Monthly Archives: November 2022

Culture, Economics, Education, Family, Politics 2022, Religion

Greatitude

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Alter us

There are so many things to think about, wonder about, dream of or simply, profoundly contemplate… at Christmastime.  Modern society provides thousands of distractions to contemplative thought, even of religious thought.  It confuses young and old and even quite intelligent people, who, many of them, find comfort in overthrowing traditions and beliefs that, however jerkily, created pathways of progress and even enlightenment.  Enlightenment’s end will be realized when “woke” ideologies capture the last government.

Christmas takes place at the altar of God, like it or not.  Mankind is obligated to bring gifts of thanks to the Creator, gifts derived from multiplying what we have been given for a full year’s cycle of days and nights, pains and suffering, triumphs and failures, loves and losses, lives and deaths, babies and aged cadavers.  If we manage to not be destructively distracted, we have much to offer our Creator, and offer it we must.  This is not a new or even a “Christian” concept.  Most religious traditions include significant measures of time, “moons,” seasons and solstices.  The traditions that built our civilization caused the development of calendars that have a clear beginning and ending, recognized by everyone.  Those who understood the segments of time and lengths of daylight hours gained great influence.  As God and His prophets explained and taught spiritual laws, it was into the traditions of our incipient civilization that they fit them.  As much as the first day of a new year is meaningful about beginnings, plans and courage to attempt new things, the end of the year is important for tallying the results and expressing gratitude for the victories and challenges thereof. 

That there is believed to be a cycle of receiving and giving and of giving and receiving, all of which may contribute to a better destiny after one’s earthly life is finished, formed the basis of ethics, charity and hard work, and, it can be said, of honesty and personal responsibility.  Populations that share these concepts develop individual consciences and the greatest of all gifts: self-control.  This very capability is essential – indispensable – for the creation and maintenance of a personal relationship with God, God by any name, and, clearly, for the establishment of the democratic republic of the United States of America.

Many are alive today who, as socialists also do, believe that their purpose in life is to take as much advantage of society as possible.  They expect levels of wealth, comfort and licentious rights as though by magic.  Many don’t work or produce anything of useful value to others.  If they are in college due to signed loan contracts, they tend to agitate energetically for “the government” to absorb their debts, as if they who signed those contracts were magically absolved of a solemn promise.  It is an extraordinary expectation with literally no prior basis in law or social organization.  Such an outlook is the diametric opposite of accepting an annual opportunity to live, multiply and serve others, and laying the results on the altar at the conclusion of the annual cycle.  Education, parenting and religion have failed these people.

The American holiday, Thanksgiving, fits our founding philosophies perfectly.  As we approach the end of each year, we are reminded unceasingly that it is time to give thanks for the blessings of freedom and of our Constitutional governance.  Amongst the football, shopping, road-races and overeating, families and friends come together, let’s hope without conflict, where, even if not articulated, being thankful seeps in to the most unaware.  But, thankful to whom?

Some might think they are thanking the government… for the good fortune that has found them in the United States.  Yet the government spends most of its time limiting our freedom, not something to thank anyone for.  However, we do enjoy a good fraction of the freedom that was present at our founding and we should be thankful for that.  We still enjoy a measure of personal responsibility, the one ingredient in freedom that makes our personal choices meaningful as it makes our lives meaningful.  Government seems to be actively eliminating personal responsibility as though everything good or bad that happens is a social consequence, not a personal one.  That’s not what – or whom – we are thankful for, either.

Like love, hate or forgiveness, thankfulness is uniquely human.  So, too, is the ability to worship.  This combination of human attitudes and abilities is why socially sensitive civilizations exist.  Add to them the sense of sacrifice that spurs preparation for a better future for ourselves and for others, and some of the most sublime philosophies of social organization, economics and government can be understood.  The greatest advances of science and medicine would be impossible without certain attitudes, including sacrifice.  These are attitudes common to what we call, “human nature,” and which are fought against consistently by philosophies of what we call, “socialism.”

