I had a short sit-down with a most charming and intelligent lady recently – very Prudent in my judgment. We agreed on nearly everything concerning her professional expertise and shared each other’s reminiscences from too many decades. At a couple of points she had alluded to being “very liberal” without it influencing our discussions, while describing how her work improved individual performance for business leaders and managers. At that Prudence suggested that she probably is not as liberal as she thinks. We never did get into either of our social views, but before parting it became very clear that conservative news sources could never be trusted while “liberal” ones always could.
In the end I opined that I wasn’t sure that President Obama
was a natural born American, that his released birth certificate was forged in
some way and that he was the only person in his administration who ever claimed
he was born in Kenya, and I cited a statement on a “book jacket.” She was able to name everyone related to or
near the president in any way as scurrilous in the light of “more than 30
indictments,” for Heaven’s sake. I
suggested that they weren’t connected to Russian involvement with Trump and she
listed a couple where people had been working for Turkey (Flynn) who later lied
about meeting a Russian, and Paul Manafort, of course.
I was wrong about the “book jacket” reference: the claim was
made by Obama’s literary agency in a booklet it used to promote books to large
buyers, but Obama, himself, never challenged it until a couple months after
declaring himself in the running for the Democrat nomination. The literary agent lady claimed it was her
personal mistake and that Obama himself had never told her personally that he
was born in Kenya. She probably derived
the “belief” in his place of birth from the information in the Harvard Law
School yearbook that listed the very same Barack Hussein Obama as having come
from Kenya. The very same Obama hadn’t
challenged that, either, after having certainly seen it, he being the first
African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review, after all. So there is some validity to Prudence’ having
formed a belief about his Kenyan origins.
Harvard, of course, “corrected” the yearbook entry after the controversy
became news in 2007. Lots of mistakes
connected to one little-known individual’s demographics.
The idea of Obama’s grandmother, in Kenya, having been
present at his birth, there, however, is not substantiated. One of Obama’s half-brothers, among others,
tried to float a fraudulent claim about a Kenyan birth certificate, which
muddied the waters even more.
To the lady’s credit, despite rattling off every “Trump”
negative possible in a very brief couple of sentences, there are many questions about Trump’s
associates, himself, and even about his relatives – but it seems Prudent to
await some sort of proof of the many embellishments certain media layer on to
every indictment that has emitted from the Mueller operations.
Prudence would indicate that most of those who voted for
Donald Trump don’t like him, particularly.
(See http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2017/11/29/trumpism-is-a-ghost/) Many obviously do, imputing to him the
persona of “one of the guys” even though he doesn’t drink or smoke. They like the way he says what he thinks,
even without the politically correct filtering.
Those who don’t “like” him also appreciate his willingness to throw out
his opinions and willingness to call people out for their bad acts, lies and
falsities of various sorts. It doesn’t
help that he is reckless in many of his statements to the point of stating his
own falsities, but in most cases it doesn’t sound like “lies,” in the sense of
malicious mendacity. Opinions vary. Still, a majority of states wanted the degree
of change Trump would bring, regardless of his “baggage.” Prudence agrees.
It is obvious, Prudence would indicate, that the creation of
Fox News dramatically altered the “news” business, perhaps on a par with the
creation of CNN. The challenge to the
amorphous leftism of, first, broadcast networks and then cable networks, caused
those outlets to sharpen their stances and to attack “right wing news.” With so few right-leaning networks, right-leaning
politicians have naturally hewn closer to Fox and a handful of independent
“blog,” YouTube and “Podcast” sources for “alternative” news and opinion… and
confirmation.
CNN and others turned to spend more and more time and
content in sharply partisan “reporting.”
The news business is now not just corrupt, it is failing its vital role,
guaranteed to it in the First Amendment.
Government types are delighted to be allied with the “press.” It removes all that “truthiness” pressure.
However, the slippery immersion into partisan defense by
most media, is not only destructive of our separation of powers, but an abject
disregard… a besmirching of the role of a free press – not “free” to pander but
free to be honest, something
journalists in many countries die for.
Of all the ills America suffers today, the loss of an honest, free press
may be the worst. For shame, and shame
upon the magnates and business titans who own various outlets of partisan
claptrap. Who is watching the watchers?
