Dissecting Baby Boomer Liberalism Like a Frog in Science Class
It’s one of my biggest disappointments that I’ve only begun to accept in the past few years: the average level of maturity that we experience in high school is as good as it gets. That’s where most people stop their emotional and intellectual development. Once one realizes and accepts that overgrown teenagers dominate the planet, then literally everything starts to make much more sense.
First in my post-college years in the workplace and second as I began a career of full-time new media editing the same questions continually emerged. What happened to America’s grown-ups? How come so many “adults” still act like adolescents spreading gossip, stabbing each other in the back, lying, nursing petty rivalries, and obsessing over how much fun sex is? Isn’t college supposed to be the last hurrah where you get all the stupid things you need to do out of your system before your idiocy can hurt others too much?
As the Obama campaign dragged the national dialogue down to the locker room level thanks to Lena Dunham and Sandra Fluke, baby boomer conservatives uniformly predicted victory for their white knight Mitt Romney. This Ward Cleaver epitome of adult respectability would inspire the legions of “Silent Majority” American grown-ups (who somehow the pollsters kept missing) to awaken to the truth of Obama’s fantasy of raising taxes on “the rich” for fairness’s sake regardless of the disastrous economic consequences and the pitiful extra 8 days’ worth of revenue to gain.
But those voters didn’t show up. They don’t exist anymore. Decades of cultural Marxist infiltration have finally started to bear fruit. Two rising cohorts that played key roles in Obama’s victory include the never-married and the irreligious (two interrelated subjects, as readers of David P. Goldman’s How Civilizations Die know).
Where did these voters come from to assist the president in his fundamental transformation of America?
The bulleted list pretty much has it in an Orwellian nutshell – success has now become failure and failure success. To a liberal, history’s winners are all a bunch of immoral losers. History’s losers, with a distinct racial and gender tilt, are now the “wise Latinas.”
Underneath all the things America offers liberals see one giant West Bank that disappeared into history, a sin that must be righted. Imagine if Robin Hood and his band had no Prince John but simply made him up out of their heads in order to motivate the disenfranchised.
Go take a look at the Minneapolis home page for the YWCA – you’d think it was a feminist NAACP. For all the talk about racism and gender discrimination in America, the biggest hurdle to history’s losers is Mother Nature and reality itself. It’s great to talk woulda, coulda, shoulda but it won’t build giant bridges or create satellite technology.
I know you are excited about the renaissance built on20&30 year olds. 40 somethings lived through the 70′s. Theyare the indicting witnesses. Judges need witnesses, not just boughten experts, to find truth.
Do the facts fit your speculation?
Lessee, today’s 40-year old was 30 in 2002, 20 in 1992, 10 in 1982, born in 1972 and when the ’70s ended was barely 8 years old, an age at which few children have even begun to recognize there’s such a thing as politics. Even when approaching age 18 (as the oldest possible 40-something of today would have been at the end of the ’70s) most people are pretty much ignorant of politics and apathetic about voting.
Thomas Sowell wrote about this subject in “The Vision of the Anointed” and “Intellectuals”.
“Boomers” are just a convenient scapegoat for writers like you who look for a collective enemy. I get it, all “Boomers” are socialist twits, except for the ones who are conservatives. Must be interplanetary aliens who elected Reagan and founded the Tea Party.
No, the Boomers are the grown-ups. It’s the Baby Boomers that I have a problem with.
Are you serious?
With that question you prove the point.
“The real important lesson of the story was not what many of us learned as kids: that we lose paradise when we disobey a patriarchal parent god’s rules. Rather, it’s something more literal: as soon as you take a bite of the apple and realize that something called “Good” and “Evil” exists outside of you then you are no longer a child and you can never rest in paradise again.”
Thus, Mr. Swindle, you have correctly listed the problem with “true” conservatism: That once you realize that you cannot change humanity no matter what you try it is impossible to go back to a belief that you can try to change humanity.
I have a saying, “Mankind can never solve problems. It can only hope to alleviate the problems that were created in the past. ‘Solutions’ begets problems: Our choice is whether we wish to deal with smaller or bigger problems that arise from our ‘solutions’ in the future.”
The problem (pun intended) is that no one wants to face that fact.
I think we can change humanity. We just do it by changing individual humans. We have to save the world one soul at a time.
Unfortunately life isn’t static. I’m not a social scientist (and would never want to be one though I have a degree in Econ) but I’m willing to bet that for every one person we change they – meaning the Left – change at the most two.
I’ve grown more pessimistic about humanity the more I think about these things. I don’t think there will ever be an Armageddon; there’s no need for a God to destroy us because we’re already destroying ourselves.
It’s kind of funny how quickly minds can change. Not too long after I wrote the above I read the following about a police officer who gave a stranger $100 because he was honest about why he couldn’t afford new registration.
It will be a hard slog but people can be changed. That is true progress.
Sounds like you’re just depressed. Go out and get some sun. America’s been in much worse spots than this before and it came out better than before. Now’s the equivalent of 1936. Yes, World War IV is coming soon. But we’re going to win. The neo-1950s — a time of greater technology, unity, peace, and cultural optimism — will arrive if we fight for them.
I just woke up from a nap – rather long one. No – my name isn’t R. V. Winkle.
So – when did WW III happen?
I assume WWIII was the Cold War. The Soviet Union lost, but the Russian people did not lose. The US government won, but the American people did not win.
WWIII was the Cold War. Thankfully it ended without the nuclear armageddon so confidently predicted by every futurist and sci-fi author.
WWIV was the World v. Iraq; kind’a lopsided I know but the whole world – at least most of the Great Powers thereof – was involved militarily or diplomatically so it counts as a WW.
That makes the next balloon that goes up the potential start of WWV – unless one wants to count the Bosnia interventions of the mid-1990s and the Long War against Islam as two other cases of World v. Somebody. Then it’d be WWVII. Hmm, starting to sound like the names of past Super Bowl games or old Lincoln car models…
From Sayet’s first, now-famous talk (available on YouTube) exposing his thesis, I remember most vividly a single concept: that the Modern (left-) Liberal, looking back over all of Man’s history, decrees that nothing has worked. Any notion that humans have progressed in any objective sense is deemed illusory, even foolish. This is the first unfolding of Sayet’s “indiscriminateness” concept. It dovetails perfectly with Sowell’s observation about the idiocy of absurdly high, inapplicable standards.
But is the problem the ML’s absurd standards — e.g., the complete elimination of human want and strife — or is it still deeper?
The stratification of left-liberal thought and opinion suggests that there is a cadre, responsible for parceling out notions and nostrums to the rank-and-file, that is fully aware that rejecting all assertions of objective human progress is absurd — fully aware of the evidentiary and logical emptiness beneath left-liberal ideology. These are not deceived. Assuredly, they are not self-deceived. And the rest of the left-liberal “pack” listens attentively to their baying and follows where they lead.
