All posts by Prudence Leadbetter

Trump

Romancing the Swamp

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It is difficult for a thoughtful observer to write about President Trump.  He is at once the most misunderstood man to become president, and at the same time the most mentally undisciplined.  Or so he appears.  He is, of course, accused of so many other negative traits that it is difficult to discuss him and his righteous plans for his term in office.  This means that the first question to answer is how such a brash, uncouth person became president, and the answer to that is barely understood or even heard by the “chattering classes” who inhabit 24-hour news programming, for those are they to whom “ordinary” Americans appear primitive and barely cognizant of the world in which they live.

Trump won because of the breakdown of political parties and of political function.  That is, ordinary, work-a-day citizens perceived – accurately – that neither party could be trusted to do “the right things.”  This perception had been building for decades, back, roughly to the assassination of J.F.K., the tumult of the 60’s, the assassinations of King and R.F.K., and the destructive, hate-filled failures of Vietnam.  Since then the manners and principles of American success have receded as socialism and division shifted the future to one less promising… and less spiritually meaningful.

An unfortunate (for most) result has been a remarkable shift of financial power to both old and new oligarchies, while the hallowed middle-class has shrunk in real terms of its share of total economic power and control.  This alone yields a potent reason for the “great American shift” to continue… and sets limits to that course.  Even the United States can run out of money – the one unsolved fear of socialism.  Trump, imperfectly, represented the only alternative to this shift.

Social de-evolution also reared up in the ‘60s and has accelerated for 50 years: drugs, marriage dissolution, homosexuality in the Catholic Church (What? You’re blaming gays for their problems?  Well, media has been all too careful to euphemize feral homosexuality into “pederasty.”), dilution of public education with social issues, and revival of racialism and division.  There are, now, but two unforgivable sins: so-called racism and intolerance.

The history of America is not all bad nor were the men and women, black, white or “red,” who built its history one action, one child, one thought, one plan, one love and one hate at a time.  Neither is its history all good, nor were the men and women, black, white, or “red,” who built its history one action, one child, one thought, one plan, one love and one hate at a time.  They were human.  But, because of the magic of freedom and personal sovereignty embedded in our Constitution, Americans, good and bad, could take responsibility for, and accept the consequences of, their actions.  It worked, even through the Civil War years and all that led up to them, and thereafter through World War I and the Depression and through World War II and during the initial containment of communism around the world.  That is, it worked until the 1960’s.

It worked because Americans could vote bums out of office when their lies became too large to hide; when their peccadilloes became too blatant; when their thieving aggrandizement became too obvious.  It worked because Americans, good and bad, maintained a rough agreement – conscience if you will – that held to a shared model of right and wrong, good and evil, honesty and mendacity.  Those days are largely behind us.

Prudence shows that honesty fades faster and faster as people fight harder and harder to ignore truth, reality and history.  Mind-altering drugs do this and represent this; the new phenomenon of gender pretense does this and represents this; the utter disconnect of political words and deeds does this and represents this.  Enter Donald Trump – the candidate farthest from the political swamp Americans could choose.

The hatred now condoned against Trump and anyone who voted for him, is so unbalanced that Trump supporters, black, white or “red,” are suddenly the largest out-group since the civil war.  And ever-wilder expressions of hatred and opposition to the first president in 4 generations who promises to unravel the swamp of lies and soft state fascism (sometimes not so soft), actually strengthens his support, however invisible it is to pollsters.  There is no desire to be vilified and mocked for wanting to clean out the nests of vipers that is the federal behemoth – congress included.

Working Americans have watched as the promise of education wilts under political correctness; they watch as the promise of the Bill of Rights has become so foreign to voters that they would not vote for it today; they watch as the promise of sound money and thrift is stolen in broad daylight by a “Federal Reserve” that is neither federal or a reserve; they watch as the Department of Justice blatantly declares that it will not prosecute civil right violations by other than whites; they watch as the Clinton Crime Family pockets tens of millions even as they help weaken the nation internationally; they watch as their erstwhile servant government dictates with whom they must shower and pee; they watch as police power protects incompetent officers who ought to be in jail, while it forces honest bakers out of business, hounded by hate-mongers, and then fines the bakers; they watch as illegal entrants swarm across our borders and then as our own governments coddle them, subsidize them, grant them rights due only citizens, and forgive them even their murderous, drug-dealing trespasses; and they watch in secret delight as the squirming, wailing salamanders of self-aggrandizement display phony horror at uncouth statements the president makes – not untrue, but uncouth.

