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HOW TO TELL IF YOU’RE AN ELITIST — SEE http://townhall.com/Columnists/BenShapiro/2008/10/21/you_know_youre_an_elitist_if.
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My beef is not with Lenders, Lusters, Lickspittles, Louts, Luddites, Libertarians, Liberals, or Libertines, per se. My beef is with culture that unbalances them, which seems to be culture for promoting alienation, narcissism, hedonism, aimlessness, malaise, superficiality, foppery, dependency and addiction.
It is culture for which I do not wish, either for my children or for my country. I prefer a more vigorously balanced culture, moderated and counterpointed in respect of science, technology, conquest, diversion, art, romance and philosophy.
I prefer that we try to come together as responsible independents, in hopeful seeking of consensus, to counterpoint and focus appreciation in respect of common holography then and there defining, delimiting, and empowering all participants as are in common competent and wise enough to humble themselves to receive such insights as may flow therewith.
Therewith, each participant may independently become more responsibly attuned to how our common holography operates in respect of counter points and tipping points. With receptive practice, each of us, being amplified through all of us, may acquire skill to better envision in advance of each falling domino and series of falling dominoes, to enhance a more enlightened civilization for all of us.
"The way" is not in capitalism or socialism, but in enlightened, vigorous moderation. David Brooks seems to call it "Progressive Corporatism."
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Hollow Men:
It becomes:
-- wearisome to watch any expression of will surrender to soulless loss of faith that any quest for spiritual vison or appreciation can be worthwhile;
-- wearisome to watch despair sinking into co-dependent, drugged stupor;
-- wearisome to see cheering for badness, destruction, holocaust, apocalypse, defeat;
-- wearisome to endure leftist anger, spewed and dedicated to a proposition that no manifesting thing is worth appreciating, but that only an impossible ideal could ever be good, the pursuit of which leads to desperately accelerating devaluation of every emerging opportunity of self reliance.
Against the spiritual hollowness of modern “liberals,” it falls to Red Ass Moderates to sound an alarm that the ideal of International Socialism is a rat trap lie, being invited under a fascist spider spring.
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12 comments:
REGARDING MCCAIN:
From http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/opinion/26brooks.html?em:
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I don’t think any senator had as impressive a few years as McCain did during this span of time.
He lobbied relentlessly for a change of strategy in Iraq, holding off the tide that would have had us accept defeat and leave Iraq to its genocide. He negotiated a complicated immigration bill with Ted Kennedy. He helped organize the Gang of 14 and helped save the Senate from polarized Armageddon over judicial nominations.
He voted against opportunist bills like the pork-laden energy package and the prescription drug plan. He led a crusade against Jack Abramoff and the sleaze-meisters in his own party and exposed corrupt Pentagon contracts.
I could fill this column with his accomplishments during this period, and not even mention the insights. At a defense conference in Munich, I saw him diagnose and confront Russian hegemony. Week after week, I saw him dissent from G.O.P. colleagues as their party lost its way.
Some people who cover the campaign seem to have no knowledge of anything but the campaign, but I can’t get these events — which were real and required the constant application of judgment, honor and courage — out of my head.
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No, what disappoints me about the McCain campaign is it has no central argument. I had hoped that he would create a grand narrative explaining how the United States is fundamentally unprepared for the 21st century and how McCain’s worldview is different.
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He has no overarching argument in part because of his Senate training and the tendency to take issues on one at a time — in part, because of the foolish decision to run a traditional right-left campaign against Obama and, in part, because McCain has never really resolved the contradiction between the Barry Goldwater and Teddy Roosevelt sides of his worldview. One day he’s a small-government Western conservative; the next he’s a Bull Moose progressive. The two don’t add up — as we’ve seen in his uneven reaction to the financial crisis.
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If McCain is elected, he will retain his instinct for the hard challenge. With that Greatest Generation style of his, he will run the least partisan administration in recent times. He is not a sophisticated conceptual thinker, but he is a good judge of character.
CULTURAL WARRIOR:
At http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/the_unspoken_campaign_message.html:
Comment by RickG:
If you're looking for a reason why this is the Age of Obama, look at the stars and content of TV shows, movies, songs, and advertisements for all sorts of products and services. Do you see a pattern? In other words, the emergence of Obama has been made possible by many years of acquiescence to the demands of liberal groups with racial and ethnic agendas. This in turn has led to a gradual redefinition of what the man-on-the-street considers to be American values.
This can't possibly be turned around by McCain --- he's actually responsible for a lot of the redefining by his stance on things like illegal immigration. Unfortunately, he's the wrong guy to be fighting the Culture War... but he's all we've got.
Sort of like using a pea shooter to do battle with a tank...
Among prospects for Community Organizers, what character traits are sought or prized, if not traits for broadcasting blame against one’s country for not having provided all that to which one felt (by greed?) entitled?
