Here's your weekly rewordgitation from two years past. "Spiritual insanity" will no doubt sound polemical to some, but I mean it quite literally and matter-of-factly, since it should go without saying that one who denies or distorts the reality of spirit is by definition spiritually insane. Or, to turn it around, if the radical secularists and metaphysical Darwinists are correct, then our knowledge and experience of spirit merely represent a kind of stubborn pathology that cannot possibly be valid. Being that "loss of reality testing" is the sine qua non of mental illness, we can't both be sane.
*****
I went down Virginia, seekin' shelter from the storm
Caught up in the fable, I watched the tower grow
Five year plans and new deals, wrapped in golden chains
And I wonder, still I wonder, who'll stop the rain --John Fogerty, Who'll Stop the Rain
I suppose what bothers me most about the left except for the bad hygiene is that it institutionalizes man's fall and reverses the cosmic order. This order can be known with the higher intellect, which is why "job one" of leftism is always the elimination of the intellect properly so-called. Leftism is intrinsically anti-intellectual, in that it must abolish that part of man which is capable of seeing the error of leftism in a direct and unmediated way.
In fact, a major part of the leftist agenda involves displacing the higher mind by the lower, that is, "small r" reason in its mechanical sense. Worse than the ideological takeover of academia has been the simultaneous eclipse of the higher mind, thus reducing man to a cultured beast.
The leftist program follows the split in the western world which occurred with the Enlightenment, which had its radical version in France and its skeptical version in England and Scotland. America has been by far the most successful nation in history because it was a product of the skeptical Enlightenment (i.e., classical liberals such as Adam Smith) and because our founders -- since they were so securely anchored in Judeo-Christian metaphysics and therefore "innoculated" against leftism -- categorically rejected the savagely utopian schemes of the romantic radicals.
Now, all purely secular philosophies that exclude the vertical are more or less error a grandiose scale, but at least most of these philosophies do not include -- as part of their intrinsic philosophy -- the imposition of their philosophy on everyone else. The whole point about being a classically liberal conservative is that it preserves at its very heart the right of anyone to reject it. It doesn't impose anything on anyone, which is what is so ironic about paranoid leftists who constantly fantasize about the imminent Christian fascist takeover! [Gee, how did that turn out, anyway?]
The pneumapathology at the heart of leftism always includes acting out, which is one of the more primitive defense mechanisms, as it bypasses thought altogether and replaces it with action. This is why leftist intellectuals are always activists, which simply means that they are more concerned with changing the world than understanding it. The gargantuan Generational Theft Act of 2009 is a case in point. Our children's children's children will be paying for this liberal interest group smash-and-grab legislation for the rest of their lives. (As Lucianne put it, The first terrorist attack on American soil since 9-11.)
Naturally, classical liberals have no objection to change, but only so long as the change is rooted in understanding, including especially an understanding of human nature. For if your understanding of human nature is faulty or grossly incomplete, then your political philosophy is going to be nothing less than a disaster. The disaster may happen quickly or it may slowly unfold with time, but the disaster is inevitable.
Anyone who lives in error eventually receives sharp blows from the world. But another purpose of leftism is to rescue people from the disasters caused by leftism, thus ensuring a steady stream of people to rescue, and therefore a greater need for the left. In short, the purpose of the left is to fail, as its success is built on the wreckage of its own failures. Its very foundation is failure, through which it gains more power, and the accumulation of power can be the only end for a half-animal who has rejected the vertical for the horizontal.
A couple of days ago while driving to work I was listening to Air America and caught a bit of the abysmally tedious program of professional unfunnyman Al Franken. The guest was a gold-plated leftist bull-goose paranoiac, Joe Conason, who has published a new cry for help with the harrowing title, It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush!!! The shrill and paranoid title is just a measure of how free of irony the left has become -- as if we didn't just have a freaking election a couple of months ago that effectively undermines Conason's entire thesis. But reality is hardly a consideration for the reality-based community. As any competent psychologist can tell you, truth is irrelevant when someone has an emotional need to believe in its alternatives.
Conason's unintentionally ironic title is a takeoff on uber-moonbat Sinclair Lewis' 1935 screed, It Can't Happen Here. Lewis is revered by contemporary moonbats for his boneheaded dailykosian remark that "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." Brilliant! Sean Penn couldn't have said it better! As always, the left confuses hysteria with "courage" or "insight," so that Lewis stands in a long line of courageous leftists such as Cindy Sheehan and Al Franken who don't speak "truth to power" but excitedly bark at their own psychological projections.
Like all leftists, Lewis seems to have merely externalized his own existential misery and called it a political philosophy. I can't say I know much about his personal life, but his Wikipedia entry is instructive: "Alcohol played a dominant role in his life; he died of advanced alcoholism in Rome." If so, we can be fairly certain that Lewis was 1) miserable, 2) weak, 3) a slave who was not psychologically mature enough to handle spiritual liberty and who squandered his own, and therefore 4) in need of a political system to save himself from himself. Please feel free to correct me if he wasn't a total idiot, but I have never been drawn to didactic "realist" literature. Exterior reality can speak for itself, and doesn't require "artists" to represent it. Rather, the artist reveals the interior of the exterior.
All leftists must know that somewhere deep inside, beneath the histrionic bluster, they are weak, dependent, envious, racist, and so on, because they wish to impose a political system on those of us who do not have those particular problems. If you are not envious, you don't give much thought to CEOs who earn more money than you do. If you are not a racist, it doesn't occur to you that Barack Obama is half white, nor would you ever conceive the sinister idea that the Constitution mandates racial discrimination or equates a human fetus with a decayed tooth. If you love women, you would not be drawn to the loathsome philosophy of radical feminism; etc.
