Sunday, December 29, 2013

Stay in Line

***************************************

I have learned something of my roots in libertarianism:
Looking back over all my interactions with Government, it appears that at all levels from the lowest county office to the highest Federal one,

All Government is about putting people in lines.


Monday, December 16, 2013

It's Not "If;" It's "When"

By Jeff Thomas /  December 16, 2013
Cicero had it right when he described the Sword of Damocles.
To be the leader of a country is like having a sword constantly dangling over your head from a single horse hair. You never know if or when the sword is going to cause your demise, but you know that the danger is ever-present.
That is just as true today as it was in Cicero's time, but the modern-day Sword of Damocles hangs over the heads of not just the world's leaders. It hangs over the heads of the populations as well.
If we rely on the conventional media for our interpretation of world economic and political conditions, we may well be scratching our heads continuously as to what needs to be done to "save" the situation.
Whether the discussion is over the debts of nations, the likelihood of war, or the increase in the loss of rights, the governments of much of the world are heading in a similar direction.
And that direction is not a positive one.
However, the pundits in the media offer a wide variety of solutions for the problems being discussed.
The solution to national debt is either to expand monetisation or to back off on it, depending upon who is speaking at the moment. Whether debt monetisation is the right thing to do in the first place is rarely discussed.
The solution to the Middle East problem is either to arm the rebels or send in the military.
The solution to domestic terrorism is either to build up the power of the various authorities, or to pass more dramatic laws restricting basic freedoms.
And so, we are to be forgiven if we imagine that the solution to such problems lies in whether we choose one destructive approach or another.
Truth be told, the most difficult assessment for us to make is that we should sit very far back from the rhetoric and ask ourselves, "Is a solution even possible at this point, or have the powers-that–be gone past the point of no return?"
Here's why the problems won't be solved:
As regards the debt of the most prominent countries of the world, the point of no return has certainly been reached by most.
Historically, once the present level of debt has been reached, no amount of monetisation will save the economy. It may be possible to give the addict yet another injection of heroin to stave off the immediate withdrawal symptoms, but at some point, it becomes necessary to go cold turkey.
It may be a very painful thing to do, but it truly is the only solution. A country cannot reach solvency through increased debt.
However, political leaders are loath to go cold turkey. To do so is to cut the horse hair that holds the sword hanging above their careers. Better to push the situation further into ruin, if it can buy a little more time.
As regards the rapid deterioration into police states that is occurring in so many countries, no amount of discussion by the pundits in the media will reverse the present destruction of basic rights. After all, the decision is not in their hands. It is in the hands of congresses, parliaments, presidents, and prime ministers.
They know that, very soon, the façade of "economic recovery" will come tumbling down, and they have no intention of allowing the populace to have the basic freedom of removing them from power, once the veil has been removed from the lie that a solution is in the works.
Political leaders, whose hold over power is in danger, will always do whatever is necessary to retain that power.
As regards warfare, it is interesting that none of the pundits who discuss the subject in the media ever raise the question, "How can a country that is facing bankruptcy possibly fund a war—traditionally the most expensive undertaking for any country in any era?"
Yet, throughout history, political leaders have often used warfare as a distraction when a government has reached the tipping point economically. As Hermann Goering said,
"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
The disconnect here seems to be that the populace seems to believe that the governments of the West sincerely hope to avoid war, so the discussion in the media revolves around what can be done to that end.
However, far from seeking peace, the governments of the day consciously seek to create war. After all, a populace that is otherwise unhappy with its government tends to toe the line if the country is at war. Further, the government has a greater ability to silence domestic detractors in time of war.
Thus, the ability to hold power is assured. A state of war is the single most effective tool in silencing dissent in any country.
In considering all of the above, not only as a present-day anomaly, but as a recurrent theme throughout history, any discussion of "if" there will be an economic collapse, "if" there will be an increase in the loss of basic freedoms, "if" there will be a ramping up of warfare, becomes a non-starter. It is a question of "when."
Of course, in spite of this, there will be those individuals who will say, "I like to be positive. I'm going to hope for the best."
But, in truth, this is not positive thinking at all. If we see the truth before our eyes and then cover our eyes in order to be positive, we are merely delving into self-deception.
Positive thinking begins with truth. Once we accept what is true, we may then be as positive or as negative as we wish regarding what that truth means to us.
If we are faced with the fact that much of the world is, once again, passing through the classic cycle of economic decline / removal of rights / distraction of war, we can either shut our eyes to that fact and hope for the best, or we can open our eyes and recognise that the one choice left to us is to try to step aside of coming events.
As Benjamin Ola Akande wrote, "Hope is not a strategy."
If we recognise that the sword of Damocles is indeed hovering above our own heads, we would be unwise to continue to sit below it and ponder whether the horse hair may break.
Instead, we should understand that our very first move should be to put some physical distance between ourselves and the potential harm that unquestionably hangs over us.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Skewering the America like a toilet.