Yet Hillary and others as mendacious as she still scratch their heads and wonder how Trump could possibly get elected.  How stupid do they think the majority is?

 

 

 

Education, Race

Damned Conservatives

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Alas poor education, we once were free.  For those of us… you, who are angry with “conservatives” and who agree that conservatives are (choose all that apply): 1) racist;   2) homophobic; 3) Islamophobic; 4) “Trans”-phobic; 5) anti-women; 6) anti-science;    7) climate change deniers; and 8) fascists.  Excuse me, I forgot, 9) Christian fanatics.

Conservatives who support or, worse, don’t mind Donald Trump, are also stupid.  Did we pretty-much cover it?  Let’s not forget the Russians – don’t mean to slight anyone.

The United States was premised on the concept of individual sovereignty and liberty.  This isn’t taught anymore, but it’s true.  If you perceive or believe that we are “free” only when our entire group is free, then you are, to a degree, believing that the very basis for the exceptional founding of our nation, is no longer valid.  That’s quite sad.

The U. S. was not founded to be a unionized social-service mega-agency.  That we have become so is far from a testament to our benign compassion for the poor; not at all.  Rather, it is a massive subversion of liberty by the left.

“What?”  You exclaim, “Should we just let these poor, oppressed people starve?  If that’s what conservatism is, leave me out!”

No, conservatives would have taught those starving people to feed and otherwise take care of themselves.  Those same would then move forward in life without the artificial welfare of any government.  That seems, to the racist, homophobic, anti-women Neanderthals that liberals hate so deeply, like the ultimate compassionate action, and is, in fact, the very basis of free-enterprise capitalism.  There is wide misunderstanding about these principles.

The most easily grasped distinction between liberalism (in modern definition), or leftism, and conservatism (in modern definition), is responsibility – personal responsibility.  That is, modern liberals perceive everyone only as a member of a “demographic.”  Everyone only has identity due to matching characteristics of a named (must be known by a name) group.

Easiest to understand in this odd universe is a group known variously as “people of color,” “African-Americans,” “blacks,” or the current liberally-correct description.  People with brown skin are of a hundred origins and genealogies.  By definition they do not comprise a “group” or a tribe or even a nationality.  Why on earth would rational people look at people with brown skin as if they were somehow all connected or similar?  The answer reveals the heart of modern leftism.

The only rational purpose for grouping individuals who share a trait or appearance… even a little, is because those who consider them so might gain political power.  This rationalization has also infected members of the artificially constructed group, who join with liberals in maintaining the belief in the existence of a group that exists only politically and not in fact.  Great anger, hatred and historical distortion stems from this artificial group perception.  By automatic reflection, or reaction, every action of unkindness or perceived “hatred,” practiced by anyone not “in” the artificial group, becomes a failing of everyone in the “outgroup,” so long as its members share some identifiable characteristic – like a different skin color.  Suddenly, politically, hatred of the outgroup has flowered, and “white privilege” is the result.

Such hatred requires nurturing and nutrition.  Once embarked on the road to political power, people who know how to profit from hatred can’t seem ever to reverse course.  The joys of political office are too enticing; the lack of true responsibility too comforting, the outlandish emoluments too rewarding.  Today, hatreds are the MOST COMMON political motivations; statesmanship is nearly invisible.

For some “hatred” is simple cynicism.  These are they for whom “public service” is mere aggrandizement, and to Hell with society so long as they get as much out of our pockets as they can.  For the next level of public cynics, power is their profit, and they are satisfied to gain power for themselves, and to Hell with the rest of us.  The consequences of their powers are of little concern to them – indeed they generally absolve themselves of requirements to adhere to laws they codify.  Mixed into the second group are some of those who learn how to employ baser, defined hatreds in order to gain and retain their cynical powers.  Now it’s not simple lies and thievery, it is society-threatening.

