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November 2008 | ||||||
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Saturday, November 1, 2008 "I believe this country cannot endure half free and half slave. . .", Abraham Lincoln Most of us believe that we live in a "free country". We say that even as our combined tax rates exceed half of what we make. If we see how many days we have to work to pay our taxes, we see that our entire nation, rather than just the Southern half, is still "half free and half slave", just as it was before the Civil War was fought to end slavery. Few of us seem to mind. We're largely used to it, and we're told every day that "taxes make things better". If we had only been taxed at half those rates, in a decade or so each one of us would be vastly wealthier. But, those who have the power to levy taxes simply don't care. Those who profit from enslaving their neighbors are hard-hearted, and their hearts grow ever harder. The reason is simple. Once people participate in a cash flow, they can only get raises if they increase that cash flow, so spending goes up, taxes quickly follow or money is devalued, and freedom diminishes. Increasing taxes on their neighbors makes those neighbors poorer, but those committed to their cash flow simply do not care. They need "More!", and will eagerly impoverish their neighbors to get it. As they grow ever more cavalier about hurting their neighbors, they grow farther from God by ignoring His command to "Love your neighbor". Often, they move toward ignoring He Who gave that commandment. Some souls become so calloused that, after a while, they can no longer bear to believe that either God or their souls exist. The more useless their occupation is, the bigger the lies they have to tell to justify the taxing and spending that supports them. That makes them ignore more of The Programmer's Operating Instructions, such as "Thou Shalt Not Steal" and "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness". Soon, the enslavers' souls are worse than shrivelled; they are lost. The Virus is happy about that. It was his goal to possess those souls, and, unless we can turn them around them, they will suffer in his realm of agony forever. If we obey our marching orders, and "Do good to them that hurt you.", we may be able to alert them to the fact that there is a God, that He does have a Kingdom, and that it's far better to worry about getting into it than looting our neighbors to obtain more perishable possessions in order to impress those who will never be in a position to judge whether or not we are fit for Heaven.
Saturday, November 1, 2008 One Mark of the beast is being pro-abortion. Many of us have been praying that pro-life candidates will win the upcoming elections next Tuesday. We understand that if our country chooses a leader from the Culture of Death, we may reasonably fear that God will turn His Face from our nation, reducing us to slavery and destruction. But, better enslaved than damned. Whether free or slave, we should pray that those in the Culture of Death turn away from hurtful beliefs and embrace love. The poor souls are utterly lost without our prayers for them. It is their bitterness and selfishness, both manifestations of short-sightedness, that prompts them to disobey God and despise even their most helpless neighbors. It is our duty to love them, despite the fact that they wish to kill and enslave more of us. There have been pro-abortion people who became pro-life. These brave souls saw the light, turned toward it, and moved toward it. It may be reasonably assumed that they repented of their sins and were forgiven. There is a lesson in this for each of us: our sins may be forgiven. Many of us are haunted by the sins we've committed in thought, word, and deed. As we become more obedient to God, we find our words and deeds more easily controlled than our thoughts. We know that thoughts easily become words, and words easily become deeds, so to protect our souls, we are called to be alert to destructive thoughts which, if too long considered, may lead us into sinful words and acts. The mark of the beast is as short a distance away from the obedient soul as salvation is to those in the Culture of Death. Another mark of the beast is not being pro-life. The Book of Lamentations, 1;12, asks a question that separates the sheep from the goats: "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?" This applies especially to all who have hardened their hearts against caring about the agonizing fate of the forty million babies who have been destroyed before birth. The fact that God had this passage written is a clear message that, to be saved, we must be concerned about the most helpless of the neighbors we are commanded to love.
Sunday, November 2, 2008 In November, pray for the dead. This is not the month to pray for those entrapped within the Culture of Death, the living dead, though we should, but for the souls of friends and family who have left their bodies. By doing so, we help the Catholic priests who tell their parishioners, "My job is to get you into Purgatory." When we consider the alternative permanent location for most of us who aren't going to be canonized, we realize the accuracy of his job description. Praying for the dead helps keep us aware that we are part of a chain. There are newer links behind us, and we will soon join the prior links in one of the worlds beyond. By praying for those who went before, we encourage those left behind to pray for us. What might those prayers actually do? At the Final Judgment, Revelations 20;12 tells us the Book of Life is opened, along with the books that record our individual lives. We are given big problems to worry about in this life to prepare us for what is truly The Big Worry, how our individual books, recording every one of our thoughts, words, and deeds, and their consequences, are going to be judged by Our Critic. We may hope that our prayers for the dead will actually prompt an angel to get into those books, and erase some of the bad things they have thought, said, and done. We may also hope that someone will think kindly enough of us to pray that a kind angel will erase some of the bad things that we, ourselves, have thought, said, and done. When our own book is opened, we can ask for a more favorable judgment than we deserve. Praying that we get it should be a concern that we address while we can still ask for the mercy we know we'll need.
