Sunday, August 24, 2008

Stupidity Polluting National Water Supply

(Click title above.)

Stupidity Polluting National Water Supply:

Has stupidity polluted The Nation's water supply? How to account for stupidity among our politicians, both among those leading the Left and the Right, as well as among those who elect them?

What explains Americans' burgeoning abilities to rationalize all manner of abstract doublespeak? (Given vaguespeak of pol's such as Obama, what specifically could they not do, consistent with their vapid speech?) Can it be that the "education" of most of our electorate, professoriate, and political "leadership" has become so unseasoned by experience or hardship as to be essentially worthless and meaningless?

Why are Democrats so enthralled with leaders utterly lacking in military or entrepreneurial experience?

Why are Republicans so hell bent to subsume our national borders under some fantasy of globalism?

Why have not more Moderates gotten the Red Ass!?

Given omnipresent insistence of modern advertisers bent upon monopolizing our attention, constant preoccupation with choosing among which offerings to consume, dual earner families, demise of church participation, lack of family dinner time, lack of time or interest for news, history, or philosophy, dumbing down of media, dumbing down of peers and teachers, natural selection mechanisms in place in academia for making adolescents into professors, ask:

Is it any wonder that young voters and newly "educated" elites tend to favor happy-faces-on-sticks as their leaders, especially when unseasoned by any significant military or entrepreneurial experience?

Having conferred the right to vote upon so many "educated" flakes (i.e., fools with energy), is it any wonder that they should prefer to vote for flakes?

We would fare better had we the blind leading the blind, rather than what we presently have --- the vacuous leading the vacuous.

Red Ass Moderates must stand athwart stupidity and yell, "Stop!"

****

STUPIDITY IN THE GREEN PARTY:

The Democrat Party seems to be under the control of the Green Party, whose agenda (see http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7443):
* Views socialism as the economic model of choice;
* Wants to shut down America's oil drilling, coal mining and nuclear energy initiatives;
* Views the U.S. as a racist nation;
* Claims that the American criminal-justice system is rife with discrimination;
* Promotes affirmative action, the welfare state, redistribution of wealth, universal health care, and open borders;
* Opposes Israel as a sovereign Jewish state.

****

EVIL IN LEAPING TO TRUST ONLY “BOOK SMARTS,” UNSEASONED BY HARD EXPERIENCE:

Inherited wealth, connections, position, and power, especially when unaccompanied by concrete, hard experience, such as military or entrepreneurial, often leads to disconnects with reality and moral purposefulness.

Adolescent whining and “acting out,” as if others “owe you,” apart from willingness to engage diligently in order to look after your own and your posterity’s interests, is not only obnoxious, but also provides openings for evil, through sloth, envy, and gluttony, as well as through sordid sins they invite along.

So, why do Democrats work so hard to recruit whining felons, welfare abusers, and addicts? And why do Republicans work so hard to justify opportunists bent on whining and justifying the sell out of America and our environment?

Advocacy bent on recruiting and training members of any political party in support of such whining is both obnoxious and evil. So, where are the Moderating Adults, who should be enforcing discipline and instilling character?

Why should decent folks wish to make common cause with any political party that actively panders to evil whining?

****

REASON:

Responding to Secular Humanists’ claims of fealty to reason: One wishing to see stupidity-in-action, even profane emotionalism masquerading as “reason,” need only go to one or more common, vulgar blogs frequented by vaunted “reasonable” secular humanists. Being untethered to God, reason, or civilizing foresight, “humanists” rouse themselves to action by rousing their feelings and emotions. Such is their way of "keeping it real."


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Regarding articles Articles by Mark Bauerlein:

See http://dumbestgeneration.com/articles.html; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33956-2005Jan24.html.

From http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/12/EDG8B8M7EI1.DTL :
The National Conference of State Legislatures recently announced: "Young people do not understand the ideals of citizenship ... and their appreciation and support of American democracy is limited." We must remember that the heritage of democracy is understandable mainly through reading, for we are a nation founded upon ideals expressed in documents.