The description of Conason's book on amazon sounds like it is taken from the nursing notes of a recent psychiatric hospitalization for acute paranoia:
"Despite recent election, patient still believes America in great danger. Hopeless re future. Doubts existence of democracy. Government conspiring with 'big business' and 'big evangelism.' Asked him 'what about big entertainment, big media, big labor, big education and big trial lawyers?,' but patient incorporated me into paranoid delusions. 'You're just part of Big Health! You're not helping me! You only care about bottom line!, etc.' Obsessed with nameless ideologues and religious zealots 'attacking logic' and 'scientific method.' Asked patient if he meant Al Gore -- became extremely hostile. Incoherent babbling: 'ruling party encourages xenophobic nationalism based on irrational, manufactured fear.' Confusing -- asked him if he meant irrational manufactured fear of Bush. Patient became agitated -- required sedation and restraints. Carotid veins visible, face flushed like Howard Dean, screaming something about 'party in power seeks perpetual state of war to maintain power -- willing to lie, cheat, and steal to achieve ends.' Empathically suggest to him can't happen here. More agitation -- 'it can happen here, damn you! My 'book' says so -- select group of extremely powerful right-wing ideologues driving us ever closer to precipice, etc., etc., etc.' Intravenous push of thorazine; patient now watching Keith Olbermann and quietly mumbling to self."
At American Thinker there is an article entitled Cultural Marxism that demonstrates how Marxism hardly died with the dramatic fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. As it so happens, Raccoon lore maintains that leftism can trace its squalid genealogy all the way back to the origin of mankind. For the "fall of mankind" was specifically a rejection of the divine-cosmic order (and partnership) in favor of a wholly man-made one. This lesson is reinforced time and again in scripture (and its shadow in the herebelow, history), as man repeats his fall, 32 feet per second per second, and suffers the ineveateapple consequences.
Kimball traces the various permutations of the leftist mind parasite which, like all parasites, knows how to survive. Although the "New Left" of the 1960's collapsed and fell apart, it simply underwent what I would call an "interior diaspora" into various ideologies that all have roots in the same infrahuman ideological swamp: leftist "revolutionaries reorganized themselves into a multitude of single issue groups. Thus we now have, for example, radical feminists, black extremists, anti-war ‘peace' activists, animal rights groups, radical environmentalists, and ‘gay' rights groups. All of these groups pursue their piece of the radical agenda through a complex network of organizations such as the Gay Straight Lesbian Educators Network..., the ACLU, People for the American Way, United for Peace and Justice, Planned Parenthood, Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States..., and Code Pink for Peace."
This is why if you attack leftism frontally, it will simply mutate into all of these other viruses. The only way to effectively confront it is from "above" and "below." In other words, its common root must be attacked at its base, but only from a higher psychospiritual perspective. Their strategy is to "divide themselves" in order to conquer us, so the solution must be a unified theory of the left, so we can apprehend the one beast beneath all of its pseudo-diversity.
As Kimball notes, neo-Marxism thrives partly because it has mutated into various superficially appealing code words such as "tolerance, social justice, economic justice, peace, reproductive rights, sex education and safe sex, safe schools, inclusion, diversity, and sensitivity." All of these words and phrases imply one thing but actually mean the opposite -- i.e., tolerance is intolerance, social justice is economic tyranny, sex education is the re-barbarization of sexuality, diversity is uniformity, sensitivity is a censorship of unwanted truth, etc.
Kimball goes into the intellectual history of Marxism, noting its intrinsic hostility to the Christianized West. If Marxism is to succeed, then the Christian West must fall. It is an either-or proposition: the West must be "de-Christianized, said Gramsci, by means of a 'long march through the culture.' The new battleground... must become the culture, starting with the traditional family and completely engulfing churches, schools, media, entertainment, civic organizations, literature, science, and history. All of these things must be radically transformed and the social and cultural order gradually turned upside-down with the new proletariat placed in power at the top."
One of the most important points raised by Kimball is that, for the left to succeed, "intellectual firepower was required: a theory to pathologize what was to be destroyed." As such, "Christianity, capitalism, and the traditional family create a character prone to racism and fascism. Thus, anyone who upholds America's traditional moral values and institutions is both racist and fascist." The human being is "but a soulless animal," so it naturally follows that contingent existence (or existential contingencies such as skin color) determines essence, rather than vice versa. Again, this is a complete rejection and reversal of the cosmic order upon which the American founders based our government.
And so we come full circle to Joe Conason raving in his hospital bed and chaneling the paranoid alcoholic Sinclair Lewis in the Al Franken nuthouse. An empathic and disinterested psychoanalyst would deal with Conason by respectfully acknowledging the urgency of his concerns and reflecting back to him an innocent but loaded observation, such as "I hear what you're saying. An extremely frightening and hostile force is trying to take over your world. Let's stand back a bit and try to understand who or what this force could be, shall we?"
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
When they said REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT
I wonder what they meant --Leonard Cohen, The Future
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57 comments:
Indeed, "Who will stop their reign?"
I just read Shrinkwrapped's post from Friday and I noticed something.
Jesus entered the world of Peter, (big, scarey, prone to violence from what I gather), and healed his Mother-in-Law, whatever that means. I can only assume that she was a huge influence on the whole climate of their daily life and outlook on day to day dealings.
The thing I'm getting at is that He entered their reality and observed first hand what the major factors and reactions to them were.
Only by the Left being in charge can we try to get them to see for themselves what is and what should never be,.ie. Who is their M-I-L.
Smackdown of Queeg, part II.
Not an irrelevant comment, for in our triangulated world between conservatism, Islamists, and the left, Charles links the first two, whereas we link the latter two.
I think the majority of leftist paranoia comes from the fact that for a hundred years now we've had a central bank (i.e. the Federal Reserve) and everyone's told that our country is capitalist, when an economy where control of credit is centralized is fundamentally anti-capitalist.
Oh, and Marx's insanity begins to make a lick of sense if you assume that he had no understand of economics, and so he explained accurately certain phenomena caused by cartel banking structures but was totally clueless on finding that the cause was banking cartels. I really think he just didn't understand credit, and then from there he could springboard into being really, really wrong.
Can psychoses be aggravated by being lied to, Bob?
Jawhn:
"I think the majority of leftist paranoia comes from the fact that for a hundred years now we've had a central bank (i.e. the Federal Reserve) and everyone's told that our country is capitalist, when an economy where control of credit is centralized is fundamentally anti-capitalist."
Yes, the fundamental problem with life is the Federal Reserve.
If only we could eliminate the Federal Reserve, utopia would finally arrive and all of the cows in the world would start producing chocolate milk.