The biggest watchers, today, are the largest cyber-media
monsters: Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others. In the span of fifteen years, virtually
everyone who utilizes the internet for communication or information, has
adapted to obtaining both through one of these companies. It is the most rapid transformation of human interaction…
and most rapid concentration of power – power over human knowledge – in all of
history. Only now is the danger and
threat of this concentration being recognized.
-Google, in particular, is succeeding at convincing schools to forego books and other paper media for everything from studies, assignments, homework and testing. Kids who spend excessive hours on screens for games, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and Snapchat, have been shepherded onto screens for even more hours per day! Worse, they are being taught from the youngest possible ages that truth may be found on a Google screen. Except that, now we learn that Google has a very specific view of what truths are find-able on those very screens. Can democracy survive this evil filtering of facts?
Indeed, not even Constitutional republicanism can withstand
it. Have we the necessary vision and
courage to reverse this extra-constitutional threat?
Things just aren’t the same, anymore… have you noticed? On the other hand, it’s not Prudent to say
they ever were – the same I mean. Strong
societies like the United States, remain strong because some things are the
same, in fact; to protect ourselves, our grandchildren and their grandchildren,
the strong fibers in our culture must be defended and inculcated in our
children as well as in ourselves. There
are too many who should understand their presence and purpose but appear
ignorant of them.
One such fiber is our Constitution. Conservatives revere it; leftists unceasingly
circumvent it. Since its adoption the
Constitution has held strong, but has no effect on national direction when
governance simply steps into the shadows and ignores it. Most of that determined ignorance includes
big tax-funded payoffs to politically significant segments of the citizenry,
cementing the synthesis, into the new
thesis that the Constitutional limitation on this or
that governing act actually could be interpreted in a different (socialistic)
way. Later there is always the new antithesis that, couched in terms of “equal protection
under the law” and “non-discrimination,” must, “constitutionally” be applied to
still more segments until there’s a permanent acceptance of that much socialism
by the very conservatives who believe they are defending the Constitution! It’s a strong, inelastic fiber that’s been
stretched, nevertheless, over the past 150 years.
Conservatives believe that pulling back from the severe
strains on the Constitutional fiber, is the only long-term solution to the
survival of the American idea.
Religion, churches (church-communities) and religious
education form a fiber that is perceived as “quaint” by the leftist elements on
the East and West coasts and urban pockets in between. Anti-religion is strong on college campuses,
as it is in public grade and high schools.
Being at least agnostic, if not atheistic, is worn as a badge of
intellectual status, certainly since the 1960’s; those still attending are being taught that
the Bible and the words of Jesus somehow fit socialism. In response, churches are failing to define
the difference between worldly comforts and holy purposes of life. Government, under a Constitutional guarantee
of non-interference in and by religion itself, has proven feckless and works
harder to divest itself of moral responsibility at every level. This “fiber” is threadbare and undependable.
Family cohesiveness is the core strength of any society. In no culture has the strength and identity of mores and traditions been separated from widespread, if not complete, adherence to the family “pattern,” until the degradation of “Western,” culture, now entering its seventh decade. It is quickly becoming America’s greatest weakness and we have repeatedly elected representatives who facilitate it with misguided welfare programs. Without succeeding generations of “America”-acculturated citizens, there will be no “nation” and worse, there will be no one to defend it. Electronics and computerized health-care are not substitutes for strong, morally straight families, for only they form the “fiber” of freedom and self-government enabled through the Constitution.
Public education is the second greatest acculturation
mechanism and process we have. By
default public schools and teachers are charged with the responsibility to
educate succeeding members of our society and culture: new “Americans,” in truth. Since the 1970’s, certainly, teachers and
their unions have cemented themselves into codified bailiwicks where they can
teach almost anything without fear of being fired, while rewarding those
elected “representatives” who protect their “bailiwicks,” with solid political
support. Unthinking – or lightly
thinking – citizens vote for said “representatives” and vote further to
“support” public education with tax increases and overrides to prove their
great morality in defense of an American tradition. Meanwhile, “teachers” are increasingly
producing less-literate graduates who distrust, if not hate, the United States
and the true traditions of sacrifice, thrift, personal responsibility and
Judeo-Christianity, while embracing socialism, of all things the most
antithetical to American success and strength.