….

In the 1820s, Alexis de Tocqueville toured the United States and discovered an "ever-increasing crowd of readers." Indeed, he remarked, "There is hardly a pioneer's hut that does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare." America was a poorer, more primitive and less powerful nation then; yet what he observed was a nation of readers.

From http://www.theminnesotareview.org/journal/ns6364/iae_ns6364_cultureandpolicy.shtml :
The rise of video games, the internet, instant messaging, different kinds of email, downloading music, weblogs—these have pulled away from literary reading and book reading in general.

….

Young people simply lack that depth of citizenship knowledge, and this is largely due to mass culture, which has very little to do with citizenship. It has to do with the decline of civics in K-12 curriculum and the loss of requirements in US government and US history in higher education.

….

All you have to do is go to any university administrator who has worked in English composition. You'll find that more and more students are having to undergo more remedial education, 53% and climbing, and most of it is for writing.

….

Kids are just as smart as they were before; it's not an intelligence decline. I would attribute a lot of it to a reading decline, in which kids do not practice their intelligence in ways that will produce better readers and better writers.

….

There is one area that students have deep knowledge, and that is mass culture. They know extraordinary things about sports; the young male viewership of ESPN is massive. The world of sports, the world of entertainment, the world of celebrities, the world of popular music—there you will get an amazing depth of knowledge. But when you get outside those areas, things get real thin, real fast.

….

What they found was that the first determinant of success was a two-parent household.

….

The second determinant of academic success was the amount and quality of books in the home. This ranked higher than poverty. What they showed was that a poor child in a book rich environment has a better chance of academic success than a middle class child in a non-book environment.

Anonymous said...

(The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same)

Snippets from: BAM'S MILE-HIGH MOMENT, at
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08252008/postopinion/editorials/bams_mile_high_moment_126026.htm:

Appropriate also is the choice of Randi Weingarten, newly invested president of the American Federation of Teachers, as an opening-night speaker.

Teachers unions are a key Democratic ally - and a long-standing roadblock to meaningful educational reform, especially in big cities like New York.

And it's not just teachers.

The party has iron-clad alliances with many public-employee unions that want to keep public payrolls bloated - and to pay for it by raising taxes.

Meanwhile, Obama & Co. are welded to the enviro-nuts who are dedicated to keeping the US dependent on foreign oil - with all that implies for America's economic security.

Still, expect to hear a lot about "change" this week - an effort to tap in to voter dissatisfaction over economic woes and foreign-policy uncertainties.

But change for the sake of change can be a dangerous thing - if it turns out that "change" really means obeisance to isolationism in foreign affairs and international economic policy, and the status quo in public schools.

Anonymous said...

Shape-shifting Change:

One does not experience a life of freedom and dignity in relation to broad abstracts, but in relation to specific beings and neighbors.

Obama’s broad “change we can believe in” is little more than “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Snippets from http://townhall.com/columnists/StarParker/2008/08/25/morality_and_liberalism,_john_edwards_style:
Morality and liberalism, John Edwards style
by Star Parker
Monday, August 25, 2008

Traditional morality is a bottom-up process. It starts at the individual level. The Ten Commandments are addressed to "thou," not "We the People." It begins with individuals taking personal responsibility for the moral tone of their own lives and the social reality that results is the collective product of that individual behavior.

Traditional guidelines are to love our neighbor, our brother. Not mankind. The focus is specific and individual, not vague and abstract.

But liberal politics are top-down. Despite the pretense about being driven by caring about people, unique individuals are at the end of the liberal food chain.

....

For liberals, individuals are footnotes to their own grand schemes and ambitions.

Anonymous said...

regarding Stupidity — “Recreate 68": See http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/the_broken_dream_of_police_bru.html.

Anonymous said...

Democrat liberalism and tolerance knows no bounds:

See http://www.nationaljournal.com/conventions/co_20080825_4458.php.

