root cause of our contemporary cultural poverty is intellectual dishonesty. First, the intellectuals (more specifically, left-wing ones) have destroyed the foundation of culture, and second, they refuse to acknowledge it by resorting to the caves of political correctness.

deliusLastly, Frederick Delius.  I don’t recall when I first heard his compositions. It may have been in my thirties at a Chicago Symphony concert.  The first piece I remember is the symphonic poem The Song Of Summer.  I was overwhelmed by its simple beauty.

 From The Delius Collection, Vol. 2 CD liner notes:

 “Many have written of Delius’ ‘moods’ or ‘feelings’, views which reflect only the ‘impression’ his music has made on the writers (read music critics).

Such Romantic or rather Impressionistic ~ notions of his art are only concerned with its surface appeal, as if that is all that is valuable in it, and ignore wholly his unique technical and structural mastery.  In such ways, Delius is more of an anti-Romantic, for the sentimentality or self-projection of Romanticism are alien to his music.  Delius hymned Nature, not himself as did Sebelius; such sentimentality as may condemn his art stems from a performing style wherein expressive beauty is stressed at the cost of his music’s intellectual power.” Robert Matthew-Walker

 For starters I would recommend listening to Irmelin Prelude, Song of Summer, A Late Lark, the orchestral interlude A Walk to Paradise Garden from his opera A Village Romeo and Juliet and On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring.

 An avowed atheist, Delius embraced nature for his inspiration.  He also embraced Nietzsche’s philosophy which produced Delius’ loud and unattractive A Mass of Life.

 “A Mass of Life is an attack upon Christian doctrine and the Christian way of life as Nietzsche and Delius saw it. They both wanted to correct what they called the “slave morality” of Christianity.  Their great emphasis was upon the will, not bowing to anyone, and living and dying fearlessly though death be total extinction.

Death, when it came to Delius, was terrible, and within a few months his steadfast wife was dead too.

In speaking about Delius, Eric Fenby (Delius’ composition scribe after Delius became blind) observes, “Given those great natural musical gifts and that nature of his, so full of feeling, and which at its finest inclined to that exalted end of man which is contemplation, there is no knowing to what sublime heights he would have risen had he chosen to look upwards to God instead of downward to man!”  From the Gift of Music by Jane Stuart Smith and Betty Carlson, Crossway Books

 What the first two atheists have in common is their ability to speak truth, wisdom and common sense ~ God’s law within each of us – simply. As Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate of physics said, “You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity.”

 Both men, from their lifetime of experiences, have seen reality and tell us that there are values that a man must embrace to be civilized, to be ‘right side up’, so to speak.  They tell us that Man must draw the line somewhere. 

Now, I believe that it is the God of Creation who has created the line ~ the natural law written on our hearts ~ and He has exposed our crossing it. But, He did not leave us on our own, to remake ourselves as Nietzsche’s ideal human, the Übermensch, who would be able to channel passions creatively (but to what end?). He gave us the only way possible, through His Son, to regain our humanity.

 Frederick Delius revealed truth through his music’s contemplative moments of rhapsodic beauty as inspired by God’s creation.

 All three have seen things (even the eventually blind Delius) that others often willfully ignore. They are honest with themselves about what they see and they repeat it back.  And, there is knowledge of reality in their words and works that can only find its genesis in God’s created order and His law written on our hearts.

 “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

Filed under Atheism, Christianity Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Thanksgiving Food for Thought

November 22, 2012 1 Comment

Thomas Sowell:  Liberals and Conservatives

Thomas Sowell:  Occupying Mindlessness

Milton Friedman:  Cause and effect

Tax the wealthy and there will be no money for investments and new jobs.  Monies for charities will dry up.  Tax the wealthy and you hurt charities and the middle class the most.  Obama has no clue as to what he is doing.  Sadly, people voted for just another politician.

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Depends On You

July 14, 2012 Leave a comment

The 2012 Presidential and congressional elections will be reflections of who you are.  You will be deciding whether you want to be represented as a slave under a bigger more intrusive government with its plantation inducing mentality or whether self-government and self-determination will best speak for you.  The former is easy – show up and do nothing except what the master tells you to do.  The latter requires blood, sweat and tears.