In fact, in the 1800s and early 1900s, prior to the Federal Reserve, we never had any financial panics at all. And they certainly didn't happen every 20 years or so in 1857, 1873, 1893, and 1907.
At least we wouldn't have usury, where one person can make money out of thin air, charge interest on it, destroy the money as it is created to prevent inflation, and then have that extra money for free with which to control the economy.
I mean, doesn't it make sense that you would get a bunch of leftists and a Marx if you socialized the economy without telling anyone?
I only bring this up because it's like the moral universe has been inverted for the past 100 years, the leftists have been winning all the time, even conservative presidents don't cut back government spending, Bob's right on everything and yet no one listens to him, and so I though that there must be some reason, and looking at the situation the only reason I can find that right isn't winning is that we have this usurious system and no one is talking about it.
"Anyone who lives in error eventually receives sharp blows from the world. But another purpose of leftism is to rescue people from the disasters caused by leftism, thus ensuring a steady stream of people to rescue, and therefore a greater need for the left. In short, the purpose of the left is to fail, as its success is built on the wreckage of its own failures. Its very foundation is failure, through which it gains more power, and the accumulation of power can be the only end for a half-animal who has rejected the vertical for the horizontal."
A prime example is the successful failure of public schooling.
"All of these things must be radically transformed and the social and cultural order gradually turned upside-down with the new proletariat placed in power at the top."
another case in point:
"1934 - In July at the 72nd annual meeting of the National Education Association, held in Washington, D.C., in a report titled, "Education for the New America, " Willard Givens, who will become executive secretary of the NEA in 1935 and serve for 17 years, said this: "A dying laissez faire must be completely destroyed and all of us, including the owners, must be subjected to a large degree of social control. An equitable distribution of income will be sought, and the major function of the school is the social orientation of the individual. It must seek to give him understanding of the transition to a new social order."
... dying... by way of murder. Maybe a bailout will do the trick. Maybe one more....
Jawhn said "I really think he just didn't understand credit, and then from there he could springboard into being really, really wrong."
Although he clearly didn't understand credit, I think it was more a case of he wanted reality to be understood his way, not the reality way, and all of the rest followed unnaturally
To answer the question, they will stop their reign. Its commencement has happened.
No King ever says, "I screwed up."
No King, pretender or nation hearing those words, no matter how deceptively meant, is not both eager and industrious to exploit the opportunities indicated.
Who does in an alcoholic?
Who does in a schizophrenic?
Who does in a tyrant?
Who does in evil?
Who does in a philanderer?
Each does itself in because it opposes.
Universe turns in unity. It abhors division and has means sufficient to destroy dividers -- from within themselves.
If a word of comfort might be offered:
The Church can take care of Herself. Then, now and always. She has Her ways and they are sufficient to any extremity.
So do culture and education.
The attack is not really against Her, or against culture, or against education, etc., in any case.
The attack goes against those structures of reality but only because it cannot -- and for its own protection must not -- go directly against its actual enemy, that which it fundamentally opposes, namely, Being Itself, personified symbolically in Christian experience and order as God, Father-Christ-Holy Spirit.
I believe Bob has expounded on this observation elsewhere.
God is the enemy of deconstructionists. But He they cannot attack directly, though they are assiduous in attacking His evidences ... but not all of them, for they cannot see all of them.
Their leader will try, finally, in a terrifying bravado of ego-centric stupidity and be dismembered in recompense.
In my estimate, that leader has not made public disclosure as of yet though is known in public.
It is also my estimate that in this case that leader is a female.
With respect to the over-all situation, though not always the gender of its leadership, when has it ever been otherwise?
God is the enemy. Yet, they are His devotees. They worship Him. They adore Him. They want to be near HIm.
And they can do those acts only by killing Him, which they know is a suicide mission.
Yet they are not dissuaded from their purpose nor will be this side of death ... theirs.
It is a terrible quandary to be in. For, kill Him they cannot, yet they must die.
What they can do is disrupt everything in sight, foment seething anger on a massive scale, spread terror of their tread into all corners of the globe and purloin the happiness of a calm mind from as many creatures as they can see to reach.
This they are doing very well and that is bringing them down, because it is a-Dharmic, un-Righteous.
The posture of opposition is its own undoing. Deconstruction deconstructs itself. It cannot be otherwise.
Come to think of it, the left does prove the existence of God, doesn't it?
JP said "In fact, in the 1800s and early 1900s, prior to the Federal Reserve, we never had any financial panics at all. And they certainly didn't happen every 20 years or so in 1857, 1873, 1893, and 1907."
Of course any notion that removing the Fed, regulations, or even all Gov't controls, would result in anything remotely utopian is... well... utopian. The markets will always rise and fall, but a rhythm of natural storms is preferable to an artificially induced maelstrom; a little venting beats an exploding boiler, and the Fed is just a plug in the pressure release.
Also, if you look a little closer at those instances you mention & 1819, 1836, etc, you'll find instances such as heavy Gov't borrowing or otherwise interference with the market, in the background which initiated or exacerbated the problems.
Jahwn said "...At least we wouldn't have usury, where one person can make money out of thin air..."
"Usury" exists only where charging interest is limited or prohibited, and some measure of economic stagnation or decline is right behind it.
Nothing is generated or created out of thin air. Interest is the price of risking existing wealth on the borrower ability to pay it back.
Depending on your level of interest (ahem) in the matter, get Thomas Sowell's 'Basic Economics", or look up Milton Friedman, Von Mises is good if you steer clear of where he strays into philosophy and politics, which goes double for his uber-corrupter (in philosophy & politics) Rothbard.
Gagdad Bob said "Come to think of it, the left does prove the existence of God, doesn't it?"
Heh, in spades.
Thanks, Van.
But I think the term "usury" has been confused, just like George Orwell said.
Intrinsic title: the right of a creditor to demand from the borrower repayment of what is lent.
Extrinsic title: the right of a creditor to demand from the borrower compensation for the risk and opportunity cost of lending.
Usury: the unlawful, though at times legal, practice of a creditor demanding from a borrower something in return for nothing.
Interest: money paid to a creditor in addition to intrinsic title; it can consist of extrinsic title or usury or some measure of both.*
*(I'm using the modern definition of inflation rather than it's older usage.)