Humans have a further grant from, well, their creator… certainly not from any government.  We call it “free will” and it refers to the opportunity to choose from evil, which is to say, “away from evil.”  Clearly, God (I’ll use “God” – easier to type, you know) brought humans into being on a planet where “free will” would always be tested against the blandishments of evil.  Freedom will exist only so long as the young are taught about it and of it and, if truth be told, so long as God is worshipped.  No form of governance that denies those understandings is able to keep people out of tyranny.  For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, and hearts to maintain the courage of free will, I am thankful.

“The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.”  Frederick Douglass

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams

Biden, Culture, Economics, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Obama, Politics 2022

AMERICAN GLORY

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I think we can, I think we can…

On November 8th, a cold day before the first frost, hereabouts, Prudence found the very last Morning Glory blossom on a set of vines that looked dead for more than a couple of weeks.  While it seemed lonely, perhaps forlorn, that blossom faced the sun with purpose.  It was telling its world that even when all doors seemed closed, the spark of life, matched with a strong purpose – or courage – was overcoming almost everything.

We are witnessing the dismantling of the United States as a sovereign nation.  It is sad that no news organization asks questions about it.  It is the only end result that makes sense of Biden’s open-border tragedy and it’s not a new idea: George W. Bush talked about creating a “North American Union” similar to the European Union, where petty local elections would mean less and less and less.  The free flow of peoples is part of it.  Erasing quaint ideas of nationalism and America-first, are parts of it, too.  No wonder Trump was so hated by the anti-nationalists who are in charge.  It’s all globalist crap, and every Democrat supports it, yet not more than two Republicans have spoken of it, much.  American citizens?  Why tell them anything?

The deep state has discussed the concepts of an “NAU” with both Mexico and Canada over the past 20 years and probably more.  There hasn’t been any effort to speak to the United States about it.  President George H. W. Bush spoke of “… a new world order…” in the early 90’s, as though the actions and policies of the United States were somehow leading to that mythical utopia.  You can spot those who share that concept: they looove the United Nations.  They get a thrill from hearing people from less-successful and far more oppressed nations telling the United States what to do.

Barack Obama is a true acolyte in that church.  Not only did he apologize to the world for real and imagined mistakes the U. S. has made… forever, but he couches his basic hatred of his own country in terms of racism: the unassailable condemnation.  There are many like him.  They’ve taken to calling for U. N. oversight of OUR elections!  Yet, there is almost nothing the U. N. does that improves freedom or raises standards of living – except for the standards of living for those that work for the U. N.  It is an horrendously corrupt and wasteful bureaucracy, and the U. S. feels compelled to pay the lion’s share of its many budgets.  Being “woke” began with the U. N. after World War II; supporting the U. N., even over support for the U. S. is one of the greatest virtue-signals possible.

To rush along the “New World Order,” leftists within our own government favor and work for acceptance of U. N. directives.  The fundamental process requires giving up bits and pieces of U. S. sovereignty, which also means discarding our Constitutionally protected, God-given rights.  Within every variation of justification for elevating humanity to become our own gods, there is a constant drumbeat against religion (mostly against Christianity) and no room for God, himself.  Here in one of the few nations founded or premised upon religious freedom, we find numerous CHURCHES and watered-down, rainbow-flagged liturgies, that strongly support the U. N.  Individuality and individual relationships with God and Christ are not preached or honored there, any longer.  Marching toward the new world order is a march to the left, Godless and socialist.

“The New World Order” is not a phrase that’s tossed around of late.  What is dropped often enough is the term, “The Great Reset.”  Everyone in favor of the Great Reset is perfectly happy with the prospects of a new world order, make no mistake.  “Great Reset” is the brain-fart of the self-exalted “World Economic Forum,” led by the chief fart, Klaus Schwab.  No one elected him; he and the rest of those who are “members” of the “Forum,” are self-appointed, very wealthy individuals who have developed significant sway over actual political, elected leaders.  Despite their capitalist origins, they all seem quite comfortable with a socialist, one-world future.  All seem convinced that socialism has failed heretofore only because those attempting to employ it were not as smart as this current gang of utterly secular insurrectionists… insurrection being the overthrow of existing government(s).