Monday, November 3, 2008 Being beastly. "Beast" and "beastly" are words that are not used as often as they used to be. In recent history, those who were "beastly" were crude, violent people. The adjective has been dropped down the memory hole of popular culture. Regardless, the mark of the beast, discussed frequently in the last month of columns, is always one of "beastliness". Abortion is about the most beastly thing that a person can chose to justify. The deliberate destruction of the most helpless of our neighbors is, in its very essence, "beastly". From that fact, disputed by only the more beast-like hearts and souls among us, we can conclude that one mark of the beast is a pro-abortion attitude. Those who say they are "against abortion" and that they want to "make abortion rare" know full well that as long as those for whom they vote keep it legal, more helpless babies will be destroyed. They, too, carry the Mark of the beast. They do not like to have this pointed out to them, but if we do not, who will? And, if we don't, they will be able to say (probably, to little avail) at Judgment, "I didn't know. No one told me."
Tuesday, November 4, 2008 The elect. The most important election is yet to come. The "elect" have their names written in the Book of Life that will be opened on Judgment Day. It is difficult, if not impossible, to see how our names can be written in the Book of Life if we have knowingly voted for a candidate who enthusiastically supports the destruction of unborn babies. So, our own "election" depends on whom we wanted to "elect" on earth. . God allowed people to replace Kings with elected officials so that every voter would have an opportunity to show what side they're on. Each of us is either on the side of life or on the side of death. In this election, the choices are unusually clear.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008 Trotskyite sweep. The Trotskyite plan to create their own Energy Empire took a large, unstoppable step forward with yesterday's elections. Various plans for short-term profiteers to benefit from carbon credits, cap-and-trade, subsidies, and other hugely profitable operations are progressing rapidly. The public excuse for all this is "We must make the world safe from global warming." The real reason is to create an Energy Empire to fund the Trotskyite dreams of empire. They are, of course, battling the great mass of people in order to loot them while directly undermining funding for the Stalinists' Empire of Public Education, whose funding they have always envied. Trotskyites have been wandering in the wilderness for decades. Now, they have found their promised land, and are able to profit from the growing need for energy of all kinds. The "Climate Crisis", as their imaginary problem is now being called, justifies every conceivable type of regulation, inspection, legislation, and control over virtually anything anyone does. They are eager take this step into the "brave, new world" that will provide hundreds of thousands of jobs for all manner of their supporters. Additionally, there will be endless subsidies for "renewable" energy, all accompanied by campaign contributions which will fund additional legislation for even more spending. The truth about energy prices may be able to slow them down. It is a fact that wind power costs $1.20/kwh and atomic power can be reliable delivered safely for .05 cents/kwh.
Thursday, November 6, 2008 Cannibalism. When we only think of cannibals as those in the old "missionary in the pot" cartoons, we miss the modern cannibals who feed upon us. Modern cannibals get far more from their neighbors than a few meals. Up-to-date cannibals devour their neighbors as long as they're alive. Many of our youngest neighbors do not live through their first experience with modern cannibals. The abortionists who take their lives often have lucrative sidelines selling baby body parts to those who need them for various "look good longer" foods, cosmetics, and stem cells. If a baby is so fortunate as to be born, he will become the rightful, life-long prey of the "Tax-Cannibals". They don't in the least mind sustaining themselves on the work of their neighbors. They will cheerfully take trillions from those around them in the pursuit of high-minded dreams and goals that have no chance of doing anyone any good, but which provide good livings for the cannibals, themselves. Tax cannibals have perfected the "have your cake and eat it, too" dreams of their spiritual ancestors. Every day of our lives, we are besieged with messages, telling us endlessly that some group of cannibals or another is especially worthy of having our tax money taken from us and given to them.
Thursday, November 6, 2008 What will they complain about, now? For generations, even centuries, America has been called "a racist nation". This label, in a hundred forms, has been an important part of the stock in trade for generations of outraged liberals. At one estimate, over ten million Americans, employed by schools, universities, foundations, networks, newspapers, and government agencies have repeated several times a day, "America is a racist nation." Virtually every problem of every race has been blamed on "America's incurable racism." Now that the United States has elected the most unqualified, inexperienced candidate in its history as President, partly because of his race, all the complaints about "racism" are suddenly found to be completely and utterly unfounded. What's a professional liberal to do? They have so much invested in criticizing racism that they won't be able to let it go. Soon, we'll be regaled with the dangers posed by "Pockets of racism." "Lingering racism." is an easily foreseeable Imaginary Problem that will be trumpeted by the left, along with "Subconscious racism". Others will concern themselves endlessly with "The undying legacy of racism." After all, no liberal can ever allow any problem to be solved, especially one that has as much funding built up as the Racism Industry.
Thursday, November 6, 2008 Trotskyites win, Stalinists lose. Ted Kennedy, who never saw a Stalinist funding problem he didn't support, was defeated on election day by the rising Trotskyites in his Party:
But, the aging Stalinist made his position clear. He did NOT want any windmills near his family estate. The Trotskyites didn't care about rewarding him for his years of "service". They said, "We'll put up those windmills right where those Kennedy's have to look at them! We'll fix them!" And, that's what they're going to do.