And here we are.  Conservatives will point out that the left, constantly riding the “racist” bull, are using black hatred for white supremacists to enhance leftist political power, when it is the left that actually hates blacks by cynically trapping and consigning them to an artificial welfare life.  Blacks, themselves, hate what has happened to them, as they should, but careful education has taught them that it is conservatives who have done this to them.  And on the cycle of hatred goes, while fattened liberals live in mansions, sometimes not even in the districts they “represent.”

There are conservative haters, some of whom actually “hate” black or brown people.  Those are a very tiny minority.  Careful education and media manipulation teaches blacks that these few represent all conservatives.  This is easily refuted, but that is never taught. If one simply sets aside personal concerns temporarily and contemplates the question: “What element of society is primarily responsible for social and governmental failure?”

The likely answer will be “conservatives” or, at the very least, “Republicans,” the two far from synonymous.  At that point, the thoughtful and caring citizen has to wonder if that is a) possible; and b) how he or she came to think so.

Real conservatives, here defined as constitutionalists and others who believe in free enterprise and personal responsibility, are not haters… of anyone.  Mostly they, we, are disappointed that people of color aren’t doing better, on average, particularly with so much evidence of people variously brown in skin color, becoming champions of every field and discipline.  Clearly, or so it seems to us, there is no genetic reason for social failure.  It is based on beliefs, including carefully nurtured hatreds.

The actions that stem from hatred have no claim on forgiveness – from anyone.  The same is true for white-skinned people only more so, since they have no minority status to overcome along the way to happiness.  We have a left-induced tendency to forgive the hatreds of blacks, while trumpeting and often imputing those of whites.  Both destroy society and are to be condemned.  They are not to be exploited, God forbid.  But they are, to our shame… Black and White.

Race

National Conversation

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The divisions between parties and people appear wider now than at few other times in our nation’s history.  Well, what about the Civil War, you are screaming, those divisions cost us so much blood and treasure and hatred?  Surely nothing compares to that!  Besides, that was about SLAVERY, you privileged white hater, and nothing could ever compare to that… so there.

Well, I am duly chagrined for suggesting otherwise, and soundly disreputed for any other opinions or ideas I might ever deign to utter.  Or type.  Of course, it is not I who equates every movement to undercut Judeo-Christian morality and more, with the struggle for “racial equality.”  There are fools and worse, allied with those with hate-filled desires to rip apart America and her premises, who not only are able to deny that Jews have been treated even worse than so-called African-Americans, and that the “Holocaust” never happened, but who are tickled to prosecute the piece-meal holocaust that’s happening now.

Where so-called Christians supposedly caused all prior offenses against human rights, the new holocaust(s) are the work of so-called Muslims and their fellow-travelers who, while decrying beheadings and the like, and any other desecration of civilized life, actually wish the so-called Muslims success in the tearing down of Israel and, better, the United States.  After all, there are still people able to make decent lives in “the West” who don’t embrace so-called trans-genderism, and that is equivalent to all oppressions that have gone before!

Why, there are those who aren’t fully on board with the new homosexualities, anti-sexualities, a-sexualities and parentless child-rearing.  Imagine.  Their oppressions are every bit as oppressive as the inhumanity of slavery.  We’re all down for the struggle, my brothers.

Blacks have a solid point.  Whites of many shades historically dominated blacks with greater technologies, and enslaved them.  That’s historic fact.  But it’s not the only historic fact, a truth that many modern blacks are unable to consider.  It is also true that the United States is the only society where people with brown, black and somewhat-black skin coloration, some of whom are actually related to black people who were slaves, are able to disrupt the daily lives and economics of millions of their fellow citizens on the basis of slavery having been a rotten thing for our ancestors to have done to their ancestors, some of them.