The Great Reset received a huge boost from the COVID-19 pandemic.  Incipient global rulers watched the lockdowns and mandating of experimental vaccines with satisfied glee.  Millions of hitherto “sovereign” citizens were accepting extra-legal control of movement, employment, worship and assembly on the premise of stopping an infectious virus.  Constitutions and other statements of rights were set aside with minimal resistance.  To globalists, this behavior showed that tyrannical control is manageable.  God forbid.

Still, among the dying vines of freedom, faith, private property rights and individuality, there are enough living cells to blossom forth in glory.  But, can we protect freedom’s flower from the coming frost of de-population, famine and global communism, under which, according to the benevolent Klaus Schwab, we will “own nothing and be happy?”

Representatives of our own government, including the incredibly corrupt Vice-President, Joseph Robinette Biden, descendant of slave owners and top dog in a corrupt and morally twisted family, have attended and addressed the W. E. F. in its Davos meetings.  Biden’s last speech there, a couple days before Trump’s inauguration, was full of internationalist palaver and platitudes of cooperation salted with anti-Russian, anti-Putin derogation.  As President, however, Biden has governed this country in contravention of his utopian dreams expressed to the W. E. F.  Indeed, he has governed in contravention of his sworn oath upon inauguration: his word is cheap – easily purchased.  With some 150 instances of questionable financial transactions among the several Bidens and foreign countries, it may prove difficult to ascertain who owns the largest portion of good ol’ Joe’s integrity.  Observations – and Biden’s own actions – would indicate that significant ownership of his integrity belongs to Communist China, and not to the citizens of the United States.

“The West” owes to itself and to all mankind a proper regulation / limitation of raw capitalism.  Today’s youth are rightly fed up with the distortions caused by hyper-accumulation of wealth.  Capitalism was the servant of freedom while free-enterprise was possible, encouraged and promoted by republican governments.  It worked while laws and judicial impartiality provided an honest business environment, one of the best in the world.  In other words, free enterprise worked when government was honest, both federal and state.  A hundred aspects of Covid-19 response have shown that our governments and multiple enforcement agencies have become dishonest, with even our largest, most trusted, government-corrupted, medical delivery systems forcing forms of protocols that have increased the death toll from Covid at least 100%.  The “government” provided financial incentives to hospitals to both identify and treat “Covid” patients, including specific treatments and, oddly, lacks thereof.  Thousands have died because normal treatments and checkups for cancers, heart disease and many other conditions, were stopped or avoided by patients.  The crimes are so huge we’ll never have all the statistics.

The fastest way to start stitching the American opportunity society back together, is to return to honesty in government – something that seems anathema to today’s politicians and to the deep state.

All we true Americans need is the single-minded purpose of a Morning Glory blossom, determined to return our glory to the world.

Crime, Culture, Economics, Education, Elections, Governance, Politics 2022, Race, Responsibility

From Trump to America, First

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Button, button, who’s got the button…?

Trump was a phenomenon in politics and in our history.  It seems Prudent to recognize that the greatest good he could possibly do… has already been done.  Not everyone who gains center stage will be a King, someday.  Some will merely be President of the United States, and then retire.

Aside from his extraordinary rise to the presidency, the most extraordinary aspect of Trump’s political chapter in his own life and in ours, was the unprecedented attacks he drew from the corrupt “leaders” who burrow into Washington and try never to leave.  Self-service is nearly the only service that City knows… or recognizes.  It stains and erodes everything, there.

In what can fairly be described as a sacrificial role, Trump exposed the nature and breadth of the rot we call the administrative state.  He took the slings and arrows for all of us who supported him, and for those who didn’t, in fact.  Like a lightning rod on a fragile, wooden barn, we are glad – thankful – that Trump was there during the storms.  Yet we recognize that we should not get too close when the next storm threatens, for he also draws the lightning bolts that could injure us as well as him.  It’s a real dichotomy, and grossly unfair.