Here’s a tiny subset of this mindset’s conclusions:
The meme that the economic policies of the last 30 years have failed. Obama kept repeating that in the campaign, and others picked it up. The 30 most prosperous years in American history, coupled with historically low inflation and the collapse of the Soviet Union were a “failure.” The Clinton years are nestled in that 30 as well.
The proof? The financial meltdown in the last of these thirty years that was anchored in a gigantic and reckless left-wing scam to “buy everyone a house.”
I doesn’t matter how successful the past 30 years have been to Feckless One. His yardstick for success is very different than your’s or mine.
So what? Like Obama, Clinton was elected by a coalition of low-information voters. Remember the liar campaigning by repeating “worst economy in 50 years” over and over and never being called on it by any fact-checking news media? Most people old enough to vote in 1992 were old enough to have lived through the Nixon wage-price controls and the Carter presidency. The people who swallowed that Flavr-Ade are so easily mocked…
Note to PJMedia Editor:
Why do some PJMedia columnists rate a preview button for comments and others don’t?
Obama and his followers have dismantled everything that has been accomplished in the past three decades – and more.
Speaking of housing: Hoovervilles are back!
Francis, the “Cadre” to which you refer is most of our university departments of philosophy. The philosophers set the terms, the principles (even the principle that there are no principles) that a nation will follow. These principles, however rational or irrational, are the intellectual marching orders for all our university departments of humanities or social studies. From here are developed such notions as egalitarianism, multiculturalism, laws against discrimination (the undiscriminationess of which Mr. Sayet speaks) and so on.
For any real change to come it is the philosophy of the culture that must be changed. Though that will take time, a good place to start is to realize and promote the fact that America’s first founding principle, that all men have an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is a principle of rational self interest and as such is diametrically opposed to the first principle of all Judeo/Christian religions, the principle of self sacrifice.
Rational self interest is such a new morality that most people don’t understand it. Americans need to study and embrace it.
Those are basically the rules the British underclass and the bureaucrats dependent upon it live by, according the Dalrymple’s “Life at the Bottom.”
I also reading Hayeks’ “The Fatal Conceit” right now. Right up front he talks about how out society with its rules and traditions grew up over thousands of years based on what works. Not necessarily what is kind or “fair” but what works. It is this that eventually lead to the development of reason and not reason giving rise to culture and tradition. One of the problems with Socialists is that they want to throw away the old and build a new system, instantly, based on their idea of reason. This is artificial and is one reason why socialist systems fail, often disastrously.
Again, like children, accepting reality is not their strong point and so they attempt to live in a fantasy world of their own making. What is a child’s favorite saying, after all?
“But it’s not fair!”
Yup… Whaahburger with a side of French-cries!
Much like the argument favoring abortion, which essentially boils down to the phrase, “You can’t tell me what to do, DADDY!”
With accompanying foot stomps and temper tantrums, of course.
What’s more, your example not only illustrates why feminists blame all men for denying females abortions but also explains why traditionalist females blame all men for abortion being legal.
Once the idea of female suffrage began to infect the Republic (1840s), was America’s collapse into a Welfare State foredoomed?
Great piece David.
I have both of Sayet’s Heritage Foundation speeches in tight rotation on the MP3 player. I actually read “Closing of the American Mind” because of him, and use Sayet’s distillations and examples frequently in discussions. Thanks for highlighting his work.
Thanks Mark! Hope you’re doing well. Let me know anytime you want to jump in and do some writing again. Would love to edit your work again.
I highly recommend, Diana West’s….The Death of the Grown Up….How America’s Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization
http://www.amazon.com/Death-Grown-Up-Americas-Development-Civilization/dp/0312340494
http://dianawest.net/
Also Chantel Delsol’s Icarus Fallen: Search for Meaning in an Uncertain World
http://www.amazon.com/Icarus-Fallen-Meaning-Uncertain-Crosscurrents/dp/193223604X
discussed here by Claire Berlinski
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6470
excerpts…
Anything contemporary man needs or envies, anything that seems desirable to him without reflection, becomes the object of a demanded right. Human rights are invoked as a reason for refusing to show identification, for becoming indignant against the deportation of delinquent foreigners, for forcing the state to take illegal aliens under its wing, for justifying squatting by homeless people, for questioning the active hunt for terrorists. It is not only desire or whim that leads to rights claims, but instinctive sentimentality and superficial indignation as well.
–
our era overflows with treacly sentiment. It is almost as if the feelings that were once associated with a certain type of piety have contaminated the whole population. . . . Seeking the good while remaining indifferent to the truth gives rise to a morality of sentimentality.
Yeah but maybe we need fewer witty polemics and more constructive criticism.
I agree with much of what Sayet says, but I’m not sure that much of it isn’t just sort of the permanent human condition, and it’s the RIGHT that has failed to make its case now for a generation.
And just what is that case? Romney advocated no useful positions, in fact his CAMPAIGN strategey was to outline no positions at all. Yeah yeah 47 points in some Internet download, but that does not constitute advocacy in a public forum. Were we supposed to elect his web site, or him? On the points themselves I agree with some of his fuzzy guidelines, but the points themselves were mostly vague generalities, ineffective on best interpretation, ignoring huge issues, and some were dead wrong.
We know who and what Obama is, though I’m not sure anybody has figured out all of Pelosi’s problems, and Reid is just a simpleminded sleazeball. The best that the institutional Republican part seems to propose as alternatives, are white-shoe country-club types whose main attribute is doing no harm by doing nothing. If the general electorate goes for some soap story in preference to that, I understand. It may be wrong, but I understand – they are choosing something over nothing.
Nice shot, Josh. But you forgot that what you knew about Obama is that he is a collectivist of the Communist type. He has no agenda that will ever help you, unless you happen to be part of his Politburo. On the other hand, you also knew that Mitt Romney was not a Communist. Wanting Romney to come up with more specific proposals was the bait being presented by the Obama campaign. They knew that they could pick apart the specifics of Romney’s proposals and never have to defend their own actions on the big debating stage. Where have the specifics of Obama’s proposals ever been? You don’t know because he has never gotten close enough to a proposal, on the big debate stage, to get his name put on it. Even Obamacare wasn’t anything he got his own hands dirty on. So why the vitriol for Romney’s lack of detail in his policies, when Obama never even presents the basics of his? You were suckered. Don’t feel bad. Most of the voters got suckered this time. I just hope we get another chance to fix the messes these Communists are producing. Soon, you and all the other suckers will be hoping for that chance, too.
Sorry, didnt mean to step on Evan Sayet’s toes.
