When Reality Strikes Too Close to Home

As we approach Christmas, a time when Christians are supposed to remember the salvation of their souls by a merciful God who sent his Son to earth to atone for our sins it seems kind of ironic the most progressive and liberal among us are now being confronted by their own choices.

Recently, a killer broke into the home of Clarence Avant and killed his wife, Jacqueline Avant.  Ms. Avant, who at 81 was a long-time Philanthropist and supporter of liberal causes.  Also attacked were Droit Kemsley, a star from “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and Terrance J, a host from BET were both targeted by “flash mob” robbers.  It seems crime is beginning to affect even the rich and isolated of Beverly Hills, or as Oprah Winfrey, also known as a progressive who likes to give things away, says: "it has “shaken the laws of the universe.”

Crime and violence are not supposed to directly affect those who can afford their own security, who support the release of violent felons back into their neighborhoods, or who fund causes, where felons are the good guys and cops, are the enemy.  Those "good guys and gals" are supposed to stay where they belong and prey on those who also live in those areas, leaving the rich to feel good about helping society.

As Ann Althouse^[1] points out radical leadership is concerned enough to say “They're trying to move us backward,' said Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. 'We don't want to move backward; we want to move forward... We need to think about what kind of economic desperation actually creates property crime and how do we get people out of that state... How do we create livable wage jobs? How do we create affordable housing?'"  All great ideas until those rich liberals are actually expected to make choices that may affect their own standards of living.

The problem with all these movements is no one is really willing or able to address how dependence on the government is destroying the essential building blocks of society.  When these building blocks are gone, society will fail and we will have to start over.  The first block is a family.  Not a family unit, but a real family where there is a mother, a father, children who are taught common values by their parents and aren’t just turned into wards of the state.  The second block is a community where all the members share common values of hope (for a future better than today), respect (for the rights of others), and value for themselves and those around them.  The final building block is a trust for a standard of laws that are blind to the color of skin, gender, and the wealth or power (or lack) of the accused.

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[1] https://althouse.blogspot.com/2021/12/crews-of-burglars-publicly-smashing.html

Civility in an Age of Uncivil Society

It has become an almost nightly fixture on the news these days.  Some news channels reporting of an unruly passenger on an airline assaulting either the flight crews or other passengers.  It appears most of these events involve the millennial generation.  Passengers ranging from their twenties to early forties.  If true, it suggests to me just one more manifestation of a generation created with a sense of entitlement and self-importance that leads to outrage anytime they are forced to comply with some social norm.

These are the people who now control social media and who seem to believe being an “influencer” is actually a profit-making occupation.  I’ve been criticized by progressives for believing there is such a thing as a “slippery slope” where bad behavior, once tolerated, will lead to increasingly bad behavior. 

But I see in the Millennials a generation that has little respect for the history and culture of the nation and has been told their behavior will be tolerated.  We have legal and legislative systems around the country now committed to releasing violent individuals in the name of social justice.  We have judges who place their political beliefs before their role in the law.  In the eyes of Beryl Howell[1], an appointee by the Obama Administration, she is outraged the DOJ is allowing the January 6^th rioters plea deals that tie her hands in handing down serious prison time.  I don’t recall those same complaints with rioters in Minneapolis or New York as they protested the George Floyd death.  It seems in the eyes of liberal judges not all riots are created equally.  Those that pass their social muster are okay, those that don’t are a serious threat to democracy.

It will be interesting to see how the airlines and the government now deal with the increasing violence in the skies.  Whatever the course of action airlines will need to rethink their advertisements and perhaps even the "woke" political choices they support?  Since the "woke" tend to eat their own and if you get even a little out of step you will be condemned anyway.  

Can we really say “Fly the friendly skies” anymore?  Perhaps, “Fly with us, we are only mildly passive-aggressive” would be more accurate.  Remember, we are all in this together, unless your entitlements are more than my entitlements.

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[1] https://news.yahoo.com/federal-judge-criticizes-dojs-plea-204112591.html

Choices

We live in a remarkable time.  We now have access to all the information known to mankind.  We have so much access it is overwhelming for most of us, and we choose to live on the soundbites of information provided by our media.  These tidbits of information are sanitized, formatted, and cherry-picked to present to us the reality those pushing want us to believe in.  Of course, there is always a mirror image of that reality so that we can never be too sure that what we are seeing is really the original, or a reflection of the original changed just enough to present an alternative reality.