Comfortably blind Democrats and leftists who may still pledge allegiance to this amazing nation, are certainly blind to the sacrifice Trump made to even run for president, and to accept the burden of election.  His fortune shrank and he relinquished control of businesses that bear his name.  We need not cry for him, but America owes him an historic debt of gratitude: he may have saved the Republic.  Unlike most in Congress and in the 1200, or so, agencies, departments, offices and programs, The Donald did not go to Washington to become rich by hook or crook.

Like nearly every true leader, Trump has human flaws and among them are an outsized impression of his irreplaceability.  He is vain and narcissistic and hates to not be the center of attention.  Prudence does not envy him his retirement.  Those flaws are damaging his legacy, now, and damaging the nation he deeply loves and served.  To a great extent, his anger over a very questionable 2020 election hurt Republicans’ ability to win the Senate in 2020, and it is poised to hurt the same opportunity, again.

Unfortunately, Donald Trump’s need to be the center of attention and authority keeps him from playing on a team – only if it’s HIS team.  For this reason, Prudence recommends that Mr. Trump actually retire from seeking office.  He is a huge influencer, and that power can be put to good work to keep politics and leadership fighting for “America First.”

There is a very painful effect for someone in Trump’s position, to stop pushing to get revenge on political enemies who have lied and conspired to tear him down.  Other Republicans will do well to sit down with him to map out how they will eventually bring down those who have broken numerous laws in their false accusations and fraudulent uses of federal power.  It can take the “Trump Wars” off of the front pages and let local political battles be won by other conservatives.  There are better, more unifying candidates for President, as hard as that is for Trump to accept.

So, Trump can be an heroic figure in history… or, he can be seen as a vindictive man who faded from importance, squabbling and lashing out at those who, genuinely, distorted the truth – even committed blatant, illegal fraud – to hurt him, personally and the country as a whole.  Prudence recommends heroism.

As for other Republicans, honesty, morality and dedicated “America First” policies are the pathways to power and American restoration.  We must re-frame the abortion issue with truth and pro-American views.  The pre-born are Americans.  It is time to make “pro-choice” the free choice to have sex, not to kill the baby.  Our long-term success as a nation requires guaranteeing the rights enumerated in our constitution, including LIFE.  We must restore the meaning of words and biological truth at the same time.  Republicans must stand for life and define the pro-death attitudes of the left, for they include the death of the United States of America.

Republicans must stand for honesty, integrity and honor in education, including reasonable limits on the power of education unions.  Among those must be political actions or donations on behalf of any officials able to affect or effect financial advantage for union members.  The same should be true for all public employee unions.

No laws should be signed into effect if they are based on self-declared feelings, absent empirical evidence.  Smart Republicans can create anti-discrimination protections for everyone that are not based on feelings, but on actions against the person of any American.

Criminal penalties must not be affected or distorted based on race or gender or gender-identity, only on the severity of the criminal acts, themselves.  Citizens understand the difference between honest and equal application of the laws, and political favoritism that distorts public safety.  Republicans must be clearly identified with public safety, and making clear the distinction between real safety and faux enforcement distorted by the left.

American foreign policy needs clarity and unquestioned pro-American patriotism.  We must strengthen our alliances with British commonwealth countries and a handful of others who share our philosophies and anti-communism.  At the same time we must be clear in our own anti-communism.  Our military behemoth needs strict reform and reallocation of resources.  There is too much General staff and not enough troops or hardware, or training.  The next president must be especially tough with the 6 branches, making them lean and effective.  All vestiges of “wokeism” and “social justice” must be weeded out of the academies and the ranks, right up to General staff level.  Only then will foreign policy mean very much and will diplomacy achieve very much.

Fiscally, the federal budget must be cut, including welfare of every sort.  The debt ceiling should be reduced every year until we are in balance, no exceptions.  Every Department and agency should have its budget and cost / performance rating reviewed separately: no more “omnibus” budget bills and no more continuing resolutions.  If ANY politician truly desired to reduce the federal budget / “money disposer,” he or she could put some brains together to create a campaign to sell the idea to Americans.  We are doomed if no one does.