Often when I repost, I will state "posted without comment"; but this is entirely comment, amusing or bemusing, I am not certain. 
The original article is http://cnsnews.com/node/743009#comment-1163354169. I have posted the entire conversation to date. It is fair to skip over most of it. I had idea how to edit it down and still keep the irony. Alexis and I are actually in agreement about the criticism of Boenher's actions and their results. I would hate to see what it would be like should we disagree.

Enjoy.

*********************************************

John Boehner, you become more transparent every time you open your mouth. The problem is, we don't like what we see and hear - IT 'IS NOT GOOD FOR AMERICA'. The transparency of your agenda is to America's detriment precisely the same as is the agenda weaseling behind Obama's non-transparency: Both are a dead give-away of an individual in a powerful political position skewering America as if it were a toilet for your corrupt minds to dump in. Each of you is doing it the same way, professing a different logos while neither of you has an ounce of ethos functioning in your twisted psyches. There is no conscience there. 

To correct one of your misnomers: It is ‘you’ who are ‘ridiculous’, as well as the turncoat Wisconsin Lib, Ryan, pretending to be a fiscal Conservative – and, not those few members who are raising hell about the corruption of the GOP establishment, in both chambers.

What you, Cantor, and your GOP-establishment supporters, have done is equivalent to what you have accused Snowden of doing: You are all ‘Traitors’ to America – rationalized by your personal self-interests, not those of the country’s socio-political foundations. You were just as ridiculously blatant about Snowden as you are about Cruz, Lee, Paul, and all others who oppose your anti-American agenda. What Snowden did falls into a grey area between ‘morality’ and ‘the rule of law’ – but, what you’ve done falls smack dab into ‘immorality’ and ‘violation of the Rule of Constitutional Law’: You’ve aided and abetted a criminal in the position of POTUS, whose treasonous actions define him as impeachable, who has been destroying The Rule of Law as did Robespierre, in order to destroy the tracks that would lead back to condemn him 'legally' when the country has finally developed a spine (***) - as it will to you, along with John Glover Roberts who has 'unlawfully' aided Obama even more egregiously, having used his position as the supreme legal personage in the country, to deliberately reposition an unconstitutional law, to make a square peg fit into a round hole, by critically redefining it to a Tax, which carries the full force of punishment of the most extreme measures, if an 'individual' refuses to have his/her 'body' owned and used as chattel to redistribute his very life's productivity, by a Communist politburo run by a criminal terrorist, whose authenticity as an American is in greater question today than it was when it was publicly scrutinized - handing to Obama a sceptre of dictatorship 'above The Constitution', above the irreversible, immutable God-given rights of the American people to 'rule themselves within the socio-spirituous frame-reference of Constitutional Law'!. (There is no greater assault against humanity than the foregoing. Period! Within its energy dynamic rumbles a Big Cosmic Boomerang. Believe it..)

Each and all of you are ‘transparent societal scum’. You may define ‘scum’ differently than the definition given above, but ‘scum’ of this magnitude stands apart from all other ‘scum’: It is called ‘Treason’. You, too, no doubt do not believe this, along with the ‘scum populace’ of low-class individuals who are Barack Obama’s base – and, his virtual army: His ‘Scum-Abetters’, from Michelle to Jarrett, to every person who is part of his administration, thru every bureaucrat in every dept of this Admin’s government – to his two daughters, (*) and your family who ‘depend on your 'Scumship'’ to make their economic lives tick on the calculus of your ‘scumming scams’ against the American Populace.
(*) Science informs us that ‘genetics’ are not a function of coincidences or ‘work place accidents’. Ne c’est pas?

