Progressives
are by their very nature contemptuous of the natural order of
things. Everything can be improved by their superior intellects. By
virtue of the purity of their motives and the advanced understanding we
have these days, they can impose policies that violate human nature and,
they think, prevail. The Marxists are explicit in their promise that
communism will create a "new man" (now updated to read "new
person"). Self-interest would no longer operate in the communist utopia
that would follow the supposedly transitory period of "dictatorship of
the proletariat." "From each according to his abilities, to each
according to his needs." Never mind who chose to lay about and who
chose to work hard...
Of course, human nature being immutable,
the "vanguard" in charge of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in
every single communist country has always held onto its own power and
privileges and led societies where the gap between the lives of the
elite and the masses dwarfed that of any capitalist system. Trying to
change human nature — or any other aspect of the natural order (see, for
example, Lysenkoism) — inevitably produces outcomes that are at best hilarious and at worst, catastrophic - Thomas Lifson October 2, 2021 Saturday schadenfreude: Prog thinks she can change nature, suddenly (and hilariously) discovers she can't
Biden insists that
97%-98% of the population must be vaccinated to end the COVID risk.
However, as it seems possible that mass vaccination is a trigger for
aggressive new variants, one can’t help thinking that he wishes to
propagate the virus going forward to the midterm 2022 elections and
beyond. That would explain why Biden and his CDC director, Dr. Rochelle
Walensky, of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have
overruled the CDC’s own advisory panel of experts’ recommendation
against booster shots, further politicizing an already fraught issue:
Forcing a gene therapy agent onto Americans............
On a personal note, the FDA has failed in
its mandate to protect the public. As a retired medical device design
and project engineer, I can tell you that the sheer number of deaths and
adverse reactions (which may run to the thousands domestically, with this just
the latest example) should be unacceptable. Apparently, the FDA has
become a tool of the DNC and its silence is deafening about vaccine
safety. The only bright spot was the CDC advisory panel’s sober
recommendation about boosters, which its Director promptly ignored.
The FDA has an obligation to safeguard the public and it’s failing in that duty considering that the fully vaccinated are contracting COVID as a breakthrough illness in too many cases. We have cheap and effective therapeutic drug therapies that have been proven to defeat this virus,
though we are denied their use. Decisions about therapeutic drugs
should be between ourselves and our physicians, free from government
interference and the creeping tyranny of the DNC.
Why, are we only given an ineffective so-called genetic vaccine; in a vaccinate or nothing proposition, instead of proven treatment? And why does Biden seem determined to make 98% of the country guinea pigs for a leaky vaccine and endless boosters?
Remember Afghanistan. God help us. - Alan Halbert
Whether it is anti-vaccine content or
politically incorrect discourse, free speech is under heavy attack in
America. Take the case of philosopher and pedagogist Peter Boghossian, a
Portland State University professor who recently resigned from his
position in a searing open letter
in which he accused the administration of fostering an environment
hostile to intellectual inquiry and dissent. “Students at Portland
State are not being taught to think. Rather, they are being trained to
mimic the moral certainty of ideologues,” he wrote. “Faculty and
administrators have abdicated the university’s truth-seeking mission and
instead drive intolerance of divergent beliefs and opinions. This has
created a culture of offense where students are now afraid to speak
openly and honestly.” You might say he’s reinventing the wheel -- well,
right, but Boghossian is a liberal, a liberal who points the finger at
the illiberal university. In his resignation letter, he claimed that
when he tried to speak out against harmful “illiberalism,” he faced
intense reprisal. “The more I spoke out about these issues, the more
retaliation I faced,” he wrote. Is it a sign that enough is enough?
Diligent disciples of postmodern philosophers of the Frankfurt school
and Italian Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci, who laid the
foundation for the left’s slow takeover of the culture, leftists
successfully infiltrated schools, religion, art, entertainment, the
family, and, what is more, the language. Knowles’s subtitle, after all,
speaks volumes: controlling words means controlling minds.
What college campuses have become -- centers for leftist indoctrination
-- is proof that there is a semantic context in which the game’s
already lost before it starts, regardless of one’s personal feelings and
beliefs. It was the leftists who won the game of semantics, and
therefore, says Knowles, it is they who can set the terms and premises
of any debate, especially those within elites and other important
segments of public opinion and decision-making segments, and thereby win
every time. If this isn’t a fight to the death, I don’t know what it
is. - S.R. Piccoli October 3, 2021 The Left and the Control of Meaning
A thousand-piece
puzzle spread out on the dining room table is easier to put together
than the testimony from our top military and civilian leadership
regarding America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. One of the Generals slouched his way
through the hearing. Another General was defensive about improper
negative interviews he gave regarding his former boss. The Secretary of
Defense shifted blame for the whole thing to others and then dodged
responsibility for cleaning up the mess he was partly responsible for
creating. This is our top military leadership?
When one is faced
with a thousand-piece puzzle, one starts by finding the straight edges.
