I have been asking myself that question for a couple of months now. Should I really become part of the process; the political process. (No, I am not talking about running for office; although I have considered that on a few occasions.) Does all this really matter? Do these types of discussions really contribute to the cause?

I was heavily involved a couple short years ago, but things got busy for me at my real job, then a job change, and a major relocation, and I reached a point where I was out of touch.

Looking back now, perhaps that was on purpose. I had decided it didn’t matter anyway: Mark Sanford, Dede Scozzafava, Lindsay Graham, and a few others. Too much drama. Too much compromise. Too much politics. No matter who is in the White House, Ben Franklin is still control. I know he’s wasn’t a President, but you get my point.

But, like two years ago, we are again approaching $4 gas, there is trouble in the world, there’s trouble here at home, and we are stuck in the status quo.

So, should I be, could I be, am really part of the process?

A thief is primarily busied about acquiring other people’s property for use as the thief sees fit. An experienced thief has through repetition and practice gained a level of comfort and skill at acquiring other people’s property for use as he or she sees fit.

Should it concern us that we can substitute one word with out altering the validity of the paragraph? Before you answer please consider the following example in which one word has been changed.

A politician is primarily busied about acquiring other people’s property for use as the politician sees fit. An experienced politician has through repetition and practice gained a level of comfort and skill at acquiring other people’s property for use as he or she sees fit.

QUESTION:

Just how skilled do you want someone to be at acquiring the lawfully earned property of others for uses in no way intended by the earner? In light of your answer to that question, just how important is experience in the upcoming elections? Can we see through the rhetorical illusion to what a politician really means when they claim “experience” as something positive?

CONCLUSION:

I suggest, strongly suggest, that commitment to protecting the citizen’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is far more important than a level of comfort and skill at acquiring other people’s property, and that’s exactly what political experience amounts to in our nation lately.

But it’s entirely up to you to vote the bums out. Will you?

Incompatible: So opposed in character as to be incapable of existing together.

There is a very sound reason why two-legged tables do not exist. The plain (or perhaps plane) geometric reality is that three points constitute a plane. Three legs enable a table to stand, to provide a stable base on which any number of things can be supported. The two-legged table is a myth if pondered, a failure if built and an unmitigated disaster if relied upon.

The plane upon which the American experiment rests is comprised of a symbiotic trinity of metaphysical truth.

FREEDOM VIRTUE FAITH

Freedom is a powerful word that represents an even more powerful idea. The word “freedom” is inseparably associated with everything American. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to just say freedom; we must be absolutely clear about what it means. American freedom means individual, personal freedom from all forms of violence and freedom to live as we see fit as individuals so long as our freedom does not detract from others individual freedom. Freedom does not stand alone but needs and has two partners, virtue and faith.

Freedom’s requisite is virtue, for only a virtuous people, a morally good people can be and remain free. Otherwise we would be foolish to pursue, capture and incarcerate the criminal. But words like goodness and virtue are meaningless outside a broader understanding providing real life context. Remember that the Nazis had good intent as they understood goodness. How can real virtue be understood outside of or apart from Faith?

Faith in Something or Someone is an absolute requirement to provide significance for what it means to be virtuous. Faith in Naturalism means that survival is virtuous. Faith in the teachings of Muhammad puts holy war, or Jihad, as virtuous. Faith in the nonexistence of anything worth having faith in provides absolutely no basis to declare anything as either good or bad, honorable or shameful.

This explains the manifest consternation of those who favor this idea when face to face with obvious evil. What can be said of Auschwitz, or the twin towers of 9/11? Let’s stop pretending what we mean when we say “virtue.” We mean virtue as defined by the Christian faith and the Christian scriptures. So freedom requires virtue and virtue requires faith and faith requires…freedom. Faith which is not a result of a free choice is not faith at all. Again, America is founded on the metaphysical trinity of individual freedom, individual virtue as guided and defined by the Christian faith.

My questions are as blunt as they are potentially offensive:

1) Is progressing beyond this ideological base actually kicking the legs out from under our nation? (Read Liberal politics and policy.)

2) Is the Islamic faith compatible with our triune base? Have you actually read the Quran and the Suras?

3) Have you ever given thought to any of this or have you simply accepted what others have said? If you are unable to demonstrate the validity of your ideas are you willing to consider ideas that can be demonstrated? If not, why?

Thanks for reading.

Read the rest of this entry »

What this piece lacks in rhyme it certainly makes up for with reason.

If only everyone could see
They’re really not as wise as me
And reasons argued intelligently
Matter not if we disagree.

Progressive faith does firmly rest
Upon this mantra “We know best!”
How dare you triffle with our quest
Your “self-evident truths” are such a pest!

True, human nature would interfere
With all the notions we hold dear
But make freedom and incintive queer
Then the Road to Serfdom becomes clear.

We, of course, in deep piosness
Exempt ourselves from all duress
And from the people in callousness
Take “Life, Liberty and…Happiness.”

Thanks for reading!

When engaging in discussion and debate it can be to one’s advantage to “side track” the opposition, to get them off subject so as to avoid a dangerous or out right damaging point. Another handy tactic is to avoid substantiating premises. If the opposition does not challenge your basic premise then the whole argument will follow, more or less, along lines of your design.