Saturday, November 8, 2008 Clouds. Clouds were programmed to do several jobs. They control water, weather, and temperature. One of their most important programmed functions is to continually remind the depressed soul that the sun is shining just a few miles above. The cloudier, grayer, and more depressing the day, the more cheerful we are reminded to be, for unsullied light is ever overhead. Just so with the dark and depressed soul, who has but to see the Loving God beyond the negativity.
Saturday, November 8, 2008 Living in the minds of Authority Figures. Each of us spends more time than we should in a complicated process in which we try to put ourselves in the minds of other people and imagine what they think and say about us. One of the most common fantasies is imagining what other people think of us. When we engage in that, a form of idol worship focused on our self, it is common to imagine ourselves in their minds, gauging their reactions to and thoughts about what we are wearing, owning, saying, or doing. Those most insecure are the most susceptible to mimicking the behavior necessary to gain approval from authority figures. They begin in school by bringing apples to, and polishing apples for, teacher. Such people were generally raised by those who also sought approval from those in charge, so it is at least a learned, and possibly inherited, behavior. If inherited, it may be the reason that God said, "Esau have I hated." The Culture of Death is skilled at manipulating those who seek approval from earthly Authority Figures. In blinding speed, their simple, credulous followers can be changed from loving Trotsky to cheering at his death. They can transform themselves from trying to destroy Hitler to praising him at the mere signing of a Hitler-Stalin Non-Aggression Pact. In our generation, we watch them switch from worrying about Global Freezing to Global Warming to Climate Change to Climate Crisis, some transformations taking place in hours, days, and weeks. At each change, they imagine how the latest Authority-Figure will think of them for making the correct metamorphosis. They imagine and rehearse themselves talking to the Authority-Figure, possibly in a broadcast interview, in which they will praise everything that he has said or done. If only in their minds, they have a brief moment of shining approval that will validate their existence for the rest of their lives. Every day, an entire sub-culture of American citizens imagines themselves talking to Al Gore, or Barrack Obama, or Oprah, or Brad Pitt, or someone important so that they can personally ingratiate themselves into earthly greatness and be praised for doing so. They want to be in the presence of their living idols. Clapping and cheering makes them part of the only gods they worship, and having the sight of their cheering selves taken directly into the mind of the Authority-Figure and receiving his words, advice, and image within themselves is the closest thing to Transubstantiation that they will ever have.
Sunday, November 9, 2008 Authority Figures know all the best ways to live in the minds of their followers. Most of us have seen footage of the Queen of England feeding her dogs. "I feed my dogs, or, if I had dogs, I would feed them, so I am a little bit like the Queen of England." is the desired reaction among those who watch the carefully scripted activities and identify with them. Once, pictures were taken of royalty shooting birds, but those activities no longer attract the "right kind" of follower and visual records of them are no longer made public. Presidents routinely have their days described. "He likes to start out the day by running two miles, followed by a bowl of oatmeal. The President prefers whole-wheat toast and has always had a real affinity for fresh-squeezed orange juice." is the kind of mindless detail that, when multiplied a thousand-fold, helps people identify so strongly with their President that many taxpayers won't protest when told to "volunteer" for community service, pay huge fines for failing to separate their garbage into eight different bins, and use the "right kind" of light bulb. For several years, it was a Sunday routine on all the "news" programs to show President Clinton leaving his church, Bible in hand. "No matter what they (evil detractors) say about him, he does go to church." was the thought put into the minds of millions of viewers. After putting his Bible aside, he often met with Monica Lewinsky on Sunday afternoons, but those who mentioned that were quickly said to be "mean-spirited" and "un-Christian". Each nation's media has developed the necessary skills to maintain rapport between leader and people. The more tidbits of information we know about our Authority Figure, the more we identify with them and the less critical we become.
Sunday, November 9, 2008 Authority figures often want to be worshipped. The most difficult thing that authority figures can do is resist the temptation to be worshipped. When Vespasian became Emperor, he resisted deification. Not many in that position had that much control of their egos. In our own time, we saw the leaders of Romania, China, and Korea achieve a degree of deification. One of the three appears to still be as worshipped as ever. Those who do not worship are quickly identified. If they cannot be bribed or threatened to worship the ruling political authority, or its preferred idols, they are impoverished, jailed, or killed. Deifying leaders is a great way to be able to loot those who don't go along with the deification process, so greedy underlings usually begin the deifying. In most of the West, global warming has become one idol whose embrace separates the favored from the pagans.
