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

Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs

I’ve written in the past on this theory of society, its villains, and its protectors.  I was introduced to it when I listened to a presentation by LTC Dave Grossman[1], USA (Ret), author of “On Killing” who related this story from an old Colonel[2].

“‘Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident.’ This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another. Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.

‘Then there are the wolves,’ the old war veteran said, ‘and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy.’ Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.

‘Then there are sheepdogs,’ he went on, ‘and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf.’”

I was reminded today of that analogy when I listened to a speech by Victor David Hanson to Hillsdale College on George S. Patton[3] and the tragic reality of how we as a society view our sheepdogs.  Those people who view the dark side of humanity and choose to engage it.  Examples he gave in leading up to the discussion were Generals William Tecumseh Sherman, Matthew Ridgeway, and Curtis LeMay who all had made the mistake of having views in opposition to the popular (i.e., therapeutic we are nice and shouldn’t kill those who are responsible for this mess we are in) view of most of society.

Remember when President Trump ordered the drone strike on the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and how outraged the political opposition was and how this was going to cause a massive Iranian response?  Soleimani was the mastermind behind attacks that had killed hundreds and was responsible for Iran’s involvement in the Syrian civil war.  Just because he was responsible, they said, it was just not right to actually target him as an individual. What was the result?  After his death there was a lot of Iranian chest-beating, a lot of leftist noise about how a war was inevitable, but really not much more.  At the end of the day was Trump’s decision to execute this Soleimani any different than Obama’s to execute Bin Laden, or all the drone strikes he approved against nameless terrorists in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula?

Islamic apologists and supporters of Hamas like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, and Cori Bush like to talk about how most of the followers of Mohammed are peaceful, but it is just pure deflection.  As Brigitte Gabriel[4] explains in this video on Benghazi accountability[5] most people are irrelevant to the issue of confronting terrorism, whether done in the name of Allah, the Third Reich, White Supremacy, Black Lives, or simply anarchy. 

As we look at the tenor of American politics today it seems, at least to me, our young and the most highly educated among us have been trained to be sheep and to fear the sheepdogs. They believe the right government will protect them from the evils of the world. But at the end of the day is the government any different than a simple fence or pen, intended to keep the herd all in one place and make it easier to gather them all up when it comes time to be sheered? To keep up the illusion the pen is there for their protection and that the masters are to protect the weakest in the herd they are taught from the earliest time the government will care for the weakest, and must always be on guard of the sheepdogs. (e.g., Defund the Police will lead to safer, more tolerant communities.) 

The DNC has leveraged this with great success, suggesting they are the bravest of the sheep and those mean sheepdogs are just out to destroy the herd.  That works, at least until a real wolf appears.  So, to avoid having to confront a real wolf, they create problems that seem solvable but really don’t seek rational solutions as long as those problems keep the herd moving in its endless circle around the field and inside the fence.

For example, poverty.  Since the beginning of recorded history, there have been those who’ve been doomed to live in poverty.  Today, in America, that is equally true, although what is classified as poverty today would almost certainly be well above the survival standards of yesteryear.  With the crash of an overleveraged stock market in 1929, the government has taken increasingly expensive steps to help the poor us.  In the 1960s while expanding our role in an unwinnable war, and racing the Soviet Union to the Moon, President Johnson and Congress created the “Great Society.” 

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson and the Congress (2/3 majority Democrat) got to work overcoming the resistance of the Southern Democrats to significantly expand America’s support for the disadvantaged and underprivileged. They created Medicare and Medicaid, training programs for the unskilled and illiterate, and priority placements for the underprivileged to provide them a helping hand up, educational assistance, and welfare programs for the poorest of the inner cities.  Of course, to administer all these programs and the redistribution of America's tax dollars they established sizeable new bureaucracies, which have continued to grow and flourish over these past five decades, as have the criminal abuses of these programs.  Human greed being what it is, whenever free money is available there will be those who attempt to gain that wealth for themselves.

But let’s stop for just a minute and ask ourselves one simple question.  Have all these programs and all the redistribution of wealth or the expansion of Government debt served the needs of the poor and the quality of life in the United States to achieve their stated purpose, or have they simply been a tool to increase our individual dependence on the government as it moves to eliminate our faith in God, or our faith in family and our faith in each other as a vital aspect of life in America?  Have these programs, and all the other programs like the “War on Drugs” or the ebb and flow of criminal incarceration helped the poorest of the nation, or eliminated the racism of those who believe they are superior to others based on the color of their skin?  By the way, it doesn’t seem to matter what the color of someone’s skin is for those feelings to exist.  

As we devolve from a nation-state with a unified vision of ourselves and the world, into an amalgamation of tribes at some point there will be too many sheep for the sheepdogs to protect and the wolves of the world will fall upon those flocks and gobble them up.

 

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[1] David Allen Grossman is an American author and trainer who conducts seminars on the psychology of lethal force. He is a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Army.

[2] https://www.mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJsC-buIkSE

[4] Brigitte Gabriel is a Lebanese-American conservative author, anti-Islam activist, and founder of the anti-Muslim group ACT! for America.

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-vvoRwJSPc

Intelligence in the Modern World

 This post was inspired by a recent comment on Facebook.