The meaning of "interest" has been conflated with the meaning of "extrinsic title" to hide the existence of "usury." The Federal Reserve is 100% usurious because it has not real wealth to lend and therefore no real "risk" or "opportunity cost" of lending it. It lends what it has created out of nothing and gets that nothing back plus something in return.
Milton Friedman (God bless him) and Thomas Sowell (my hero) for some reason have not spoken about this.
God will always triumph, but for God to triumph it is necessary for people to find out the truth. This is the keystone that separates the left from the right; in general the left are irrational, but in general the right simply have failed to notice this one item which is at the heart of many of our problems.
Interest (in the modern meaning of the term) is certainly necessary. But usury is certainly not, and the combination of usury and debasement is ruinous to capitalism and Christianity.
Evil would have far less material, institutional and political power, without the Federal Reserve, because our monetary system is the central nexus of ambiguity by which power is taken from the good and given to the just whoever. Destroy the ambiguity and you will have made way for the manifestation of truth and justice to the masses.
Bob, technically no, nothing proves the existence of God because God has no second by which to be proved, no external referent or measure.
Nietzsche is right, God does not exist, and he meant that in this technical sense because he was a non-dualist.
However, in the sense you make the statement, a resounding Yes they do!
Nothing can be opposed without first affirming it just in order to oppose it. And ultimately, all opposition is against God, for the reason that non-dualism is the fundamental structure.
The "a - theist" must first affirm God in order to deny Him. Poor chap, drives him balmy.
Operationally, a thief must first affirm that something belongs to someone else in order to experience the thrill of thievery and revel in the unhappiness of the victim on account of the theft, which is their real goal.
Illustrating this phenomenon, one of Noel Coward lyrics (at least according to the movie Star) mentions the individual who, not content with ground fall or fruit on low branches, casts his eye upon the topmost fruit ... and that when a rake manages to seduce Mrs. Jones, the savor of his illicit pleasure is the more intense when Mr. Jones comes along and knocks him down.
Deconstructionists want to be knocked down. Certainly they deserve to be.
But their real nemesis is themselves, as with the German Soldiers in the Russian winter who, leaving shelter to relieve nature, were found later faces lit with smiles because their final experience before turning to ice was the release of their own inner heat, the renowned yogic fire. In the last moment they were warm!
And all of that "proves" -- or perhaps better, "illustrates" or "describes" -- the indestructibility and finality of the object of leftie's hatred and wrath, Divinity Itself.
Opposition is insanity, a phenomenon with which you are familiar theoretically and professionally. And, yes indeed and gratefully, along its baleful way it demonstrates serendipitously the power of being of Almighty God.
Tyrants inspire faith in God, who rather comforts and fortifies than disappoints.
Very many today -- and certainly all deconstructionists -- cannot be happy unless others are unhappy. If someone else is happy, they drive to make them unhappy so that they themselves can be happy. Their happiness is in the unhappiness of others. If the other declines to be unhappy, they will assert that they are unhappy without knowing that they are and then root about to discover something in the happy other which proves they are really unhappy.
This is a well-known phenomenon, called "news" or "media."
It affirms God, because happiness is a forerunner of the systemic experience called Ananda and Ananda is God. "News" must affirm happiness in order to subvert it.
Try to make someone unhappy in order for you to be happy over their unhappiness and you will hate the happiness you induced for yourself because it is God, the very "thing" you want to deface, disgrace, demean, devalue and deny.
They really are a lose-lose lot, these deconstructionists ("lefties").
Jahwn,
Hmmm... if you say so, I'd be curious to find where you are finding it said so. My moldy old 1938 Funk & Wagnalls has a sizable listing under 'Usury' and under 'Interest', none of which uses the definition you give, and all of which give the definitions that have been standard since, what, Aristotle? Usury "#1. Originally, the act of practice of lending money at interest, or of taking interest for money so lent: now archaic except in the sense of exorbitant or extortionate interest..." and so on, and for Interest, down at #5:"Payment for the use of money, or money so paid; an agreed or statutory compensation accruing to a creditor during the time that a loan or debt remains unpaid, reckoned usually as a yearly percentage of the sum owed...."
I'd be interested to see the sources you get your meaning from, but since it doesn't seem to be a common or recent usage... I guess I don't see the point of calling what the Fed does by a name few if any will associate with what it does.
Whatever the case, the fact that the Fed inflates the money supply (among other things), printing money as if the paper actually were money, and which is an actual theft of the wealth we all think is safe, secure and somehow fixed into the numbers imprinted upon our bills (how and why anyone believes that anymore, when they haven't even said "redeemable for silver", let alone gold, in 50 years, is beyond me), and which is normally associated with inflation, and the debasement and ruination which has, and most certainly soon will follow, is reason enough to damn it for me, by any name you choose.
A foul deed by any other name would reek all the same.
(P.S. Not being combative, merely curious)
Zoltan said "And all of that "proves" -- or perhaps better, "illustrates" or "describes" -- the indestructibility and finality of the object of leftie's hatred and wrath, Divinity Itself.
Opposition is insanity, a phenomenon with which you are familiar theoretically and professionally. And, yes indeed and gratefully, along its baleful way it demonstrates serendipitously the power of being of Almighty God."
One of my devious delights is to get a (deconstructionist, skeptic, etc) who is denying the existence and/or validity of reality or causality or logic... to explain to me how that is possible. A minute or two into their explanations I can't hide my smile and laughter anymore and they can't figure out why I'm laughing at them, really ticks them off.
You can't deny either, without implicitly relying upon them to make your arguments and evasions of them. Their ultimate battle is with reality itself, and they can in no way escape it. As you noted, they can confuse and instigate and obstruct, but never, ever, can they escape what is real and true. In the deeper sense, the liar knows the Truth, intimately, and it burns them!
"I mean, doesn't it make sense that you would get a bunch of leftists and a Marx if you socialized the economy without telling anyone?"
Doesn't it make sense that it would happen like that because the people who were opposed to it were so easily lied to anyway?