In 1984, Apple Inc. had a Super Bowl commercial that played on George Orwell’s novel of the same name.  In that commercial Apple^®, introduced the original Macintosh computer with the promise we would see why “1984 won’t be like 1984.”  Yet here we are almost 30-years later with the images of Orwell’s frightening vision playing out precisely because of the information age unlocked by the personal computer and the domination and control of that information by mega-corporations with global impact who can now reach into our homes and extract whatever data they desire.

We see our society fracturing now, more than our history teaches us we did in the past.  Rather than moving toward a renaissance of new ideas and thoughts, we seem to be moving to an age where the smallest voices in society dominate the conversations through the loudest megaphones.  A time where the age of reason is replaced by the age of outrage. Everywhere we look we see the condemnation of our historical values by groups who have rejected them and now demand their personal values be used as the new civil standard.  As soon as that happens a new group of outraged minorities rise up and demand those standards are obsolete and new ones must be accepted.

Meanwhile, the political and financial elite, speaking from behind their walls spur on the discontent so we won’t notice their acquisition of wealth and the creation of a two-class economy where there are only rich and poor.  The poor, of course, will live off the scraps of the rich, just as they do in other two-class societies.

We’ve seen over these past dozen years the choices made by our increasingly dominant younger generations, and it seems they are willing participants in the evolution of society to that envisioned by George Orwell.  A society where independent thought is vilified and approved behaviors are demanded.  I guess this is what happens when we create an educational industry where conformity is demanded and standards are lowered so no one is left behind.  

When You Only See One Door

I sat through a conversation this morning that has me scratching my head.  It was between two women within the community I live in; they were discussing the plight of the homeless of California.  One commented on how cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco were being overrun by the homeless and the streets were filled with filth and human waste.

The second listened and pointed out those very same problems were appearing in Seattle and there didn’t seem to be any hope to stop the rise of homelessness and the destruction of the city.

This conversation took place after they were talking about how those who are unvaccinated were creating an unacceptable risk to all those who were vaccinated and if everyone was vaccinated, we could end the pandemic, even though the vaccine has not eliminated the potential for infection and transmission.

It amazes me when educated people become so indoctrinated into a set of political beliefs, they fail to understand government policies are as likely to create a problem as they are to fix it.  

For all practical purposes, California is a one-party state, and all its major population centers are controlled by that one party, yet for all the complaints about how poorly the state is managed its citizens are just like the two women, I overheard today.  They are completely bewildered by how poorly things are going for the average person, and why those liberal policies haven’t created the promised utopia.

We have, for all practical purposes arrived at a state where critical thinking has been completely replaced by political loyalty and education by indoctrination.

If you doubt this, just listen to the people looking to be appointed to important government jobs and watch as they tap dance around previous statements where they are unwilling to actually stand behind their previous rhetoric.

“Then it doesn't matter which way you walk...-so long as I get somewhere.”

Lewis Carrol

With Friends Like This, Who Needs Enemies.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, “Does the American Government Need Enemies?”  After some consideration, a few glasses of wine, and deep soul searching about all the ne'er-do-wells who disagree with me, I think the answer is YES!

Granted, I’ve only been around for a little less than a third of our history as a constitutional republic, but as I consider our heritage it seems obvious, we are a nation built on having enemies -- both foreign and domestic.

Let’s review!

We, those of European heritage, fled to America to escape the oppression of those who viewed our forefathers (and mothers) as different and worthy of being cast out.  We could have been the rubble of society Charles Dickens was so fond of writing about, or we could have had religious beliefs that caused concern with the various churches that ruled the Continent.  But once we got here and made it through the first few winters, we vied with the natives to take control of the land we settled as if it were ours to take.

Those of us who came from African heritage clearly had enemies who captured and sold whole tribes of enslaved people who had no say in the matter and when they arrived in the colonies were sold to the highest bidders to do the manual labor necessary to open the land to the agriculture necessary to enrich those who had come from Europe.

As we grew, we English viewed the French and Spanish as our enemies, until we reached a point of domination or were able to buy the lands they claimed as their own.

Finally, even we English saw the tyranny of the English Parliament and King George as a threat to our freedom and fought to free ourselves from them.

As the Anglos moved into Texas, they saw the Spanish/Mexicans as a limiting influence, at least until they could declare their independence and become a Republic with the aspirations of joining the United States.

Along the way, we’ve fought wars, both domestically and internationally, about every 20 years or so since 1675.  We’ve been in a continuous war since 2001 and although Afghanistan has ended (kind of) we are still engaged in several places.

The thing is, each war seems to grow the government and thereby increases the power of the politicians who swear allegiance to a political party.  So, what better way to increase your political importance and financial wealth than to be a part of a government that is at war?  The Johnson Administration serves as the perfect example of this concept.  