See also http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/live-from-dnc-obama-says-gays-crucial-to-democratic-victory/:

Sen. Barack Obama credits gay activists with making the Democratic Party “immeasurably stronger.”
In a letter to the party’s LGBT Caucus — the acronym stands for Lesbian/ Gay/ Bisexual/Transgender — Obama said the group “will be crucial to bringing our Party together and sweeping us to victory on November 4th.”
Commenter:
“What does Obama and Osama have in common?
They both have terrorist friends who bombed the Pentagon.”

Anonymous said...

Liberty or Wimpery?

Social Leftists are wonderers, lost in the grip of their own chosen vise or paradox. With one side of their artificial vise grip, they proclaim that absolute determination of the morality of any concern is completely beyond objective or empirical verification, and, therefore (non-sequitur), completely without relevant value. With the other side of their self-vise, they herald the scientific method as savior-sufficient to lead us to “move on,” beyond old, sacred metaphors and values.

So, which is it: Are moral values irrelevant, or are we on the scent of better, newer values? Have social Leftists (i.e., Blueblood Republicans, Libertarians, Democrats, Liberals, and Libertines), as headless chickens, lost their heads in their own vise? Like chickens, have they been reduced by conditioning of media and academia to be easily led by any Big Government Controlling Demagogue with access to enough chicken feed (i.e., Mainstream Media Ministry of Truth)?

Suppose, instead of throwing tantrums because we are required to engage (our subjective free will) in moral choices, and instead of adolescently being unwilling to settle for anything less than a complete, perfect, and comforting explanation (or hijacking?) of the Mind of God, we instead listened receptively, using our God-given intuition to appreciate our history of experience. Then, ask: For offering freedom, dignity, autonomy, self-expression, self reliance, and pursuit of happiness, which nation’s fundamental values have served better than those of America? Ask: What have been the essential, sustaining values of America? Ask: Are we really ready to toss those values out? In trade for … what?

****

Patterns, such as for fads and values, compete, morph, evolve, and emerge. For a nation, the concern with patterns pertains not to whether mores and values should be cultivated, because VALUES WILL BE CULTIVATED. Rather, the concern pertains to how to cultivate the values we wish to engage.

Presently, we have social competition among (a) traditional family values, (b) governmentally sponsored (political correct, secular, or sharia) values, and (c) anarchic (anything goes) “values.” If social conservatives surrender on the issue of social values, the issue will not vanish. Rather, the issue will morph, to governmentally induced (often dictated) values.

Libertines are sorely misguided Pinocchio’s to expect that resisting family-based standards will further their “rights” to engage in “anything goes” behavior. And, Secular Humanists are misguided to expect that savaging Christianity will save them from Islamofascism.

No doubt, standards will change, but newly intrusive standards will simply and promptly fill any moral vacuum. Libertines are not unlike children, running from the embrace of their parents into the embrace of Big Government Intrusive Dictate.

After all, “it takes a village.” So, liberty-defilers (Leftists and fellow Jihadists) are urged, essentially, to “jihad in your face.” And Big Dictate knows best (at least, for the responsibility-surrendering, weak-minded, heavily-conditioned, and corrupt).

Bottom line: Will autonomous lovers of liberty wimp out, in surrender to secular Borg-dom and/or Dhimminitude?

Anonymous said...

CIVICS EDUCATION:

See http://townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2008/11/20/the_other_deficit:

“Thomas Jefferson's admonition: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free ... it expects what never was and never will be."”

Anonymous said...

Dlanor comment at http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/11/the_perfect_complementary_vide.html:

I think it is more irresponsible to vote on a person or issue you are ignorant about than it is to fail to vote when you are informed. The problem is, anyone as ill informed or ignorant as the people covered in this video has already been conditioned to be socially irresponsible.

These people are ripe fruit, just waiting to be picked off by the Soros' of the world. Tell me again: What is the knotheaded rationale for generally advocating high voter turnout? Should civics teachers not instead be advocating foremost that citizens become informed? What misguided ninconpoops expected that expanding the electorate to include people who have never held a job would translate into their caring about becoming informed?