 Let me ask you straight up:  what would provide you with more self-esteem?  A government welfare check for subsistence or a check handed to you by your accountant after your company succeeded and made a profit? Or equally, a check handed to you by your employer because the company you work for succeeded to make payroll for another week because of your input? The former just pays the bills (and likely buys several lottery tickets).  The latter provides for yourself, your family, your grandchildren and much more.

 Another question:  With those same checks in hand would the person with the government welfare check be more willing to give to charity or would the person who was handed the profit-sharing dividend or a paycheck be more willing to give to charity? (A Christian would have to be the second kind of person.  King David once said, “I will not offer to the Lord something that costs me nothing?”)

 You don’t have to think hard about this.  The answer is obvious to most right thinking people, the vision is clear, but it is hidden from those who vote for Obama and the Democrats.

Progressives and their “Lean Forward” campaign (funded with monies from foreigner George Soros) want the U.S. government to dole out cradle-to-grave entitlements thereby making Americans utterly reliant on the political ruling class and their condescending “we-the-government-know-what’s-good-for-you” pseudo-altruism. In reality, these two-armed bandits want more gambling revenue to throw at money laundering schemes like Solyndra.

 Thomas Sowell in his book of articles and essays The Thomas Sowell Reader describes the Big Government vision promoted by the ruling class “anointed” …

 The anointed want to eliminate stress, challenge, striving, and competition.  They want the necessities of life to be supplied as “rights” – which is to say, at the taxpayer’s expense, without anyone’s being forced to work for those necessities, except of course the taxpayers.

Nothing is to be earned.  “Self-esteem” is to be dispensed to school children as largess from the teacher.  Adults are to have their medical care and other necessities dispensed as largess from the government. People are to be mixed by race and sex and whatever else the anointed want to take into account, in order to present whatever kind of picture the anointed think should be presented.

This is the vision of human beings as livestock to be fed by the government and herded and tended by the anointed.  All the things that make us human beings are to be removed from our lives and we are to live as denatured creatures and directed by our betters. (emphasis mine)

Those things that help human beings be independent and self-reliant – whether automobiles, guns, the free market, or vouchers – provoke instant hostility from the anointed.

Below are two contrasting videos:  one video depicts a life on government programs ala The Life of Julia.  The other describes you as a self-governing self-determining free person.  I ask you, who is more empowered? You already know the answer. Vote the answer and not what the plantation’s political ruling class is promoting via the main stream media (MSNBC‘s Lean Forward Campaign, Media Matters, etc.).

 Is the future of America you holding your DMV issued health-care card and food stamps?  Or is the future of America (you and me) dependent on our own self-government and our own self-determination while holding on to our self-esteem and liberty? For a while fascism’s authoritarianism feels safe and secure but that quickly changes.  You soon become a slave or an automaton in the system. Liberty on the other hand is scary good. As I have said liberty requires responsibility on your part but liberty is supremely worth it.

Yet, if the Obama plantation feels safe, if you see yourself as dependent on the master for your life then go with that but please don’t vote to take others with you.

Others have made freedom and choice their life: 

http://demetriuspeaks.com/2012/07/06/what-it-means-to-be-a-black-conservative/

 Thomas Sowell notes in another article, “Entitlement is just a fancy word for dependence.”

The full article here: 

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/267898/dependency-and-votes-thomas-sowell

Who represents you in Washington is a reflection of you.  Do you like what you see?

 Democrats and the plantation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig2KmRI-S4A

Independence Day:

Filed under 2012 election, commentary, Conservatism, Economics, Life As I See It, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, Writing 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 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I Support the Man of Action: Part One

January 9, 2012 Leave a comment

WLS-890 AM, Sunday afternoon:  On my way to the grocery store I turned on the car radio.  Phil Ponce, a Chicago television journalist for WTTW, was filling in for one of his sons, either Anthony or Dan, during their Sunday afternoon radio broadcast. I believe the Ponce Brother’s program was also substituting for Bob Brinker’s Money Talk (a favorite program of mine) that afternoon. As I tuned in Anthony or Dan was mentioning how that most of the callers were favoring Newt Gingrich as the GOP nominee.