Perhaps former Governor Huckabee was being a “gracious host”. Wouldn’t be polite to invite folks on your show only to disparage them. And it helps fill that “big tent” that we all know the GOP needs in order to be on equal footing with the Democratic Party. Don’t forget to smile and wave.
My big fear in nominating Romney would be that he fight the fight with elegance and class and, afterwards, would give a gracious concession speech. I wasn’t disappointed.
Moreover, Mitt Romney did nothing to confront the problem of massive election fraud.
What did you expect Mitt Romney to do? He has not been in a policy or legislative position for most the last decade. He was a candidate, all he could do was advocate, and he did. Had we elected him, he could have done a lot about the problem. But we didn’t. He is a good man who might have made a great President, but apparently we were too worried about getting our free stuff from the big government up on the hill. Our bad, not his.
Actually, the first settlers were not Puritans, not the first settlers at Jamestown. The Puritans were that second batch, the one that aimed for Virginia and missed, with a goal of establishing a theocracy in the New World. The Puritans’ descendants got pretty darned Rousseauvian, per Henry W. Bellows’ declaration that “The state is indeed divine, as being the great incarnation of a nation’s rights, privileges, honor and life.” Remind anyone of Rousseau’s “general will” that the state has a right and duty to enforce?
Modern liberals get pretty darned small-P puritan themselves with the value judgments they do make, from political correctness to healthly food fascism.
We can thank the real first settlers, and their descedants and successors, for that whole life, liberty and pursuit of happiness thing.
Actually, the theory now goes that the first Europeans to inhabit Virginia were there before the great migration of the Far Eastern ancestors of the Native American Indians. It has also been shown by genetic interpretation, that these Ancient European peoples mixed with the Indians long before the Plymouth Rock Colonists and others arrived. It kind of makes me wonder why our current society is so Balkanized along hypothetical racial and ethnic divides, you know? I have very little faith that humanity will ever wise up because we all carry too much old genetic survival baggage to be able make a go of a society of hundreds of millions of people.
YES! Someone that gets it! Modern Liberalism is a long march that has culminated in non-ecclesiastical Puritans running things. Their theology is not Christianity, they left that behind more than 150 years ago. Once upon a time they inhabited American Transcendentalism, paid John Brown to be a homegrown terrorist, became Radical Republicans, than Progressives-which was America’s version of Fascism-and post WWII they became modern Liberals.
It is a misnormer to describe modern liberalism as disconnected from pre-WWII liberalism. On one hand there were the Progressives whose roots grow from a Protestantism that was and remains very liberal, though not in a classical sense, nor were they strictly Bible believing Protestants either, instead they bent their version of Christianity to met their needs and beliefs, not unlike Jim Wallis today. Liberals were the secularists who fought the Progressives, though both embraced very similar policies, but liberals didn’t want even a watered down version of Christianity. That tusseling was similar to the tusseling in Europe between Fascism and Leninism. Today’s liberals are the truce between the two. It is how Democrats can with a straight face lecture Tea Party movement believers on racism. The Radical Republicans moved into the Democratic party, leaving behind the Country Club Republicans to run the house.
So much history to be explored here! None of which can be done successfully in this small post. But let me leave one thought here, those who are described as the “old right” was once Progressives. Progressives who were simply horrified by FDR, most were Republicans. The Nation magazine was founded by abolitionists right after the Civil War, its literary editor was Wendell Lloyd Garrison, son of William Lloyd Garrison, famous abolitionist. It was bought by Henry Villard, and then inherited by his son Oswald Garrison Villard, who was the result of the marriage between Villard and the Garrison family, and as such Villard was a founding member of the NAACP. Consistently backing Progressive politics except for WWI and then later backing FDR until FDR supported the allies in WWII, Villard became part of America First. With the dissing of FDR Villard and others of Progressive bent began to be described as Rightists, when in fact they were Progressives, just not liberals. And most of them stayed within the Republican party until it was no longer to their advantage to do so, think Rockefellers now. Described as conservatives today these old Progressives were never conservatives, they were looking to built a New Republic post Civil War and for over a hundred years they have managed to do just that. On that trip they embraced post Christianity belief, the Trojan horse of coupled with the belief in ordered liberty, Puritan style. Thus the embrace of both the American lite versions of Fascism and Communism.
The pinnacle of all this is Barack Obama, the non Christian Christian who spouts Christianity in service of “transformation”. He walks in the footsteps of Christian Socialists from the late 1800s, Christian socialists like Edward Bellamy. Christian Socialists who mixed Puritanism with French Socialism breeding Progressivism. Liberals on the other hand completely tossed out God, instead of just modifying God. There is a reason God was denied three times at the Democratic convention.
If we are to get anywhere the social history must be understood, because it is all about the culture and who has the ability to sell their message and be relevant in the cultural life of the country. If you don’t know where the culture came from it is near impossible to fight it.
Many thanks for this thoughtful, engaging comment. I hope for more of your insights on future PJ Lifestyle pieces as we continue to explore these subjects.
Yeah, someone who writes “But let me leave one thought here…” before reaching the mid-point of a comment of much-above average length is surely worth looking forward to reading again.
(You have a dangerously dry sense of humor, Mr. Swindle.)
I realize this is long, it is not a subject that lends itself to 140 characters or less, but it is my belief the intellectual history of the anti -contitutionalists must be brought forward. True conservatives, those who wish to conserve the constitution and the culture that produced it, would he wise to not just point out all the wrong the other side is doing and what they are destroying but the why behind it all. The why helps to provide a roadmap to battle back. It is worth noting the “old right ” is very much a part of libertarianism, a group who once reached out to the New Left because they believed at the time they had common cause. There is also a documentary on the weather underground in which old footage from the Chicago days of rage are shown and one can see someone running around a bonfire at night with a Gadsden flag.
I know I have again broken the 140 character rule and perhaps irritated you instead of prompting you to think however perhaps I may prompt one or two to wonder how and why freedom loving Americans keep getting duped then irritating you was well worth it.
you know, I walked away and went and did some stuff at the kids’ school. And, you know, Rob’t Fulghum wrote what the teachers were trying to teach, not what the kindergarteners actually think.
I think I could build a functioning town if we dropped two elementary schools onto a desert island. The teachers ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. They want to be all the parts of a functioning town. They list out: housewife, mommy, catholic priest, store owners galore, restaurant owner, waiter, police-man, astronaut, genius, history professor, president, fire-fighter, librarian, writer, teacher, principal, letter-deliverer, computer tech, genius (really, standing right next to INSTIN) gardener. I’m sure there are more. That’s just two classes.
I’ve seen boys start businesses doing a roaring trade in legos. They have price catalogues, sales managers, salesmen. I’ve seen 7 year olds write out invoices for services rendered. Being seven, this included “hugged mom” for $1. So there’s even a gigolo. I’ve seen them write scripts for youtube videos. I’ve even seen them fire people.