High voter turnout --- yippie yay!

Anonymous said...

Comment from http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/worshipping_the_weather.html:

Charles Manning ("If one believes, based on rational analysis of evidence, that human influences are damaging the environment, then buying efficient light bulbs, driving less polluting cars, reprocessing waste, recycling, and favoring environmentally "friendly" businesses makes sense. The mere fact that a person does these things doesn't mean that he or she is performing religious rituals. Nor does the fact that people like Larrey don't feel constrained to take those measures make them evil.")

Well, Larrey may also be concerned that one believing (or being led out of gullibility to believe) that "human influences are damaging the environment", even in the absence of evidence enough to warrant drastic measures, may be inclined to unite with other believers to force by law those like Larrey to obey drastic measures, even when Larrey, and others like him, may believe the evidence is quite flimsy, less than probable, amenable of being used for nefarious purposes, or not enough to warrant the drastic measures sought to be enacted.

Given absence of reasonably convincing evidence, Larrey may feel environmental believers should be less want to impose their punishing regulations on others. Otherwise, there is no end to such regulations. We end up with environmentalists making reverse-Pascal-wagers, i.e.: "All this may be unnecessary, but in the unlikely event it is necessary, shouldn't we do all (all, all, all) we can, given the magnitude of the imagined danger?"

I think Larrey is saying, "not so fast."

In other words, feel free to practice (and even proselytize) your environmental beliefs, but don't be fascist about it, don't needlessly force your beliefs on others at point of police power, and don't claim scientific surety when your beliefs are not reasonably demonstrable. Because, when you do, you are not being scientific, but religiously chauvenistic.

Anonymous said...

GOODNESS:
Is “goodness” in a “gene of altruism” or is it in that which such gene physically expresses? Or is goodness in that which expresses both? May that which expresses both act both through the gene and in dimensions beyond such gene’s fathom? If goodness may reside in or be expressed in respect of Something more than any mere, particular gene, than by what label may we refer to IT? As Source, God, Father, The Beginning and The End, The Alpha and The Omega?

******

LEFTISTS’ FALLACY OF SAVING THE HYPOTHESIS VS. DOCTRINE OF INDEFINITE PERFECTIBILITY:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/whatever_happened_to_the_law_a.html:
Impedimenta ("The Rinos got control of the party and they aren't people with core convicions, just people who want power")
BINGO!

******

FEMINIZED CHRISTIANITY:
See http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/the_evil_of_good_deeds_and_goo.html:
“Being tough has come to mean cruel and, hence, evil. A feminized Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and secularism can no longer conceive what courage, honor and pride of civilization even means. We relegate the military and police to some social corner to do the dirty work that we don't want to think about, but criticize.”

******

NEW AGE MOLLYPATHS:
New Agey Love And Peace Types (mollycoddlers) imagine evil will go away if we just put our heads under pillows and think happy thoughts. They lack real world experience to be able to identify or suspect sociopathy or to appreciate how much of history has been the story of irredeemable sociopaths. We must identify mollycoddlers for what they are and then not entrust our security or freedom to them any longer than can be avoided.

******

BE NICERS:

The "nice people" are those who are smart enough to appreciate police who eat donuts.
The "mean people" are those coppers who catch crooks.

The "nice people" are those who are smart enough to ask terrorists to please release our captured citizens.
The "mean people" are those who actually rescue our captured citizens.

The "nice people" are those who are smart enough compare Bush to Hitler.
The "mean people" are those who think about how many lives Bush may well have saved.

So, as a nice president, will Obama eat donuts while he asks terrorists to please give up their WMD and then blame Bush when they instead use their WMD on a major metropolitan area?

******

TBTL:
The "be nice philosophy" is handmaiden for our culture of p.c., entitlement theory, and religion of victim-mongering for equality. It leads us to be happy faces on sticks. It is bound to get a lot of people needlessly killed --- TBTL (thanks be to leftists).