 The Ponces, father and son, then took another call, a female caller who mentioned her age of 59.  She talked (I’ll paraphrase) about how the country needs to be taken back. Phil Ponce mentioned that many callers had said the same thing.  He then asked her what she meant by that. In brief she said that many of the laws and the Constitution itself that we as a nation have in place are simply disregarded by the people in power, especially by President Obama and his administration.

 In talking about her childhood she recalled how that we as a nation knew what the laws were and that they were not subject to arbitrary change by those in power as they are now. She said no country is perfect or has it easy but our nation was a light shining on a hill (a Reagan reference) but is now it is dimming in that capacity.

 That is what I heard. Her exact words…if the show’s podcast or transcript becomes available I will post it.

 Also, as I found out later, during the same broadcast and prior to my turning the radio on, Illinois Senator Mark Kirk surprised the Ponces by calling in.  Phil Ponce recounted how he had jokingly suggested that the illinois Senator call in to talk about his choice for a GOP candidate. Senator Kirk did call in and said that he was backing Romney.  This is too bad.

 About two weeks ago I wrote an e-mail to Senator Kirk asking him to back Newt Gingrich.  I did this when I heard that Kirk was coming out for Romney.  Romney, I believe, will be in over his head.  But if Romney becomes the GOP nominee Romney would still be a much better choice than Obama, Obama and his multiple czars who are responsible to no one but the president. 

By bypassing our elected representatives in Congress and appointing these czars Obama showed flagrant disrespect for America, her Constitution and our elected representatives. Also, Obama’s appointment of Eric Holder as AG was meant as a slap in the face of the American system of justice (e.g., Holder’s ignoring the Black Panther’s intimidation of voters).

************* 

I am backing Newt Gingrich for President. 

In a recent web-column for The Detroit News economist Thomas Sowell talks about the need for a man of action to lead this country:

 Many Americans are already saying that they can hardly recognize the country they grew up in. We have already started down the path that has led Western European nations to the brink of financial disaster. … 

While the televised debates are what gave Newt Gingrich’s candidacy a big boost, concrete accomplishments when in office are the real test. Gingrich engineered the first Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 40 years — followed by the first balanced budget in 40 years. The media called it “the Clinton surplus” but all spending bills start in the House of Representatives, and Gingrich was Speaker of the House.…

In a world where we can make our choices only among the alternatives actually available, the question is whether Newt Gingrich is better than Barack Obama — and better than Mitt Romney.

Romney is a smooth talker, but what did he actually accomplish as governor of Massachusetts, compared to what Gingrich accomplished as Speaker of the House? When you don’t accomplish much, you don’t ruffle many feathers. But is that what we want?

Can you name one important positive thing that Romney accomplished as governor of Massachusetts? Can anyone? Does a candidate who represents the bland leading the bland increase the chances of victory in November 2012? A lot of candidates like that have lost, from Thomas E. Dewey to John McCain.

Illinois must vote for Newt in the Illinois primary on March 24, 2012.  We need a man of action who has a sincere appreciation of American history, the Constitution, American values and actual success with the political process.  I encourage you to vote for the Statesman Newt Gingrich to be the GOP nominee for president. Let’s stop the pious baloney.

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

What’s Left? To Be Decided.

November 19, 2011 Leave a comment

Thomas Sowell, in his excellent book A Conflict of Visions:  Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, discusses the two main opposing ways of viewing the political, economic and social landscape.  These views have come down through time to the present dichotomy of visions, namely the Left or Liberal (modern sense) vision and the Right or Conservative vision.  Sowell denotes the two visions: one being the unconstrained vision, the former, and the constrained vision, the latter.