I mean you basically say that the reason it fell is because leftists gamed the system, and then act as if it's the fault of the left for doing that(when they could) But if the system is vulnerable to it, the problem is the actually the system, so don't be so quick to talk like you know economics because you know like me that there are bad people out there, why it is that conservatives TRUST a FREE market and DISTRUST FREE terrorists is like saying you can't trust people to not blow you up, but you can trust them with your money.
Why is it conservatives think economics is different?
And I'm not trying to say I don't value Capitalism, but it has a major flaw, one which conservatives would gladly look away from to preserve the ideals of Capitalism over the harsh reality of greed.
And yet, conservatives are fully aware of the harsh reality of anger from Islamic nations.
By now, we should be able to relate our experiences to understand that we can't just ignore what is going on. In a time where greed seems to be the biggest problem, you can't promote ideals, which conservatives should know, when has torture been an ideal for anybody? Republicans readily sacrificed a moral high ground, and knew that it was not without purpose. But we still push that capitalism is the only true way?
Papal encyclical: Vix Pervenit
newadvent.org: article on "usury"
In Aristotle's day it was far easier for certain individuals to amass a critical percentage of the money supply whereby their lending could actually hurt the entire economy rather than help, because the lack of ability to mine/find more money would mean the interest-money would have to be extracted somehow from the rest of the economy. This is the one case in the free market where I can possibly see hoarding of a particular item being bad, because a person with a large percentage of the money has "cornered" the market on money (of course I don't think this necessarily applies to the 20th Century).
I would admit to you that interest is usury, except for that nowadays most people tend to think of interest as just, and so I'm really trying to invent language to describe the situation as best I can, because in today's society interest is helpful. So, yes, I'm making my definitions up, but it is only because I'm trying to describe a reality people aren't noticing.
I know that the inflation is what most people complain about, but the greatest scam with the Federal Reserve is that because it can charge interest the system actually extracts money from the rest of the economy, because all of the banks and hence all of the borrowers at the banks have to pay interest on money that didn't exist before the Fed printed it.
Because the Fed doesn't want to do enough damage that would attract too much attention, it can't just get its money from debasing the currency. There would be a limit to how much control it could get doing that. But instead it charges interest on money it's created out of nothing, in effect transferring wealth to itself, and instead of allowing deflation because of this wealth extraction, merely lends the money out again, so that more and more the entire economy is somehow tied either to credit from the Fed or grants from the government.
If you look at this century the booms and the busts keep getting bigger and bigger, because the Fed is in control of more and more of the wealth (as opposed to in the beginning, when it only controlled a little), and so more and more our economy is based on "psychological" factors, because the Fed loans money for wealth creation and wealth consumption. Now, at the very end, they've been so devious as to create a housing bubble through lax credit and then create even more consumer demand by allowing people to borrow on these inflated assets.
The reason I'm trying to call what the Fed is doing "usury" because it's way worse than just inflation, and because what the Fed is doing and what the ancient gold-hoarders were doing was very different from what an average person nowadays does when he lends money, and because if you don't understand the interest part of it you'll greatly underestimate the Fed's influence on the entire economy.
I really believe that until we get rid of the Fed we will not get rid of leftism or big government.
Plus, Milton Friedman said in an interview before he died that the greatest unsolved economic problem of our day was how to get rid of the Fed (sorry, I tried to look it up but I couldn't find it...I'm relying on memory).
To anon:
Well, ultimately it is the difference between individual liberty and tyranny under collectivism that I am concerned with.
All I meant was that, if you collectivize a system based on individual liberty, and then you don't tell anyone, then you can blame all of the problems on individual liberty when collectivism caused the problems.
I do agree with you that the conservative ideal of individual liberty is self-contradictory in the sense that individuals tend to neglect and give up their freedoms to mind parasites, but I still don't see how the world could be any different. It's just like Bob says, overreacting doesn't solve problems--at best you can just postpone them. Searching for the truth is the only way to make the world better.
I suppose what bothers me most about the left except for the bad hygiene is that it institutionalizes man's fall and reverses the cosmic order.
Yeah, I know what you mean. If they took a bath every Saturday, like me, whether they need it or not, they would smell a lot better.
Bein' a privateer, folks think I don't know nothin' about highgene, but that ain't so.
I'm the cleanest privateer I know.
Then again, ain't none of those Lefties ever had the guts to take to privateerin', so they wouldn't know about highgene.
I see a bad moon arising.
If you're going to be the embodiment of evil anyway, it costs you nothing to take a bath.
Milton Friedman on greed.
Wow!
Let me rephrase that: WOW!!
This essay, by Leon R. Cass in Commentary magazine is an absolute must read.
Science Religion and the Human Future I'm not goofing here. Drop what you're doing and take a look, or bookmark it for later. (it's lengthy)
(just watch, everyone's probably already seen it, or Bob referred to a zillion times, and I just forgot)
JWM
Zoltan said-
Very many today -- and certainly all deconstructionists -- cannot be happy unless others are unhappy. If someone else is happy, they drive to make them unhappy so that they themselves can be happy. Their happiness is in the unhappiness of others. If the other declines to be unhappy, they will assert that they are unhappy without knowing that they are and then root about to discover something in the happy other which proves they are really unhappy.
Aye! You are describing what bitterness causes, and the Left is fully infected with bitterness and envy.
JWM:
I just want to say that that is a quite lovely icon. Very dynamic and trinity-ish.
It will be more worth you while than playing whack-a-troll.
be back later
JWM
anonymouse said "Republicans readily sacrificed a moral high ground, and knew that it was not without purpose. But we still push that capitalism is the only true way?"
Don't mistake republicans for Capitalists... and please don't insult the later with the association.
Capitalism properly understood (and I'm well aware of where Adam Smith fell short of my definition, as Aristotle fell short of many scientific truths, but those are issues of knowledge and context not then available) is Individual Rights, Free Will, applied in the economic realm - and defended.
If what is being perpetrated now, was even discussed in the Founders era, they would have been tarred and feather'd - if not burned alive - for the theives they are.
What Capitalism relies upon, is a free and moral people, knowledgable about Rights and Law, and willing to defend both.
Without that, we wind up with a system that can 'mislay' 78 billion dollars.