The leftists have such an uphill battle against normal human behavior. The textbooks have ” planes were made. trains were made.” but ‘Cesar Chavez made everything better for people!” That’s straight-up bizarro-world propaganda.
I’ve had little boys do things to, basically, Prince Charming protect little girls. I’ve seen little girls moon over little boys- from kindergarten on- all very innocently- but still. I’ve seen little girls explain that cats got married to they don’t know who, to have kittens. It takes, what, a concerted press from every media outlet, to convince them that a white-dress wedding day is out of their reach? They all really believe in the whole, entire love and marriage before the baby carriage routine. They take notes on Taylor Swift videos. Boys do push-ups in front of girls. Even three year old boys in front of beautiful teenage girls.
Robert Fulghum listened to the teachers, not the kids. The kids are straight up fifties rocket-boys and housewives.
While I’m thinking about it: this is a school that has two separate section 8 housing projects feeding into the school. There are parents who explicitly live off the system. One mother sued to have her daughter declared Cerebral Palsy, or something like that- the disability where the spine doesn’t close? so that her daughter would be “pulling her weight” in bringing in income. The daughter was doing cartwheels on the lawn, while the mother talked. Some of the parents are entirely illiterate, Spanish- speakers, or even some Central American dialect. So, not thrilling.
The kids, though, the kids. Not one with a messed up family says ” I want to be like Xmessed up, Y messed up, Z messed up.” These kids…there’s one that I’m not sure what his family situation is, but he’s treating sports like his ticket out. He was willing to find a way to get to a good, competitive district, to get out. He knew he wouldn’t enjoy it- it’s famous for hard work- but he was willing to go the distance, rather than whine about “mean” “stuck-up” “rich” kids. Every time I see him, he’s practicing, not in a mess around way, in a focused Michael Jordan sort of way. He’s 12. He works harder than my kid.
The kids are all concrete, specific, ambitious. When they get exposed to a church, they want to go back. When they go to a concert, they get swept up in the beauty. They are proud of their accomplishments. They create. They make. They write books, to put in the library. The make art, and want to see it on the wall. They want plaques honoring their successes. I thought that was odd, until reading Dr Hanson. This is their big world. They practice manners in the lunchroom.
That is all very encouraging, but how do we explain 30 year old kids living in mom’s basement? It sounds like the collectivist claptrap doesn’t really change 6-7 year old kids much, but it is having a profound affect on the 18-29 year old kids, and they can vote. Somewhere between 8 and 17 they are really getting to the kids.
Baby boomer liberalism?
First, liberalism used to define the GOP. Then liberalism was eventually redefined and hijacked by the Progressives and the Communist Party of America who eventually made their home in the democrats party.
If one were to use the common definition of liberal as defined by Merriam-Webster it would conform rather nicely to the founders concept of our constitution and individual freedoms from an authoritarian controlled society.
So, I would suspect all Americans are born with liberal DNA and further defines and nurture it according to the influences of their environments.
The discussion the Tea party ‘adults’ need to have among themselves is whether they can live in our society respecting constitutionally protected individual freedoms from an authoritarian controlled society or whether they should advocate the disposal of our constitution and replace it with their own brand of an authroitarian controlled society.
No entity has endorsed the socialist transformation of America more than the Protestant/Christian churches — the same churches the Tea party adults claim as their guiding standard in life and for America.
You are mixing liberal protestantism with orthodox Christianity. Liberal Protestantism is all about social justice through social gospel. Nearly every sect of Protestantism has some infected churches, by the early 20th century Catholic churches as well.
Orthodox Christianity =
Eastern Orthodoxy (also called Greek Orthodoxy and Russian Orthodoxy) is a Christian tradition which represents the majority of Eastern Christianity. During the first millennium of Christendom, differences developed between the Christian East and West. By the 11th century, this had culminated in a Great Schism, separating the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy.
Like the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox trace their lineage back to, and claim to be the exclusive continuance of, the original Christian church, referring to themselves as the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
If you’re to stand by your inference to Orthodox Christianity, there is no other church who has actively advocated and supported more, what many Americans refer to as socializing the United States.
Have I misunderstood your comments position?
Yes, you have misunderstood. I am not referring to the Orthodox church but to orthodox belief. Liberal Prostantism left orthodoxy behind first with Unitarianism, the Protestant version of Arianism, there is a reason prominent early Unitarians embraced the type of socialism Marx derided. Horace Greeley, a Unitarian Whig, is a great example. It is interesting to note that Greeley hired Marx as his European correspondent. Brook Farm is an example of early liberal Protestantism embrace of what at the time was called communalism, set up under the system of Fourierism, an import from France. Moving from failed Utopian communities, liberal protestants moved into the social gospel and eugenics. Huge swaths of liberal Protestants embraced first Darwin then eugenics. I direct you first to the book “Preaching Eugenics” and next to the apology issued by the Methodist church, the leading social gospel church at the time, for its embrace of eugenics. Liberal churches very deliberately walked away from orthodox Christian belief and used Christianity as framework to bring European Socialism to America. First the early socialism of Henri St. Simon, Charles Fourier and Robert Owen, later that of Karl Marx. All of it little more than warmed over feudalism. St. Simon was a virulent anti-cleric whose followers set up a faux Catholicism except for the wealthy industialist Jew who generated his own unique brand of Jewish socialism based on St. Simonism. Charles Fourier was to have a very strong influence on American transcendentalism and Robert Owen would embrace the spiritualism of Helene Blavatsky. Auguste Comte, disciple of St. Simon would begin Positive Christianity and the Church of Humanity, which in turn would influence the parents of Herbert Croly, writer of “The promise of American life ” and founder of The New Republic. Croly was baptised in The Church of Humanity in New York City.
In essence liberal Protestants embrace anti-orthodoxy in favor of reform flavor of the year, but retain enough of their Puritan culture that they are compelled to force society at large to comply with their belief system, be it what you eat, what light you read by, how much soda you can buy or water you can flush your toilet with. American liberal Protestantism, though infecting nearly every Christian sect including the Catholic church, is New England born, but European influenced both thru early socialism from France and German idealism and romanticism. The only way their vision could bear fruit in this country was by the overthrow of the Constitution and a large part of the battle to achieve that is to deride and dismiss the very American values that developed the constitution, and that includes Christian orthodoxy, which is not specifically Orthodox Christianity.
I think I made it to your ‘bottomline’ finally. Western Christianity has failed itself and its believers miserably. Roger that – I preach that all the time. I preach that intellectualism has, inpart, also proven to be an enemy of ‘traditional’ Christianity. The founders, all with great wisdom and all from some sect of Christianity devised a concept of a ‘free society’ with limited government — a concept that lies within a microscopic line between anarchism and religious authoritarianism. Religious authoritarianism presents in many forms. Individual equality, social equality, social justice, etc., as can be derived from scripture interpretations by the varied motivations of intellectuals. I like to refer to most religious, social, history and political intellectuals as sheep herder’s or self-serving manipulators.