Here is a juncture where the crassness of your temerity to 'skewer' America, should not be described in complex metaphors, though they visually drive home 'the point'; but this writer reserves the right of using your level of 'crass' to define ‘you’ - and the creature to whom you have sacrificed your life – ‘literally’. Sucking up to Barack Obama, Reid, and Pelosi, has a price. You and John Roberts are ‘in line’ for ‘justice’ of a kind that you aren’t accustomed to, it comes as “The law of equilibrium’ – called by many other names, but scientifically defined in Newton’s 3rd law of Motion and Einstein's Relativity theory.. All of that which is ‘coming at both of you’, at this very moment, to its final destination - 'your ruination', is equivalent to that which you and he have perpetrated on America - done selfishly, merely for the benefit of carving out a cushy place for your own personal derrieres. You may be certain that it will be a bottomless pit of misery.
Make a diary note, because neither of you will recognize it when it hits full force in your lives, as being that which is of the precise measure of damage you've done to others. People never do recognize 'themselves' coming back at them in the form of the pain and suffering they've done to others, when what they’ve done to others has fulfilled its relativistic SpaceTime tour, and its mandated destiny returns from the place where they've sent it to harm others, now to do the same to them – multiplied. It’s an immutable law of motion-dynamics. (Whatever you and Roberts are trying to protect for yourselves , will fall on its face – with a few more good blows from – guess who? – Obama! He will take you down – in due time – just as Hitler took down every ‘loyalist’ who was evidence of ‘his corruption’ against the public, and posterity.(**)
Barack Obama studied The Constitution ‘only and solely’ to become intimately familiar with ‘how to attack it’. Period. (You can keep that bit of information, if you want to! Period!)

(**) THERE was an old sow with three little pigs, and as she had not enough to keep them, she sent them out to seek their fortune. The first that went off met a man with a bundle of straw, and said to him:
'Please, man, give me that straw to build a house.'
Which the man did, and the little pig built a house with it. Presently came along a wolf, and knocked at the door, and said:
'Little pig, little pig, let me come in.' To which the pig answered:
'No, no, by the hair of my chiny chin chin.' The wolf then answered to that:
'Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in.'
So he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew his house in, and ate up the little pig.

(***) They 'got him'! At the end of Robespierre's Reign of Terror in 1793-94, the people of France decided that his famous maxim, "The end justifies the means" wasn't acceptable. (Which Saul Alinsky borrowed from him 2 centuries later, and Barack Obama immortalized, against the U.S.). They sent his neck to the guillotine.
Excerpt from: "Treason & Shroud" Pref. Part III / See link below'
“THE ENDS AND THE MEANS OF MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE: “THE REIGN OF TERROR”
“Robespierre met the wrath of the Ninth of the Thermidor--the mobilization of his enemies. They had assembled and were able to courageously interrupt Robespierre's speech with cries of "Down with the Tyrant!" His arrest was decreed, and his execution soon followed. On July 28, 1794, Robespierre and nineteen of his supporters went to the guillotine.”
Excerpt "T&S" Pref. Part IV:
"Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible" Maximilien Robespierre
“People do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void; and this justice is worth just as much as that of the courts.” 
Maximilien Robespierre
What he sent around, came back around. It will to you and Barack Obama, as well.
http://boudicabpi.wordpress.co... “A BOUDICA POINT OF VIEW: Take No Prisoners” 
“TREASON AND SHROUD; IRAN ESCORTS OBAMA TO WORLD DICTATORSHIP THRU STRAITS OF 2012” Preface Parts I-V / A. Ainsworth
LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA PARTS I – V / A.A.
“HOW JOHN ROBERTS RESET ‘OBAMACARE TO PUTINCARE’”/
    • Avatar
      "skewering America as if it were a toilet" ???
      That is a textbook example of a mixed metaphor. I know you will think "grammar nazi", but what the hell does that mean? Do you skewer your toilet? How do you skewer your toilet? How does anyone skewer a toilet?
      Beyond that, I suspect that at root we are in agreement on the government, but your rant is quite disjointed and reads like a student essay where the student didn't read the assignment and is trying to bluff his way through the report by name dropping and misuse of terms like logos and ethos.
        • Avatar
          That’s a rather large chip you are carrying around on your shoulder. One that surely is comparable to Hercules twelve Labors, which virtuous struggle must qualify you as the perfect embodiment of Aristotle’s ‘pathos’. Or, more likely yours is a parallel of Sisyphus struggle of ceaselessly pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to have it – as ceaselessly – roll back on his shoulder. 

