Tag Archives: New Testament

Culture, Economics, Education, Family, Representation

The Fibers of failure

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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.

Governance, Immigration, Politics 2018, Race, Representation

Mid-Term Elections and the Anti-Thesis

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The “elections” of 2018, slowly completing as Thanksgiving approaches, are a foggy mirror held up to a nation and an electorate that cannot see clearly what America is, nor what America’s future should be. Here and there a partisan inadvertently rubs a spot clear and the real purposes of his or her struggle are revealed.

One such is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Although somewhat loose with veracity, she is probably no more dishonest than the majority of congress-people, or politicians of any sort. Probably – at least according to accepted norms of mendacity and political advancement, today. On the other hand, as her proudly cleared spot on the foggy glass reveals, she is deeply socialist, possessed of a twisted Elizabeth-Warren-like view of free enterprise and private property… not to mention of the role of a Constitutional Republican government. So, aside from the inherent untruths of socialism, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is every bit as honest as the majority of congress-people or politicians of any sort.

Mrs. Warren, on the other hand, is more dishonest than the average political miscreant. She believes some of the same nonsense as more pure socialists do, but she hasn’t the rough courage of Ocasio-Cortez, for example, to oppose those who don’t and who do great damage to our nation by playing footsie with rotted monopolists for whom free-enterprise is merely a slogan. Ocasio-Cortez has a loosely-grasped mission greater than her self-aggrandizement, a prospect that’s foreign to Elizabeth Warren.

Then there’s Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, a serial philanderer who purports to represent the interests of his state. Unlike simpler thieves who simply sell their votes for personal enrichment but who may be trusted in most human relationships, like in their families, Menendez besmirches every human quality. One suspects that Ocasio-Cortez has no use for people like Menendez, and, possibly, little use for Warren, either. Warren, on the other hand, hasn’t and won’t criticize Menendez because he may be helpful, someday – to Warren, not to America.

Maxine Waters is a special case, not just because she is African American, which makes telling the truth about her… “racist,” but because her abuse of the concept of hypocrisy is so blatant as to be egregious. Her voting base, almost 50% Hispanic and 25% African-American, doesn’t seem to mind her multi-millionaire status and inability to find a nice enough residence within her District. She “fights” for them and plays “California Hold-em” with all race cards.

Waters’ second husband, former NFL player, Sid Williams, had $350,000 worth of stock in a supposedly minority-sensitive bank called OneUnited. With a history of sketchy deals under the leadership of an equally sketchy president with a blemished record, let’s say, OneUnited was going to fail, destroying what was left of Sid Williams’ stock value, already cut in half when the 2008 banking crisis blind-sided the Bush administration. Waters, through Treasury secretary Henry Paulson, arranged a meeting with top Treasury officials that she later claimed was to support all minority community banks. OneUnited Bank, however, was the only bank at the meeting. Ultimately, OneUnited received $12 Million in TARP funds, which is to say, the taxpayers bailed out OneUnited and Sid Williams. Waters’ grandson, her “chief of staff” at the time, was reprimanded for engineering the meeting specifically for OneUnited’s benefit. Waters knew nothing about that.

Once described as the most corrupt congress-person, Waters is now a darling of the left for her constant condemnation of President Trump. Unlike Republicans, who quickly encourage exposed unethical or corrupt office-holders to resign, Democrats rally around the worst of their lot and fight to keep them in office.

An argument could be made about the candidacy of Judge Roy Moore of Alabama, but as more and more was revealed or, at least charged, Republicans withdrew support. The more that is known about Bob Menendez, Bill or Hillary Clinton, the harder the left fights to defend them. Just saying.

All in all, the Democrats gained 38 seats in the House, apparently restoring 78-year old Nancy Pelosi to the Speakership. She’ll be 3rd in line to become president if something incapacitates both Trump and Pence. Barely able to string together 2 sentences in a row, the Grand Nancy raised large amounts of cash for house candidates across the country. She and her flock of new majoritarians will run the House and its committees from a solid base of hatred: hatred for Trump, hatred for the exposure of the deep State, hatred for any reduction in regulations, hatred for conservatives, conservative judges and for the reality of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s terminal frailty. Of course, if they can hobble or impeach the president sufficiently, they may sidestep the consequences of that last concern – medical science has produced so many miracles.