Thanks for your interesting replies!
I never liked and was never fooled by Mike Hukabee. I do not like his brand of “conservatism,” which he shares with Santorum, Akin, and Murdock.
Correct.
Actually they are different. Huckabee is a Christian Government Paternalist in the Catholic mold. Mourdock came out of the Tea Parties. Santorum is more inclined to libertarian small government and free markets (ie the conservative mainstream consensus). Dont know enough about Akin to comment…I supported Sarah Palin’s endorsement there in the primaries. No doubt Sarah Palin is just like Huckabee, Santorum, Akin, and Mourdock….all dem Christian Conservatives are the same…dont ya know.
Of course they have differences. But they also have an important similarity.
This collapse in both realiy and the inablility to engage reason (nous) is grounded, I think, on the Hegelian dialectic and those ‘Second’ realities instigated by Hegel’s efforts at replacing ‘concrete consciousness’ with imaginary consciousness. And, you’re correct in that the issue turns on God, Good, and Evil. And yes, to embrace liberalism, the Democrat Party, Marxism, etc. is to embrace evil.
It is Hegal but not alone. It was a general embrace of German Idealism by intellectuals such as the American Transcendentalits and certain influential people within the Unitarian church, before it eventually became Unitarian Universalists. This is 1830-1850s. By the 1850s French socialism was also being embraced not thru Karl Marx but thru Auguste Comte, disciple of Henri St. Simon. Marx would not be significantly embraced until the 1920s when Socialists and Communists split ideologically in this country, having everything to do with the victory of Soviet Russia. Post WWII much of philosophy was highly influenced by Martin Heidegger, a card carrying NAZI, though that was hidden for years including by his German Jewish lover Hannah Arendt, who widely influenced American higher education.
All of it alien ideologies from dysfunctional Europe.
I recently heard an interview with Keira Knightly on NPR about her movie Anna Karenina. Ms. Knightly said in so many words that the subjuct of the story was whether Anna should be judged for her decision to pursue her passion at the expense of her children and her husband, and that she was inclined to feel that Anna should be free to follow ber own passion and should not be judged by others, because she had a right to live her own life as she wished. Ms.Knightly admitted that, with great difficulty, she finally had to admit that perhaps Anna should be subject to judgement. I was relieved to hear the Tolstoy was able to penetrate even the Kindergarten mind of a first class Twenty-first Century twit with the timeless message, the subject of most great Western literature from Shakespeare on down, that the selfish surrender to destructive passions inevitably leads to death and to tragedy beyond oneself.
A couple of abortions and an easy No Fault divorce, collect half your husband’s wealth….that is how it should have been, dont ya know. Just ask the deep thinker Kiera Knightly.
And people wonder why/how our civilization is unraveling. Or rather they dont, as they march like fools enjoying their Hedonism, thinking all is well, now that we’ve dustbinned those White Christian Males and their oppressive racist patriarchal bourgeois normative systems.
Dave;
I “totally” enjoyed your take on the baby boomer liberal. I’m a boomer and an old one at that, born in 46. I’m also the pastor of a small Christian church with a good mix of young and old. The question comes up, among the men mostly when talking politics; “where have the adults gone?” The other day the name Dwight Eisenhower came up. Remember him? Many of the old timers, some WW2 vets,see him as a prototype for presidential leadership, or as an adult.
The analogy with Genesis is a good one that we Christians discuss often. One of our elders commented at breakfast that “liberals” really want to be God. That was his take. he may be on to something:-)
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system-ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
– Ike, 1961
Pretty much outlines what has gone wrong for our nation.
But you, as a pastor, I have a question for you. Why do so many of the ‘Christians’ of today involved in the evangelical social movement party (Tea party) have such fear of and disreagrd for the constitutional protected individual freedoms to include freedom from a religious authoritarian controlled society?
Seems to me that Ike had it right and the evangelical movement has it wrong. Ike walked the talk so to speak and as such was a great example of the religious values he believed in but equally important to him was most supportive and defensive of our constitutional protected grant of a free society. Either all the creations (people) of God are predestined or have free will. If predestined should not they sit back and contently enjoy the ride? If the people were granted free will should not they come to respect everybody has such individual freedom over their actions especially in a nation in which these rights of individual freedoms are constitutional protected within certain societal restraints?
I don’t understand their projected religious and social supremacy over our society and their disregard for the founders intent of constitution — at the same time, claiming the same constitution as their own religious authority over the society at large.
Nice try, Zeke. I was at all the Tea Party rallies in Denver, and I didn’t notice that a great percentage of them were “Religious statists”. Most of us were quite obviously “economic conservatives”, hence, “taxed enough already” and such. Your tacit assumption being incorrect, your thesis is unsupported. Please try another slam against the Tea Party. Also, “Teabagger” has already been tried and has pretty much been worn out, don’t you think?
Slightly more than 1,100 ‘social’ legislative bills have been introduced by the Tea party successful of 2010 in states legislatures.
Now, for your homework, find out and report back on how many legislative bills have been introduced in these same states to reduce the size of their governments and reduce their social and states/municipal governments ‘welfare’ for which you claim is the Tea Party mantra.
You may want to provide the source of your information before exhorting me to attempt to refute the inference you make from it. I say that you are a leftist troll and I will not provide you with the source of my supporting information for that claim, since I told you that it is strictly my opinion. Do your own damned homework before you try acting like a teacher.
Jim
The tea party is/was — whether you like it or not — a wholly owned subdidiary of the bible beater contingent, and always was. There are two shining examples:
1) school vouchers are wanted because supposedly the reason Britney is getting poor marks is because the educational establishment is helding her back. In reality Britney has the IQ of a spoon and will never be a scientist; she’s going to be a waitress. Vouchers don’t address this. What they do is force teachers to teach the tests, and passing these won’t make Britney a scientist. Moreover, the most vocal proponents are bible beaters who want to shield their offspring from the teaching of eeeevolution; apparently they seem to think that semi private schooling paid for by atheist dirtbags in blue states solves all their woes. There is no support of vouchers by the professionals. NONE.
2) teabaggers reckon abortion ought to be a state issue, not federal, so suddenly 225+ years of constitutional work by some of the best minds in history are denounced as wrong and the teabaggers — most of whom couldn’t spell constitution on a good day — are now consitutional experts? Heh. Sounds fishy to normal people. No, states rights is the new “wedge” argument that has taken the place of 30 years of attacks on science. The last such attempt was called “intelligent design” which was shown to be abject nonsense. And coincidentally this argument was dropped right around the same time the tea party started gaining national traction.