The puzzle has a border. What is the ‘border’ for these witnesses? The
border is what our Constitution provides. If this has the ring of ‘too many cooks
in the kitchen’ it is because there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen
regarding the War in Afghanistan.........Their ineptitude has cost many innocent lives. How our country
is left with ‘woke’ versus ‘warrior’ in our military leadership may be
partly explained by Obama’s military purges.
Isolating
one issue at a time, gathering facts on the issue, and then drawing
logical conclusions is part of the citizen evaluative process so
important in our Republic. The Congressional hearings were very
informative. By design, 1000 pieces of our national puzzle are now
thrown to the public in the form of one disaster after another to
encourage citizens to throw up their hands and give up on determining
causation and accountability. The People are the Sovereign, however, and
must judge performance to determine who is to represent them. Eventually,
as each piece of the puzzle is painstakingly put together, and action
steps demanded by the public at each stage, the whole picture will be
seen. What picture might this turn out to be? The Swamp. - By M. E. Boyd October 3, 2021 The puzzling oversight hearings regarding the withdrawal from Afghanistan
Throughout the history of civilization, people have been dreaming of a
perfect world -- full employment, full satisfaction of material and
intellectual needs, and equal distribution of wealth -- only to
discover, to their disappointment, that this utopian system does not
exist on this side of the grave. Nevertheless, the illusory ideas of
economic equality transcend time and appeal to people of all colors and
races. If the supporters of economic equality, including
Marxist graduates of American universities, absorb human history, they
may realize that the only historical datum that points to economic
equality goes back to the era of primitive communism. Ten thousand years
ago, before farming, people were forced to obtain food collectively.
Everything that was produced was immediately consumed. This primitive
society produced no surplus and created no wealth. Under such
arrangement, the private property was limited to personal articles of
clothing, hunting tools, etc. resulting in total economic equality -- in
absolute poverty. Ironically, this is the only way economic equality
can be achieved -- economic equality and wealth are mutually exclusive.
Inspired by human’s inherent
desire for well-being and passion to extricate himself from misery,
wealth creation became the locomotive of economic growth. Capitalism
stands out as the greatest wealth generator and distributor that has
created more wealth during the last 250 years than all preceding
civilizations combined in 7,000 years. Aristotle observed this phenomenon 2,400 years ago when he concluded that, "The worst form of inequality is to make unequal things equal."
During the 20th
century, almost as if in accordance to some natural law, socialism
marched triumphantly around the globe with intellectual and moral
impetus to shape the world in compliance with its values. However, by
the end of the century in most socialist countries, redistribution of
wealth had reached the end of its potential, egalitarian values
gradually eroded and socialist economies spectacularly collapsed.
The
proponents of economic equality failed to recognize the immutable fact
-- freedom enables people to use their ingenuity to generate wealth,
whereas coerced economic equality suppresses the very freedom required
to innovate and begets poverty. The greatest moral injustice is an
attempt to regulate (control) wealth by the people of limited abilities
who are seeking to satisfy their unlimited needs under the banner of
self-serving definitions of justice and fairness. But no lessons of history will dampen the
magic of equality’s divine providence. To sell the ideology, the
American socialists insist they have no intention of creating an
egalitarian society; they just want to reduce the gap between rich and
poor which they failed to define in commensurable terms. As long as
there is a gap, the socialists will carry their convictions toward the
ultimate objective -- making all of us, who are unequally rich, equally
poor.
The
embracement of the malignant ideology, which signifies the total
inversion of American historical traditions and values, demonstrates the
magnitude of America’s psychological and political demoralization. The
country is no longer having the self-confidence to define its choices.
In retrospect, Marxism would never take root in America if great
statesmen of earlier times that aspired to equality in liberty had not
completely died out and replaced by leaders of lesser wisdom who pursue
equality in perpetual human misery. - Alexander G. Markovsky October 3, 2021, Inequality -- the Engine of Prosperity
Yes, the Kamala cackle is incredibly annoying. The Democrats briefly thought that maybe,
just maybe Kamala Harris would grow out of her repulsiveness and
somehow rescue them from the doom that Joe Biden's deteriorating mental
faculties portend for the party (and, incidentally, the nation). Four
days ago, The Hill optimistically
headlined, "Democrats see Harris as major player in midterms," to which
many conservatives (including me) reacted with the Dirty Harry
catchphrase, "Go ahead, make my day." She hasn't been subjected to "the lid" the way Biden is when he loses
all lucidity, but when it comes to Kamala's visibility and popularity,
Mies van der Rohe's axiom on modernist architecture applies: "Less is
more."