It is the only nation where currently angry blacks are mad at currently confused whites about rotten slavery that is no longer practiced, lo these 160 years.

Blacks do not agitate against slavery in England despite it having been the English who introduced the slave trade to the colonies, except for the French slaves in the Carribbean, and the Portuguese and Spanish slaves also brought to – and taken from – the new world.

There is virtually no mention of American blacks’ hatred for blacks in Africa who practiced slavery, themselves, as part of the spoils of conquest, and who sold people into the holds of slave ships and who have taken more advantage – murderously so – of other blacks to this very day.  The struggle stops at the water’s edge.

Only the United States deserves this wrath and militant demands for reparations.  Modern people who practice slavery in other parts of the world are of no concern to modern so-called African-Americans who build careers out of hating modern whites… in the United States.

Interestingly, “African-Americans” who come to “America” on their own tend to integrate and succeed economically without much concern about the rottenness of slavery two centuries removed.  Non-Blacks from Africa may not call themselves African-American however.

So, we have a conundrum.  The United States has undertaken to right the wrongs of history more than any other nation or society – a thousand times more.  The United States has fought to make opportunities available to every race and class more than any other nation or society, and paid mightily of its treasure to ease the plights of the poor, homeless and hungry – a thousand times more than any nation in history.  Yet, black-on-white hatred is increasing… here.

There are reasons for this, and facts, I’m sure.  Thousands and thousands of facts, and reasons, and motivations and political gains, about which I have many opinions.  But there will be no “national conversation” on race relations until someone or lots of someones can answer the question: why is this agitation occurring HERE, and nowhere else?

Uncategorized

The Most Powerful Organ

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The most powerful organ in the body is not the heart, or the liver, or even the descending bowel!  Athletes might think the greatest power is in the “glutes” or the femoris and adductors.  In obese America even the stomach is way behind the greatest organ.

The organ we’re describing is the source of the greatest hatreds in the world.  It moves armies and populations to hatred and dehumanization of outside groups, so that they might be bombed and killed without conscience.  It is so powerful that it can change the meanings of words to the degree that murder is no longer murder and crimes are now “rights.”

The most powerful organ is the MOUTH!  I know, right?

The most comforting words of love and compassion can issue from a mouth connected to one’s heart – a phenomenally useful combination.  These can lead to love between friends… and even between strangers.  They can lead to procreation and great parenting, recognition of strengths in others and acknowledgement of heroism.  They can educate in great principles and improve one’s society, culture and public good.

The mouth is fairly close to the brain.  This doesn’t always mean there’s a connection, however.  A mouth can spew corrosive vitriol directly at people we love, even to the point of destruction of marriages, families, companies and governments.  Mouths sometimes, well… run off at the mouth, so to speak.  Friends of the mouth’s host will then ask, “What on Earth were you thinking?”

Nothing, probably.  Recently, for example, that great philosopher, Madonna Louise Ciccone, proclaimed for as large an audience as she could find, that she had thought about blowing up the White House (based, apparently, on its legal resident).  One would hope that her mouth had spewed with no forethought, but she claims there was some.  She should know, no?

World-famous deep thinker, Stephen Colbert, said on broadcast TV that the mouth of the president of the United States was good only for holding the penis of the president of the Russian Federation.  That was scripted, evidently, and probably practiced, but it still is not evidence of a connection between the Colbert’s mouth and his brain… hmmnn, unless, Lordy, maybe it is!

I wonder if that is where the term, “Full of (euphemism for turd)”  came from?

Social media provide ways to “speak” by typing, and those who enjoy the process seem to act as though typing out text makes one an “author” or some sort of “journalist” and not a “speaker.”  Verbal crap that people – most people – would never say face to face, might be magically insulated by virtue of social-medium “publication.”  This is proof that there is often no more brain-connection to peoples’ hands than to their mouths.

This is true for Presidents and paupers, liberals and conservatives.  One need only be able to discern unfounded – or unbounded – hatred in texted speech, as opposed to reasoned criticism, to gauge the connection of brains to much of modern “speech.”

