Friday, August 01, 2014

Okay, Just Link to this Post Already!

Sometimes I *almost* think it's the convoluted titles that drive people away: "Encircling the Adversary in Metavangelism." Wha? Click. I should stop trying to be so clever and cute, and just get straight to the point: pay attention to me!

Usually the title just comes to me. But if I have to think about it, we often end up with a cumbersome one like that. Probably the same with posts in general. If I try to be more than the stenographer, I become an agenda-driven scribe unfaithful to the text.

That won't be a problem with this post, being that we're just playgiarizing with another man's aphoristic meditations. Interesting that Don Colacho's aphorisms are the compact distillation of a lifetime of contemplation, and here we are, reversing the process by unpacking them for all they're worth. Is there any excuse for this? We'll come back to that question later. Right now we have some thievery to do.

To remind the reader, we have been engaging in the verticalisthenic exercise of reimagineering tradition: reimagineering because higher truths must be nourished in the imagination; tradition because without its authority, we are just deepaking the chopra, or enlisting fantasy to rebel against reality.

Ah, beautiful: "To convince one who holds his own opinions is easy, but no one can convince one who harbors the opinions of others."

This is again why it is so fruitless to argue with a liberal, since most of their opinions are only backed by the Authority of the Now, i.e., they are utterly conventional -- not conventional wisdom but conventional ignorance, as in Dear Leader.

It would be difficult to arrive at a more pinpoint encrapsulation of Obama and his LoFo whackolytes: No one clings more to his views than the one who is only an echo of his era.

This makes Obama -- and we have made this point before -- the very incarnation of the pneumapathology of the times. He is everything that is wrong with education (degrees in higher bullshit), with religion (membership in the Church of Eternal Resentment), the economy (becoming wealthy and poweful for accomplishing precisely nothing), and with politics (post-constitutional liberal fascism). Obama is -- unfortunately -- a mirror held up to contemporary America, precisely what his skeevy supporters deserve.

"When handling today's events, the future historian will have to wear gloves." Or in the case of this toxic administration, a hazmat suit.

I don't mind Obama having his opinions. To each his own grandiosity. But the fact that he cannot disagree without distorting the views and condemning the motives of his opponents tells you everything you need to know about him, not to mention the indefensibility of his brittle arguments.

Yes, liberals are no doubt on the Right Side Of History, for "Political cowardice baptizes itself: 'I respect the sense of history.'" Progressives are the only people who try to tell truth by the calendar.

Not to re-belabor the point, but "Modern man does not imagine an end higher than service to the anonymous cravings of his fellow citizens." How could he? For the Darwinian fundamentalist, what is man but a high-maintenance ape, the genetic mutation from hell?

No, it's worse than that: "The human has the significance of a swarm of of insects if it is merely human." Or, to paraphrase Schuon, modern man is either merely human or all too human, which amount to the same thing, a big nothing-butthead.

Here is a subtle one: "Paganism is the Old Testament of the Church." This is true in the obvious sense, but we can also see how the modern pagans of the left are just Christian heretics, or else people who have failed for whatever reason to ascend to their properly divine-human station. Progressives are the Old Testavus for the restavus, i.e., what we must transcend, not what we should sink to.

I suppose one reason I love these aphorisms is that they effectively boil down what I've been bobbling on about for the past 2,500 posts, for example, "In the beginning was nothing and it believed nothing was god, and was made man, and dwelt on earth, and by man all things were made nothing."

Although this may sound like a parody, it is nothing more than an explicit expression of the ultimate principles of secular (sub)humanism: if materialism is "true," then of course everything is meaningless, of no possible significance. Man is the Evangelist of Nothing. You know, like MSNBC.

This begs the question of why he evangelizes, and, for that matter, why our trolls cannot stop themselves from commenting here. That's weird, isn't it? Is the troll's nihilism an adequate explanation for the compulsion? I don't see how. There is something else going on, almost like a misguided search for truth or something. As if he'll find it here!

"The stone is right, wherever it falls." Only man can be wrong, depending upon how far he has fallen.

Or in other words, "whoever speaks of error" speaks of freedom. Which means that freedom and truth are absolutely covalent, the one impossible in the absence of the other.

I might add that because freedom IS, truth IS, and therefore God IS. Likewise, to affirm that the truth sets one free is to affirm that freedom sets one on the path to truth. Otherwise life is just an endless night of bupkis, i.e., existence lost in the eternal bewilderness of being, a blandscape of many roads leading from nothing to nowhere.

It is also why "The freer a man believes himself to be, the easier it is to indoctrinate him." In other words, the cosmic heresy of freedom without truth results only in opinions, just tenured primates clamoring for attention and status with the latest and most fashionable nonsense.

What was this post supposed to be about? Imagination? "The redemption of reality is the function of the imagination."

Yes, but "The deluded are wordy."