The Kennedy administration came to office with the “Cold War” in full swing.  It had its share of diplomatic blunders which took us to the brink of a “Hot War” with Russia but managed to avoid that as Russia blinked first. Some would say one of those blunders was the introduction of U.S. forces to bolster the regime of South Vietnam, a decision that would be carried forward when Lyndon Baines Johnson assumed the office upon JFK’s assassination.

So, what did LBJ do?  He found a way to commit massive federal spending on three fronts.  He grew the military to fight an increasingly costly war in Southeast Asia while fighting the “Cold Wars” in Korea and Europe.  He then expanded a social welfare state to improve the lives of the poorest Americans in his “War on Poverty.” A lot of these efforts, if viewed objectively, succeeded in the same way the War in Vietnam succeeded.  They seemed to be great ideas that only served to enrich the few who got to make the decisions on where federal dollars should go.  Finally, in our race to prove capitalism was superior to communism we entered into the space race to the Moon.  We won and as a result of all those federal dollars so did several defense/space contractors.  Along the way, we got string cheese, Tang, and Velcro.

According to History Pieces[1] in 1962, there were roughly 5.34 million federal employees.  As the wars progressed under LBJ that number rose to 6.64 in 1968. This figure does not account for all those whose employment is dependent on Federal spending it is simply the size of our government during the decade of turbulence when the President decided war was the way to get what he wanted for the nation. 

Today the federal government has a little more than 4 million employees, thanks mostly to a reduction in the size of the military, but thanks to social media we now see far more clearly than ever before how the politicians seek to divide the nation to achieve their political success.  Having come to age in the 1960s I am firm of the belief this is a result of an education system that has transformed from one intended to create independent thinking of those most capable of it, into a system where groupthink has become the approved approach.

Because of this approach we’ve developed generations where differing political views are unacceptable, where bullies call out those who think differently and accuse them of being bullies, where racists defend their racism as anti-racism, and deviant lifestyles are glamorized and celebrated by the entertainment industry.  An industry that was once viewed as only slightly more moral than horse thieves.

With this pandemic, we see clearly how the government wages war in its effort to consolidate power to the political elite.  We also see how many are willing to sacrifice their rights to individual freedom in the hopes this government will make life risk-free.

In the end, I can only wonder, what happens when enough of us believe in a one-party political solution and the United States becomes like California?

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[1] https://historyinpieces.com/research/federal-personnel-numbers-1962

Curiouser and Curiouser - Thoughts on 9/11

So many thoughts swirl through my mind as I watch the world unfold before me this week.  A week when we remember the horror of September 11th, 2001. The media will talk about how we came together and how those whose lives were changed forever by the brutality of a few who hated America.  

We have four grandkids visiting us for the next few weeks as their dad starts a new job in North Carolina, and their mom and older sisters put their home on the market so they can all move to North Carolina.

Phrases from my education come to mind as we end the Long-War in Afghanistan.

First, from Abraham Lincoln: “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

No matter how poorly the administration executed the withdrawal from Afghanistan the men and women who committed their lives, and their family’s wellbeing should long be remembered.  These men and women went into harm’s way to fight a war without end because the politicians who sent them and the generals who led them had no clear vision of what victory was supposed to look like. 

Of course, we can’t leave this section without acknowledging their role as citizens, with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Now we turn to the long-pandemic.  A virus, in all probability, created by the Chinese Communists and let loose on the world from Wuhan China.  It is now just another political tool used by the media and the politicians to gain greater control of the individuals they are supposed to be working for.  There are questions about masks, vaccines, booster vaccines, and government mandates/laws to restrict individual choice, under the guise of communal safety.  

On some show the other night Geraldo Rivera, in supporting the President’s statements regarding the end of his patience with those who remain unvaccinated he captured what seems the be the position of most liberals.  It is the government and everyone else’s responsibility to keep him and his family safe.  The world is too complex to ask a father to do what fathers have traditionally done.  Those roles must be taken over by the government.  

From Leon Trotsky: “The revolution made a heroic effort to destroy the so-called “family hearth” – that archaic, stuffy and stagnant institution in which the woman of the toiling classes performs galley labor from childhood to death. The place of the family as a shut-in petty enterprise was to be occupied, according to the plans, by a finished system of social care and accommodation: maternity houses, creches, kindergartens, schools, social dining rooms, social laundries, first-aid stations, hospitals, sanatoria, athletic organizations, moving-picture theaters, etc. The complete absorption of the housekeeping functions of the family by institutions of the socialist society, uniting all generations in solidarity and mutual aid, was to bring to woman, and thereby to the loving couple, a real liberation from the thousand-year-old fetters.”