 

 

 

Culture, Governance, Trump

RIGHT PRINCIPLES and DISCERNMENT

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It doesn’t appear that the background belief that the “world” will be beautiful and peaceful if we just all learn to get along with everyone, is valid.  Even in the microcosm, arguing about “partisanship” and worrying ourselves about the lack of “bi-partisanship” fails to illuminate the real basis for disagreement: right principles.

Many of us have principles that we are, if not governed by, at least motivated by.  We used to call them our “conscience.”  We sort-of always know when what we are doing is “right” or “wrong.” Let’s hope.  Still, modern science and technology, and modern anti-religion trends, have brought us to a time of phenomenal toys and enjoyments simultaneous with a culture of drug use and abuse, and hyper-sexuality.  In the face of these multiple assaults on our “principles,” we have clung only to a couple of erstwhile “truths”:

  • The worst sin is “intolerance;” and,
  • Passing judgements is bad.

The automatic corollary, it appears, is that every culture is equally valid and we should not act as though our own were any better.  Nor, it seems, should we make too much of our exceptional comforts, cleanliness and safety, because it’s not “fair” that we have them and so many others don’t.  This leads to so-called “immigrant advocates” who are not advocating for “immigrants,” but for illegal entrants, and to college campuses hosting wild demonstrations fundamentally against the sovereignty and even the Constitution, of the United States.

Is there someone to blame for this?  How did so many citizens of this relatively free, universally educated country, replete with community colleges, colleges, universities, on-line courses and free public libraries in nearly every town and city, come to hate it?  How did a nation so successful and liberal with its anti-poverty and unemployment programs, peppered with Christian churches of many denominations, arrive at a public governance that is virtually at the point of persecuting Christians FOR THEIR BELIEFS?

How did a nation founded on the very highest principles, led by George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, come to despise these leaders because of their economics and practices common to the day?  How has so much ignorance and lack of discernment come to motivate large fractions of our citizens to discard every founding principal in favor of socialism, communism and hedonism?

Why are we spending Trillions of dollars on education when the product of that investment is antithetical to our culture, heritage and survival?  How did this, all, happen?

What does it matter, except that we understand how, so as to not continue practices that brought us to this point?  This premise will generate a lot of discussion, some quite heated, but few actual solutions.  Everyone not consumed by the new liberalism and anti-Americanism, will decry education, lack of religious instruction, rewarding mediocrity and even failure, excessive welfare, stupid politicians, high taxes and sugary beverages.  Oh, and drugs… definitely drugs, both bad and good, including too many analgesic pain killers for minor ailments.  All of the above.

But, so what?  Is there some piece of legislation that will “turn things around?”  Maybe it’s a result of too many immigrants or, at the very least, too many illegal entrants!  That must be it.  Just stop immigration for a while and get rid of these Hispanic gangs – and drugs!  Get rid of the drugs!  That’s the ticket.  Maybe we should be deporting these criminal aliens faster… and keep them out.  And the death penalty; bring back the death penalty and make people truly pay for their most heinous crimes.  We’ve got to get judges to stop being soft on criminals.

It’s also not right that so much wealth is concentrated in Wall Street banks and brokerages, and that there is so much collusion between them and federal agencies and politicians.  Look at how they move back and forth between Treasury and Goldman-Sachs.

Do we think we simple Americans are going to fix all of these things?  By voting?  For whom?  Is there one person we might elect who will carry all of our valid concerns forward and “fix” things?  William Jennings Bryan thought he was one such, and things were a Hell of a lot simpler in 1896 and on, until the first World War.

Donald Trump surely believes he is one such, too, as do a majority of States.  The unprecedented opposition to him shows the depth of socialist statism that he wants to confound and undo.  Believe him or not, we should all wish (and pray) for his success.  The sovereignty of the individual, ostensibly (and once) protected by our majestic Constitution, is OUR freedom and YOUR liberty, the two not synonymous.

If you do not understand the distinction, perhaps we can start fixing “things” by learning what it is.