Touché.

61 comments:

julie said...

No one clings more to his views than the one who is only an echo of his era.

And cue the troll in 3... 2... 1...

Gagdad Bob said...

Since I don't watch much TV, he helps me keep apprised of the conventional ignorance.

julie said...

I just figure there'll be some variation of, "I know you are but what am I!"

In other words, they always think such statements reflect back on us, except we are accused of mouthing Rush Limbaugh and Faux! News. Because it is impossible that we could come to our own conclusions without a cabal of shadowy news manipulators deciding what everyone must think today.

Actually, that does describe a big chunk of the media...

julie said...

Yes, but "The deluded are wordy."

:D

It's always humbling to realize that the people whose thinking we most admire would probably find us all scandalous. Ah, well - we're only human.

Gagdad Bob said...

Fortunately, because of projection you can always tell what's in a liberal's mind.

mushroom said...

Progressives are the only people who try to tell truth by the calendar.

A company I worked for had at one time a big office up in Pleasanton, CA. A bunch of the Californians relocated to Dallas. It came on the news that Magic Johnson had AIDS. Raving fundamentalist that I am, I remarked about the consequences of indiscriminate, promiscuous sexual behavior. One of the California girls glared at me, and said, "What are you talking about? This is the '90s!"

Gagdad Bob said...

And if Magic Johnson and Obama had a son...

mushroom said...

Maybe he could marry Chaz Bono.

Professor Logophobe said...

Agreed. Defeating a vicious enemy is genocide. Just as any sex a woman regrets is rape.

Captain Obvious said...

Difference between genocide and war: the latter stops if the enemy surrenders.

Cousin Dupree said...

Reminds me of suicide by cop: Hamas is suicide by Israel.

Gagdad Bob said...

The left pretends to believe in multiculturalism, but they condescendingly dismiss the culture of Hamas.

Petey said...

It takes leftist *logic* to conclude that killing genocidal maniacs is genocide. In reality, failing to do so is objective support of genocide.

Rick said...

"becoming wealthy and poweful for accomplishing precisely nothing"

Hold it right there. I'd exchange "all this" for nothing. For even nothing is at least something. As in, thanks to Mr Awesome, we must first undo just to rise to nothing.

Gagdad Bob said...

Positive law eventually displaces negative liberty.

Gagdad Bob said...

Good thing the Jews in Hitler Germany didn't have guns, or they might have committed genocide against the Nazis.

Gagdad Bob said...

Like those Inglourious Basterds.

julie said...

Guess I was wrong with my first comment. Although, judging by the fact that his had nothing whatsoever to do with the post, that's probably because he didn't actually read it...

Malcolm Reynolds said...

Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back! [Y]ou are no one's property to be tossed aside. You got the right same as anyone to live and try to kill people.

mushroom said...

Apropos of nothing except that Rocket may be some kin: Life as we know it maybe up for grabs.

julie said...

Heh.

Re. Mal, I was just thinking yesterday about "an eye for an eye." Whoever first said it would make the whole world blind is wrong. Carried out judiciously, it would actually force people to develop, if not a sense of genuine empathy, at the very least a stimulus-response sort of sense. That is, anybody who manages to make it to adulthood in a culture that mandates that what we do to others be done to ourselves, one would fairly quickly learn to "feel" the pain of others as one's own, literally if not figuratively.

Van Harvey said...

aninnymouse said "Congratulations, your opinions on the Middle East are becoming mainstream"

You know, since the writer is advocating mirroring the policies and goals of hamas, your comment could be seen as criticizing hamas, the palestinians, and by extension, Dear Leader as well. Better watch it.

But to your point: Awesome!

Gagdad Bob said...

Seriously, nothing can account for such rank hypocrisy and moral inconsistency but unbridled Jew hatred.

In addition to other invaluable historical services they have provided, the Jews always allow us to know where the evil is in the world. And right now it is in Islamism and the international left.

Gagdad Bob said...

Jews are like a magnet to evil, just as Iraq became a magnet to Al Qaeda. I'm sure this goes to a collective version of the Christian truth that "the world will hate you because of Me."

julie said...

Yes, just so.

Speaking of all that, I love how the latest ceasefire - agreed upon by both sides - was broken after a mere 90 minutes this time. Only a complete imbecile or moral retard would have difficulty guessing which side broke it.

Gagdad Bob said...

Sure but...

julie said...

:D

I like the background there. One of these days, I might have to start a Twitter account again.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"The stone is right, wherever it falls." Only man can be wrong, depending upon how far he has fallen.

Or in other words, "whoever speaks of error" speaks of freedom. Which means that freedom and truth are absolutely covalent, the one impossible in the absence of the other."

Ain't no doubt.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

The left pretends to believe in multiculturalism, but they condescendingly dismiss the culture of Hamas."

Nothing like cowardly convictions. It would be funny to watch the left embrace Hamas culture.