Monday, November 10, 2008 Basic premise of Catholic Fundamentalism: The first book describing Catholic Fundamentalism was Crats!, back in the early 1990s. In it, the theory was postulated that: God can program in three dimensions. He can program and compile particles, using three dimensional fractal geometry. With those 3-D fractals, He wrote and downloaded the Creation Program in the six days described in Genesis. During those six days, He compiled the particles into systems and beings, all with the underlying desire to give human beings free will. In the years since, there has been no need to alter the basic premise, though other books, these columns, and the other topics on the header bar, have succeeded in embellishing the underlying premise. It is interesting that this premise, the first new approach to the Roman Catholic Church since Pascal invented probability theory and applied it to choosing a religion over three hundred years ago, has been studiously ignored by every professional Catholic who has come in contact with it. It should be noted that some of the underlying premises of Catholic Fundamentalism also support many basic tenets of Protestant Fundamentalists, Orthodox Jews, and Moslems. Not one professional in any of those faiths considers that a God Who can use 3-D fractals to program both the universe and we human beings (replicating free-will fractal compilations) in it with amazing speed makes many tenets of their faiths more plausible, if not inescapable. "Not invented here." is one explanation. A more likely one is that it's simply too radical a departure from conventional reality.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 We know what Catholic Fundamentalism thinks of the beginning. What about the end? When Catholic Fundamentalists consider the Book of Revelations in light of our belief that The Programmer of Programmers programmed every thing and being with 3-D fractals and whatever other elements He wanted, we see much in that final book that encourages our interpretation. The breaking of the Seven Seals may be seen as the opening of later parts of The Program. The blowing of the seven trumpets is the downloading of that part of The Program. The "Small Scroll" of Rev. 10 is a new addition to The Program. The dragon and the beast from the sea and the beast from the land are viruses, who strive to corrupt and erase The Program and those who follow it. At the beginning of the Bible, we see how God, Who programs in many dimensions, compiled a universe full of systems and beings. All the way to the end, Catholic Fundamentalism, and its concept of God as The Unprogrammed Programmer, makes the miracles, the prophecies, and The Roman Catholic Faith much more understandable to us and our computer-literate neighbors.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 "You pays your money and you takes your choice." is the everlasting advice from old to young. When we combine that with "Anything is worth what you can get someone to pay you for it.", we have two sentences that add up to far more than many people know. When we reverse the second sentence, we find, "Anything can be bought for what you can get someone to sell it for." Once we more fully understand those sentences, and move through life with the accumulations that such understanding automatically brings, those who move to a higher level, as Catholic Fundamentalists do, apply them to our souls. The most important thing to gain are Heaven credits. When making any choice, we have to understand that it may either help or jeopardize our souls' admission to Heaven. A decision that involves lying, cheating, the mere satisfaction of our vanity, or the needless infliction of pain on another causes our souls to take on a polarity, or some other aspect, that makes it unpleasing to The Programmer who made it. An old English saying can help us develop into people who make the better choices: "What the good man does is always right." The more we endeavor to be "good men", the better all our choices will be.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 "Love your neighbor." Most of us know Who told us that (the capitol "W" is a hint for those who don't), so many tend to take it very seriously. Some try to define "neighbor" in such a way that they feel justified in hating, disliking, killing, or taking advantage of those whom they define as "not neighbors". But, the command is universal. It includes all neighbors, born and unborn, old and young, pagan or believer, murderer or saint. It is not uncommon for people to consider wiping out whole numbers of neighbors who are especially "dislikable". Sometimes, while watching an angry crowd of people whom we know would like to kill us, we may wonder "Why doesn't someone just get rid of them?" We know that there are submarines whose missiles and atomic warheads can land on any given tennis court-sized target in the world when given the command and the coordinates. "Why doesn't someone just get rid of them?" is common, if unspoken, both on the right and the left. The right wonders why the enemies of stability and order aren't destroyed. The left wonders why the enemies of opportunity and "a better life for all" aren't wiped out. All of them are our neighbors. As soon as we start to think that a group of either real or imaginary enemies should be wiped out, we have, at least temporarily, disobeyed the command "Love your neighbor".
Thursday, November 13, 2008 "Love your neighbor.", Part II. I have a loaded pistol in the stand beside my bed. I live alone, and sleep soundly, so it's not likely that I would hear anyone breaking in at night. But, if I did, I would almost automatically open the drawer, pull out my pistol, and rack a round into the chamber. Then, what would I do? What should I do? The house-breaker, I know for a fact, is probably either a homicidal maniac (unlikely), a contract killer (highly unlikely) or a desperate drug-addict looking for a few dollars to feed his addiction (most probable). Most likely, the sound of the racking of the pistol would cause the intruder to flee. If so, the weapon will have worked best, protecting without causing injury, which is why I have an automatic pistol, rather than the more silent revolver. If, after hearing the racking of the slide ramming a cartridge into the chamber, the intruder continues, my own assumption is that he wants my death enough to die for it. I also know for a fact that the intruder is an unhappy, abused person. He has been hated, and is filled with the demons of hate that have kept him from taking advantage of his abilities and skills. If he kills me, and escapes, he will probably kill someone else. So, which neighbor do I love? I have several neighbors to consider. The one who wants to kill me, and if successful, is likely to kill other, unknown neighbors. We may ask the question many evangelicals ask, "What would Jesus do?" What would He do? Obviously, He could drive the foul demon of hatred right out of the person. Could we do that? What would we say? How about this: "Listen, I am armed, and I have a gun. If you want to kill me, come in here, and I will give my pistol to you. Then, I will lie down in my bed, get under the covers, and allow you to kill me. You can shoot me in the head, put the gun in my hand, and make it look like I committed suicide. Then, I would only ask you to take what you want, and go, and sin no more." That might make us feel good, but it would certainly do the next person into whose house he broke no good at all. Turning it into a Mexican standoff would at least give us a chance to reason with the person, but would also increase the likelihood that we would be killed, and so would another neighbor, later. After pondering these alternatives, we may wish to consider a bit of advice from Hermann Goering: "Shoot first, and ask questions later."