That strategy unexpectedly fell apart
when she made what was intended to be an uncontroversial visit to
George Mason University to discuss "voting rights," which in DemSpeak
means offering maximum opportunities for vote fraud. It should have
been a safe topic for her. Lots of canned phrases such as "voter
suppression" and students at a second-tier state university shouldn't be
expected to pose really difficult questions. - Thomas Lifson October 2, 2021 When Kamala forgets to cackle under stress…
It is tragic for the individual, family, and loved ones of an elderly
person suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's. It is a disaster for
our nation if it is our president. Is President Biden suffering from a
disease that is robbing him of his cognitive abilities? President Biden's longtime personal
physician and now White House physician, Dr. Kevin O'Connor, has either
not performed or not released the results of a cognitive
test. President Biden's staff shield him from view, and the media
continue to protect the president from scrutiny. Since the media have
not explored the cognitive abilities of the president, we will do it by
comparing the CDC's "10 Warning Signs of Alzheimer's" to President
Biden's behavior..........If President Biden is
unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, why hasn't
Congress acted in removing the president in accordance with Amendment
XXV of the Constitution? It may be that the Democrat leaders in the
House and Senate know they need a weakened president to enact their
legacy legislation and believe they can continue to control of the
federal government with Biden in the role. Republican leaders in the
House and Senate may believe that once they control both houses, they
will have the power to approve the next vice president — all while our
rivals across the globe take advantage of our weakened president and our
allies plot a future without the United States.
America with a
weakened leader reminds me of the instruction I received when
parachuting. If you have a malfunction, you must decide how bad of a
malfunction. If malfunction results in a broken leg or two, then ride
it to the ground. Because if you go to the reserve and it malfunctions,
your life is over. We cannot survive a President Harris, House speaker
Pelosi, and Senate leader Schumer leading our country. Let us all wait
until the November 2022 elections. - Mick Rich October 3, 2021 How does Biden stack up against a list of Alzheimer's symptoms?
Elon Musk names his child X Æ A-Xii? Along with three others named, Nevada, Saxon, and get these two names, Exa Dark Sideræl, Techno Mechanicus. If there was ever any evidence of interstellar aliens on the planet, he's it. And would clearly qualify as their ambassador. There's something seriously wrong with this guy. As for the women who've married and/or bared his children; they must have a screw loose.
I'm retired, and 79, and just found out a lifelong friend has just passed, which is becoming a common occurrence in my life, and should bring a certain perspective to our lives. I used to say if you can get someone to pay you to do something you'd do for free, it's not a job. After I retired I realized anything that "required" me to do something ...anything.... it was a job.
We work in order to survive and provide food, clothing, and shelter for our families. Hopefully we will have at some point earned enough to not have to work and get a paycheck. When that happens, and we're getting old, it's time to hang it up and start expanding our horizons, do other things that are enjoyable, enjoy time with the family, especially the grand children.
Time is short, so don't waste it on a job, no matter how much you enjoy that job, it's still a job, and takes you away from the really important stuff in life.
A few years ago Sotheby's announced the auction of a bottle Macallan Adami 1926, a Scotch whisky that spent 60 years aging in sherry casks, and since there were only 40 bottles left in the world, they estimated it might go for 1.5 million dollars.
I've never understood this. The idea of why anyone would spend a million bucks on a bottle of hooch. But once that's done, then, there are three options.
Conclusion. They're nuts.
Kamala Harris says she's not done yet, and she lost the election to Trump because she was playing three dimensional chess during the last election.. Don't ask, I didn't understand that either. She's telling potential donors she's in for the 2028 election. She wasted over a billion dollars, and even ran up a campaign debt, so for her to believe she's gonna be the 2028 Democrat candidate is evidence her stupidity is only exceeded by her ego and arrogance. Is there any sane person who actually believes there's any evidence she's smart, competent and a winner? If so, please share that information with the world... Kamala would appreciate it.
I can't golf any longer, but I did love the game. Golf is the greatest game in the world, and is a test of personal character. Integrity in keeping score is almost sacrosanct, and is not be easily forgiven, at least at the pro level. I used to play regularly with a group of friends, some of whom cheated. We knew they cheated, and we didn't much care. When they would declare their score our group would just look at each other, shake our heads, roll our eyes, and laugh, because we really didn't much care, we just loved being out there. But we also knew that was a character pattern that plays out in real life also. Golf brings out the character in people.
Secretary of Defense Hegseth is purging the military of a lot of high ranking officers who support all the leftist nonsense that's destroying the military. When you see this kind of stuff you have to wonder how does someone that stupid become a high ranking officer.
Well, I have the answer.
About 15 years ago while in Washington on my industry's trade association legislative day one of my companions, who had been a graduate of the Air Force Academy many years back, told us one of the dumbest guys in his class made the Air Force a career was now a two star general. I can say honestly from my personal experience in the service, butt kissing and brown nosing is far more important than smarts when it comes to promotions in the military.
The fact is the two groups everyone assumes are real leaders, aren't. If a junior military officers tells the higher ranks they're all wrong and can prove it, I'll show you an career junior officer. Show me a Ph.D. candidate telling the Ph.D's. during his oral dissertations they're views are all wrong, and proves it, and I will show you a career Masters degree academic.
They learn very early on they have to go along to get along to get what they want, until that pattern of thinking becomes intrinsic to their character, removing any vestige of a backbone.