Now, you may truly believe that these two issues have squat to do with the god squad variety of social conservatives, and if so, you’re either very naieve or simply deluded. But the notion that the teabagger party has a damn thing to do with fiscal issues other than a thin veneer of attempted respectability is a laugh.
It certainly was, because they are the backbone of all facets of Conservatism in this country.
Classically Liberal Christians built this country, and their ideological inheritors are the largely Christian Tea Partiers.
Ah, the random ___ again. Folks, don’t feed this bigoted troll, please.
To hell with you, boy. You need to get out more.
Thanks so much. You’re correct about wanting to be God. Those who do not worship God will eventually end up worshiping themselves. You might find this piece of mine useful: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/11/04/the-15-best-books-for-understanding-barack-obamas-mysterious-political-theology/
“Those who do not worship God will eventually end up worshiping themselves.”
You seem to ignore that both the intellectual and religious arrogant are prime examples of self worshipers. You have to look back in history no further than the movers and shakers of the TV evangelical movement — all of them rightful, so rightfully, fallen from grace in a most public and deserving manner. The same for those in the social, history and political intellectual arena. Evolution and history eventually reduces them to irrelevent.
Sheesh. What a bunch of useless drivel, I says.
. Those who do not worship God will eventually end up worshiping themselves.
I’ll call.
You have proof of this? As in peer reviewed proof? Something that the sociological and anthropological professionals would all agree with? If not, you’re little more than another loudmouthed bible beater with a poorly considered opinion — the very picture of the sort of thing that elected Obama twice.
Prove it. Let’s see the data, the work, the PROOF of such an absurd, idiotic notion.
If you can’t prove it, I’d like to suggest to the PJ editors that they send your vapid ass off to biblebeaters quarterly where you can address similarly deluded trve believers and find sentient writers who can stick to politics. This constant marrying of the GOP to religious interests is killing the GOP.
You need to learn that no sociological proof can ever apply to more than a generality. We can’t read minds yet. We can only typecast. This is good enough for politicians, but even politicians know that nothing that they use to get elected is written in stone. I know I waste time on such intransigence.
Sheesh. What a bunch of useless drivel, I says.
Go back to your hole on the Media Matters site, Zeke.
One of your points in the article concerning Reagan and Buckley, jumped out at me. You say that when a movement achieves its central goal it goes down hill and, in general looses its purpose. Using the example of the anti-communist movement and the defeat of the Soviet Union.
I would submit to you that the defeat of the Soviet Union was a false end, a false victory, if you will. We obviously did not finish the job. The principles of Communism are still alive and well. We just stopped talking about it. Maybe if “Conservatives” would return and take up this fight again, that the Boomers have all but ignored when it was their turn to lead, the New, New Conservatives might find the central purpose they seek to move forward.
The Loony Left is now the Center Left and Classical Liberals are now the Extremist Right.
Loony Left Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLlrfEYtqFU
Loony Left Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDhLCg5c-gU
We’re all Barry Goldwater now.
Was Barack Hussein Obama a Soviet Communist mole?
Please check out those links and decide for yourself.
Looks to me as though he was and still is. The former Soviet Union died, but its legacy continues on this side of the pond.
“I would submit to you that the defeat of the Soviet Union was a false end, a false victory, if you will. We obviously did not finish the job.”
I agree with you and thought about mentioning something comparable in the piece.
“Maybe if “Conservatives” would return and take up this fight again, that the Boomers have all but ignored when it was their turn to lead, the New, New Conservatives might find the central purpose they seek to move forward.”
This isn’t an answer that will work but your heart is in the right place. Yes, Putin is a threat, but how can anyone argue that he’s the MOST IMPORTANT threat? It’s not.
I think you make a good point. The Communist left was already deeply embedded in our “intelligensia” by the beginning of WWII. For example, one Frank Marshall Davis. Most of them started ducking the communist label in the ’50′s, but began to take over the formerly honorable lable of liberal (small “L”). By the late sixties liberalism had, as others have said better, moved from an approach (Teddy R.), to a political position (FDR), to a religion virtually indistinguishable from Marxism/Communism- BHO’s position, inherited directly from the said Davis.
Try getting that concept even mentioned in any academic forum today. Maybe at Liberty U or Franciscan? Kindergarten isn’t where this current mind set comes from. It is adolescent- permanently selfish, insecure and rebelious.
I know all about Frank Marshall Davis and will be writing more about his ideology soon – http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/11/04/the-15-best-books-for-understanding-barack-obamas-mysterious-political-theology/5/ I dug in deep a few months back to investigate when the conspiracy theorists were claiming Frank Marshall Davis was the real father. (Unfortunately their only scrap of legitimate circumstantial evidence — nude photos of a woman who resembles Ann Dunham — is bogus.) But the real story is his criminal-Marxist ideological influence on Obama during his teen years — something that’s not at all in dispute about happening.
Whoa, hold on Dave, I remember Fulghum’s book having a tongue-in-cheek title and some basic good advice inside. I did a quick perusal of quotes from the book a few minutes ago and can’t imagine what you don’t like. In fact are any of these not Christian values as far as they go? I beg you to instruct me once again even though my experience has been that you don’t want to answer any difficult questions.
Mike Huckabee, you term this man a conservative? That made me want to puke. That’s why I’m not a conservative… or a liberal.
Dave the paradox here, as always, is that we agree on what’s wrong, it’s your basic dysfunctional approach to righting the problem where we split. And it’s dysfunctional because of your fundamental view of humanity.
So here, lets once and for all clear the decks so that everyone knows the ground, the foundation upon which everyone else is standing; from where their ideas emanate. Dave, and although this isn’t a trick question it’s the big one, what is your definition, I mean basic-basic definition of a human being? I’m going to have to ask that you to keep it to the secular portions because everyone isn’t a believer and we who aren’t have a right to be presented with substantive political arguments; this isn’t Egypt yet. .
Zeke,
I can’t speak for “tea party” people. I do think that most christians would agree that a good moral foundation is essential for the Constitution to be regarded and for federalism to survive. A basic understanding of right vs wrong is essential, if we expect people to follow the Constitution. Otherwise the result would be that people would merely ignore it. Fundamental in our constitution for any believer is the First Amendment, especially the right to worship as you choose. I will agree with you that one should not use politics to press a particular religious belief on others. I think the gospel is a message of freedom and share that message. If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed”. Its interesting that Constitutional republics gained momentum when supported by Judeo-Christian ethics. We reap what we sow.
I do think that most christians would agree that a good moral foundation is essential for the Constitution to be regarded and for federalism to survive.
Everyone agrees with this. Repeat: everyone. What everyone does NOT agree with is the rather peculiar notion of social conservatives that said moral foundation is limited to christians and/or derivatives thereof. The idea that christianity has some sort of lock on morals — and how, other than professing a belief in a deity this is supposed to work is unclear — is absurdity on stilts.