Friday, November 15, 2008 Why would a government scientist be so wrong? On the basis of this "forecast", and others like it, Congress has been regulating the behavior of American citizens. Transportation, manufacturing, and every process of life as we know it has been more expensive for the sake of an ongoing lie. As the false alarms continue to be raised, taxes continue to increase. All of us are made poorer. Still, the lies go on. They are eagerly embraced by a government desperate for more. We should pray that people like Mr. Hansen become aware of their souls and that they will live forever, hopefully not in a place where warming will increase to unpleasant levels.
Friday, November 14, 2008 Where's Metternich? In a colossal reorganization of Europe's economic system, factories in the 1800s were putting individual craftsmen like weavers and shoemakers, the old middle class, out of business. The recently dispossessed were suddenly unemployed, hungry, and angry. The conditions for revolutions were rife throughout Europe. In this period, Rousseau-like flights of fantasy celebrated a "return to nature", as if the solutions to modern problems could be found by becoming more primitive. This kind of thinking has ever been the refuge for the frightened, the less able, and is always encouraged by those greedy for power. During this period of upheaval, Metternich, Austria's foreign minister, stood like a rock for the stability of the nobility and established governments. By his efforts, the French cries for "liberty, equality, and fraternity" were stifled, for a time, after Napoleon's early successes. "If the principles of revolution are always the same, so are the principles of counter-revolution." he summed up. He installed controls throughout Germany and Austria on those who would be a danger to stability. Today, long periods of peace have given the disaffected both time and money to establish their own bitterness as a way of life to be imposed on all. Just as the practices of rabble-rousers from Marx to Alinsky have been the same, so is the way to maintain stability despite their endless whining, plotting, and attacks on every stable portion of society. As groups of the hateful and bitter coalesce, they attack the solid center. The very rich encourage this. They do not want competition for their privileged positions, so they fund most of the attacks on the solid parts of their societies. They have always done so. They always will. So, we always need Metternichs to keep us from perishing in the vastly larger versions of Jonestown that are the ever-present dreams of lost souls.
Saturday, November 15, 2008 Money. Not too long ago, money was pegged to the price of gold. While this is now thought to have worked so well that many wish to return to a "gold standard", that golden age had as many recessions and depressions as any. If it worked, it was because gold tended to stay in a community. Local farmers sold food to a local grocery store, or directly to consumers. They bought locally, or made their own shoes, clothes, and implements. Most towns had tailors, wagon-makers, silversmiths, and all the other small-scale craftsmen needed to provide the necessary goods. As transportation improved, it was possible to bring items in from more modern, efficient producers. The local farmers could not produce eggs, milk, or meat as cheaply as they could be brought in from larger producers. Railroads made it possible to bring clothing, shoes, linens, and other necessities to "department stores", each department of which replaced some locally owned business. They, in turn, were replaced by larger stores, malls, discounters, and every other sort of specialty retailer whose importations crossed continents, oceans, and boundaries. Gold no longer stayed in the local community. Instead, it flowed toward ever larger cities whose efficiencies were made possible by improvements in the delivery of water, gas, electricity, and people to the factories, banks, hospitals, and other institutions that grew where larger, more efficient producers gathered; mostly around sources of cheap energy, raw materials, and transportation. Rural areas and small towns without manufacturers began to die. No one would send gold to rural, dying economies, but the areas had to be maintained, if only because each state, no matter how rural, had two senators pledged to legislate for its well-being. By the late 1920s, it was clear that there was no way to force the people who owned the gold to get it into the broad stretches of increasingly impoverished rural America. So, paper money had to be given credit, and supplied wherever political bosses could send it. Voters soon realized that Senators with seniority had real advantages, so no effective rural Senator was ever rejected by voters. At the same time, factories were becoming more mechanized. There was less and less need for workers. Adam Smith's brilliant essay on the division of labor in the production of pins proved that assembly lines were far more efficient than craftsmen. But, he never imagined that one small "lights-out" manufacturing plant would produce all the pins and needles the world would need in a one, small factory the size of a football field that had only a few dozen maintenance men and engineers who ran and took care of ever-faster, ever more efficient machines. If there were a gold standard, the owner of that factory would soon possess all the gold that the entire world was willing to spend on pins and needles. That was true of the biggest zipper maker, the biggest cracker maker, and the ever-fewer people supplying an ever larger amount of the goods and services of virtually everything Americans would need. Paper money, on the other hand, allowed those people to be taxed. It had to be kept in banks, and its flow could be monitored, regulated, and, when necessary, more easily confiscated than gold coins buried under a rock on the proverbial "back forty".