There is a reason America became great.  The ideas that made it possible are so old they are new again.  However, it will take a disciplined political force to make them attractive to Americans, themselves.  Given the crass, petty squandering of political opportunity so sadly displayed in 2022, another party is needed, it seems Prudent to say.

Culture, Family, Health Care, Politics 2022, Religion, Sex

IF I ONLY HAD A BRAIN

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Sun Tsu teaches that to defeat one’s enemy one must know who (or what) it is.  The enemy, in its own defense, will always try to deceive, creating artifices against which its victim can expend great effort and resources, weakening itself to the point where the attacker can triumph with few losses.  We call these artifices “Straw Men.”

So it is with good and evil.  Evil never has strong footing but is very clever at creating false targets or disguises of its true purposes.  Good can dissipate evil in a heartbeat but, being more trusting, gets diverted away from the target evil and even allies with it for a time, believing there is some greater good being served.  And so it is with abortion.

The evil that is expressed through abortion is very clever.  Abortion, we are told – and sold – is an expression of freedom and even civil rights.  Most of us respect “freedom” and are quick to defend it.  Most of us feel the same about individuals’ “civil rights,” and “Constitutional rights” even more.   Being thoughtful and caring, most of us hate to admit that we have been deceived into defending evil when our whole intention is to defend rights, freedom and the Constitution – all “straw men” in this battle.

It doesn’t matter whether our core beliefs are religious, although such are great resources to bring into the battle against “abortion: “abortion” being the industry of the practice, now infecting medicine and even churches.  Agnostics and atheists are free, certainly, to question our spiritual underpinnings as archaic or no longer relevant in a scientifically sophisticated world, believing that “science” has, or should, take the place of religious “superstition.”  It doesn’t matter: religious truths and rules of honor are still operating regardless of any individual’s belief or disbelief.  We still should strive to expose the Straw Men erected to protect abortion.

Among the other effects of the most famous opinion authored by Justice Harry Blackmun in 1973, Roe v. Wade cemented the repudiation of morality into federal law.  Following the failures of moral struggles in the 1960’s, and as the federalization of welfare in the “Great Society” gained momentum, Blackmun conceived an invisible right to “privacy” that forced government’s hands off of virtually any moral judgements toward individuals’ behaviors.  In effect, Roe justified evil, couching evil as a “right.”  Historically, under a basically Christian impetus toward responsibility for one’s actions (essentially answering to a greater moral code than an individual might create for him- or her-self), individuals were free to be stupid, or to simply fail, but not to be immoral.  Those who fought against immorality, or for a greater morality, were lauded and rewarded in society.  Those who worked for licentiousness had to hide their purposes, often appealing to sympathies for the confused or otherwise “unfortunate” members of society who turned to an immoral path as their “only” means to elevate themselves from still worse circumstances.  Straw Men on the march.

One need not follow any of the major religions to be uncomfortable at the destruction of unborn babies.  If one is “religious” in outlook, he or she recognizes a more-or-less direct connection to God for every gestating child.  This imparts a more-or-less direct responsibility – an obligation – to protect the holy innocents, there being no person of greater innocence than a pre-born baby.  We should recognize the straw men arrayed against morality as those who seek to protect the abortion industry.

First is the claim that what has been conceived and is growing in the womb, is NOT a baby.  It is merely a “fetus” which, in the view of abortionists, is a “mass of cells.”  By implication, the proto-baby is a “foreign invader” and obligating the host-mother to protect and nourish it is a form of slavery or oppression.  This argument is not biologically sound, nor is it morally solid.  Humans, generally, are sympathetic to “baby” anythings, be they chicks, lambs, puppies or kittens, even heifers, foals, piglets and hippopotamuses.  By great dint of effort, we have been divorced from the same emotions regarding our own babies.  Indeed, appeals for donations to feed orphaned animals are far more successful than for the prevention of child abuse.  How grotesquely odd; who benefits from this strange incongruity?

