budbromley

Though I have tried, intensely, it has been my experience that many positions cannot be understood or empathized with by the listener. Some places we cannot go, must not go. Cutting off 1 or 30 or 300 heads, for a gross example.

Often the logic is not there or they have made up their own logic, which is the case in much of the climatology (modelling) of global warming. Or, they have accepted on faith the statements from The One, the teacher, the prophet, Cronkite, Neo or whomever, and become True Believers.  There are leaps of faith a listener just cannot take, because there is no way back. Many of them.

In such circumstances, one must objectify the person in order to even continue to listen to their point of view. Making those synapses would kill us or make us insane, so we instinctively push back in unconscious defense of self. We just laugh in pain for them. We may pray for them too.  We put them in a box.

The astroturf is wide and deep out there and it has been planted like a minefield by our teachers, elders, politicians, media and myriad other collectivists who truly believe they know better…and what they do and say is so important, or so they rationalize, that their lying, stealing, cheating, hypocrisy (or whatever) is justified to achieve that end goal.  Once upon a time, in a place far away and long ago, it was called noblesse oblige, but the Nobel Peace Prize ruined that.

Society accepts this decrepit corruption now because we have been conditioned to TOLERATE moral relativity.  I think Hank Racette’s point is the a priori decision to not listen and not understand, even though we could and should. But instead, we unnecessarily objectify and stereotype. Perhaps your mom commanded, “Be nice. Don’t discuss religion, sex or politics at the dinner table.”

To wit: our Supreme Court wandering into cases like abortion, gay marriage, global warming, etc. as discussed in my previous post.  What is the first thing they do? They take exception and point out, usually in footnotes almost no one reads, that their ruling or decision is based on administrative law or precedent (stare decisis), not the facts of the individual case, and not on the merits.   The science of AGW has NEVER even been heard or admitted as evidence by SCOTUS.  But they have decided AGW cases. They immediately set the science aside (including experts in the science) and defer to opinions and metadata. They make an a priori decision to ignore. No ma yob mann. They objectify, put it in a box, and consider meta data and opinions … they are believers in consensus of the oligarchy … instead of considering real world facts.

Instead, they should have recused themselves, stepped down from the case, admitted they had no jurisdiction. But what they did – without trying – they presumed that they could not understand the sophisticated modelling of complex climate systems in the future, a type of logic based on the statistics of confidence and not based on verified, reproducible facts.  AGW proponents effectively obscured the merits.  Instead of sticking with facts, verifiable evidence and logic, i.e. things which all judges professionally know and use, they take a leap of faith into an area they don’t know or understand and then make decisions based on administrative law. Do the contestants have standing? Jurisdiction? Precedent cases, etc. They pushed it into a box. However, once the judges made that a priori decision, they should have stepped down from the case.

What is wrong with letting the people decide? Or the states? But, no, over and over, they refuse to step down and they make decisions based on faith in an unverified consensus and faith in the bureaucratic process itself. Thus, we are progressively bound in tighter and tighter legal and politically correct knots. We will all be criminals, as soon as the consensus agrees on the laws we have broken. Denial is racist.

We are headed for worse that Orwell’s ‘1984.’ We are headed for Kafka’s ‘Trial’ and perpetual war combined. The priests of the myriad ivory towers of Babel full of cumulative ignorance will be unable to converse, much less understand, each other. So they proclaim off with their heads.

So the Pope presumes to teach (Vatican pre-announced an encyclical) about (what should be) an objective science-based subject like AGW, and the courts presume to teach/rule about subjective moral issues like abortion and gay marriage which are not mentioned in the Constitution, which should have meant those decisions should have been left to the states or the people.  We are institutionalizing ignorance by the technologies of bureaucracy and management. [My apologies to Jacques Ellul, whom says these things so much better, whom warned us in the 1950’s and 1960’s in his prophetic books, for example, ‘The Technological Society’ and ‘Propaganda.’ (Bud apologetically steps down from Hank’s soapbox and goes to play in his garden.) http://monoskop.org/images/5/55/Ellul_Jacques_The_Technological_Society.pdf

If we don’t make efforts to cross fertilize and pollinate the myriad towers of knowledge, then we will all become idiots in our lifetime. It is a mathematical certainty. But there are some areas we cannot go for our own good: don’t try cutting off someone’s head, or robbing a bank, or aborting a baby, for a few of many examples. Or empathizing [with a psychopath jihadist] as Hillary suggests. No way back from those leaps. The problem, as Ellul points out, is trusting the system, the technology, the consensus, the propaganda, the teachers, and then giving up your individuality. Oh no, we are not going to consider the science of AGW because the UN and Al Gore said the debate is over. That is guaranteed ignorance. We might as well contemplate an M.C. Escher drawing until they come and take us away. [Ignorance is defined as a failure to connect the dots, regardless one’s willingness or intent.]

Instead of global warming, overpopulation and gay marriage and abortion, the Pope and the Supreme Court should be focusing on exactly the opposite: “The New Economic Reality – Demographic Winter.” Calmly presented at this link is a 56 minute documentary by experts, the first part of a two part series from July, 2014.