Barack said...

"The stoner is right, wherever it falls."

Damn right!

Gagdad Bob said...

The only parts of Hamas culture the left embraces are anti-Semitism, totalitarianism, and sodomy. They have no use for the rest.

nightfly said...

"This begs the question of why he evangelizes, and, for that matter, why our trolls cannot stop themselves from commenting here. That's weird, isn't it? Is the troll's nihilism an adequate explanation for the compulsion? I don't see how."

It's rather simple, alas - explained by the CS Lewis quip that those principally concerned with preventing escapism are jailors.

Or if you want to go back a little further to Chesterton, he observed in Orthodoxy that as a believer, he was free to disbelieve any instance of purported miraculous or supernatural activity, whereas strict materialists could not admit even the speck of a possibility of one. They must reject that Jesus walked on the water; he was free to believe that his own vicar had once walked the Serpentine.

That such mandatory skepticism ever got called "freethinking" is a triumph of propaganda if nothing else (and it is nothing else) - but leaving aside the language of it, it explains why skeptics are ever-vigilant to heap scorn on the idea that they have built a prison for the mind. And that's why they are so hostile to anyone who points out that, if it isn't a prison, why such tight chains and thick bars? For a lock suggests a key. If there was no place to escape to, they wouldn't be so quick to try to discredit our escape plans.

EbonyRaptor said...

Some trolls are more highly entertaining than others, this one is on the low end.

How long will it be before right wing extremist blogs (as seen from the left) are made to be more accepting of those with different viewpoints. As in, no more bullying the trolls ... they're people too ... kind of.

That's the day I move into the cave of my dreams.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Cuz:
Overwhelming evidence of what Hamas and the Muslim Bruddahoods are all about: the eradication of Israel, every Jew, and anyone else who doesn't convert to their murderous cult.
In. Their. Own. Words.

And Obama supports them.
The only way to stop all the children and civilians from getting killed is to crush Hamas.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Hell, Hamas has also murdered civilians for trying to get away from being used as human shields.
You just can't negotiate with raging psychopaths and only a blithering idiot would even try.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

I gotta say I am very impressed with Trey Gowdy!
He's wielding the sledgehammer of truth and he ain't afraid to use it.
He's one of the rare politicians I enjoy listening to.

Anonymous said...

Yeah Trey for President.

Gagdad Bob said...

A reminder: life, liberty, and property are three sides of the same thing. Grammatical Subversion: we are supposed to be the Who, government the Whom. Thanks to the left, we are the Whom, government the Who.

Welcome to Whomville!

Cousin Dupree said...

I wonder if Obama's victimized black half bickers with the greedy white half?

Gagdad Bob said...

This morning I had a half-dreaming vision, or maybe it's a parable. I'm only now reflecting on this for the first time, so it might not pan out.

It involves a worm. Imagine a normal worm, living in the soil, surrounded by darkness, always living inside a tunnel of his own creation.

You have no doubt noticed that after a long rain, the worms come out to play. They are liberated into a new, wide open, light-filled world.

This works fine so long as there is a residue of the watery medium left on the sidewalk or driveway. But when it evaporates, they quickly end up dehydrated or fried or squished. Their freedom was essentially an illusion that lasted only as long as the accidental conditions permitted.

If animals are the below-ground worm, and humans the above-ground worm, what is the water that permits us to live in this free and light-filled world, unlike any other animal?

Cousin Dupree said...

Money?

Anonymous said...

TV?

Gagdad Bob said...

I wonder if Jesus came up with his parables spontaneously, or if he worked them out ahead of time so that assholes like Dupree wouldn't ridicule them?

Cousin Dupree said...

I wasn't ridiculing you. Just my subtle way of bringing up the subject of a loan -- you know, "one worm to another.'

julie said...

I was observing just such a worm on my patio yesterday. We get these creepy-looking black ones, mostly they're planarians (you can tell by the hammer head), but this particular one looked suspiciously like a leech, so I didn't feel too bad about leaving it alone. I've tried a couple of times to sweep them out the door, but they're just too fragile. Once they're high and dry, they're pretty much doomed.

Anyway, to your parable, I'm also reminded of something Mushroom was saying earlier this week about sticking one's finger in molten lead. Apparently, there's some kind of claim that if your finger is perfectly clean, it won't get burned, but if there's even the slightest impurity it'll scorch to the bone.

What that has to do with what sustains us above ground, I don't know for sure, but seems like there's a connection in there somewhere...

julie said...

Re. Jesus' parables, good question. I figure he was speaking ex-temporaneously. I'll bet anything people still found a way to make bad jokes about them, though. Especially the wedding ones.

Gagdad Bob said...

Whatever it is, the left evaporates it.

julie said...

True enough. That's why leftist thought makes any sane person feel like they're suffocating.

Rick said...