Women who have “bought” the entire narrative of oppression and “not a baby” still are likely to suffer some separation anxiety, even sadness, after an abortion.  The older the fetus the more likely the grief.  Who was that baby going to be?  Would he or she have loved me?  Blackmun found a right of privacy that flushed the destruction of the unborn clear of morality or meaning; the Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, he couldn’t find.  Interestingly, 90% of women who consider abortion choose to become mothers after seeing an ultrasound test and hearing the baby’s heartbeat.

Abortion can be rationalized with sufficient hatred, yet the essential child-mother bonding that commences very early on after conception, is real.  More than simple hatred is needed to convince a mother that her irreplaceable role can be dissolved by mere hatred of a “growth” in her belly.  It is a special virulence that brings a woman into an abortion provider’s lair, and it has to be carefully taught.  For many abortion advocates, the essential hatred is hatred of male oppression.  Such a transference of emotion is another variation of the Straw Man syndrome.

The country appears to be divided over the question of easy access to abortion on demand.  This means that abortion advocates want abortion to be available within a bus ride, inexpensive or covered by insurance, and bound by few, if any, limitations.

The divide seems to follow party lines, with those on the left: liberals, progressives and socialists, the most in favor of unrestricted abortion; conservatives and Christians the least likely to approve of abortion on demand.  The Democrat party has devolved into the party of death; it seems IM-Prudent to identify as such.  Advocating for the most premature death possible is a form of evil.  For religious citizens, it is proof of the actions of the “Devil,” which is to say, “Deified Evil.”  Some call him Satan.  Whether one “believes” or doesn’t, abortion is never as “nice” as the RIGHT to choose one.  Even pro-abortion advocates should be able to recognize that pro-lifers who believe in the sanctity, or sacredness of innocent life, cannot compromise with the killing of that life.

It is worth wondering about the nature of the anger generated among pro-abortion advocates.  It seems, well, out of proportion.  Where pro-lifers might sing hymns or pray or simply try to speak with those heading into an abortion clinic – and this is understandably upsetting to those who have decided that death of their proto-baby is a solution to life problems – pregnancy support agencies are more likely to be vandalized and threatened.  Where laws have been passed to protect access to abortion clinics and to prevent “harassment” of potential abortion clients, there are none that restrict the same for pregnancy support centers.  Laws against vandalism and arson exist locally, of course, but seem to be less well enforced than the FEDERAL laws protecting the abortion industry, even when the industry, itself, breaks federal laws.

Demonstrations by pro-abortionists exhibit intense angers and even hatreds for pro-life defenders.  One wonders why feelings are so high and angers so hot, in favor of abortion.  Often there are threats of retaliation against those who oppose abortion.  “If abortion isn’t safe, then neither are you!”  Most pro-abortion / pro-death advocates have never suffered an abortion, yet they turn red in opposition to pro-lifers.  Why?  Clearly, if motivated to join a demonstration in favor of abortion, an individual believes he, or usually she, believes that a gestating baby is not a baby.  Perhaps he or she also believes so strongly in Constitutional rights that the risk of breaking laws is well worth the righteous defense of such rights.

Yet, the only Constitutional right most pro-abortion advocates have ever defended is the right to terminate pregnancies.  Is it just to defend the practice of licentious sex?  Is the responsibility for the consequences of fornication so foreign a concept that the right to abortion must be defended?  Is it that simple?  It seems not.

Obviously, pregnancy resulting from rape is a special case, as is incest, and to protect the health/life of the mother goes without question.  Requiring birth of a baby in these cases is cruel and unusual punishment, and society is not prepared to take that step.  Neither is Prudence.  Still, the baby is completely innocent in any case.  We have to arrive at an agreement of person-hood at some point in gestation, whereupon Constitutional rights apply.  We have not been able to do so.

It seems as though the right to kill innocent life is behind – or beneath – it all.  It is an act that is as anti-religious, anti-God as is possible.  If abortions were committed by sociopaths on the sidewalk, who then held the dead baby aloft like a battlefield triumph, we would arrest and incarcerate that evil person until his trial for first degree murder, a capital offense!  Rightly so.  But hiding the act away behind “clinic” doors and surgical gowns and rubber gloves enables us to defend it as a solemn right.  Solemn rite, more like.