For this crew of hate-filled heroes there has never been a more hopeful era in factional governance than the current one of virtually permanent, extra-Constitutional and free-wheeling “special counsel (prosecutor)-ism.” According to one of the foulest White House denizens in Prudence’ lifetime, Rahm Emmanuel, politicians should “…never let a good crisis go to waste.” If the reader will take note, nowadays EVERYTHING is a crisis. It’s why we are teetering on national bankruptcy, beholden to a cabal of international banks.

The greatest crisis of all is the lack of a socialist majority, but that is being addressed by importing large fractions of Central America, creating what is arguably an actual crisis, but, as you take note, it is the one crisis that is not a crisis at all – for us, anyway – except that it is a “humanitarian crisis” that only the rainbow-flagged warriors of the United States can “solve.” It’s how they’ll vote, you see.

Underlying everything on the left is hatred for White America, Whites in general, White Donald Trump, White explorers from Europe 500 years ago, White business owners, White baseball players and White Tom Brady. White ideas of a meritocracy, derived clearly from the Old and New Testaments and Judeo-Christian philosophy, is also hated. In obeisance to “Social Justice” socialism, there must be sufficient numbers of non-whites running, essentially, everything or else whatever enterprise it may be is cast as part of “White Oppression.”

The Bible was written, fundamentally, by non-Whites, with its strongest traditions maintained in Africa. None of that matters, of course, because Santa Claus is portrayed as, OMG, WHITE.
To be honest about history, which is to say, be honest about everything, whites are no more guilty of injustice than any other “race” of people. Part of Whites’ problem is that much more of “their” history is documented and, since the fulfillment of Christianity, White’s have celebrated all the ways they might be sinners. Then they invented printing and spread their history across the “white” civilized world. Along the way White’s invented democracy, banking, economics and various kinds of engines that multiplied production of food and other things.
Slowly, imperfectly, “White” civilization developed the philosophies, sanctions and shaming that molded a more honest social structure. Written laws that bound both governors and governed, concepts of personal responsibility and of the freedoms to be so were finally distilled into the Constitution of the United States, the essence of the lessons of the New Testament. “As ye sow so shall ye reap.”

Immediately, the threat to tyranny that was born in the Constitution garnered enemies… enemies roughly aligned with and derived from the original sin of dialectic rationalization, so neatly allegorized in the story of the serpent.

God, having provided everything “Adam and Eve” needed for life and comfort, had admonished them to not eat of the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” that for some reason He had planted in the midst of the Garden of Eden. That knowledge was the province only of God and His warning was that should they eat of it they would surely die.

The serpent, however, for some never-stated value to himself, told Eve that “Ye shall not surely die.” Thesis (word of God): “Lest thou die.” Antithesis (anti-word of God): “… not surely die.” Thesis – Antithesis – the tool of Hegelian dialectic materialism. Adam and Eve were not killed on the spot, they were banished from the “Garden:” God’s benevolence and Eternal Life. Thereafter they would toil mightily for the needs of life, suffer in childbirth, and be forced to choose between good and evil… a new “Thesis.” Soon there were tests of that thesis, choices to be made for short-term, Earthly gains, in exchange for allowing some “antithesis” to gain a foothold in defining evil as not all that evil. Then that thesis would be immediately challenged with a new antithesis, and on it goes. Abortion is not murder; murder is not always bad; marriage is neither sacred nor limited to a man and a woman; individuals are not responsible for the consequences of their decisions.

Now, it’s “racism.” And whiteness. Hatred, normally frowned upon as somehow sinful, is now a good thing in defense of non-whiteness and in opposition to individuality… in opposition to the Constitution; Socialism: the original anti-thesis and still champion. To the best of mankind’s ability, the American Constitution is the Thesis. Our new Congress, both houses, and the deep state in all of its permutations and polluted judgeships, comprise the anti-Thesis.

It is comforting to think that good and evil may be located under party banners; in fact they can, all of them, both of them. There are neither purity nor perfection. Sometimes evil appears to concentrate in one faction, identified with concentrations of socialism. Here we are.

The defense of freedom is unending; the requirement to dis-empower the anti-Thesis is paramount to that mission.