Education is where the battle was lost, and it won't be won again until that battlefield is retaken.
wv:cussed
frick'n right.
Anon-
Greed ain't something new. It's been around since the fall of man.
Liberty is what we want, although it's true that many Republicans aren't on board with that.
Yes, liberty means that others can be greedy, and we all must be careful who we trust, but do you really believe all these federal regulations on our economy stop greed? Please, that's just wishful thinkin'.
The Left may try to regulate greed, but all they do is increase opportunities for greed to be more profitable.
There ought to be higher punishments for greedy politicians and yes, business CEO's or anyone else that chooses to be greedy at the expense of their company, employees, and stockholders.
I'm talkin' like in prison without the possibility of parole. It won't stop greed, but it will reduce it, if it's enforced.
That goes for politicians like Barney Frank especially.
That is, life in prison, not like. Sorry.
Jawhn said "This is the one case in the free market where I can possibly see hoarding of a particular item being bad, because a person with a large percentage of the money has "cornered" the market on money (of course I don't think this necessarily applies to the 20th Century)."
And yet, I would still say that person would have the right to try and even do it - take away that right, and you're right back to system that will mislay $78 billion.
Capitalism, the free market, is and must be, primarily, the defense of property rights, which is the political foundation, and necessity, of all rights being upheld under a system of law.
If it is not inviolable, everything can, and will, be violated.
But of "because all of the banks and hence all of the borrowers at the banks have to pay interest on money that didn't exist before the Fed printed it.", "on money that didn't exist before the Fed printed it.", is the essential part. Nothing else is possible for them, without that.
"I really believe that until we get rid of the Fed we will not get rid of leftism or big government."
It is a requirement, but I believe would be ultimately temporary unless accompanied by the repeal of the 16th and 17th amendments and public education... until people have the right to their own children, they have no real right to anything else.
"Plus, Milton Friedman said in an interview before he died that the greatest unsolved economic problem of our day was how to get rid of the Fed (sorry, I tried to look it up but I couldn't find it...I'm relying on memory). "
Yep. Interesting points, I think I'm on the same track as you, but I haven't considered it from quite that angle... will look into, thanks.
Oh I do love Uncle Milty so!
"This is the one case in the free market where I can possibly see hoarding of a particular item being bad, because a person with a large percentage of the money has "cornered" the market on money..."
Jawhn, with all due respect I'd like to make an observation. The above statement (and while you admit that it doesn't necessarily apply to the 20th [and presumably the 21st] century, you seem to still be reasoning from this position) implies that money is a finite resource, much like any commodity; that there is only so much to go around, and therefore if one person has a lot then others must necessarily have little.
This is simply not the case, not in a capitalist system. Money is basically perceived value, and money can be "created" out of little more than a simple idea. It is limited only by the perception of those who make use of it. If I paint a portrait with a materials cost of $50, spend ten hours working on it, and sell it to a happy buyer for $5000 (a nice dream, no?), the additional value is entirely in the eyes of the beholder, and I've basically created a nice sum of monies on little more than my imagination and my skill with a brush and colored fluid.
Anyway, my point is that if you start with a fundamentally flawed understanding - namely, the belief that the monies extant in the current economy are limited - then any conclusion you draw from that premiss will necessarily be flawed as well.
I don't know enough about the history of economics to contend with your other points, but they strike me as slightly off base, and perhaps that's why.
Then again, I may be entirely too full of Little Penguin. It's anybody's guess.
One further note - Jiminy Christmas, guys, it's Saturday. Economics? Really???
OK, DH is calling; I'll shut up now :)
Also: earlier today, my wv was "monica," which just strikes me as hilarious. Woulda been appropriate if the discussion was 9os politics...
Julie said "...implies that money is a finite resource, much like any commodity; that there is only so much to go around, and therefore if one person has a lot then others must necessarily have little. This is simply not the case, not in a capitalist system...."
Thanks for bringing that up, I meant to and got distracted, couldn't remember the other point I wanted to make... shaken hands with too many Sam Adams tonight.
Money is but a method for simplifying the conveyance of wealth that has been created. Even loans, or the interest on them, which people often tend to think of as creating 'money' with a signature, are only means of transferring existing wealth from one party to another, on the hopes that they will successfully use it to enable the creation of more wealth equaling at least the amount loaned, plus a rental fee for its use (interest), and of course the additional wealth (and probably the establishing of a method for continued wealth production - a business, farm, etc) that the borrower was hoping to establish via the loan in the first place.
'Money' is not wealth, only a marker for it. Traits of good vehicles for money are that it be indestructible and relatively fixed in quantity, etc, so that the fraud of counterfeit can't easily be committed, but that also has led into many of the economic trouble periods of history, when there hasn't been enough 'money' in circulation to convey the wealth that has been created... or of course the flipside of official money being printed without the existence of the wealth it promises to give easy access to.
Not even gold is wealth in and of itself, although it is the best money because it is a value to people in and of itself, for jewelry, electronics, sculpture, etc. Real wealth is the crop grown, the house built, the child taught, the clothes sewn, the car built... if that wealth isn't created, all the money or even gold and silver in the world will be useless to you... except maybe as bricks to build a shelter. Because precious metals and jewels are values to people, they are willing to trade them for the time and effort of created wealth... but it is dangerous to mistake wealth, for the abstract methods and materials used to convey it.
When money is mistaken for wealth... bad things happen... because bad swindling things are able to happen... there are few things more costly than ignorance.
"... it's Saturday. Economics? Really???"
blink.
What's your point?
Ya think maybe that's why everyone moved out onto the deck and left me here?
nyahhh!
;-)
"...but it is dangerous to mistake wealth, for the abstract methods and materials used to convey it."
Thanks, Van - I knew you could illuminate that better than I could.
Alright, stepping away now...
Ecomomics is teh suk.
Petey, thanks. The big old version of the avatar is posted Here. The yellow line forms a triskele, a symbol recurrent in Celtic art, especially in the La Tene Period There are many triskeles embedded in the figure, and may more in the ground of this design. I've never been able to get a good count. And at the risk of making a shameless plug, reproductions can be had.
BTW, did anyone check out the Science/ Religion article yet? It's a keeper.
