Tuesday, January 31, 2012

To Become Viable, A Middle Class Must Find Its Values

To Become Viable, A Middle Class Must Find Its Values:
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One should oppose aspects of internationalism and nation-building if one proposes to preserve an island-exemplar for human freedom and opportunity.  Inhabitants of many lands have few capacities, inclinations, or traditions that're compatible with freedom and opportunity for citizens.  A viable and relatively free middle-class is a rare thing.  Once such a flower is planted, one does not show care for it by opening it to all weeds that ravage the world.  That is, unless one doesn't prize a free middle-class or expects gain by helping those who're bent on uprooting it.
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As the rest of the world becomes a toilet for despots, why think it small-minded to wish to preserve a vestige of hope for freedom and dignity?  Has our openness to internationalism made other lands better, or has it enriched and empowered despots, who now apply themselves more to corrupt politicians in America than to improve lives for their own peoples?  If we concentrated more on presenting an example than on enriching despots, I suspect not only we, but many peoples abroad, would be better off.  The idea that elites would, by freely trading technological expertise with despots, make better the lives of all little people of the world, smacks of rulers who think to do best by reducing middle-class voices of ordinary Americans to inconsequential pips.
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While leverage availed by power of re-organization CAN raise all boats, it WILL NOT, by itself, raise liberty and economic opportunity among the masses. Qualitatively raising liberty and opportunity for a middle-class requires that respect for humanity be exemplified and inspired, rather than that brawn be harnessed by elites in search of cheapest labor. Considered against pet programs of organizing elites, human freedom and dignity are coming to be qualitatively not valued.  Minds yearning for liberty are lulled asleep by cheap diversions and misleading experts, feigning wisdom enough to quantify non-quantifiables.  The only hope for re-igniting liberty in America is for enough leaders among the masses to recognize deceptions and delusions pandered about in established ways of thinking.
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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are there still people who are fooled by the establishment's mask? Liberty was not GIVEN to America merely by elites. Liberty was TAKEN --- by an aroused citizenry that was confident of its individual rights and responsibilities. What passes for prevailing wisdom in the patter of the Establishment is often only to divide, confuse, and tangle up the electorate. If enough leaders will think beyond prevailing b.s., the light of truth and common sense in many respects is simply NOT THAT HARD to see. But first you've got to pull off masks, consider motivations, and think about what's entailed in common decency. If enough Americans can and will do that, the Republic can yet be salvaged.

Anonymous said...

Sirkent, Re: "The real problem today is spiritual blindness. For the last 30 years we have seen our nation torn apart by groupism"

Almost correct. But the blindness is secondary to loss of will to look. We have come again to a point where most Westerners really don't believe in higher values, are hostile to higher values, believe higher values are beyond apprehension, and instead believe there is nothing higher than self interest. Of course, self interest can be leveraged by siding up with gangs. This is why so many who have wealth run campaign bribes to both sides of each contest and why politicians find it so easy to switch parties as they perceive their material odds to have changed. This is the way throughout history, subject to brief periods of respite. So now we again find ourselves at a point where almost everyone sides with the group they perceive to be best positioned to help pillage for material trinkets. And the sophism they blare! Eventually, the contest quickens to be between two or three main packs or groups of contenders. As the conflict escalates in earnest, not so much is produced unless it advances one side or the other of the contest. This means the only beneficiaries tend to be those who are established towards the apex of each contending group. Everyone else can go pound sand. Once in a great while, a way is found to pierce through this nonsense, to push establishment thugs towards irrelevance. But it requires an awakening among the people the establishment would otherwise enlist and harness to its often ridiculous pursuits. The people would have to find common sense and common values. Fortunately, those are not necessarily so hard to find, except while everyone consents to wear blinders the establishment foists as conventional wisdom. Apart from crocodile tears, hardly ever will a representative of the establishment be found who is much concerned for the general well being of society. The class of ordinary, decent folk will never obtain representation merely by continuing to fall for lies.

Anonymous said...