As a culture we are failing miserably to make the fabric of our nation
stronger, and we grin as we reward those who facilitate our internal
weakness. This “fiber” is now almost
invisible, maintained mostly in private, church-connected schools, and not all
of those.
Finance and wealth creation have been, and should be, strong
fibers in the fabric of industrialized societies, of which the United States is
one, like it or not. Both are tightly
connected to honesty in our legal structures, honesty in our contracts, honesty
in our “money,” fair debt creation and destruction, and private property. In short, the economics of the Bible, both
old and new testaments, like it or not.
Proto-socialists rail against “unfair” wealth “distribution.” They are simultaneously right and wrong. Wealth is not “distributable,” per se, and
“fairness” is irrelevant, but the accumulation and possession of “wealth,” is
certainly uneven, leading to strong feelings of envy and raw hatred of the “greedy.” These feelings are political minefields and
rich fodder for politicians whose beliefs are fundamentally anti-American… or
anti-family: same thing. But back to
“money”:
Financially, the federal government is a failure, unable to maintain its own household within a budget and even to create an honest budget through anything close to honest legislation. Because the Congress can, and the U. S. is in a global position to enable it, the federal government borrows more than it can (ever) repay, every fiscal year. Despite these well-known facts of financial incompetence, American voters continue to elect “representatives” who believe – and require by legislation – that more and more of every American’s personal financial security should depend upon or be in the hands of, the federal government. This “fiber” is a misconstrual of the “strings” that federal intrusion always includes – strings that could strangle us.
Debt is a tool of growth, investment, liquidity, defense, achievement, construction, infrastructure, public health and more, much more. Yet it is also a weapon, threatening and weakening whole nations, indeed, every nation. Instead of leading the world economically, proving the superiority of free enterprise and freedom itself, the United States has succumbed to banking globalism and to the blandishments of socialism, under which “investments” are made in daily necessities for large fractions of our population. Economically there is no “R.O.I” – return on investment – where debt is incurred in the furthering of dependency. The U. S. carries a “current” debt liability that is approaching annual G.D.P. Our productivity cannot generate sufficient surplus to even “service” that debt (pay the interest on it) without borrowing other debt to do so, given the nature of our entitlement budget and bloated pension commitments. Weapon-wise, debt allows international banking to FORCE the U. S. to borrow to meet its commitments for interest payments. Every dollar of debt is a dollar of weakness, not strength; of obligation, not freedom. Our “representatives” are doing this type of budgeting “for” us since it’s too complicated for us to understand.
Money is real. That is, “money” has intrinsic value: gold, silver, platinum or other “hard” currencies, or the notes that stand for a set value of real money so long as those notes may be traded for real money on demand. We don’t have “money” any longer, although we have currency that we are still willing to work for, sell for, buy with and “save up” for those rainy days. Written on the notes in our pockets are official dictates that this or that piece of paper shall be accepted as “legal tender” in all transactions, public or private. Someone famous and/or important has his or her name printed nearby affirming the quality of the banknotes we hold. They are no longer U. S. Notes, they are Federal Reserve Notes, a private bank with a public name. Instead of having the U. S. Mint simply print U. S. Notes when we need more liquidity in the economy, we incur a debt to the Federal Reserve bank, and others, including foreign countries – debts we have no hope of repaying in principal, while our obligation to “service” those debts is unending. The government prints U. S. Bonds, however, which are accepted as good instruments for the loans their purchasers are making to the United States. The question, is, therefore, if the bonds are good, why not skip the growing interest cost and just print our own money? Hmmmnnnhh.
So, our money is not honest. It is, instead, merely confidence notes that we and most of the world, accept. Federal Reserve Notes may be exchanged at any so-called bank only for other Federal Reserve Notes… not for gold or silver or anything of intrinsic value except, if inclined, for modern pennies, the content of which cost more than 1 cent. Melting them down for the intrinsic metal value is a crime, of course. More and more we exchange our “cash” for magnetic bubbles on a hard drive, trusting the federally regulated “bank” to protect the record so that we may access it at gasoline pumps, hardware stores and websites that will trade books and electronic gizmos for a share of those magnetic records. We are now a couple of layers of separation from real-value-money and yet fully confident that “our” money is both safe and safely “ours.”