JWM
Hmm, why am I troubled by reading this...rant?...as an ex-New Leftist and current Christian I agree with much of the overall critique, but what impresses me is its bitter one-sidedness, nary a word about the other variants of political psychopathology of which leftism is but one. Leftism is rampant, yes, but really, amounting to probably only 10-20% of the population. What do you make of the truth that many of the values of "leftism" are deeply rooted in Western tradition and not always spiritually insane, e.g. a distrust of the powerful and the propertied that is more than class envy......"When Adam delved and Eve Span, who then was the gentlemyn".......need I also mention Draco and Solon legislation limiting land ownship, Tiberius Gracchus efforts to represent and include the Plebes against Roman Patrician murderous resistance, St. Frances opting out of affluence and "green" theological leanings, Thomas More's Utopia, the "dirty little atheist" Tom Paine, the "Christian Socialists", Dorothy Day.....et al...Bob, it seems that the term "the Left" functions for you as a catchall not so much to describe and analyze, as to purge, and perhaps, knowing the intensity of your earlier leftist convictions, to project?
Oh my god. The comments section has become a tediocracy. Faceless tediocrats are stealing all the oxygen... can't.. breathe...
Skully- break out the grog, there's no one left alive here. Can't even get an amusing troll to whack.
wv:foundid No, y'all have lozdid
JWM
JWM,
For your amusement & a bit of fresh air, may I offer Pigeons, Rats, and Democrats
JWM-
That is an excellent article you mentioned. I'm still readin' it, though.
Anon-
Perhaps you can tell us all the "values" of Leftism. Besides bein' a culture of death, "redistributing" wealth (ie stealin') and taking away liberty that is.
JWM-
Ha ha! Tediocracy, is right. My coonvision always alerts me when someone says: "as an ex-new leftist," (which is the same as an old leftist, but whatevah) and then tries to espouse the values of leftist ideals and mix them up with Christianity.
That's almost as ridiculous as the "as a Republican" or "as a Conservative" or "as an ex-Soldier, Marine, Sailor" one's who then trash everything they are supposed to embrace and then talk about "compromise" or some other crap about how there is "good" in Leftism, or we're meanies or somethin' else idiotic.
Then they go on to illustrate that their reading comprehension is non-existent and they don't have an inkling of what Bob is sayin' even horizontally speaking.
Ximeze-
Ha ha! Hilarious article. Thanks!
I'm not so sure that the parasitic nature of Democrats, pigeons and rats is just a coincidence though. :^)
Ximeze:
Thanks for that link. Hey, has anyone else had trouble with American Thinker? When I went to that article, I got their ususal annoying pop-up, and when I went to close it my browser went ape shit. It kept loading and reloading the page until I had the site open in 14 different windows and all the controls frozen. I had to turn off the computer at the main switch.
JWM
Usury is a form of violence, just the same as physical intimidation, and to say that there is a right to commit usury is in a sense the same as to say there is a right to commit fraud.
Certainly, in the 20th Century we can use anything as money, but it was not always so because of limitations in communication or society or whatever else you can think of to blame it on.
All of the ancient philosophers condemned usury, and I think it was perhaps because money WAS limited then, for practical reasons of what could actually work. It is the only thing that would seem to me to make sense to explain why all of them were so unanimously against usury. The circumstances had to be different from how they are now.
The right to hoard money always ought to be inviolable; there is no right to lend money at interest if the lending would be inflationary, though, because that would allow your money to grow faster than everyone else's for no good reason based on justice.
The proper definition of usury is not interest on money; it is interest on money that is inflationary.
I really wish you would help me, because I'm trying to bridge the gap between ancient/medieval philosophy and modern economics, and the philosophy is certainly not my strong suite.
It is possible for someone to be totally out of touch with God and still have the form, if not the substance, of knowledge. Take me as you would your scientistic jester, do not trust my religion or my seeming, but I beg you, trust me to know the form, even if I don't know the substance.
Interest charged on inflationary money is always wrong, and in our modern economy the only reason inflationary money exists is because of the Federal Reserve, and in ancient times it seems to me there was far more opportunity for money when hoarded to be deflationary and when lent to be inflationary.
In the foreword to "Money Creators" Senator Robert Latham Owen, the original sponsor of the Federal Reserve Act, said, "When these truths are known, and the American people demand their constitutional right of an honest money system, this country will enter upon an era of material and physical prosperity; of opportunity, and spiritual and cultural advancement that will not only charm and delight its own people but will become a model for the rest of the human race."
Father Charles Coughlin was against the Federal Reserve as well, but he has been slandered as an anti-capitalist and an anti-Semite to the point where you hear about every single wrong statement he ever said without hearing about the right things he said.
If you have extra energy at all, I'd only ask that you stay open to the possibility that the Fed really has a lot more control than most people realize, because if you think about it having control over money means you have a good bit of control over every transaction that involves money.
God bless you all and good luck!
"In the deeper sense, the liar knows the Truth, intimately, and it burns them!"
Oh yes!
Jawan:
I'm putting this here on the dead thread rather than throwing it in with the conversation upstairs, because it is a note just for you, and not for the general bs session. First, my apologies for slinging out a late night comment that may have come off like a personal slight directed toward yourself. Sometimes I let fly with stuff, and later realize I was really being an ass. And I do find economics a tedious topic, especially since I don't know anything about it.
But what comes to mind here is the old "Serenty Prayer"
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Now the Federal Reserve may indeed be a source of some of our troubles. Usury may be a locus of evil, or maybe not. I really don't know, and I try not to talk about stuff when all I have to bring to the discussion is ignorance. But both of those topics are squarely in the realm of "Things I cannot change"
There is always a ton of exterior stuff that can raise my ire. There is always something out there to get myself worked up over. Get me going on grafitti, tattoed women, piercings, anti-smoking hysteria, global warming, etc., and I can have the flamethrower out ready to fry anything within its range.