I'm not looking for the Second Coming, but I would like to sense that a few more voters and candidates seek to serve ideals more expansive than the notion that whatever immediately gratifies a person with the most money is most likely in the long run to be for the best. A constricted, small-souled person who relies only on justification of "self interest" to lead him to what is right has no meaningful concept of righteousness. A great-souled person, whose idea of self encompasses identification with, and interest in, a field of experience that extends beyond immediate contact with the perimeter of his skin, will have in mind a qualitatively different ideal when it comes to considering what is or should be in his "self interest." The first will party through his inheritance and then rot on the streets. The second, if he tempers his idealism with what is practical, will more likely preserve decent civilization for his progeny. Indeed, the first likely does not even include progeny within his idea of self interest.

Anonymous said...

What the Tea Party wants is by and large good for America. It's not that hard to figure out. It is hard to advocate its agenda in the face of prevailing wind machines. A champion who understands and is able to articulate what is needed and also able to stand up to the crony wind machine is a rare pearl. It would help to have some financing. Why is there so little financing for doing what is obviously the right thing? Why is not The Donald and Friends coming through, to help right the ship of State? The fact that there is so much money for backing the wrong thing is not a good omen.

Anonymous said...

Evil stampedes to malevolent opportunities to put boots on opponents necks like thirsty cattle stampede to long sought water. After all, what institutions remain that could possibly check evil that have not been hollowed out by it? The prevailing ethos seems to be that there is no valid ethos except for immediate profit and self interest.

Anonymous said...

From A.T. -- Re: "Here is the first rule of RINO-watching: they flourish only in Republican-dominated jurisdictions"

I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean. Texas is a Republican heavy state. Whatever else Ron Paul may be, he's no Rino. Most would say Perry is no Rino. Not entirely sure about that. Depends on definition. Fundamental definition of American Republican (i.e., Republican who is not one in name only) SHOULD pertain to a person who wants to preserve America as a Republic. But you don't do that by erasing borders, promoting amnesty for illegals, or facilitating sell out of America to NWO of international corporations. Romney seems to be sounding Trump's point about stopping the sell out. If we can believe them, that would be a good thing. But I don't know where you get a looksee to say. Apart from slogans like "trust me" and "I know how to create jobs," I don't see much to recommend whether anyone knows how, or much cares, to restore the American economy as one that will preserve the Republic.

Anonymous said...

The prevailing motivational principle has become self interest harnessed to gangs, rationalized in newspeak. There's no objective principle entailed that could possibly be written into meaningful law, and certainly no worthwhile spiritual principle. Unfortunately, self interest harnessed to gangs is taken by many as if it really were a higher principle. This is how faith and trust in one's countrymen is undermined. When everyone (corporatist and collectivist alike) believes the highest civilizing principle is self interest leveraged with gangs, then there's not much left to say about preserving a nation. After all, you hardly need a nation to promote gangs. I heard Rush suggest the safety net needs to be abandoned. Uh, no. The problem is not to abandon the safety net. The problem is to revive an ethos that recognizes the need for a safety net while respecting counterbalancing ideals: the need to avail some floor of decency (police, fire, health, and military protection), while not providing breeding ground for voting derelicts who aspire to nothing more. Civilizing ethos will hardly be revived by worshipping constricted self interest as if it were The Meta Principle. The name for constricted self interest promoted to meta principle is anarchy and rule by thugs. What is the ACLU mainly about? Affirmative action for every conceivable minority except white males, replacement of parents with state officials who know best, sex and drugs freely expressed in the streets, and children immersed in schools with politically correct socialism. Did I miss some "principle" that guides the ACLU? Children's rights to self expression in terms of sex and drugs?

Anonymous said...

Rinos and Dinos must like this class warfare stuff. The class that pays for it, one way or another, is the middle class --- which is divided, unrepresented, and falling. This stuff is bleeding America from behind. The more Congress centralizes "solutions," the more it copies the bleeders who killed Washington. Restore America. Defund most of centralized government. Decentralize it. Defend borders. Don't sell the store to despots. And stop with the nation building. A smart sophomore would understand and could lead us better than most candidates from the establishment. Since debates and appearances on the talk circuit seem especially important to the duh masses, just let the sophomore bring along a debate monkey. Sort of like a trunk monkey, only with a large vocabulary instead of a crowbar.