******

LAST MAN STANDING:
America is the Last Man Standing --- see http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022867.php#more.

******

AGENTS OF MOLLYCODDLING:
Comment at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/bloodless_sunday.html:
To Agent of Chaos:
Please.
Like many other Agents of Mollycoddling, you're cherrypicking your facts to make a strained analogy.
If Saddam had been President for Life of America and had done here what he did in Iraq, he would have: continuously murdered his competition; run torture prisons (compare the mutilations imposed under Saddam with Gitmo “torture”); funded depredations of Chemical Ali; belligerantly resisted the no-fly-zone; financed widows of suicide bombers bent on undermining Western Civilization; and violated terms imposed for peace after Desert Storm.
In that case, were I lacking education in history, philosophy, and morality (IOW, were I a “mollypath”), and were I conditioned to be a beneficiary of totalitarian, Saddam-style government or to to believe it be “good,” then I may have taken the “shoe throwing” action you suggest.
Otherwise, no. But, if you want to help foster a world filled with Saddams, just keep being an enabling “mollypath” for psychopaths.
I do not know whether history should honor Bush for invading Iraq, yet second guess his subsequent prosecution of the invasion. But I expect more educated and thoughtful Iraqis appreciate that they now have a chance to make a better country than they did under Saddam.
The reverse, however, cannot very well be said were Saddam to have invaded and overthrown the U.S.
If you can equate Saddam’s Iraq with Bush’s U.S. , what can you not equate? If you can fall for that, what won’t you fall for? Stated another way: What, actually, can you stand for?
So far, you merely cherry-pick to imagine an equivalency that does not exist.
Be happy that, in Bush's U.S., you can do that.
Were we ruled by Saddam, I do not think you would be questioning any actions taken by Saddam --- ever.

******

HAPPY FACES ON STICKS:
Comment at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/past_tense_pretense.html:
LDC:
"Bureaucracies don't usually confront by disputation, Ms. Feldman. They isolate."
OK. Don't rock the boat. Go along and get along. "KUSD" --- Kiss up, S*it down. Don't stand for anything. Be a happy face on a stick.
Is there a critical mass of people such that these tendencies begin to prevail, in all fields --- public and private?
Has this now become a cultural thing, brought on by our environment of litigation, entitlement, and p.c.?
Is p.c. killing our culture?

******

GOVERNMENT CREEP:
Comment from http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/what_is_american_business_afra.html:
HMHaanpaa ("Let the MSM do the best it can to tell us how bad this one individual is and how one person can do so much damage. The pols get up and scream for more regulation. The public buys the whole process and we start over again."):

QUITE WELL SAID!

Although I think there is some good in nearly everyone, the evil that confronts us tends to make addicts, quitters, or cowards of us. A cynic watches the ignorance and evil all around and soon begins to wonder: What is the point to resisting rather than joining? After all, look at our MSM, Government Dependent Academia, Big Collective Union Bosses, and Big Corporate Hogs. They are all united about one thing: More governmental regulation!

Why? Not to secure earth, or our progeny, or even to sustain civilization, but to "get before the gettings gone." Greed or ignorance --- either way, it ain't pretty.

Who can resist? It's not easy for a young couple just starting out. Not for a college kid needing to get decent grades from some ignorant or sold-out college instructor. Not for a corporate employee whose future depends on going along with whatever corporate president he may help advance.

So, who can stand up and call B.S. on this ignorance, short-sighted greed, corruption, and evil? Who can protect individual freedom of expression and enterprise from the ever-increasing encroachments of the Big Government that doles out to those who play along to get along? (Iacocca asks, where have our leaders gone? Indeed, I look around and mainly what I see in government, business, media, and academia are "happy faces on sticks.")

Those of us who are reasonably secure financially and who fail to call B.S. on these Big Government tendencies should be ashamed to face our children or to try to excuse what we have left for them.