Culture, Immigration

POLITICAL WRONGNESS

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Political correctness is suddenly exposing itself to be political wrongness, although one must wonder how many acts of Islamic terrorism must occur to finally reach the tipping point.  Those who prefer to see only groups, rather than individuals, in matters of political power, are unable to see THE group that threatens western civilization when Islam is the motivating inspiration for wanton murder.  Strange, that.

The same who perceive groups as being either Oppressors or Oppressed, tend, irrationally, to declare Islamists as Oppressed and not to be misunderstood or judged too quickly.  Indeed, they seem to enjoy contortion for apology’s sake lest “all” Muslims be judged as Oppressors and not just the brutal savages who committed the most recent murders.  And for them the SECOND reaction is to enumerate the unemployment  statistics in the savages’ most recent neighborhood of residence.

The FIRST is to overcome their personal disappointment that the murders were not committed by a white, Anglo-Saxon Christian.  After all, they reason, WE don’t give a (euphemism for turd) for the words of our own religious background, surely it can’t be that there are people in the world of 2017 who still do?  No, honestly!

What most don’t realize is that we are still fighting the philosophies of Hitler, and that the Second World War is lingering on.  The NAZIs expended great effort, money and propaganda to inflame the Arabs in the Middle East, particularly in Egypt and in the Levant, succeeding beyond their wildest imagination.  While Arabs had little use for non-Muslim Hitler, they loved the idea of killing infidels and racial (Islamic) purity, readily translated into blaming Jews for virtually everything they didn’t like.  The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, were “radicalized” through hatred, intentionally, by the Germans starting in the mid 1930’s, and they’ve never looked forward.

Anti-semitism and the whole made-up “Palestinian” oppression/occupation, were part and parcel of the NAZI plan to keep the southern front active and problematic for the English, in particular, during the War.  And that whirlwind of hatred has only gained strength since.  What a wonderful heritage.  We freely welcome people who have been taught since grade school that Jews mix human (Muslim) blood into their matzos, and expect to turn them into tolerant “Westerners,” or, more stupidly, to expect them to negotiate with us infidels for lasting peace in Israel and Palestine.  John Kerry is convinced of this outlook.

Still, like it or not, there are just two – only two – paths for current events to follow: One is to gradually subsume Western philosophies and become Muslim-dominated theocracies in the grand tradition of Iran; Two is to make a practical, life-affirming decision to disallow Muslim infiltration of Western democracies.  This would include gently or forcibly expatriating Muslims who actively disavow our laws and government (and Constitution) and who preach Jihad in their mosques.

Of course the “civil rights” of every CITIZEN who is harmed or inconvenienced by this new policy will be a concern, and the wailing will precede those actions, continue through them and persist for years afterward.  Suits will be brought but terrorist acts will dwindle to nearly nothing.  Law books will decry the act that made Islamist exclusion the law of the land: “A religious test!” they’ll say.  “Unconstitutional!” they’ll scream.  And so it will appear.

Constitutions, bodies of law and related jurisprudence are brought forth among peoples for but a handful of purposes: 1) Common defense against outsiders; 2) Civil protections of private property; 3) Common, social protections of the individual right to happiness.  There is no way to construe the Constitution as an instrument of the destruction – quickly or slowly – of our own nation and of the protections of our people secured by it.  To argue otherwise is to espouse treason, in fact.  What is the logic?

The World will keep spinning if the United States becomes virtually Muslim-free over, say 10 years, and Muslim-majority nations will continue on their own destinies when slightly more majority.  It is not required by either logic or the Constitution that any number of enemies of the people or of the nationhood of the United States, must be allowed residence here.  The alternative to such clarity is to argue for the acceptable number of enemies so invited.  Prudence dictates that there is no acceptable number.

It is time for Muslims and Muslim nations to be discomfited in this war.  If “the West” and this nation most especially cannot grasp the reality of the enemy within and without, then there is no point in its -or our own –  survival.  And, if such is the case, then perhaps another path, THREE, is available: We could allow Islam and Shar’ia law to triumph, while hoping that believers in all that Islamic mumbo-jumbo jihadists have been spouting, and the words of the Quran, itself, are not taken all that seriously.  Surely they won’t ban bacon.