Saturday, November 15, 2008 Is it always bad to have printing presses cranking out money? Classic economists think "fiat money", which is produced by government decree, is a danger. Catholic Fundamentalists aren't so sure. We wonder if the centralizing of production and the subsequent loss of jobs mandates printing presses. We can see one extreme: the government of Zimbabwe printing billion dollar bills that are worth, maybe, a nickel. Obviously, that doesn't help anyone, but may shrink what had been a truckload of money down to wheelbarrow size. On the other extreme, we can see that if a country were on a strict gold standard, free trade would dictate that most of its gold would be shipped out to buy goods and services better provided by others, or the gold would end up in the hands of ever fewer people, as it has since King Midas. Since most western governments have reached the stage of either decay or advancement where ever fewer people are involved in manufacturing, increasing numbers of jobs have to be provided that are essentially useless. We can look at the number of bureaucracies and related organizations that have sprung into being since Roosevelt, and and see that they were a natural reaction to the unemployment caused by a thousand Henry Fords and their assembly lines putting millions of individuals and small shops out of business. We also understand that few of these bureaucracies are necessary to do anything but provide jobs for those willing to spend their lives on obvious uselessness. Each field of human endeavor now has a bureaucracy designed to make sure that it doesn't become too efficient. Towns and factories, for instance, are not allowed to buy their own railcar-sized nuclear reactors to provide cheap energy because an Atomic Energy Commission and a Department of Energy has been put into effect to be sure they can't. We cannot replace expensive, complicated, hard-to-make internal combustion engines and transmissions with simple electric motors that would cut the cost of automobiles and transportation because an entire Department of Transportation is there to keep that from happening, ostensibly for various "safety" reasons. A myriad of Departments and zoning agencies keeps people from building their own inexpensive, fire-proof houses with poured concrete and inexpensive materials. Oddly enough, one thing that keeps these bureaucracies in power is the Second Amendment. If some "true conservative" were ever to have the power to restructure government so that all useless jobs were eliminated, dozens of millions of armed and jobless former government employees who are otherwise unemployable would take to the streets and overthrow it. Similarly, if a new wave of leftists tries to replace established bureaucracies with their own supporters, as early Communists utterly eliminated all those employed by their countryies' former regimes, those threatened with job losses would be able to put teeth in their protests. Though most involved in useless government employment aren't smart enough to understand that, and prove that lack of intellectual ability by trying to undermine and eliminate the very 2nd Amendment that protects their livelihoods, we understand that printing presses are better than armed revolution and the pain it causes.
Sunday, November 16, 2008 Government employees provide society with a base of stability. Some of the people in any country who are most opposed to more immigration are recent immigrants. They can see, better than most, that the new waves of immigrants threaten the funding and opportunities that they have established for themselves. Similarly, the brighter government employees realize that there is only so much tax money available, and understand that too much expansion of government threatens their own jobs. While many make a living by doing things that have no discernable benefit to others, they are able to realize that too many government employees will destroy the tax base they need for their own livelihoods. There is a formula that shows how many essentially useless employees can be afforded by any nation. It's a simple calculation that measures increases in productivity, calculates the savings, confiscates some of those savings and applies them to new government programs. When the Roosevelt Administration took power, they realized that lots of farm workers had been put out of work by tractors, corn-pickers, planters, and all the other mechanical job-replacers that would soon allow one percent of the population to feed a population that used to need half its people working in food production. Initially, most of those newly unemployed found occupations in the growing factories. But, some found jobs in the endless programs designed to "help", and became enthusiastic supporters of all Mr. Roosevelt's programs. There, they used the vast powers of advertising and public relations to cement their positions, which became integral parts of the social order. Now, we are faced with both automation and overseas production destroying American jobs. It's far easier for an entrepreneur to take his idea to China, where a vast, in-place infrastructure is eager to make his products, than to endure the difficulties of starting his own factory employing American laborers. At the same time, higher-education, which is does its primary job of keeping large numbers of people off the streets, is turning out ever more people who know how to do nothing useful and hope to avoid ever having to get a riskier, free-market job. These people have been instinctively attracted to Mr. Obama, and the coming "new order" he's promised that will provide many of them with jobs "making things better". Those employed in existing agencies are aware of the threat, and realize that the number of jobs promised is far greater than the ability of the taxing structure to support. Many of them are voting for Republicans while still being registered as Democrats.
Sunday, November 16, 2008 Why are gun sales skyrocketing? Since the election, gun sales in some places are up over fifty percent. The prices of shares of stock in firearms companies has also risen. On the surface, the concern is that the new President and his anti-gun majority in Congress are going to make guns illegal, so people want to buy them while their Constitutional rights are still in effect. The facts are different. It now appears that many are concerned that someone on the far left (most assassins are extreme leftists enraged that they haven't gotten what they want) or on the far right is going to assassinate our new President. That, they fear, will cause huge riots, burnings, and attacks on whites across America. These attacks will begin, it is thought, in the inner cities and spread to the suburbs. Many fear that their own homes and businesses may be attacked by armed gangs. They also remember that the police, as in the Los Angeles riots, were told to "stay away" until "things calm down". Such memories make many conclude that their only line of defense is the one they provide themselves. If unchecked, it is anticipated that the rioting will be dangerous to anyone not in the attacking gangs. Those who think there's a chance this may happen want to be able to defend themselves. Oddly, this ties in with the two previous columns, especially the final paragraph of the last column. Many of those buying guns, often for the first time, are government employees with jobs and property to protect.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 So, where, exactly, is the problem?