These, and other tricks of the trade, are masterfully applied by so called Liberals and Progressives and are woefully effective in detouring so called Conservatives. What follows are but a few of the side tracking tricks and fallacious premises which prove to be detrimental for Freedom-Loving people.

A Negative Cannot Be Proven

I list this first because in forgetting this most basic fundamental of logic so called Conservatives have all but handed their opponents a magic weapon, against which there is no defense. Consider one example: if you are accused of being a bigot, or racial prejudiced it is logically impossible to “prove” that you are not. The onus ought to be on the accuser to prove the accusation, not the other way round. It’s hard to imagine a more effect way to start your opponent chasing their own tail than by inducing them to prove a negative.

Businesses Cannot “Pay” Taxes, Only Collect Them

President Barack Hussein Obama, and his ilk, regularly demonize “business” as taking advantage of “us” with out ever spelling out just how that’s accomplished. Success is characterized as evil which must be atoned for through “fair” taxation. By failing to challenge this ridiculous premise (business take from rather than trade with consumers) we allow the discussion to be fatally skewed. The truth is that, unless a business is printing money, it can only act as an unpaid tax collector. Politicians know the advantages of using business as a scapegoat.

Social Security Is Not Insurance

The manor in which FDR foisted this colossal lie on the American people is beyond shameful. Social Security is a welfare transfer payment, period. It always has been. Insurance is a binding contract between two parties. Social Security is not a contract. Social Security is not a system of accounts where your contributions are kept. Calling Social Security “insurance” is word perversion at best. More honestly, it’s just a lie. We cannot pretend otherwise and serve America truthfully.

People Respond To Incentive and Rebel Against Coercion

It is insulting and degrading to law-abiding citizens to have their freedoms abridged through coercion. The fact is Liberals and Progressives believe government ought to coerce and force citizens to act in ways they deem “good” for certain groups. Too bad for the groups they don’t favor, too bad for liberty. We must trumpet the truth that exaltation of so called “group rights” can only result in individual rights disappearing.

Thanks for Reading!

A hostage situation is dramatically tense and dangerous, a true crises for all involved. Everyone recognize the malevolent intent of the perpetrator. The hostage taker means to coerce by threat of violence and force their desire on the unwilling. The whole scenario is fraught with confusion, fear and guilt.

“The law is reason free from passion.” Aristotle

The state of American society today is one where objective reason and common sense are held hostage by subjective passions and indefinable standards of “fairness.” Like any other hostage situation this one is engrossed in confusion, fear and guilt.

CONFUSION

Practically speaking Law and Justice are inseparably linked in the mind and soul of humanity. So when Law is divorced from Justice, a common sense understanding of right and wrong, a creeping confusion casts doubtful shadows across the land. The Rule of Law is jeopardized.

Morally conscientious individuals continue to act morally but in doing what is Just they automatically become easy prey for the unscrupulous who eagerly seize Law divorced from Justice and fashion it into a weapon. It is manifestly criminal for one individual to rob another of property, but if we pass a law sanctioning the “transfer” then injustice becomes “legal.” Victims of the so called law are no less victimized and the whole of society grows more confused as to how gross unfairness can be legal. The Rule of Law is destroyed.

FEAR

Hostage takers typically do not recognize outside constraints, they have already demonstrated readiness and willingness to exercise illegitimate power. One who exercises this type of illegitimate control is called a Tyrant. Tyrants incite fear through vicious unpredictability, violence is ever a possibility.

Citizens of the United States of America today live under constant threat of violent plunder by their government. But terms like theft and plunder are far too descriptive so we use other words instead. Stealing we call “taxes”, dispossessing individuals of their land we call “eminent domain”, extortion becomes “regulation” and rewarding sloth and immorality we call “redistribution.”

When good people are afraid to do good the self-serving and the criminal are emboldened.

GUILT

Guilt is what makes all of what I have described possible. We have been taught and conditioned to subject reality to our emotions, in effect to hold reason hostage to passion.

Divorcing Justice from Law is an attempt to divorce responsibility from freedom. You see it’s not the success of the diligent or the brilliant but rather the personal implications for us that cause us to bristle. Old fashioned envy is the source of the cry “unfair!” Life is unfair but punishing achievement cannot change that.

Instead of holding reality hostage to the way we feel about it let’s face it together as free and responsible citizens dedicated to a purpose we can attain, namely, protecting the natural rights of individuals. Refusing to live objectively only serves to perpetuate crises and promotes confusion, fear and guilt.

Thanks for reading

Question: Why are electrical power lines always made inaccessible either by being strung far over head or by being buried beneath the ground?

Answer: Power is inherently dangerous! One inescapable fact of power is that when there is sufficient power available to do anything meaningful, there is power enough to destroy, even kill.

Political power is every bit as dangerous, in fact statistically it is overwhelmingly more perilous. You will search in vain to find numbers of people injured or killed by electrical, pneumatic or mechanical power that approach the hundreds of millions of people murdered by political power. Professor Rudolph Rummel, as well as other scholars and researchers have provided ample evidence of the danger of political power.