In our modern world we’ve come to define intelligence through a series of measurement, or tests, established by those who believe they know what makes up intelligence and what doesn’t.  There are a whole variety of tests we may be subject to beginning with standardized testing now in public schools, the Scholastic Aptitude Test (then Scholastic Assessment Test, now just SAT), and the American College Testing (now just ACT) find their origins in the early American Army Intelligence tests.  Now one or the other is required for admission to almost every college in America.

Of course, there are a series of other intelligence tests that fall into and out of favor with those credentialled masters who seek to know who has the right intelligence to achieve something.  It should not be missed that every test from the SAT on has been called into question for basing their assessment on a racial bias set of answers.  Minority communities where there are far wider cultural differences often score lower on these standardized tests than the majority populations.  

To keep the appearance of fairness, if not really the actuality of the same, elite institutions have developed quota systems where performance on these “intelligence” tests are overridden by minority admission policies, which only seem to apply to minorities from the right social group.  Take, for example, Asian-Americans have an ongoing lawsuit against Harvard University for its discrimination.  So far Harvard has prevailed but the group “Students for Fair Admissions” has filed a petition for writ of certiorari in an attempt to overturn “Grutter v. Bollinger” which ruled it was constitutional for universities to use race in admissions to promote student diversity.[1]  The issue seems to me to be purely cultural. Let’s accept the fact, as so many on the left would have us believe, there is a longstanding racial bias in this nation.  Asian-Americans outperform all other ethnic groups when it comes to these standardized tests.[2] These studies all talk about how much better the AA do but none of these social analysts seem to want to address the elephant in the room.  Nobody wants to talk about the family and how the destruction of the family unit perhaps destroys an individual’s motivation to prepare, study, practice, and succeed on these measures of intelligence.

Over the past couple of decades, the average scores on the SAT and ACT have markedly declined, yet the Asian-American segment continues to excel.[3] Does that mean Asian-Americans or Asians, in general, are inherently smarter than all the rest? Who is willing to compare the statistics of Asian-American families to say the African-American or European-American family unit to see what role a forceful set of parents can play?  It doesn’t appear to be of much interest to most of the liberal-progressive crowd, especially when you can rationalize away failure as systemic racism.

Back in the mid-20^th century, I had an old Sociology professor who attempted to explain things like intelligence and physical ability as naturally occurring sets of attributes.  As he explained, the Negros came from Africa and as a result of their genetic selection, they could run longer, jump higher, sprint faster, and were gifted in these attributes because of natural selection.  They were, he went on to explain not as gifted as the whites from Europe in their intellect because living on the savanna didn’t require the same mental development as the whites.  When I was listening to this I wondered what Darwin would say, but as you look at professional sports today it does make you wonder.  Of course, within the modern construct, this Professor was clearly and overtly a racist.

For the record, as a social science major, I buy into the idea society fits into a bell-shaped curve.  The range of measurable intelligence supposedly falls between 0 and 175, with 100 being a median score and 85 to 115 being one standard deviation[4], which means 68% of a population will fall somewhere within that range.  Let’s call that range average.  Anything higher than 115 is smart, anything less than 85 is not smart.  

As you take all those intelligence tests on Facebook, keep these numbers in mind, as well as the fact you are feeding into Google’s database so they know what products to sell you, or even if you are able to understand their marketing approach.

Of course, in today’s woke world we are redefining how intelligence is measured.  For the woke generation it’s all about understanding and complying with the social outrages they have been indoctrinated to abhor.  If, for example, you choose to pursue a military career, you clearly have to fall on the not smart scale of intelligence.  Or, if you think less government is better than more government or are a conservative/Trump supporter you have to fall on the not smart side of intelligence.  On the other hand, if you have a Ph.D. in one of the social sciences, or perhaps one of the genders/sexual orientation fields you clearly must fall well above the average and rank significantly higher in the smart category.

Watch this YouTube video to see the results of a social experiment.

I find it interesting to see the rationalization of those who think themselves superior when actually confronted with an IQ test.  Now suddenly emotional intelligence EQ is a critical factor. 

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[1] https://www.thecollegefix.com/supreme-court-may-finally-intervene-in-asian-discrimination-suit-against-harvard/

[2] https://www.studyinternational.com/news/asian-americans-test-scores-sat-act/

[3] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sat-scores-and-asian-amer_b_3902725

[4] https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-average-iq-2795284

A Common Thread?

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history”             George Orwell

“Keep people from their history and they are easily  controlled.”         Karl Marx

“We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.”           Vladimir Lenin

“If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry, and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative, and intolerant.”                                                     Leon Trotsky

All these ideas, expressed by the foundational thinkers of the Socialist/Communist movement recognize the power of controlling information and the dialogue.  Although not as deeply thought out as Karl Marx or Vladimir Lenin, Saul Alinsky builds on these strategic thoughts as he published his “tactical” Rules for Radicals. (e.g. "If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counter-side; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative.")

It is interesting to see pseudo-intellectual thinkers of today embrace these ideals without understanding either the implications or likely outcomes for their actions.  True socialism or communism has failed the poor in every country it has been implemented in.  It has failed the illiterate, the mentally unstable, the minorities, and the sexually different as well.  Yet here we are being pushed into this concept by those who’ve spent a lifetime being indoctrinated by an educational system run by those who’ve spent their lives believing they are underpaid and underappreciated by those uneducated parents who’ve entrusted their children into their care.

You have to look no further than the progressive DNC movement and its propaganda arm to see the implementation of these doctrinal ideas of how to destroy a free society.