But the real problem is in my head, and in my gut. It isn't the external stuff, but the effect I allow it to have on me. I won't be a hypocrite. I do a piss-poor job of keeping it out., But I recognize, even if I can't bring the knowledge home, that if tattooing went out of style, the global warming loonies shut up, and the hysteria of the health nazi's were gone tomorow morning, that I'd have a fresh supply of MAJOR FUCKING PISS-OFFS ready to go on-line shortly after noon. The external stuff is a diversion- a misdirecting of your energies, when the real quest is the Great Religious Question that we all have come here to wrestle with. Again, I generally do a crummy job of taking my own advice. On my path, the stumbles far outnumber the steps. But sometimes I seem to see stuff along the way, and try to share it with others on the journey.
Take care
JWM
Ha ha, comparing Democrats to rats, that's funny! Except, not. I realize that you gasbags consider yourself spiritually advanced, but then so did the Nazis.
The Eight Stages of Genocide: Dehumanization:
Classification and symbolization are fundamental operations in all cultures. They become steps of genocide only when combined with dehumanization. Denial of the humanity of others is the step that permits killing with impunity. The universal human abhorrence of murder of members of one's own group is overcome by treating the victims as less than human. In incitements to genocide the target groups are called disgusting animal names - Nazi propaganda called Jews "rats" or "vermin"; Rwandan Hutu hate radio referred to Tutsis as "cockroaches." The targeted group is often likened to a “disease”, “microbes”, “infections” or a “cancer” in the body politic.
Jawhn said "The right to hoard money always ought to be inviolable; there is no right to lend money at interest if the lending would be inflationary, though, because that would allow your money to grow faster than everyone else's for no good reason based on justice."
Ok, until I understand the way you are using the terminology, and I haven't had a chance yet to look into it, I'm going to stick with the standard terms.
The inflationary policy of printing money while having no tie to reality behind it (such as the gold standard we once had, where fed notes were redeemable for gold, or even silver), that is definitely a form of violence, lacking only the 'courage' (read that dripping with scorn and sarcasm) of the mugger to face you with a weapon while robbing you. One of the effects of this type of inflation is that prices rise, but that rise is not due to a proper effect of changes in supply and demand, but to the relatively same amount of wealth being represented by more I.O.U notes upon it. Where there were, say, 100 $1 dollar notes circulating as claims upon a bar of gold, after the fed goes to the printing presses, there are say 250 notes circulating for the same bar of gold. What once a single note could be traded for an item, now it takes 2.5 notes.
The rising prices due to fluctuations in supply and demand, are vital forces in the market, they signal that (when prices are rising) that profit is to be made, and either the existing suppliers produce more, or new sources enter the market to add to the supply, or as eventually happens, more efficient methods are found for producing the product, and less efficient sources adjust or go out of business, freeing their wasted production efforts to move to other markets where they may again add value to the economy.
To mark something as Inflationary merely because of a rise in prices, is akin to saying the man who shot someone to death to steal their wallet, and the man who shot someone to death who was about to kill an innocent passerby, are both guilty of shooting someone to death. To shallow physical perceptions, the actions may appear similar, but as you enter into and rise upwards in the conceptual understanding of the two actions, they are readily seen to be almost unrelated.
This mistake is the one which conservatives have made over and again in the last couple centuries, and it has been a major entry point for what has corrupted the understanding of our form of gov't, and that led to the creation of the Fed, and the filth that has followed from it. It is important to realize that what made the creation of the Fed in the first place, was NOT an act of congress, it was the result of a centuries worth of bad philosophy, most visibly embodied in Progressivism, seeping into the intellectual bloodstream of the nation. Not just in Washington, but throughout the country, entering most visibly in the German trends of educationalistic thinking (a look into the initiation of "Phd"'s will lead you to the heart of the beast), and it was spread as fast as it was through the noble intentions of seeking to spread education, but the education being spread was rapidly polluted by the progressivist thought which was taking over (led by gov't financing overriding what sensible people would have supported with their own dollars).
Progressivism is primarily a materialist, determinist philosophy, which believes that all society, even the nature of man, can be reformed and remade in their expert view, by making changes in the environment, rather than through true understanding of what is the Good, the Beautiful and the True. It believes in action, and seeks after massive action directed by Experts (having as many phd's after their names as possible), who have the reigns of power, gov't, in their hands, in order to, in Rousseau's words, "Force them to be free".
Interest charged on (proper) money lent, is always up to the person lending it. Their judgment may be well founded, or miserly, and if left to an open market, better judgment will out, but whether the rate of interest charged is wisely or foolishly determined by the lender, it is Never Wrong, in a normative sense.
Aristotle is at the top tier of my all time hero's, but he did get something's wrong... most of which happened primarily because He either initiated the study, or was at the leading edge of the study, of the subject, whether it be Interest & Usury, or 'natural slaves', the sun revolving around the earth, etc. Because of Aristotle, more and better knowledge and experience was eventually amassed and organized and developed, so that clearer understanding of the subjects could lead to truer answers. As Newton noted, he may have been smart, but without the discoveries of Keppler, Gallileo, Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, etc.
Father Coughlin I know little of, except that he was very much a progressive, and all the material I have seen of his has been philosophically 'bad' to say the least, and the fundamentals those excerpts have shown of his thinking, it is a stretch for me to conceive of him as having any significantly good philosophical understanding, because he was against the Fed, doesn't mean that he understood why it actually was bad, but I'll leave that where it is.
"If you have extra energy at all, I'd only ask that you stay open to the possibility that the Fed really has a lot more control than most people realize, because if you think about it having control over money means you have a good bit of control over every transaction that involves money."
I'm painfully aware of the disastrous reach of the Fed, as well as the logically necessary controls which rose in its wake, such as the SEC, etc. But as I said earlier, and as Milton I believe alluded to, it isn't just a matter of repealing the laws which established the Fed and the other agencies which have followed, it is far more than a mechanical rewriting of laws which must be changed. Until the American people again understand the principles upon which America was founded upon, we will not again have a member of congress who could say of a bill, as did Madison, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents” (James Madison, 4 Annals of Congress 179 [1794]). "
Ideas, and their understanding, must precede action, or only chaos will follow.
Sorry for the length, I'll cut it short(er) by adding only, 'what JWM said'.
wv:hystersi
wordveri astounds me sometimes.
Watch out mtraven. We've already dehumanized you. You are troll. troll is bad. Troll must perish. If you hear a knock at your door. Don't answer
BWAHAHAHA
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