          A qualified student of classical studies will notice quite quickly, the difference between a presumptuous dilettante poseur of fine grammar and rhetoric, and those who are not limited by a lack of education. The former tends to be an individual of a provincial social experience, whose academic education has been as limited as his social education. 

          This response may benefit you in future attempts to assign a qualitative value to strangers, whose educational and social experience exceeds yours, by a measure that is evident to the extent that your criticism of their commentary betrays your ignorance of proper use of terms, and – your lack of familiarity with the dynamical use of mixed metaphors, a noblesse oblige literary art form of a classical turn of phrase (*) – particularly, when feigning knowledge not possessed, in comparison of yourself with one whose maternal grandmother was one of the 20th c. most renowned British linguistic scholars, who read Sanskrit, read, wrote and spoke Classical Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and a total of 14 languages from Romance to Indo-European, and Arabic – who also formalized the grammar of 6 spoken Bantu languages. 

          As did Aristotle, Cicero, and Isocrates – the three greatest classical arbiters of ‘modes’ of ‘idea conveyance’ – i.e. rhetoric - this writer also “uses” ethos, pathos, and logos, semantically, as a ‘means of conveyance of intent’. These ‘nouns’ are linguistic ‘tools’, ‘modes’ – which are verbs, establishing and stylizing, ‘intent’ vis a vis their ‘conveyance of a state of thought, emotion, intent’. 

          Quote:
          “Each of you is doing it the same way, professing a different logos while neither of you has an ounce of ethos functioning in your twisted psyches. There is no conscience there."
          In summary, your failure to connect the rational syntax of a comment, is a problem of unfamiliarity with 'thought forms', as well as of literary forms, history, and social standards which are clearly not of your experience, so must seem terribly 'disjointed' - 'in your mind'. It is apparent by your comment, and choices of subjects to comment on, that your life experience has been limited to a provincial classical Christian – Bible Belt – sociology – with a self-perpetuating attempt to appear to think outside of that box.
          Merry Christmas, Alexis A.
          (*) “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings...” (assume you’ve heard of Hamlet)
            see more
            • Avatar
              You still only get a C-.
                • Avatar
                  From 'Alexis' staff:
                  Alexis rarely responds to 'commenters', preferring to direct people to "A Boudica Point of View: Take no Prisoners". But, on occasion, she does - as she did to your comment. We've informed her of your 'reaction' to her 'response' to you, and, she has asked us to respond again to you, to 'kindly' point out to you that your social and intellectual experience is limiting your perceptions of the realities of society - from an objective persepctive - adding that there is no measure of meaningful discourse to be found in the 'Minds of Mice and Men' - who epitomize historic events such as The Scopes Trial - AKA The Monkey Trial.
                  She wishes you well, hoping that this response will help you to learn to quell your insecurities.
                  From 'Alexis' staff
                  P.S. She is amazed by the subjective ignorance of most individuals who use the internet to 'communicate their personal, subjective opinions' - who are individuals who assume that the social status of others, is the same as their own. She noted that you spoke of "name dropping" - and, asked, 'What if this person knew the genealogy of my family'? Would he say I was 'name-dropping'?'
                  http://boudicabpi.wordpress.co... “A BOUDICA POINT OF VIEW: Take No Prisoners”
                  “TREASON AND SHROUD; IRAN ESCORTS OBAMA TO WORLD DICTATORSHIP THRU STRAITS OF 2012” Preface Parts I-V / A. Ainsworth
                  LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA PARTS I – V / A.A.
                  “HOW JOHN ROBERTS RESET ‘OBAMACARE TO PUTINCARE’”/

                  LETTER TO “THE ENVY CLASS”: ‘THE DREAMER-REAMERS’
                    • Avatar
                      Forgive me, I am not accustomed to being responded to by commenters with a staff, other than about the head and ears. Here in the world of the hoi-poloi, most of the commenters we encounter are in their pajamas in their parent's basement.
                      I do appreciate the delicate way you reminded me that this world belongs to those of appropriate "social status". And that they are the only ones who opinions matter. For some reason, I suddenly have a strong desire to reread Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle
                      So, you may return to assisting her in preventing the Honorable[?] Representative Boenher from skewering the America like a toilet.