As I look at our society, Lyndon Johnson and the other “New Deal” democrats coming out of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt era accomplished what Trotsky could only hope for with their creation of the “Great Society.” A society where people were told the state would care for them and the traditions that held a people together were no longer necessary.

In this long-pandemic our government has a new tool, ideally suited, for the social engineering so many in the Democratic party wish to implement.  A utopian society where no one ever has to work, and no one ever questions the purpose of government.  Where all things are provided, and no government program ever ends.  Government expands until all things are run by the elite billionaires and their political Want-to-Be’s.

Thomas Jefferson said: “Educate the whole mass of people. They are the only sure reliance on the preservation of our liberty.”  

From all appearances we’ve failed miserably in meeting that goal.  We’ve allowed teachers to transition from teaching to indoctrination.  Today we wrestle not with the periodic table, but with who can have periods.  We teach a new math where how much change should be get back from using a $5.00 piece of paper for a $4.75 bill requires a digital computer rather than a human brain.  Pronouns used to be important to replace actual nouns, now they are only important so a 4-year-old choose its sexual preference in pre-school.  Liberals used to complain we were falling behind the rest of the world, and would cite homogenous countries like Finland as the example to follow, while supporting the teacher unions who want more money to pass along people who don’t learn because the government is here to care for them, or families have been replaced by gangs as the vehicle for teaching our young social standards of behavior.

Recently there was an interesting observation by Bill Maher, and entertainment personality I don’t normally have much use for.  When asked why all the sudden conservative comics are becoming popular, he noted it was because liberals, who he believes are normally more rational than conservatives have changed.

In his words: “I keep saying to the liberals: you know what, if what you’re doing sounds like an ‘Onion’ headline…stop. A lot of this stuff that goes on the left now, it’s, you know, ‘Seattle Votes to Decriminalize Crime. Three-Year-Old Pick Their Own Gender’ is an ‘Onion’ headline. When you tear down statues of Abraham Lincoln in the Land of Lincoln – ‘Land of Lincoln Cancels Lincoln’ – it’s an ‘Onion’ headline.”  

This move to the extreme has created a new industry to mock the foolishness of the left.  It doesn’t matter if it is “Drag Queen Story Hour” pushed by public librarians, or the attempts to normalize the lives of violent felons while vilifying the police.  Each step is another step down the path Alice followed as she looked beyond the mirror. 

The funny thing about this movement is not that it is led by radical youth, but it is supported by the supposed adults who are charged with running our businesses and our country.  We’ve spent so much energy claiming that the 25-45 years old people are the “key” demographic that now everyone believes they have the wisdom to make rational choices.  It is almost as if we’ve forgotten the foibles of humanity and how people will always act in their own perceived self-interest.

Society, and the lives that make it up, becomes curiouser and curiouser each day.

How I Knew It Was Time To Retire.

I woke up one morning and realized the young officers and airman in the Air Force thought completely differently then me.  It was on that morning I realized I had little to offer those whose values were shaped by something other than the traditions and legacy of those who went before us.

I was reminded of that this morning when I looked at a patch for an organization and read the description of what these young airmen thought the patch represents, and how the modern young mind works.

So, let’s look at what this organization is to accomplish.  First, some history -- when our Presidents decided to down size our military (to save money) and then fight wars that would never end (to end terrorism) they put those who remained in the military between a rock and a very hard place.  The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has wrestled with this problem, perhaps with more thought and concern than other conventional commands or the services.  They developed a program, which has grown through trial and error into something called Preservation Of The Force and Families.  From its earliest days special operations has recognized the value of the human over the technology they use.  For the Air Force component this was a real paradigm shift, but with our battlefield airman even the Air Force recognized the need for a holistic approach to helping our people deal with the stress of war where they will be sent back time and time again.

USSOCOM says “The mission of the Preservation of the Force and Family (POTFF) is to optimize and sustain Special Operations Forces (SOF) mission readiness, longevity, and performance through integrated and holistic human performance programs designed to strengthen the Force and Family.”  They go on to describe five “domains” POTFF will address: physical, psychological, cognitive, social & family, and spiritual.  The Command has hired experts in the various fields to help develop the programs that will strengthen our service members and hopefully their families to deal with the stresses of a never-ending war.  