Our entire economy is based on, and priced on, debts and interest. Think about it. Our rush to “cashless” commerce carries a very high price, whether one makes use of credit cards or not. First, the merchant/ restaurateur who accepts your card, must pay the transfer or remitting agent a fee for that privilege – a fee based on a percentage of the transaction amount, including taxes. This may be 1.5%, 2%, 3% and occasionally more depending on total flow of “credit” transactions for that single location or for the total transactions for a chain of locations. Many card-holders use “Rewards” cards to obtain fractional cash-back or “miles” or other goodies marketed as though free, simply as a thank-you for using the card. In reality those “rewards” raise the fees to the vendor/merchant for the privilege of accepting the card. Those costs are recouped entirely from the cost of goods sold – there is no free lunch. Later, the card-holder receives a bill from the “credit-card company” (bank) for all the stupid latte’s, Big Macs and smoothies he or she has enjoyed during the month preceding. Smart card-holders pay that bill in total the minute they receive it, but a large and growing percentage do not, allowing some of the balance to carry over to the next billing cycle, incurring upwards of 20% or more interest! Some even pay only the minimum suggested to keep the collection process at bay – this figure leads to maximization of the total interest the cardholder will eventually pay to the bank that has, in effect, loaned him or her enough money to buy lunch… or gas… or movie tickets… or even subway rides. As above, so below, when it comes to debt-consciousness. In effect then, our entire retail economy and large segments of wholesale purchases carries a “vig” of 2% or more on average; that is, 2%, say, on about $6 Trillion in retail sales and 25% or more than that in wholesale/raw-materials sales. The interest cost on costs of goods, is approaching $200 Billion. Where does that money go, one wonders? We’re all paying for it.
The once-strong thread of thrift and sacrifice has
disappeared, leaving all of us – and our supposedly “rich” nation, indebted for
life, our children’s lives, their children’s lives and the lives of further
generations than they. What an
inheritance.
Suffice to say that our nation is adrift. One political party/movement: liberal,
progressive, socialist, Democrat, is prostrating itself before the twin altars
of unrestricted abortion and legalizing drugs and other crimes, and the altar
of outsiders: non-citizens unwilling to provide for themselves or to follow our
most basic national laws. The other is
tripping over its shoelaces trying to remain relevant to media that share the
liberal, progressive, socialist, Democrat viewpoints – and philosophies – while
trying to overcome 60 years of feckless education (also liberal, progressive,
socialist, Democrat-leaning) that has separated 3 generations of Americans from
their history, heritage and founding majesty.
Politicizing, even codifying, every feeling and hatred, has
not rendered ours a happier or more cohesive society. Indeed, it is not even “fairer.” Politics that channels hatreds requires the
aggravation of envy and jealousy; it requires the accentuation of differences
between groups rather than between individuals.
So-called “identity politics” leads to identifying each group’s enemies
and resisting, if not attacking them.
Civility as a tool for nation-building is not simply unemployed, it is
mocked.
When differences between individuals is dealt with – usually
in small, civil steps – what usually develops is an understanding of how much
more similar they/we are, than different. Individuals don’t usually hurl epithets at
unrelated, unconnected individuals, it takes a mob mentality to do so, and then
it is done in order to or because of some perceived membership in a mob-hated group.
Civility, and civilization itself, takes work, commonality, leadership,
both individual and social. A
Constitutional Republic like the United States is based on individual, not
group responsibility; it is based on self-control and individual
responsibility, not group control or group responsibility. Keep this distinction in mind. One need not be Christian to appreciate that
the New Testament was a covenant with individuals and not with tribes or
peoples. Ours is a “Christian” nation in
that our Constitution enables individual success and failure, and individual
responsibility to one’s community, family and self for the consequences of
one’s actions… and, perhaps, to God.
It is just a few days until Christmas and I’m driving with great Prudence, yet still able to observe the full moon in its apparently circular beauty, yellow-orange and huge. Flying across its face are dark gray clouds. There still being some waning daylight, the clouds seem darker than they really are, making the moon’s reflected light seem friendlier than ever, and it made us think about it all.
Some astronomers are faithful to some view of God or an
Intelligence behind the design of the “Universe” of which we are aware. Some are faithful only to mathematics and
physical laws… of which we are aware.
All, however, are evidently in agreement about matters of life on earth,
and our so-far unique circumstances that allow for the benign environment life
has enjoyed for millions of years. And,
it has a lot to do with the Moon.