Rising sea levels have long been a favored Imaginary Problem of the left. We are told that Florida will be submerged, New Orleans under water, and the streets of Manhattan will soon be navigable only by gondola. Immigration groups urge that both Icelandic fishermen and Venetian gondoliers should be given accelerated naturalization to provide transportation in newly flooded areas. But, the record of actual sea levels measured at nine different places around the word seems to show that sea levels are dropping. Leftists are aware of this. They are already preparing frightening scenarios about oil tankers running aground, container ships unable to reach the docks, and oil drilling rigs finding themselves on dry land. Additional lies are being prepared about "Vital beaches left high and dry!", "The destruction of littoral food chains!" and the ever-present, "Will we survive the calamity?", all of which are invariably accompanied by the "More funding is desperately needed!" lies. It takes an average of three and a half years for scientific facts to be turned into alarmist lies, so we still have at least a year or two of Rising Sea Level Lies before they are replaced with Dropping Sea Level Lies.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 The hidden victims of abortion are among the most enlightened. Next Sunday's reading concerns the separation of sheep from goats. On Judgment Day, all the souls that ever were stand before The Throne. The sheep are sent to the right, and eternal joy. Goats are ordered to the left, and eternal pain. Anyone who understands that there is even a remote possibility of that happening wants to be sent to the right. The more realistic that possibility becomes, the harder we work to ensure that we're going to be classified as "sheep", and have joy forever. It is, many conclude, impossible for anyone to go to Heaven unless they are pro-life. They assume that there is not one soul in Heaven who was pro-abortion on earth. The Bible tells us how much God hated child-sacrifice. It is reasonable to assume that He, Who never changes, still hates it, today. Many of us know people who are concerned about many, many problems. They worry about everything from neo-facism to vegetarianism. Their environmental concerns will drive them to buy a Prius. They believe in "fairness". They are easily persuaded to take vitamin pills, and will worry extensively about cholesterol and other maladies for which they will take medication and watch their diets. But, like German and Russian citizens living near death camps, they will ignore the abortions taking place in the cities around them. That "selective moral outrage" which elevates the most minor of problems to the most grievous while being blind to the death being inflicted around them, marks them as "goats". Compounding the sin, some will complain about the "inhumanity of the Germans" who ignored the death camps around them the same way that today's leftists simple ignore the slaughters in their own cities.
Thursday, November 20, 2008 Sun and wind. Last year, we were told hundreds of times to "Expect more hurricanes than ever!" Not only did breathless reporters tell us there would be more hurricanes, but also, that "Hurricanes will be stronger than ever!". This year, we were told the same things. Here's an interesting graph from climateskeptic.com who passes it along from Ryan Maue, rmaue@met.fsu.edu : It's almost too easy to see the how closely hurricane activity tracks solar output for the last few years. Both last year and this year had minimal amounts of hurricane activity. Both 2007 and 2008 are in a period of unusually low solar activity, marking the end of solar cycle 23. There may be an inverse relationship between less solar energy hitting the earth and the number of alarmist weather lies told about hurricanes. When we consider how blatant their lies are, we begin to understand that much of what we are told about anything is also based on similar lies and exaggerations. Every single thing reported about every single issue by "news professionals" should not be considered to be any more accurate than the last two years of "Hurricane Alarms". Once we understand how much the celebrated "news professionals" lie, we can become angry with them for lying to us, or we can make fun of them for being so obviously incompetent, or we can see that they suffer from a huge spiritual problem that, if uncorrected, will destroy their souls. It's better that they be prayed for than be mocked and maligned. Making fun of them is like making fun of a crippled person.
Friday, November 21, 2008 Catholic Fundamentalism combines two politically incorrect words that make most liberals turn away. You can watch them thinking about the term. "Ugh. Catholics are bad enough, Fundamentalists are worse, therefore, Catholic Fundamentalists must be the worst of all!" On the other hand, Catholic Fundamentalism does connect the teachings of the Bible, its miracles, and the Catholic Church with the Fundamentalists' approach to Scripture so well that it's undeniable. When we explain to a leftist (try it sometime, it can be an enjoyable experience) "God can program in three dimensions. He actually programmed particles, with some kind of 3-D fractal geometry. Then, He compiled the particles into systems and beings, all to give us beloved human beings free will. He did all that, and more, because He wanted us to have the joy of knowing Him." One reason that Catholic Fundamentalism is so widely ignored is that it simply cannot be contradicted. It's so inclusive that every objection is rebutted within it. Let's see how that works: Enlightened Unbeliever: "The world has to be twenty billion years old. Human life, according to carbon-14 analysis, began ten, twenty, thirty, a hundred, etc. million years ago." Catholic Fundamentalist: "God programmed everything so each of us, including you and me, would have free will. He wanted us to freely choose to obey Him, not be forced into it by being able to prove that He programmed the whole universe. Carbon-14, and all the things that indicate the possibility of a self-occurring universe were programmed to guarantee that we'd have free will. He's such a powerful programmer that it only took Him a week. " Enlightened Unbeliever: "But, that's a circular argument." Catholic Fundamentalist: "Some say that all arguments are circular. The goal is to get as big a circle as possible, and there's no bigger circle than Catholic Fundamentalism."