As a part of this effort the 58 Special Operations Wing now has a human performance and leadership center.  I think that is a potentially great idea, although the potential for stigma and abuse is still possible, if it helps teach young men and women to deal with the stresses, they’ve been protected all their life from it would be great. 

My observations of the patch on the other hand leads me to chuckle.

If you look at their own description let’s walk through the actual symbology.

The 5 stars for the 5 domains of POTFF – okay… pillars may have been better but that’s probably just me.

“The bison and lightening represent how bison run into a storm.” – actually, this is most likely an urban myth originated by someone who wanted to inspire depressed people to face their difficulty.  I can find no evidence, other than in the inspiration meme class that shows bison have historically run into the storm because they know it will shorten the time, they are in it.  I would point out that stampeding Bison have been known to run off a cliff so from a herd mentality they are not the sharpest bovines in the lot.  I’m not sure how that would be taken as a critique. PBS did a show called Facing the Storm: The Story of the American Bison, but that was more about how we have killed off most them, rather than their weather habits.  I will grant that based on its hide and thick fur it will face into the wind and may walk forward as it faces that wind, but the idea they instinctively know it will shorten their exposure is pure millennial-think.

The skull (a punisher symbol) on top of the sword represents the SOF Truth – humans are more important hardware.  Just two simple points.  First, IT’S A SKULL (skulls represent dead humans, a desire to punish them, maybe steal their stuff like pirates, or as Mitchell and Webb point out with the Nazi’s who used skulls weren’t they the baddies?).  Second, it’s not a sword, it’s a Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife made famous in WW2 when used by British and American commandos. People who don’t know our heritage/history should learn to look things up, but I think that is old school.  Today’s millennials know so much more then we old curmudgeons.

Are we the Baddies?' Mitchell and Webb Funny Nazi Scetch

With Apologies to Billy Shakespeare

To mask, or not to mask: that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the public to suffer

The slings and arrows of an outraged public

Or to take arms against a sea of fear,

And by opposing end it?  To die: to sleep;

No more; and by sleep to say we end 

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks 

That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consumption

Devoutly to be wish’d.  To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there’s the respect 

That makes calamity of so long life;

For those would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s conformity

The pangs of guilt, the law’s ignored

The insolence of office holders spurned by the rules

The patient merit of unworthy rules, 

When he himself might quietus make

With bare nostrils? Who would burden bear, 

To wheeze and sweat under such a dreary mask

But that the public dread the plague of increase

The undiscover’d cure forsakes for a grand control

No survivor of that evil does rebuke

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to other we know not of.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of though.

And individuals with little regard to science 

Think ill of those who challenge the mob

And loose the condemnations of virtue

And by losing, condemn virtue to its own.

 

As we progress forward with a society more divided than we can recall in our living memory I choose to share a few observations.  Observations admittedly biased by my own history, and opinions of a global civilization that spans 10 or so millennia.

Pandemics have been around since more than a handful of humans lived together as a family group.  As we think back to Egypt and the Hebrews it is alleged the Hebrews and Jehovah brought a variety of plagues upon the heartless Pharaoh in an effort to secure their freedom.  The last was the death of the first-born male of each Egyptian household, which was not marked by the blood of an innocent lamb. This was a big deal because culture called on the first-born male to carry on the family lineage.

Those of us who had a history class in high school probably learned about the black death (bubonic) plague of the 14^th century that cut the population of Afro-Eurasia down by somewhere between 75 and 200 million people.  Of course, there have been a whole bunch of smaller plagues as time went on ranging from Small Pox to the flu.

Speaking of the flu, some may recall Spanish flu, (named back when using a location was fashionable) which caused the pandemic of 1918-1920.  A plague that infected about 1/3 of the world’s population (500 million-ish) and killed somewhere between 17 and 100 million people. Early in this latest pandemic, originating in Wuhan (choose your preferred source) China, the world’s experts took pains to point how much deadlier this SARs virus was than the flu. But let’s start this discussion with a review of what we call “THE FLU.”

NOTE: For this discussion, I am taking my information from the University of Alabama-Birmingham site: https://uabmedicine.org/-/flu-strains-explained-and-how-the-vaccine-works

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there are four types of flu.  Three of them can affect humans and the fourth affects cattle.  Of the three types we need to worry about (A, B, and C) A and B are the most dangerous and there are respectively 18 and 11 subtypes. The annual flu shots many of us get each year are made to prevent the CDC’s best guess as to which subtypes will be most likely to spread around.  For example, for the 2020-21 season the flu vaccine cocktail was designed to address the Hawaii/702019 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus, the Hong Kong/45/2019 (H3N1)-like virus, the Washington/02/2019 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus, and he Phuket/2073-like (Yamagata lineage) virus.  The first two were Type A the last two Type B subtypes.  Some years the CDC guesses right and the resulting flu season seems mild. Other years they are not so right and flu takes a heavier toll on the workforce and our children.