 

Culture, Education

GRADUATED CHANGE

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Prudence attended graduation at a well-known college in Boston’s Fenway section recently.  This particular school graduates no chemists, engineers, lawyers or business majors; no biologists, entomologists or astronomers; no materials scientists or agronomists or hydrologists, and no oceanographers.

Their purview is social work, and a healthy dose of “education.”  That is, education B.S. degree-recipients who, I think, they hope will teach the next generation along the lines of ultra-liberals who have been taking over education aggressively for the past 75 years. Fortunately, they sometimes fail and a graduate escapes with her (mostly hers and wannabes, there) internal philosophy intact, her understanding of reality clear, and her intense desire to educate young kids, rather than indoctrinate them, ready to run.  One such is Prudence’s only reason for attending.

Prudence’s eyes were opened, however, to the existence of this and other nests of socialist vipers, who churn out radical “change agents,” as were frequently referenced in the interminable speeches and last-second directives that made not a single reference to God, although the very last instructress managed to say, “… let the Divine …” which was amorphous enough to get through.  That tiny reference was among the last dozen words of last-second directions to the posse of Bachelors and Masters ready to change America.

The otherwise clear, May, day began with breakfast – free food, so to speak, catered in to the College’s Brookline facility.  Being observant was revelationary.  The professors are constantly professing, we noticed.  Tattoos, for example, profess attachment to the odd fascinations running rampant through society where women, sometimes grossly obese versions, have acres of “body art.”  It’s a statement of inclusion… or a test.  After all, if our campus is one of welcoming and inclusion and non-discrimination for students, then it must be for their instructors, too.  See how it works?

There seemed to be a single statement being uttered by a large fraction of both staff and graduates: There is no weirdness on OUR campus – all are welcome.  Prudence has no argument with the “welcom(ing)” part.  In other words, if you are as different and as unusual as you can make yourself, come, attend our college – we’re just as unusual as you!

Every speech underscored the same concepts of challenging the status quo; the difficulty is, today, that the status quo, having grown fairly weird itself, requires ever more strangeness from those who wish to challenge it.  This might explain, in part, the number of strange appearances of students, but it is unnerving to apply the same measure to staff and professors… at least it was to Prudence.

Sexuality is key to both protest and education, it seems.  Prudence needn’t describe sexual appearances and apparent expressions as most are indescribable and likely wide of the target.  But, unusual male-female iterations are more commonplace on college campuses than elsewhere in the world.  Perhaps it’s simply because these are the age groups where “youthful” experimentation is most likely.  Shouldn’t some adults guide these wandering – and wondering – children toward the most appropriate paths of action and belief?

Aren’t we intending to create new adults of our culture and social fabric?  Or is it our purpose to indulge every strange, interruptive feeling and treat it as if it were as valid as reality?  Reality is so restrictive: two genders… huh.  Are we kidding?  I mean, honestly!

Are there any lines a culture shouldn’t cross?  It’s not a trick question.  We used to decry drug use and numerous other forms of debasement.  Why?  Because it makes for a stronger, more nurturing society.

We used to require people to make their own way, no welfare and all the rest.  It inadvertently made for stronger people and children.  Problem free?  Of course not.  Too many fell through the “cracks,” as it were.  Some level of social support was required for simple fairness TO CHILDREN, and civil kindness to the helpless.

We used to require universal education that reinforced moral lessons, some Biblical, without damaging ANYONE, reinforcing shame for bad actions and strengthening the consciences of individuals… and their basic honesty.  These were good, strengthening-of-society kinds of structures.  Phenomenally, we have succumbed not to foreign powers but to our own cleverness, talking ourselves out of our heritage, our very culture, and of shame, itself.

We are so smart.

Murder, for example, now has shades of evil, some not so bad as to require equivalent sanction.  Indeed, abortion-at-will, deemed “murder” by half of the nation, has amorphous codified status and taxation support!  Suicide by drug overdose is a form of murder by drug-pusher, but we, the wealthiest, most sophisticated culture on earth, with more police forces per hectare than any other, has failed steadily for 60 years to clamp down firmly on drug commerce.