We need to strengthen and support traditional families, reduce tax and regulatory burdens on families, and reduce the cost of energy worldwide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8XQjfG2wYc

Sir,

With respect, many of us older folk were called classical liberals by our philosophy professors when we were in college. My views have not changed, but the views and ideals of many of my college friends certainly have blown with the wind. Today, college professors call me right wing. Politicians call me libertarian, though I have never voted or registered for that party. I seem to be walking in the same direction as before, but most people are now coming at me instead of walking alongside.

I and most of my friends in college and grad school and even several years later at war or working, we knew that the federal government had no role in drugs, sex or rock n roll. We knew that any war should be declared by Congress. The government tear-gassed us, shot at us, trampled us with horses, drafted us or made it difficult to find work, and then they tried to recruit us for CIA. And the government went ahead and did what it wanted, whatever enriched them. We knew those government folk should follow the Constitution, which they all swore to protect and defend. Or so almost all of us flower chillun’ believed.

During our lifetime, these technologies called propaganda, bureaucracy, “education,” social media, etc were developed and became very sophisticated. The cold war was psychological and sophisticated and targeted teachers. Morals became relative. Cultural differences had to be tolerated. The ends justified the means, or so we were told.

Congress passed the Administrative Procedures Act so that it no longer had to do its Constitutionally-prescribed job. The country was and is now on automatic pilot.

In the words of philosopher Allan Bloom, the American mind was closed, intentionally closed by educational processes and mass media. Citizens became slaves and 50%+ hoped for change. The processes were so sophisticated that today many of us can no longer recognize or converse with people whom we shared ideas, dorm rooms, apartments and houses.

Today, there is only one party, the party of government, and then there are the rest of us, the 50%, who don’t work for the government or live off welfare.

Lighting fires will not stop the government juggernaut. I have tried. We, and especially you millennials, have to organize a new party before it’s too late.

I have a secret plan to destroy America. If you believe, as many do, that America is too smug, too white-bread, too self-satisfied, too rich … then let’s destroy America. It is not that hard to do.

History shows that nations are more fragile than their citizens think. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and they all fall, and that “an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.” So here is my plan:

1. We must first make America a bilingual/bicultural country. History shows … that no nation can survive the tension, conflict and antagonism of two competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. …

Scholar Seymour Martin Lipset put it this way: “The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension and tragedy.”

2. I would then invent “multiculturalism” and encourage immigrants to maintain their own culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal … there are no cultural differences that are important … and the black and Hispanic dropout rate is only due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out-of-bounds.

3. We can make the United States a “Hispanic Quebec” without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently: “… the apparent success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethno-centrically and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together.”

4. I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with a salad bowl metaphor … I would make our fastest-growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic to our population. …

5. I would then get the big foundations and Big Business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of victimology. … I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population.

6. I would establish dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. I would “celebrate diversity.” … It stresses differences rather than commonalities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other … when they are not killing each other.

A diverse peaceful or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together, and we can take advantage of this myopia. … Dorf’s World History tells us the [ancient] Greeks believed they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature and worshiped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic games in honor of Zeus and venerated the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. A common enemy, Persia, threatened their liberty. Yet all of these bonds together were not strong enough to overcome two factors … local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions … .

7. Then I would place all these subjects off-limits and make them taboo to talk about. I would find a word similar to “heretic” in the 16th century that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like “racist,” and “xenophobe” halt argument and conversation. I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws.

I would develop a mantra: because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good.

8. Lastly, I would censor Victor Davis Hanson’s book, “Mexifornia.” This book is dangerous. It exposes my plan to destroy America. … This guy is on to my plan.

Richard Lamm (D) was the Governor of Colorado from 1975-1987.  He gave this short speech in Washington, DC in 2005.  He confirmed this to be accurate.  Snopes link below.)

P.S. Mr. Lamm’s speech was given as a warning.  And how true and needed it is.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/lamm.asp

“Give us the child for eight years and it will be a Bolshevik forever,” said Vladimir Lenin.

Within one year of implementing his tyrannical rule over Russia in the October Revolution, Lenin issued a Decree on Land as head of the Communist Party. The decree declared that all forests, waters and minerals were property of the state.

Comrades Jeb Bush, Al Gore, Barack Obama, John Kerry and all the high priests of Common Core and Global Warming/Climate Change/Earth Day/UN Agenda 21 are implementing Lenin’s disastrous religion, an atheistic religion, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 140 million people…more than all of the people who died in WWI and WWII combined.

But that is not enough deaths for them. They want population control. They want total control.

Dear citizen: Have you heard about UN Agenda 21? Probably not. You need a translator to understand its bureaucracy-speak. It’s not meant to be read by you or me. Like the old Bibles written only in ancient Greek or Latin, a priest is needed to interpret the edicts of the Gaia religion, the successor to communism.  All this is being implemented in your town, under your nose, you will pay for it, and you will be controlled. Unless you open your eyes, think for yourself and fight for your freedom.

“The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.”

“Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail.”

…”But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it. We’ll need to get acquainted with the Islamic State’s intellectual genealogy if we are to react in a way that will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/