So, what’s my point?  Each year the flu viruses mutate and the CDC has to give its best guess as to what will prevent widespread illness and possibly death.  Up until President Trump, the decisions of the CDC were pretty much accepted by us all and it was viewed as a non-political government agency.  That all changed with this pandemic.  You can blame whoever you want, Trump and the Republicans, or Pelosi and the Democrats, but at the end of the day the CDC was put between a rock and a hard place and it will never again be viewed as god-like and non-partisan.

Now we come to COVID-19.  We are now up to the Delta variant, and I assume it is just a matter of weeks before we hear about the Echo variant.  The virus will mutate as it infects people and is altered by the biology it encounters.  BTW, the fact it mutates does not mean the earlier versions will disappear, it just makes the probability of creating a vaccine that will counter the most recent strain, as well as the previous strains harder. For the average American there is an open question, will this plague behave like the flu, or will it be like smallpox where the vaccine will ultimately be able to stop it for all humanity?

The sad thing is we never see the experts discuss this, which strongly suggests they don’t know, and are afraid to even speculate.  This leads to the question of goals and objectives.  The more cynical of us see this as a pandemic as a huge profit maker and political tool those in power will keep going as long as possible, while the more fearful seek reassurance they are doing everything the experts want in an effort to eliminate all risk to them and their loved ones.  In today’s world of virtue-signaling and social condemnation, this means flooding social media with all the memes they can think of about how important wearing a mask is.

To what purpose do we wear a mask?  In the beginning, it was to protect us, although science suggested the average surgical or cloth mask did little to stop the virus itself since it was so small it would filter in between the strands of material.

Then it was to reduce the spread when coupled with social distancing, until such time as a vaccine could be developed so hospitals would not be overwhelmed.

Next, it was to protect others who might not have had the opportunity to receive the vaccine.

And now we return to protecting ourselves even though we’ve been vaccinated since we may still get COVID and just won’t know it (e.g., asymptomatic) as well as protecting others and stopping the spread.

The fact our media and politicians chose to approach this pandemic as a political opportunity has divided us on what is the right thing to do, but even if we knew there was a “right thing” history has shown a lot of mankind would choose another path.  That stubbornness seems to be a human trait.  For example, let’s look at our professional athletes, some of whom are happy to guide us in what they believe to be the morally right path.  How many of them have been vaccinated?  If you don’t want to ask that question then let’s look at another example.  Performance-enhancing drugs – we are told they are bad, but until everyone started getting caught using them how many athletes decided they didn’t need them to compete, or better yet how many athletes did?  In my opinion, the average professional athlete is not the sharpest pencil in the pack.

So, at the end of the day, should you wear a mask?  The answer to that depends on you and you alone.  If it makes you feel safer then by all means do so.  If you think it will save someone else from you then of course.  If you want to show you are part of the crowd that wants everyone to wear a mask then it’s probably a good idea.  If you refuse the vaccine, then it might make you feel safer, but then again it might make you feel the government is controlling your life so that’s a tough call.  If you think everyone should wear a mask to make you feel safer then stay inside your house with your mask on and leave everyone else alone.

Giving In to the Loudest Voice?

Our voice is the most powerful instrument we possess.  How we use it is a choice too many of us fail to grasp. We find our voices turned against one another by a media that profits from conflict and a government that has sworn to serve some while denying the rights of others. Unfortunately, that always seems to be the case regardless of who is the government.

In today’s world, we’ve swarmed to social media, abandoning those more traditional methods of communication.  Gone are the days of small family or neighborhood group gatherings; where the troubles of the day are debated and talked about.  Now it is more about mob agreement and control.  The foundation of debate and discussion, freedom to express your own view, is now regulated by the Government and the owners of those social platforms so popular in today’s world.  They believe they know right from wrong, truth from untruth, and what is important or not.  It seems obvious we are moving closer to a direct link between social media control and a single political party oversight.

In our world of relative morality, where no standard of behavior is fixed, I wonder where this path will ultimately take us?  Some would argue morality is always relative, as the society evolves so does its morality. I can’t really disagree with that observation other than to ask what guides the evolution of society?  