The continuing whine of the far right so-cons that the GOP is the saviour of the republic but only if society doubles down on churchgoing would be amusing in most times, but right after having lost an election, this is insane.
Nazis and Communists and Islamists have morals too.
Demonic ones.
Many religious people are still advocates of interfaith pluralism. But the Southern Baptists and evangelicals of the conservative movement don’t tend to be.
They sit in judgment on everyone with a different faith or no faith.
There are single women who are department managers in companies, or who are CEOs of their own small businesses, etc. Some were married and had children but since got divorced.
But to the GOP’s Christian conservatives, a single woman with children is a slut. Unless she’s taken an oath of celibacy never to have sex out of wedlock ever again.
Where I lived about 15 years ago, my primary care physician at the time was a Muslim woman. She is a competent and caring physician. But to the GOP’s Christian conservatives, she’s demonic.
And me? I’m sort of a Deist. I do believe in a Higher Power that created logic and order in the cosmos. But I don’t believe in most of the stuff in the Bible, especially the Genesis story which I take to be myth rather than history.
But to the GOP’s Christian conservatives, I’m just not their moral equal because I don’t take direction from Scripture.
I’m a fiscal conservative, foreign policy hawk. But I don’t want to be part of any political party which has a powerful wing that looks down on me with suspicion and contempt simply for religious reasons and no other reasons.
Who are the Moral Free Riders?
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article4205.html
In economics and political theory, free riders are people who benefit from actions of others, without doing anything to merit it. I asserted in The Moral Free Rider Problem that liberal-socialists are free riders on the social order of Western civilization, which they did not create and do not support.
Western civilization is founded upon the moral rules of conduct deriving from our Greek philosophical and Judeo-Christian religious traditions. Atheistic and agnostic liberal-socialists are moral free riders who benefit from living in a society ordered by the morality of spiritual religion, while sneering at spiritual religion and moral codes as simple-minded ignorance. At best, they do nothing to contribute to social order. Too many of them do everything in their power to discredit or to destroy the very source of social order. Without Judeo-Christian morality, they would be in the position of scientists and scholars in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia: working under orders for the collectivized National State.
continued…
“Without Judeo-Christian morality, they would be in the position of scientists and scholars in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia: working under orders for the collectivized National State.”
WOW! Many of the most ‘moral’ people I’ve ever known in my 78 years are of Buddhism and Hinduism. In fact, I would raise them well above most Western-Judeo/Christians.
Nothing says “All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” like the Hindu Caste System, or the Islamist system of Dhimmitude.
But alas…
Carl,
“Its interesting that Constitutional republics gained momentum when supported by Judeo-Christian ethics.”
I find this an interesting comment. Since the 50s, I’ve had many an opportunity to travel and visit around the globe in both military and civilian capacities. I’m pretty much an old country boy who has long been facinated by people and social cultures. Without a long disseration let me just say that in my travels I have found some of the most ‘moral’ people (using the definition of Judeo-Christian ethics/values) in countries that have no ties or at least no majority relationship to the Judeo-Christian religion. In fact, I find that cultures whose people are more aligned with the Western nations and thier Judeo-Christian ethics/vales to be measureably less moral. Just my observations.
Other than that, thanks for an nice reply.
Thanks for presenting all of us provincials with your findings, Zeke. We will all now be more enlightened, I’m sure.
Jim Baker — Now there a name that rings a bell! That name sure did enlighten the world of great Western Judeo-Christian values — the world of mega TV evangelical evangelists lives in homosexuality, infidelity, financial greed and worldly excesses.
A troll. Sheesh.
As ol’ Rudyard Kipling said in “The Gods of the Copybook Headings:
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall.
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn,
That water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision, and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selective Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four —
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man —
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began: —
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
(Modern liberal Baby Boomers aren’t especially new, just especially stupid… hold on, it’s gpoing to be a bumpy ride.)
Bill Whittle’s take on what to do next.
I think he is being unduly sanguine. Your mileage may vary.
“The difference goes even deeper. According to Evan — and I very much agree with this — the Modern Liberal refuses to discriminate, meaning they refuse to make a value judgment of one concept as better than another.”
The Modern Liberal DOES discriminate – they discriminate in favour of those who support their ideology ie Islamofascists and others who seek to destroy the US. favour everyone except American and Israelis, both of which countries attract ire and insults.
They lie a lot too, so just because they say things doesn’t mean you have to believe them.
The current adolescent level debate has consequences in mad policy for the real world.
One such is energy policy.
See: “Barking at the Moon” at:
weirhttp://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
Sorry that link didn’t come out well.
Here it is again:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
EscapeVelocity
“Nothing says “All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” like the Hindu Caste System, or the Islamist system of Dhimmitude.”
You obviously haven’t observed the society in which you live. You live in “caste-system” for which is more politically corrected and labeled as the rich, the upper middle and middle class, the lower middle class and the poor-poverty class. Every society from the beginning of time has been divided into social and economic classes.
In ‘generality’ a caste system is a system of division of labour and power in human society. It is a system of social stratification, and a basis for affirmative action.
Spare me the Marxist class analysis.
So Zeke, now that you think you have identified the problem, what are you going to do about it, beyond the endless rantings? May I suggest that you put down your Marxian Historicist guidebook and begin reading Karl Popper on “The Open Society and Its Enemies”, if you can. (Just giving a homework assignment to my little polemicist buddy)
It also depends upon how you define Baby Boomers. The common definition encompasses those born between 1946 and 1964. That has always been a foolish definition.
I was born in 1962. The Beatles mean nothing to me and I cannnot recall the day JFK died. Howdy Doody, Beaver Cleaver and Donna Reed were long gone by the time I was able to turn on the TV for myself.
The original Baby Boomers were my grammar, junior high and high school teachers. People of my age were their first guinea pigs. I loathed them even as a child. I came of age during Reagan, as did many of those in the Tea Party.
I have spent my life sandwiched between the selfishness of the hippie generation and the nihilism of their children. They are destroyers. My age group, those actually born in their precious Sixties grew up with stagflation and now we enter middle age confronted by Quantitative Greasing. We know how to survive.
At the edges of generations you find the hybrids that blend aspects of each in their own unique ways. From 1960-1965 or so we have the blending of the Boomers and the X-ers. Those on the 1960 side of things are akin to X-er leaning boomers, those on the 1965 side are more like Boomer-leaning Xers.
For me being born in 1984, I’m right at the beginning of the Millennials, so I’m very much an X-er leaning Millennial. My siblings 10 years younger than me are more pure Millennial in their temperament.
I was born in 1963. I and my 1960 husband feel nothing in common with”baby boomers” by and large itis the folks 10 years and more older than us that fit. They eere once called the me generation and it remains an apt description. I feel my generation has spent a lifetime cleaning up their messes and having to tolerate their obnoxious offspring. I know very few people my age who don’t feel this way.