I will try to make this a short post. Here is my brief take on The Unconstrained Vision:

The unconstrained vision relies heavily on surrogate decision makers, men or women of “superior” intelligence and virtue, to make our decisions for us.  The implication of this vision is that the common man does not know what is good for himself and for those around him.  But those with super-rational intelligence and sincerity do.  And because of our lack of “fair and just” decision making, we the people need an over-arching Decider – someone to rein in society.

I recently read what I would call a perfect description of this viewpoint’s totalitarian heavy-handedness, an oppressiveness which is often disguised as omniscient benevolence which hides its use of debilitating control methods:

“…Nurse Ratched is the Decider; under her unblinking gaze, the privileges, rewards, punishments, dosages, and furloughs for the patients are parceled out or denied. Time itself seems to run at whatever speed Nurse Ratched decrees, the clock slowing down to bring everything to a snow-globe standstill to conjure a sense of suspended animation, a zombie twilight.  Sparks of resistance are ruthlessly snuffed.  Waiting in the wings is the Shock Shop, where you go in as a person and are wheeled out as a vegetable after sufficient voltage to the brain…” (source listed below)

If you haven’t noticed by now, we are living in the “zombie twilight” of the Obama Presidency. Obama is our country’s Nurse Ratched.  He is a prime example of the unconstrained vision’s all-powerful omniscient Decider.  He is someone who talks down to people.  And enabled by the main stream media He has become the Chosen One, the chosen articulator of reason and we are his hapless patients waiting for him to put us in our place. Obama certainly believes that we the American people should follow his lead down the road to social justice and fairness. He believes that he knows what is best for us because he also believes that we the people are inept, confused and inferior in intelligence, unenlightened, lazy and worst of all, free to think for ourselves.

It certainly appears from Obama’s messages to the American people that his vision, historically filtered by the teachings of the radical Bill Ayers and “God damn America” Jeremiah Wright, has given him the understanding that he has seen the light while we the people walk in pre-enlightenment medieval darkness. It is with unbridled hubris that he stands above society, a mullah standing in an ivory tower minaret, lecturing us and calling us to pray to the god of one-world socialism and to the jihad of class warfare.

Those with this unconstrained vision see institutions as being at fault for man’s condition and not man himself.  They believe that man is a victim of inept policies and inadequately funded schools, food programs, housing programs, bailouts, etc.  And the free market, where Capitalism operates, is the impersonal culprit who steals fairness away from the victimized society. The unconstrained vision seeks to reign in the free market in order to control the outcomes of supply and demand using price controls, wage controls, unions, rent controls, quotas, the Dodd-Frank Act, ad infinitum.

Controlling the market place and controlling outcomes are what those with the unconstrained vision use to promote social justice and fairness. They want the results of economic, political and social activity to be fair in terms of their rationalistic values.  Yet, they will often, in fact, bypass statistical fact to promote fairness and equality.  In so doing they will often create a domino effect of economic havoc and inequality. This type of Stage One thinking is common for those with the unconstrained vision.  They want “fairness” implemented now at any cost regardless of the many negative repercussions that will be sure to ensue (e.g., Obamacare).

For the Left life is a zero sum game.  If someone gains then someone else must be losing out – there is only so much pie to go around. The Left must “right” this perceived wrong.

The legal system is another thing to be controlled by those with the unconstrained vision.  Instead of black and white laws known to everyone they seek to implement ad hoc reasoning per every legal situation.  Take for example a man who steals and is arrested.  He knows that he will be punished for his crime.  The law clearly states the crime and lists the options for punishment that the judge may impose.  The criminal knows that everyone will be treated the same way in the same situation within the letter of the law. Even though the criminal does not like the situation he still knows that the law applies to everyone and therefore deemed fair by everyone. In fact, he stole knowing the law and the consequences of his actions.

An activist judge with an unconstrained view, on the other hand, will have the same law before him but he will use his own ad hoc articulated reasoning to determine whether the man should be punished.  This judge may decide that the criminal acted badly because of his poor living conditions or because he was having a bad hair day or…and then decide to let him go. The judge would consider this a just outcome. The victim would not, of course, consider this fair.