As we look to our shared history, we’ve seen societies rise and fall, generally associated with this “evolution” of relative morality.  As social standards fell, and the distance between the governed and governing increased the strength of those societies seemed to wane.  For better or worse religion has always served as a focal point for unifying societies.  This was true in ancient times, and I believe it is true today.  For example, with the revolution beginning in 1917 the Czars of Russia were replaced by the Communist Party.  Once its power was consolidated it moved to shut down the church.  The problem for any organization, especially one like a church, its leaders are torn between their commitment to the dogma of the church and the profits that come from its sponsors.  It is the age-old problem of consolidating wealth and power.  That holds true today, just as it did in the days of the Pharaoh.  The communists recognized the need to gain that control and power, but at the same time how to unify Russian with one social standard?

Stalin’s approach was to use fear and to purge all those who could be viewed as a threat on any level.  Unfortunately for the Communists, when you outlaw something you make it more attractive and the Russian Orthodox Church never fully disappeared.  Now ask yourself, after nearly 70 years in power how well did the Communist (secular) regime do in unifying the various peoples of the USSR?  With the failure of that government did the people remain united?

For us, the United States, stemming from our Judeo-Christian heritage, we can trace our moral underpinnings back to the Hebrews of old, and the rules they established as clarified by Jesus.  The essence of these rules is to bind together a society.  We can go around and around about the exact wording of each commandment, based on the translations throughout the years but their essential meanings remain clear, except to the most dogmatic.

1.     “You shall have no other gods before me.”  (Ex 20:3)

2.    “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” (Ex 20:4)

3.    “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord”         (Ex 20:7)

4.    “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy”   (Ex 20:8)

5.    “Honor your mother and father”      (Ex 20:12)

6.    “You shall not murder”          (Ex 20:13)

7.     “You shall not commit adultery”      (Ex 20:14)

8.    “You shall not steal”   (Ex 20:15)

9.    “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor”         (Ex 20:16)

10. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”   (Ex 20:17)[1]

Of course, like any maturing bureaucracy the Hebrew church leadership under Moses, went on to add a whole plethora of additional rules and guidance to what you could or couldn’t do on the sabbath, eat or not eat, and how to go about divorcing or what coveting as actually okay or what wasn’t to establish and maintain control of the people.  “Leviticus is a manual of regulations enabling the holy King to set up his earthly throne among the people of his kingdom. It explains how they are to be his holy people and to worship him in a holy manner."[2]

Then came Jesus Christ, sent by God to clarify again what was important for the people.  To inform the Hebrews and in the end incorporate those people not originally included in the first mandate. As John tells us in verse 3:16, “For God so loved the World he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

The guidelines for this New Covenant are laid out in his “Sermon on the Mount” as captured in Matthew chapters 5 through 7, where Jesus speaks for the need for compassion and love as an affirmation of one’s obedience and faith in God.

So now we come to our modern society where we increasingly reject these guidelines, or our religious institutions modify them to suit their particular needs, or we turn to ourselves to decide what is right and wrong.  When this happens what becomes of the society, we grew up in.  Does it evolve as the most progressive of us believe, or does it ultimately fail as the most conservative of us warn?

There seems to be one fundamental question for me.  Is the role of society intended to further the species or not?  

It would seem how you answer that question will form the basis for what you believe is right or wrong, and how you should use your own voice as part of the larger debate.  Historically, moral choices that did not further the development of the species were viewed as questionable and maintained their status as outliers to the needs of society.  

Now they have become central to the voices who want to dominate the moral choices for society.  Claims of racism have become just one focus for those who demand legitimacy for their own moral choices. As a nation, we elected a “person of color” in 2008. When he was challenged for the economic policies, he and his administration chose to use the allegations of racism to hold off any debate.  When there were questionable events around the nation, he willingly joined in the rush to judgment and advocate those outraged by the events also do the same.  Clearly, his political decisions took precedent over his training as a lawyer, but then as a lawyer, he was clearly playing the critical race theory card we hear so much about today.

The thing about CRT in its context suggests only one side can be racist.  CRT traces its roots back to the work of a couple of legal minds and is an offshoot of the Marxist “Critical Theory.”