The Two-Party Trap

Democrats and Republicans make up the majority of American voters. And, of course, power is necessary in order to “accomplish” political aims. There’s the problem, the power problem. By granting power to our favored party leaders we inevitable grant power to party we do not favor. In other words, political power doesn’t disappear, doesn’t goes away or abate when our party is voted out. This fact of politics should give us pause to carefully consider enthusiastically granting any power to politicians, any politicians!

Asking The Question

Before demanding the current administration have some new authority, create some new bureau or assume power over new areas of personal life, ask yourself if you would want the other party to have the same authority. I believe we all instinctively know the answer, regardless of our political affiliations. At some point in the not-too-distant future the other party will have the power you are clamoring for now.

Keeping Power Out Of Reach

The reason power lines are kept out of reach provides us with a simple, yet powerfully graphic parallel illustrating why we must keep political power out of reach of fallible men and women. By the way, the fallible people category includes you and me, the whole of mankind. The Constitution was created to provide a means of establishing and maintaining a government of limited, narrowly defined power because as Jefferson said…”Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have … The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.”

Thanks for Reading.

963/2889
The above fraction might be slightly intimidating to those of us out of mathematical practice. But in reality it’s just over complicated. Simplified it looks like…
1/3
Simplifying reveals that what appeared to be something quite complex wasn’t. This is precisely what’s happening regarding the issue of illegal immigration. Let’s simplify, shall we?

It’s Not About Race
Let’s be very clear. Believing you are somehow superior or deserving of special treatment because you happen to be Latino is bigotry. The same goes for Caucasian, Oriental or Black, etc. Making an issue of “race” is ridiculous because there is only one race, the human race. We need to turn on the light of truth and let the racially prejudiced scatter.

It’s Not About Enforcement
Illegal immigration certainly makes it harder on law enforcement officials and we can sympathize if not empathize, but they cannot address the root cause of the difficulty. Law enforcement is by design reactive. (When it becomes proactive it goes by another name, Totalitarianism.)

It’s Not About Politics
Like any other emotionally charged issue, illegal immigration is Grade “A” grist for the political mill. More than anything else politicians need an “issue” (read excuse) to be elected or reelected. The unscrupulous would use this problem to push their agenda, or to further a particular special interest.

IT’S ALL ABOUT INCINTIVE!!!
All people respond to the incentives presented to them in the most personally logical way. The people who happen to be south of the border are absolutely no different in this all important regard than the people north of the border. Focusing on race or law enforcement or political considerations only serves to cloud the reality and vitality of what actually matters, INCINTIVE!

Reason And Responsibility
There can be no doubt as to what provides incentive to illegally enter the U.S. Free education, free health care, de facto citizenship privileges such as driver licensure and the prospects of employment all provide abundant incentive to do something radical and potentially dangerous. The welfare entitlement culture created by implementing Liberal and Progressive ideology gets the credit, or the blame, which ever you prefer.

You and I would respond no differently than our fellow humans south of the border given the same incentives. So let’s stop complicating the issue and face the simple, albeit painful, reality. The only way to effectively deal with illegal immigration, while maintaining human dignity and rights, is to remove the incentive. It sure would have been a lot easier to simply stick to the Constitution.

Thanks for reading.

   In my college dormatory there resided a young man whose penchant for sleeping late brought him into ill favor with many professors. It was, however, his loud snoring which his roommates found intolerable. One fine spring morning he awoke to find himself in the middle of a commonly walked thourghfare surrounded by bemused students. While most people would have been angred at being the butt of such a sophomoric prank he was nonpulsed and simply asked “How did I get here?”
That is a very good question, one that this article will attempt to explore.
   No matter where you are, physically or philosophically, you started from somewhere. There is a base from which you came. My thesis is this: Politics and Religion are inseperable. To assert that political ideas can be formed apart from a basic understanding of reality, a basic world view, is patently absurd. You got here from somewhere! That, of course, begs the question “from where?”
   Most people never answer the question because they never ask the question. Forming opinions about important matters without first understanding your philosophical base (world view) is utterly and dangerously subjective. You can’t begin to comprehend how you arrived “here” if you don’t know from where it is you began.
Here is a brief and very personal example.
   God exists and has revealed Himself through creation, human personality and Scripture. The point at which these three objectively converge is reality, regardless of subjective opinion. From this basic understanding is logically and reasonably infered all we refer to as human rights, law as a means to secure these rights and the solely defensive nature of law enforcement to protect these rights.
   To claim to affirm the above-mentioned principles and then to cast a vote for a candidate opposed to them is to be guilty of a disingenuous disconnect. Belief and action are inseperable. The one follows the other and it cannot be otherwise.
   On the other hand, if you reject God’s existance and revelation, it’s hard to imagine a basis from which to conjure up the concept of human rights. In fact centuries of philosophical contortions have failed to produce anything truly satisfying. So what does it say about a world view when it is compelled to commandeer a concept which naturally follows from a world view which it rejects? Is that not a disingenuous disconnect of a rather more serious nature?

Thanks for reading and for thinking.