It is not enlightened tolerance to tolerate governance that leads to the destruction of one's freedom and dignity; rather, it is stupid and weak.

The only good form of domestic government is that form which will not tolerate those forms of domestic government that try to undermine markets or some reasonable substitute therefor.
The only good form of religion is that form which will not tolerate those forms of faux religions that are intolerant of most other religions.
The only good form of academy is that form which will not tolerate those instructors who are intolerant of opposing viewpoints.
The only good form of media is that form which is not owned by persons using media to seek bubble-bursting opportunities elsewhere, rather than to seek profit in media's own sphere.

Ronald Reagan was right --- more often than not, Government is the problem.

Thanks for your insight --- I think you're dead on target!

******

OPENING DOORS FOR BIG GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION:

Comment at A.T.-- http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/climate_crisis_logic_crisis.html:

Taking a ride on Gore's environmental express by committing capitalistic suicide is beginning to look a lot like taking a ride on a comet by committing bodily suicide.

Larrey is right: Al is asking followers to slip the bonds of faith to rocket into full blown, Bull Goose Looneyism --- and Media are shilling for this.

Didn't Gore's family get its original foothold in wealth and power out of the tobacco scam ("like, its not really bad for you")? AlGore looks like an incorrigible, high-rent, time-share salesman. Is there a Nobel Prize category for that? Audacious? Indeed!

******

Comment at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/climate_crisis_logic_crisis.html:

gmoney ("Al Gore ("inventor of the internet", which was merely a quote taken completely out of context) has developed a major worldwide conspiracy to promote global warming so that he could enrich himself? (and others?). "):

When one has self interests at stake, why suppose it to be any harder to delude oneself than to delude one's marks?
I would be hard pressed to say which kind of huckster was more dangerous.

Whether Gore is an intentional huckster or an opportunistic huckster, he is still a huckster.

There is a difference between wanting an opportunity to compete vs. wanting the government to tip or stack one's emerging opportunities (something that welfare Libs and corporate welfare Bluebloods have in common).

Compare what was said by the current Chicago Mayor's Pa, something to the effect of, "I saw my opportunities and I took them."

******

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/what_is_american_business_afra.html:

Raf from Florida (“I can’t help but believe that the Madoff scheme should be viewed as an example of what’s happening to our government and financial institutions”):

Hear hear! Well said.
If Madoff is the canary in the coal mine among Ponzi scammers, he is still just a little tweeter compared to Congress.
Given our Congress, we’re all Madoff investors now.

******

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/12/the_gop_needs_a_colincleansing.html:

durga:

("This present patchwork of massive amounts of tax dollars going to support outrageous and ineffective private health plans for the millions of government workers has to end and Obama should never get credit for doing this. Republicans in the prudent fiscal interests of the United States need to be the first to the plate.

I recommend the Republicans co-opt Michael Moore and bring him into the tent and get going on this before Obama steals your thunder one more time. He again is not showing leadership, he is just getting out in front of the crowd that is already moving and getting enough media hacks to keep him posing as the head of the pack.

Republicans, get in their faces on an issue of national importance, and get out of peoples bedrooms where you don't belong in the first place. McCain did lose many, many strategic advantages in this campaign. He nearly did it but he bogged down at the very end. He did deserve to lose but we did not deserve to be taken down with him.")

******

Ditto on health care, sans Michael Moore.

Re Bedrooms:
I'm not seeing Republicans in people's "bedrooms."
So I don't quite get what you're talking about.
If you mean roll over for "gay marriage": No.
If you mean "right to abort" by neglecting to care for babies born after botched abortions: No.
If you mean substituting the State for the civilizing role of traditional family values: No.

Government ought not idly stand by and let its laws be remade to undermine all that sustains civilization.
For my money, "let-the-good-times-roll" Libertine-Republicans are far too complacent and lacking in vision when it comes to appreciating how civilization easily slides into non-sustainability.

When riding high on social irresponsibility becomes one's main priority, one should team with the party for which that predilection is made to order --- Dems.