Where I AM is there is no "ahead of time" only the all-time.
And your parable is an all-time hit!
Plus, you're probably just reading Arnot's The parables of our Lord. Read two more and call me in the morning.

Van Harvey said...

Worms Roxanne, Worms!"

Van Harvey said...

Accepting other people's words for your own, other people's word for what is wet and what is not, is the slow motion method of feeding yourself to the worms.

Gagdad Bob said...

Very clear religious writer. I look forward to her book.

Van Harvey said...

Regarding Gagdad's 'three sides of the same thing.' link, I was with Williamson all the way, up until his heaping scorn upon the fellow who heaped scorn upon the slogan “taxation is theft”, Williamson writes:

"Mr. Sanchez, whose work I admire, is studiously ignoring the point. Taxation is as a phenomenon identical to theft in that it involves the non-consensual transfer of property from one party to another. Insisting that taxation cannot be identical to theft because it is lawful is an exercise in question-begging: Does the endorsement of 50 percent + 1 of the voting population transform the seizure of property into something else? Is formal statutory codification the only criterion for “lawfulness”? If so, how can we say that the Third Reich or the U.S.S.R. murdered their millions — when their actions were perfectly lawful? Either lawful means something more than formal codification, or it is a trivial standard."

The idea that "Taxation is theft" drops a massive context, that being the question of whether or not the taxation is being used to support a government in exercising its Just duties and powers (as defined by a constitution that binds it down to respecting, upholding and defending the Individual Rights of its citizens), or is it being used to unjustly intervene in the lives of its people?

When it is doing what it should be doing, it is not and cannot be considered theft, when it violates that, it is using the means of taxation to engage in theft, but it is it's usage, not the means, that is theft.

Obviously the later is the case in the vast, vast majority of situations today, but to tar the, for want of a better word, 'principle' of the matter, with all the ways in which it is being improperly abused, is short sighted and destructive - and a favorite error of most Libertarians.

There can be no Right to not support the Govt which makes the upholding of Individual Rights, and so Liberty, AND Property, possible; and until a better means is found, the means of supporting Govt is through taxation. Obviously it can be abused, but it isn't itself wrong, only wronged.

Gagdad Bob said...

I wish Netanyahu could run for president here. Republicans are such pussies.

julie said...

Yup.

Re. the Rebecca Bynum essay, thanks. I had never heard of her, but she's definitely worth further reading.

Speaking of parables and spiritual experience, I was just reading last night an interesting account of a Russian Orthodox saint at Rod Dreher's. Long, but worth a read.

Jack said...

I wish Netanyahu could run for president here. Republicans are such pussies.

I agree wholeheartedly. Though I suppose I would cut the Republicans some slack as they are obviously not immune from the general p*ssification of American life in general. (cf. Obama).

I say this after just having watched "Lone Survivor". The leader of the mission, Michael Murphy--at least as portrayed--was more of a man at 29 than I could ever hope to be.

Nonetheless, we need to start seriously dep*ssifying the male population. Maybe then we might have some Netanyahu-grade leaders. And far less "men" voting democrat.

julie said...

Diverging again, for our Anonymous friend of the Palestinians, this is what you support when you stand with them.

This is what they do to their own, their most vulnerable.

F*cking animals.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Julie,
That's just part of their culture. Remember, all cultures are equal, except forthe good ones, which are bad.

These terrorists need to be eradicated and buried in pig sh*t.

Van Harvey said...

Heh, love this from Bynum's book 'Allah Is Dead: Why Islam is Not a Religion'

"Many analysts have worked on the problem of Islam's political aspects, but few have tackled Islam philosophically as a whole. Rebecca Bynum does that. She discusses Islam and its status in the modern world with a depth and precision missing in many modern accounts and sadly concludes that the great hope of secularizing the Muslim world is a pipe dream. It is much more likely, according to Bynum, that the secular world will be Islamized. Overall, however, her analysis is hopeful and provides an important ideological tool for dealing with Islam which is to reconsider its classification. Bynum maintains Islam s current status as a religion, along with all the other religions of the world, is in error. She refers to Islam as the duck-billed platypus of belief systems and proposes it should be classified accordingly; as the hybrid religio-socio-political belief system it is. She also reminds the Western world about what religion itself actually is, not the caricature modern analysts often mean when they refer to "religious fundamentalisms." Bynum has given policy-makers a powerful tool for dealing with Islam. Let us hope they understand, and grasp, and choose to make use of it."

Boom.

Gagdad Bob said...

The only place in the Middle East where Arabs have civil rights is in Israel. No wonder they want to destroy it.

Rick said...

"I wish Netanyahu could run for president here."

Girls only like guys who have great skills.

Heck! I'd settle for these skills:

Stephen Meyer responding to his critics during a questioning period before the Texas State Board of Education.

Meyer offers you his protection.

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