Along with earth’s distance from the right sort of star, it
is blessed with a “satellite” moon that is large enough (about ¼ of earth’s
diameter) and massive enough (about 2% of earth’s, gigantic among known “moons”)
to not only generate significant tides but to form, in effect, a binary planet
system. By some manner, the formation of
the Moon caused a tilt to earth’s axis resulting in seasons as we whirl about
the Sun each year. Our friendly moon
also has protected us from objects too numerous to count that hit her instead
of earth.
Earth also was formed from the right kind of rocky,
metal-laden bits and pieces – the remains of stars that died billions of years
ago – such that our core is a molten mix of iron and several radioactive
elements that both maintain heat and convection and which happily generate a
strong magnetic field that, fortunately, protects us from the worst of our
right-sort-of-star’s radiation, allowing mutation to occur not so frequently
that already living things could not take advantage of them over generations of
evolution. All in all, cool.
Amidst all of this rare good fortune – so rare in
conjunction that its calculation of probability needs more zeroes to the right
of its decimal point than this page could hold – somehow evolution produced
humans who became abruptly smarter a couple hundred thousand years ago,
including the ability to worship, the only truly exclusive ability amongst all the
higher orders of fauna.
True agnostics, among whom all honest scientists should
reside, are able to consider the possibility that there is Intelligent Design given the
quantity of evidence for it; atheists, on the other hand, are committed to denial
in the face of evidence, mainly out of fear that there might be a “God,”
so-called, and they seriously don’t want that to be true. Skeptics, though, want to argue every tiny
point about “Intelligent Design” or any other name for God, since they can’t
see it, touch it, taste it or hear it,
and lacking tangible proof prefer to remain on the sidelines, watching the
game. Besides, if there were such an
all-powerful Being, wouldn’t He make Himself known?
The answer to that question is, of course, yes, He would… and here we are.
Humans tend to assume that if there is something to be
learned that we can learn it – something to be known, we can know it. On Earth we know a great deal but very little
beyond. Without experience to fill out
our observations, we remain quite ignorant and reduced to speculation, which we
are very good at. Currently the hot
speculation is about “life” on other planets in other solar systems in “our”
galaxy and, naturally, in others.
Telescopes of various kinds reveal that most stars have planets and we
can observe basic parameters of some of them.
Automatically we can speculate, estimate by orders of magnitude, that
there are billions and billions of planets… surely some are enough like Earth
to have sentient life, both more advanced and less advanced than we are.
Is it reasonable that “God” or the “Intelligent Designer” of
the universe has devoted some care and attention to them, also? Do they have souls? Can they go to “Heaven” when they die? In the 1950’s Prudence’ close, close friend
read a science-fiction story about humans – probably Americans – who had
abandoned their original starship mission in an attempt to arrive at an
inhabited planet while “Jesus” was still there, just missing him more than
once. The title and author escape us but
it may have been Heinlein, Poul Anderson or some other science fiction artist
of the period. The concept is a natural
extension of our speculations, though, is it not?
The facts and phenomenal good fortune of our existence on
Earth have granted us the ability – perhaps the right – to believe and to
worship, to discover mathematics and to learn to speculate outside of our
individual spheres of subsistence and procreation. At the center of the “Are we alone?”
question, lies “Are you there God, it’s us, humans?”
Still, it is interesting that humans are wired to worship,
and that “religious” traditions around the world share many concepts and
traditional accounts of the origins of everything and of the sources of
knowledge of all sorts: from outside of Earth, always “up.”
Unfortunately, learned humans tend to create comfortable
pathways along which to speculate – form theories. Many of these same consider religious beliefs
– religious explanations for the origin and operation of “things” – to be
mythical and therefore unreal. After all,
those ancient peoples had no science, no rational means of discovery, so the
speculation goes, and therefore everything they believed was baseless. Maybe.
Now and then something is dug up that belies a lot of
speculations and the learned humans file it away in the basement of a
university school of misunderstandings so as to not threaten their
speculations. Speculators like to be in
control. Consequently, they prefer the
most complicated explanations they can conceive of – explanations that require
incalculably tiny probabilities of sequences of “natural” events – to explain
everything.
One could speculate that these rationalist humans are simply
worshiping the wrong truth.