Now we are in a race to legalize ever purer and stronger pot despite its risks (there aren’t any, according to pot users) and to arm first responders with Narcan.  We’re smarter than we even realized.

The largest “industry” in the United States is welfare of a thousand titles.  Statists have found that the philosophies of the most rock-ribbed, self-made American stalwarts can be purchased with enough dependency, as recent “conservative” outcries against threats to Medicare makes clear.

The higher education “industry” is nothing if not opportunistic.  With TRILLIONS of dollars flowing from the Federal and state levels, colleges have justified turning out an army of social workers to soak them up.  Here and there people in need are truly helped, but the lion’s share of those dollars goes to the army of concerned, compassionate care-workers and, especially, to the army of administrators who make sure they are not wasting any money.

Somewhere, and here and there, are schools, churches and other institutions that respect and promote the concepts of self-reliance, absolute personal responsibility, honor and sublime integrity.  They must struggle against an onslaught of socialist control of budgets and information.  Is the ultimate success of the ultimate anti-God philosophy certain to overwhelm what made the U. S. great?

That future depends upon the ignorance of a majority of Americans.  How smart did you say we are?

 

Race

RACE? AGAIN?

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Prudence says that America needs some fresh thinking about race.  Anthropologists can “describe” some 300 “races” using markers like blood-type concentrations, in a process that tries to use physiology to delineate human “types” or races.  It is largely a waste of time for most people since it cannot relate social activities, social actions, with physiological differences.

RACE is a construct for both safety and control within societies.. except, lately, a construct for hatred.  The most visual markers are employed – like skin, facial distinctions, hair, eye-color… virtually meaningless attributes in terms of how people ACT, but crucial when differing groups come together.  No training or understanding is required to distinguish physiognomy.  That is a matter of belief.

Prudence has thought long about the power and dangers of belief.  It can exist and guide the actions of millions of people without paying any heed to reality… to truth.  Just as faith is the engine for maintaining religious traditions, there are many other belief structures to which individuals can adhere that effectively replace reality with constructed, believed paths of action that guide whole lifetimes.  Belief can be so self-fulfilling that it becomes its own evidence of “truth.”  It’s commonplace.

Less common is honesty.  An honest person can be taught the error of his or her beliefs and it is this very effect that has held the United States together through slavery, Manifest Destiny, the Civil War, destruction of Native American culture, waves of immigration and the Great Depression.  Beliefs have changed, honing more closely to reality little by little… until the 1960’s.

It was under the aegis of “The Great Society” that we changed the role of government to one of, essentially, social engineering – unionized social services that Lyndon Johnson and other hubris-laden socialists believed could change the nature of both rich and poor people for the better.  Change has certainly happened.

Blacks, who were making sure, but uneven progress in the 1950’s, have regressed in the inner cities where federal and state policies have re-enslaved them for 3 generations.  Why such conditions continue, even as the drug trade flourishes in that population, seems a great mystery to progressives.  It must be the fault of Republicans.  Our incoming president has mentioned conditions in the inner cities, but no policy changes have been described.

It’s all a matter of belief.  Progressives have long held the belief that the most generous “safety-net” possible, especially now that welfare has been federalized, will cause people WE have taught to be irresponsible for themselves, to become responsible, self-sufficient citizens.  We have placed them in a system where the only way to “get a raise,” requires careful cheating – things like getting two EBT cards or SNAP allowances beyond one’s entitlement.  Or, to sell some drugs, perhaps.  There should be no surprise that blacks hate whites.  They believe that whites have kept them from opportunity, that we discriminate in a thousand ways, that we are racists and on and on.  Some of it is true.  But the policies that have done so are not those of most whites, who feel guilty about black’s condition, and who act a little nutty because of their guilt; they are the policies of progressives who believe socialism will make better humans than God has… despite all reality to the contrary.

One might infer that Prudence indicates that progressives may not be truly honest, else they could learn the error of their beliefs, lo these past 50 years.