Unraveling American Self-Reliance — Mexicanization of America:
http://www.newsmax.com/ruddy/ruddy_gop_survival/2008/10/27/144701.html:
For Republicans, changing demographics are worrisome. Minorities and immigrants like the idea of a big and benevolent government handing out benefits — the something-for-nothing boondoggles that the Democrats have reveled in since Franklin Roosevelt invented the concept.
If you give amnesty, which really means citizenship, to just 2 million or 3 million of the 12 million illegals here, the electoral map moves dramatically in favor of the Democratic Party. But there will be no reason why Obama and the Democrats won’t push for amnesty and citizenship for all 12 million.
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Today, Texas is an anchor for the GOP nationally. But an Obama amnesty program will put that state solidly into the Democratic column. Florida and other smaller red states like Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico will become quite blue. Blue states, like California and New York, will get bluer.
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New Socialist Media — Palin Negative Headlines:
See http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/palin_negative_headlines/2008/10/28/144911.html?s=al&promo_code=6F48-1
Snippets from http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20081106/us_time/whygaymarriagewasdefeatedincalifornia:
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A symbolic low point for the gay side came on Oct. 13, when the Sacramento Bee ran a remarkable story about Rick and Pam Patterson, a Mormon couple of modest means - he drives a 10-year-old Honda Civic, she raises their five boys - who had withdrawn $50,000 from their savings account and given it to the pro-8 campaign. "It was a decision we made very prayerfully," Pam Patterson, 48, told the Bee's Jennifer Garza. "Was it an easy decision? No. But it was a clear decision, one that had so much potential to benefit our children and their children."
You could argue that marriage equality has little to do with children, but Patterson seemed to speak to Californians' inchoate phobias about gays and kids. On the Friday before the Bee story appeared, a group of San Francisco first-graders was taken to city hall to see their lesbian teacher marry her partner. Apparently the field trip was a parent's idea - not the teacher's - but the optics of the event were terrible for the gay side. It seemed like so much indoctrination.
That news came around the same time the pro-amendment forces were running a devastating ad showing a self-satisfied San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom shouting wild-eyed at a rally that same-sex marriage was inevitable "whether you like it or not." The announcer then said darkly, "It's no longer about tolerance. Acceptance of gay marriage is now mandatory." Many fence sitters were turned off by Newsom's arrogance; blogger Andrew Sullivan attributed mid-October polls against the gay side to the "Newsom effect."
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.
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Comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/obama_fear_and_the_security_fo.html:
Government Enforced Dhimminitude:
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?
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Radical Gay Agenda --- See: http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=647.
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Congrats (?) to Youthful Naiveté --- see http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/waltzing_on_the_titanic_1.html.
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Intellectually Dishonest and/or Ignorant Ministers / Bush Derangement Syndrome:
Re: Bush’s Methodism --- see comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/the_united_methodist_church_vs.html.
Thanks! I wish "fairness doctrine" meant academia would better promote such consideration. Both MSM and Academia have become unfair and unreliable. Nowadays, one must navigate the Internet to find reasoned perspective. It may be well to keep this article in one's quiver, to let fly when ignorance rears its head.
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Sin / Sales / Consumption Taxes --- see http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/politicians_then_and_now.html.
Comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/the_weight_of_government.html:
Why must we always so overindulge as to need rude correction from Nature? Why cannot we muster disciplined intellect to plan, inspire, sell, and pursue common vision for ourselves? Why must we always run right up to, and fall in, deep holes?
Why, at the get-go, were so few among our so-called elites shouting about the obvious stupidity of government sponsored cheap mortgages?
For some time, security-minded Socialists have been working in concert on their vision.
Why has the vision of freedom-minded Conservatives remained hampered by un-assimilated and uninspiring agreement regarding particulars?
We need inspirational sales people for a new Newt-like "Contract with America." We need new leadership to flesh out principles with cohesive particulars. We will not be well served by random bipartisan compromise.
We need to be less dainty when blowing the whistle on acts of sedition and failures to defend America and the Constitution. One may deal politely with scoundrels by smiling at them; but one need not pretend not to realize when they are behaving as seditious scoundrels.
BTW:
Why expect big government be expected to make a matrix of human batteries any more secure its citizen-mothers should be expected to make their unborn children?
And why must free-minded Conservatives surrender the teaching of political principles until after youth have been thoroughly indoctrinated by security-minded Socialists?
We discourage mixing religion with politics. So, what must we reclaim, to help fortify youth against socialist steamrollers? What is the Conservative answer to community organizers and youth indoctrination?