Critical Theory is a Marxist-inspired movement in social and political philosophy originally associated with the work of the Frankfurt School. Drawing particularly on the thought of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, critical theorists maintain that a primary goal of philosophy is to understand and to help overcome the social structures through which people are dominated and oppressed. Believing that science, like other forms of knowledge, has been used as an instrument of oppression, they caution against a blind faith in scientific progress, arguing that scientific knowledge must not be pursued as an end in itself without reference to the goal of human emancipation. Since the 1970s, critical theory has been immensely influential in the study of history, law, literature, and the social sciences.[3]

So, at the end of the day, as we shift from a common moral standard to one where the loudest voices seek to change us to a society based on the tenant that the power of the state is the ultimate moral authority what is the basis for that belief?  Is it, as the Frankfurt School proposed, “the proletariat must be liberated from the bondage of capitalism?  But, at the same time, the proletariat must not be subject to any other authority even it might be socialism or communism. In other words, the proletarians must enjoy full freedom regarding thought and ideas. A physical atmosphere shall be created in which the proletarians will be able to keep their independence.”[4]

If that is what the advocates want, then we see a distinct difference between philosophical theory and political reality.  CRT has become the club against the proletariat, just as in a communist regime state control is the hammer used to control the masses.  The question is which set of voices can dominate the masses more effectively?

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[1] https://www.biblestudytools.com/exodus/20.html

[2] https://www.biblestudytools.com/leviticus/

[3] https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-theory

[4] https://www.politicalsciencenotes.com/marxism/critical-theory-of-marxism-definition-origin-and-aspects/1313

Life

“If you truly believe in the value of life, you care about all of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society.”  -Joni Eareckson Tada[1]

Does life have value? If so, who sets that value? I’ve been wondering about this for a while now, and I’m afraid I’ve come to the conclusion our global society seems to place more value on the lives of animals than it does on the lives of humans.

Human life seems to hold no fixed value to those who believe women have the singular ability to destroy it before birth. They may claim it is not life, but science tells us otherwise. Brain development begins 2 weeks after conception[2], embryo viability outside the womb is around 24 weeks[3] after conception, although there are cases of survival younger than this.[4] Those who support abortion now want that decision to rest with the woman carrying the child until the child is actually delivered.  The funny thing about this debate is all the people who are making all the decisions actually were born and I’m pretty sure they see a lot of value in THEIR life, just not the lives of those who can’t defend themselves.

Along those same lines do black lives have value? It seems they must, but what is that value? Is it different than that of any other race? If so, why? Last year the nation went through a summer of riots as supporters who say Black Lives Matter fought with police, destroyed urban centers, and looted stores that were conveniently located in those areas the city officials and police abandoned to their rage. Does this destruction prove their point that those lives have value, or does it simply leave the question unanswered as those lives are used as a political chip to install some into power and wealth?

We have a whole litany of organizations who call to us for our dollars to support their causes saying the lives they support are important. Can we determine the value of a human or an animal from those organizations, or are they just a means to enrich some or push a political agenda?  While tugging on our hearts the appeals show the good, they can do with our dollars, but are their appeals valid in placing a value on life?  I tend to think not.  A quick internet search shows for as little as $100 you can sponsor a child in Africa, and for that paltry sum you get a picture of a smiling child and a well written little letter thanking you for your gift, but at the same time for $100 you can sponsor a wild animal from Africa, and like with the children you get a nice picture, an information packet and a certificate (suitable for framing) of sponsorship of that animal.

Is the life of a child living in poverty in Africa worth the same as an animal living with the fear of death from poachers really worth the same thing?  I don’t know?  Of those $100 I would send; how much does either the child or the animal actually receive?

As I seek the answer to my questions, I’ve done many searches of the world wide web of all things and all I can find are opinions on the value of life.  Most of them place increasing value on the lives of those who help others, who show empathy, and who strive to make life better, or speak to how to increase your opinion of self-worth.  Not too many speculate about the potential value of life, or the diminished value of a life wracked by addiction, or trained as a criminal to prey on others.

Christine M. Korsgaard[5], writing in her 1996 paper on ethics for Harvard, compares and contrasts two great Philosophers, Aristotle and Kant in a work entitled “Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value.”  It is clear in that paper these great men understood value as a transient idea and a person’s worth can only be determined by the individuals themself.

My bottom line:  I’ve purposely avoided a discussion of religion in this paper for the topic I write on is universal to mankind, but at the end of the day I find my own value in an understanding of faith and the life I live.  For me, that value is not fixed, nor is the value of all the lives around me, but I place more on the potential values of the lives destroyed before life than I do on the lives wasted on selfish desire or outrage over their own choices. 

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[1] Joni Eareckson Tada (born October 15, 1949) is an evangelical Christian author, radio host, and founder of Joni and Friends, an organization "accelerating Christian ministry in the disability community."

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3722610/

[3] https://www.verywellfamily.com/premature-birth-and-viability-2371529

[4]https://www.nysun.com/national/youngest-premature-babys-survival-called-a-miracle/49036/  

[5] https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/3164347