While the unconstrained vision is all about controlling the political, economic or social landscape for specific outcomes the constrained vision is hands off or laissez-faire in its dealings, seeing man as having sufficient accumulated knowledge and being capable of making prudent trade-offs that would benefit himself and society in the process. Nothing is done in isolation. Benefits abound because for the Right life is not a zero sum game. Everyone can win.  Everyone can have their own pie.

The constrained vision sees man as he really is:  self-motivated. This realistic vision sees man as selfish and greedy but also willing to respect tradition and rules and certainly able to make prudent trade-offs based on knowledge gained from centuries of accumulated knowledge and wisdom, knowledge and wisdom not confined to an omnipotent Decider. One with a constrained vision doesn’t have all the answers. He or she must operate with humilty, tolerance and cooperation in order to support the freedom and liberty within which they seek to live.

 While there is much more to be said here I promised to keep this short. I highly recommend Thomas Sowell’s book, A Conflict of Visions:  Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, as a means to understand the vast differences of the two visions behind the political, economic and social struggles affecting our world today. 

I can see clearly now.

Quote source:  Vanity Fair article, Still Cuckoo After All These Years, by James Wolcott, December 2011 issue.

*****

“The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.”  Thomas Aquinas

*****

**An aside into constrained thinking:

Filed under 2012 election, Current Events 2011, Economics, essay, Health Care, Life As I See It, Non-fiction, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Capitalism Has Got the Goods (and Services) – In Song

November 10, 2011 Leave a comment

Filed under Economics Tagged with , , ,

tête-à-tête

October 8, 2011 Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One Debt to Rule Them All

August 6, 2011 Leave a comment

The Hopey-Changey Barack-O-Meter hit a new low this past week.

American credit has been downgraded by Standard & Poors. This happened because of the economic and social policies of Barack Hussein Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. The Democrats forced a debt ceiling deal that was nowhere near good enough to prevent the downgrade. It was the *Tea Party members of Congress who demanded substantial cuts to make our country fiscally sound. Instead, our time was ‘murdered’ by the Mad Hatter and his tea party.

But that’s not all….

There are over fourteen million people out of work. The effective unemployment rate is 20% of the population – one in five Americans. Many people have given up looking for work. BO, community-organizer-in-chief, continues to offer absolutely nothing of substance to turn the economy around. He proffers class warfare – the African dictator way of handling things. His version of social justice is to ransack the rich and feed his political coffers (while lavishing himself with many golf outings and a birthday week  bash– very African dictator like.)

BO continues to push for more government regulation and this only tightens the noose around small businesses. They die off every day.

Obamacare is a plague on our nation. Many corporations will drop their health care coverage. Many large companies have opted out. Many doctors will leave the practice. The passed-on cost of this health care ‘reform’ will shut the doors of many of the nation’s small businesses, the very life-blood of our economy. The voodoo social and economic policies of BO have brought a pox on all of us.

2012: There will be people who will continue to vote for the downgrade of the US – people who read Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, who follow MoveOn.org, Jim Wallis and other progressive panaceans.  There are people who only listen to Hollywood movie stars lecturing the public about social policies, ‘lobal’ warming and revised US history. These people will vote with their left hand because they don’t want to know what the right hand is doing.

“Barack Obama’s political genius is his ability to say things that will sound good to people who have not followed the issues in any detail — regardless of how obviously fraudulent what he says may be to those who have. Shameless effrontery can be a huge political asset, especially if uninformed voters outnumber those who are informed.” Thomas Sowell, economist

In stead of Hope and Change, BO’s 2012 campaign slogan should be, Be in Hock with Barack!

*In an amazing bout of stupidity and rancor this past week VP Joe Biden called Tea Party members “Terrorists”.  Joe must have felt threatened.  The only way a Tea Party member could even be considered a terrorist is when they threaten the status quo of politicians like Joe Biden.

http://legalinsurrection.com/2011/08/sp-drops-u-s-credit-rating-to-aa/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZUzuYoCkYAY

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

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