Comment by Dlanor, at http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-quest-for-conservatism-20/#comment-158503:
OOGEDY-BOOGEDY CONSERVATISM:
Our lives are not only about what is, but also about what should be. For that, Kathleen Parker’s “Oogedy-Boogedy” piece seemed to have been written as if non-social-conservatives are uneducable. But, for teaching proper values, it hardly ever matters (at least, to Conservatives) what your religion, political inclination, national origin, gender, or skin color may be.
A. AMERICAN MESSAGE: Rather, among social conservatives, there is a common, civilizing, “American Message,” to whit:
1) Communicating and experiencing meaningfulness necessitates a frame of reference, with coordinate definitions (modeling);
2) Definitions necessitate reference to BOUNDARIES;
3) Shaking boundaries loose in order to mix everything into a mush is often preceded by violent explosion, in respect of which little by way of meaningfulness crawls out;
4) Preserving boundaries in an unstable world implicates faith in a common direction or leader;
5) While the world’s peoples remain in disarray about their common direction, they may at least respect a de facto common leader (U.S.A., which, to large extent, had such responsibility foisted upon it);
6) Leadership that is meaningful to one’s sense of autonomous-self is guiding, not totalitarian;
7) Boundaries (physical, political, financial, cultural, and moral) of the U.S., as a non-dictatorial leader, should be respected and not, without careful reason, subjected to violent change; and
8) The preserving of identifiable parameters of America, as America, remains essential to worldwide confidence, faith, assurance, and meaningfulness.
B. EMBODIMENT OF MESSAGE: In seeking to embody such a Big Idea, America:
1) Nourishes respect for ideals of individual freedom, dignity, self reliance, initiative, creativity, self expression, and autonomy (i.e., pursuit of happiness);
2) Seeks continuously to re-normalize or regulate markets, such as markets of influence, of trade, of goods, and of ideas, in order to reduce the disproportionate trappings of monopolists, abusers, seditionists, enemies, psychopaths, and pirates;
3) Seeks to provide a practical social safety net, to preserve marketplaces of workers --- in respect of health, education, and population replenishment;
4) Resists faux messiahs’ Orwellian calls for forced economic equality (as opposed to economic opportunity);
5) Avails means for reducing Orwellian and monopolistic abuses of speech by governments, politicians, media, organized religion, private monopolies, and international pirates;
6) Seeks ways to minimize disproportionate leveraging of legislative influence;
7) Resists Big Government intrusion and dictation into people’s autonomy;
8) Stands against false prophecies of world peace based on surrender of initiative of individuals and nations to international controllers of world government; and
9) Mutually respects all spiritual models which themselves return respect for the seeking of moral guidance and the promotion of charitable works.
C. ORIGIN, RACE, GENDER, RELIGION: The American Idea about Conservatism neither favors nor disfavors anyone purely on account of national origin, race, gender, or religion, but instead cares about whether loyalty to the idea of conserving America as it engages with the world is returned in kind.
America should care when people try to undermine Essential Components of the American Idea by the monopolizing, precluding, or prescribing of:
1) The erasing and replacing of America, by Orwellian turning of America’s best values against itself (masked tolerance of the intolerable);
2) The politically correct collaring of free expression of ideas (masked totalitarianism);
3) The path for destroying those family values that are foundational to Western Civilization (anarchic hedonism);
4) The destruction of faith in any higher Source of meaningfulness (“oogedy-boogedy” psychopathic despair of the godless against empathy).
D. WILDERNESS: Neither Democrats nor Blueblood Republicans (and certainly not Libertarians or Libertines) are doing much at all to defend the Essential Components of the American Idea. So, Social Conservatives may need to go into the wilderness awhile, to summon inner strength, to reawaken and rejuvenate their message in respect of the American Idea. As they emerge, soon, they will need to remain much more wary of Social Liberals in Conservative Clothing.
E. SPECIFICS: The “Red Assed Moderate” wing of Social Conservatives wants:
1) Strong national defense of America;
2) Strong enforcement of borders and immigration policies;
3) Tax and service incentives, to coax environmentally responsible investment in American-based education and enterprise;
4) Some sort of decent, universal health care;
5) Creative destruction (i.e., progressive taxation on consumption?) of the disparities in income, wealth, and power that so disproportionately favor pirates of international finance and that so poisonously undermine market-based forces;
6) Respect for essential, civilizing, family values; and
7) Engaged cooperation with other nations, while defending the integrity of the American Idea.
F. BOTTOM LINE: Kathleen Parker overstepped when she implied non-conservatives cannot or should not be exposed or educated to the worth of such values.
REGARDING GAY POLITICAL AGENDA:
By and large, many social conservatives do not much care what gays do in private. But they do care when gays try to force government (taxpayer’s money) to recognize and fund gay oriented political inclinations. There is no saving grace for the train the gay coalition political agenda is on. You roll with it, you may as well roll for anything, but you won’t roll with social conservatives. You can get run over while strolling on the tracks with Libertarians or you can ride on the Democrat Express, but you won’t ride with social conservatives while carrying water for a gay political agenda. Choose your track or train, but whining about it won’t cut any ice. Stop shape-shifting and shape up.
Comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/its_time_to_speak_out_against.html:
Chad H ("All I have to say is WAKE UP AMERICA! This episode of Mormons in politics should be a wake up call to NEVER allow a Mormon into the Presidency of this great country. Can you image?
They are clearly unable to think individually and will do whatever the "Church" tells them -- look at all of the posts where Mormons say "I didn't want to donate, but....". Can't trust them. Period. Can't trust a Mormon individual to do the right thing. Can't trust a Mormon.")
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Question: Suppose Prop 8 had gone for Gays --- does anyone think Mormons would have been demonstrating their upset in Gay Bars?
Re: "unable to think individually": Sounds like a Democrat :)
BTW --- For a Mormon to qualify as being able "to think individually," should such a Mormon, who has self-selected to stay with his church, renounce its teachings? Does not such logic self-annihilate?
Re: "Can you image?" Well, yes, I can image. I can also imagine. And I can see. What I see is a fair society in which people get bedroom privacy without being entitled to expect that all modes of bedroom behavior must be dictated, notwithstanding having been voted down in 30 states, as having official sponsorship of the government as a matter of "right."
Re --- wake up call. Yes, there is a wake up call, to wit: Do not confuse Lib-Gay ravings with logical thought or civic responsibility.
Note to Responsible Gays: You don't have to give up your lifestyles to Free Your Minds and declare your independence from the Lib-Gay-Militant Agenda. You would be quite welcome to become independents, conservatives, or Republicans. :)
Comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/its_time_to_speak_out_against.html:
Everyone has a right peaceably to assemble to express grievances.
Civilized society has a right to referee whether grievances are legitimate and, if so, how to address them.
Society, thus far, has decided Gays are protected in their private lives, but are no more free to engage in acts of public indecency than anyone else.
Society, thus far, has decided there are legitimate reasons for government, through taxes and law, to incentive traditional families as the primary basis for transmitting assimilating values to each succeeding generation.
Gays have no more right than any other group to expect society to change its view until it is convinced to the contrary.
Rational society is unlikely to be convinced merely because any particular group acts up.
A group that is serious about trying to change social views needs to get serious about (1) giving thought to whether their program really is good for civilization; (2) if their program is good, how to explain as much; and (3) addressing the concerns of opponents.
Thus far, Gays have done a poor and unconvincing job of addressing concerns of the opponents of their agenda.
Merely to make noise about pretended “rights” is not to address the concerns of opponents, nor will mere noise-making convince any rational person worth convincing. Rather, irrational noise-making tends to convince rational opponents that the noisemakers have no worthwhile counterarguments, i.e., that the noisemaking is mainly a reversion to infantilism --- which convinces no responsible adult.
True, our founders resorted to "noise-making." However, our founders (1) were not represented in the existing government, and (2) were willing entirely to undermine and replace the old government. Militant Gays, however, are represented in our existing government, yet still seem intent on undermining America. Thus, one who seeks to preserve a civilizing America has every reason to resist the Militant Gay Agenda.
Comment by Dlanor, at http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/memo-to-prop-8-activists-leave-the-mormons-alone/:
Everyone has a right peaceably to assemble to express grievances.
Civilized society has a right to referee whether grievances are legitimate and, if so, how to address them.
Society, thus far, has decided Gays are protected in their private lives, but are no more free to engage in acts of public indecency than anyone else.
Society, thus far, has decided there are legitimate reasons for government, through taxes and law, to incentive traditional families as the primary basis for transmitting assimilating values to each succeeding generation.
Gays have no more right than any other group to expect society to change its view until it is convinced to the contrary.
Rational society is unlikely to be convinced merely because any particular group acts up.
A group that is serious about trying to change social views needs to get serious about (1) giving thought to whether their program really is good for civilization; (2) if their program is good, how to explain as much; and (3) addressing the concerns of opponents.
Thus far, Gays have done a poor and unconvincing job of addressing concerns of the opponents of their agenda.
Merely to make noise about pretended “rights” is not to address the concerns of opponents, nor will mere noise-making convince any rational person worth convincing. Rather, irrational noise-making tends to convince rational opponents that the noisemakers have no worthwhile counterarguments, i.e., that the noisemaking is mainly a reversion to infantilism --- which convinces no responsible adult.
True, our founders resorted to "noise-making." However, our founders (1) were not represented in the existing government, and (2) were willing entirely to undermine and replace the old government. Militant Gays, however, are represented in our existing government, yet still seem intent on undermining America. Thus, one who seeks to preserve a civilizing America has every reason to resist the Militant Gay Agenda.
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