Sunday, November 23, 2008 Herding the "herd in the bulge" . The huge bulge in the center two thirds of the bell curve does not contain those who should be mocked by those who, by some tests, are determined to be "smarter" than most others. There are some areas in which each of us is comparatively average, and on some abilities, absolutely retarded. Those who are especially clever are able to manipulate those they picture in the bulge, the vast "herd" whose beliefs and attitudes can be changed by barely brighter people telling them how to think and feel. Those involved in the process think they're doing something important, and it can be interesting to watch their effects on the "herd in the bulge". With a few thousand broadcasts, the "herd in the bulge" can be made to believe "global freezing will destroy us all." The herd will move, with increasing speed, toward activities that will "make us safe from global freezing." Then, with amazing speed, the huge herd, without even slowing or stopping, can be turned to race back in the opposite direction, "deeply concerned about global warming". With enough encouragement, the cowboys can get the herd to turn on a dime, trampling the vestigial remnants of common sense and self-respect beneath the thundering hooves.
Monday, November 24, 2008 The media arm of the octopus. An octopus tells its tentacles what to do. Each little sucker on its media tentacle obediently praises those whom it is told to praise and denigrates those it is told to denigrate. The effects were clear in the last election. Hardly any voters, for instance, knew that Joe Biden had been guilty of plagiarism. All voters knew that Sarah Palin had spent $150,000.00 on new clothes. Hardly any voters knew that Obama had voted against protecting the rare child that survived its abortion. All voters knew that Sarah Palin "could see Russia from my kitchen window". As the sheer speciousness of "media fairness" became obvious, democracy is seen to be a sham. There is no voting, only reacting to information carefully implanted in trusting minds by one of the octopus's most powerful arms. As we learn more, we realize the the nature of the octopus is hate, lies, and death.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008 Prophecies. It's hard to read the Old Testament without marveling at the prophets and the accuracy of their predictions. Yet, while they were making their predictions, many disbelieved. When looking back, we read their writings, and are amazed at how accurately their knowledge of the future was. Just as amazing? The fact that some can read and not believe, see and not understand. Those poor souls are lost. They are not among the "elect". They have chosen to put themselves and other created entities ahead of God, so they must disregard any evidence of His power and wisdom. It's hard to make the blind see. Jesus could do that. He still can. That's why we should pray for unbelievers. Our prayers are the only chance most of them have to be saved.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 Pascal on prophecies. In reading Pascal, one is struck by his respect for, and puzzlement about, the Jews. He seems to be saying, in several passages, "Here are all these Jews, earnestly writing down prophecies for thousands of years. They write them, store them, study them, and they don't believe them." He suggests that this is one of the great ironies of history: God had chosen a people, had them moving all over the middle east, provided prophets whose words they treasured and laboriously recorded, and they were too blind to see the prophecies that pertained to the coming of Jesus. Pascal makes another point worthy of consideration: He tells us that Jesus could not have come until the Jews had made expensive copies of the prophets and distributed them to synagogues all over the ancient world. There had, he tells us, to be a solid body of evidence available throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa so that when the Apostles arrived, they'd have something to which to refer. When we think of the expense involved in making copies of the Old Testament, we consider the lambs that had to be raised for their skins, how the parchment had to be laboriously prepared, pens and ink made, and all this needed expensive schools in which generations of rabbis could be taught to revere that which most of them would reject. One of the most notable things we may learn from this is that in our own lives, God may be using those who reject Him. Thursday, November 27, 2008 A day to be thankful for programming. Thank you, God, for programming the entire universe. Thank you for programming my ancestors who made my existence possible. Thank you for programming me. Help me to understand Your programming power. Help me to see that I am one of Your Programs, that everyone I meet is one of Your programs, that the earth beneath, the waters around, the sky above, and all the beings therein are Your programs working together. Please, give me the desire to obey Your operating Instructions. Let me always love You, love my neighbor, and seek to do Your will as my program interacts with others. Let me be ever mindful that You and Your sub-programmers can do what You will with me. You can erase my program, you can upgrade my program, so don't ever let me forget that You, Who programmed all, are the most important thing in the time that You have programmed me to have.
Sunday, November 30, 2008 Vanity. Vanity, O vanity, The mother of despair. Shuts off our mind from every good From every loving care. If focuses us on that within The minds of the most mortal men. It blinds us to the God above And leads us into sin. Rejoicing as we go astray Making us forget to pray It rots our minds and souls And lets us merely play On vanity's distractions Where we focus all our actions On things of no importance At all, but to our fall. |
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