It’s too simple to blame the baby boomers for everything.
What about the so called “greatest generation” that caved in to all their puerile posturing. They were in power when the boomers had their tantrum in the 60s. Maybe they were tired out by dealing with Hitler and Tojo!
What swings elections these days from Big Bird to phony issues like the “War on Women” is an almost universal lack of seriousness. Paradoxically the effects of an infantile are really serious.
For one of the funniest and most costly see: “Barking at the Sun” at:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
What swings elections these days from Big Bird to phony issues like the “War on Women” is an almost universal lack of seriousness.
Let’s forget for a moment the very real idiocy expounded by now defeated senatorial candidates and stipulate — for entertainment — that the war on women was “phony” and invented by the media, and there is nothing to fear from the social conservatives. In that case how precisely did the war on women button pushing work? For that button to work at all there has to be an underlying truth.
And the truth is this: there was no phony war on women, that this war is real and it is waged solely by the social conservatives. The so-cons are statists who would use the power of government to enforce their brand of morals. The media did *nothing* other than point this out. That’s how it was done. The fear is real. There’s nothing phony about any of it.
However, if you’re YOU, why, it’s simpler to make the assumption that you’re really really bright and paying attention and those who elected Obama are idiots. Way to go.
Did you help elect Obama, piss ant?
**RANDOM** Sadly entertaining to watch the zealots (extremists, cranks, bigots, fanatics) of both parties fringe war with each other and among themselves.
The problem with both the left and the right is that they have succumbed to the totalitarian temptation. They both want to control my personal life choices. The only way to successfully combat cultural marxism is with a libertarian agenda, as opposed to a neo-puritan agenda. How can one hope to appeal to unmarried women with an overtly misogynistic agenda that seeks to criminalize abortion and/or to humiliate women seeking an abortion? Who elected the Moral Majority to write the GOP 2012 platform? The right must choose between the free-thinking liberalism of the founders, or the narrow sectarianism of the Christian right. Otherwise, the entire female sex will vote Democratic.
Zeke, above you note you understand what I am stating above regarding liberal Protestants but you very much do not. Your take on Western Civilization is not unlike that of Martin Heidegger, a philosopher who was a card carrying member of the Nazi party. Literally. His battering against the philosophical moorings of Western Civilization was right in line with German Idealism which very strongly influenced American Transcendentalism and liberal Protestantism in general. Like most who rant against Western Civilization you take your clues from philosphies that have underpinned totalitarian governments of the 20th century, that have had their alien presence normalized in this country first thru a faux Christian framework starting first with those who very consciously denied Christian orthodoxy but who retained their Puritan culture, a culture that valued “ordered liberty”. The philosophies that blended with that thought process are the ones that tend to bend toward Utopianism in which members of the group adhere to shared economics so no one gets too far ahead economically from his peers, tend to have a dominating head of the community who determines the rules all will live by, they remove children from the family home to “educate ” them, art and literature may be more important than work that will feed the group and last but not least sexual mores are frequently tossed out. Unable and unwilling to rely on God they first throw out Christian orthodoxy, then import philosophies that denigrate Western Civilization and its common beliefs of what is good and right as constructs of religious bindings that disallow true freedom, set up communities that reinforce that belief and then proceed, every single time to generate societies that become totalitarian and immoral, be that simple sexual immorality as in so many utopian communities regardless of rather they existed in the 1860s or the 1960s, or if that immorality becomes mass starvation or mass killing. Unwilling to live by Gods rules they substitute their own, call it social justice and then proceed to destruction. Every single time. From simple utopian communities that fail like Brooks Farm to whole countries like Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Communist Russia.
Personally I think its a much better idea to stick to what works, acknowledge and worship the loving father that gives us the framework for living successfully and to reject those “liberal ” faiths that consistsntly keep their eyes upon man instead of upon God. As the author of this piece notes if you don’ t worship God you tend to worship man. I would add that leads to Utopianism and the flavor of the month social justice.
I know what your reaction will be and the tirades against orthodox Christianity. So be it. The reality is God fearing Christian people and culture founded the most free country in the world. Those who have hated the very things that brought us success gave the world death, destruction and mass starvation. Baby boomers in large numbers have rejected orthodox Christianity, remained adolescent children forever in rebellion and have damn near destroyed in 30 years what had taken 300 years to build.
That pisses me off something fierce. Others like you celebrate it while you gracefully head into slavery.
Its durn painful to listen to those people who are bound and held prisoner in the webs of intellectual philosophers who have been pedestalized by others claiming supreme intelligence and wisdon.
One doesn’t have to write long dissertations of philosophy to explain rather factually, the defining state of humanity from its beginnings to the present, no matter the social, religious and political underpinnings.
Intellectual hypocrisy is central to the failings and infirmities of humanity. Following very closely is the issue of ‘sheep herders syndrome’ perceiving the status of power and control. See, that only took a couple lines to define the failings of humanity regardless of speaking to sociology, religion or politics.
Western Judeo-Christians’ ‘intellectual leaders’ have been intellectualizing and re-defining, or as I refer too, ‘evolutionizing scriptures and religion’ almost from the time of inception. Why? Refer to the paragraph above.
Gods proffer of His word is not convoluted but rather very simple. First, it is proffered to the ‘individual’ and not any society at large or some government. Second, God granted to all of humanity, free agency or as some refer, free will to accept or reject His word. For those ‘individuals’ choosing to accept, he offered ten simple rules by which to live. Third, God proffered a ‘faith’ contract to those who accepts his word and strives to live his ten rules, life eternal in His presence in some possible far off location. Beyond these things there isn’t much more required other than those who enter into the faith contract to proffer His word to other non believers. Lastly, Gods speaks to fellowship. God doesn’t speak to fellowship as being a social mandate nor does He speak to fellowship as being a government or government mandate.
I’m betting my common-sense views on Judeo-Christian religion will garner far more Christians to the promise land than all your intellectual religious philosophies of orthodox vs orthodox vs non orthodox.
“That pisses me off something fierce. Others like you celebrate it while you gracefully head into slavery.”
That comment of anger denotes you have little understanding of humanity OR Gods word that you claim to stand upon.
What has happened to ‘your’ faith in God?
Zeke, I wish you well in your efforts to find your religious comfort zone. Religion is based on faith. You either have it or you don’t. Rambling rants and polemic semantics won’t ever change that. Time will make a lot of difference in your ability to understand the faithful folk.
You’re a real hoot Mr. Baker! Did you not read my comments about the individual “faith contract” in the comment above? I’ve been around just a couple years short of eight decades observing the many churches, the faithful, the teetering and non faithful around the world and especially here at home. How do you think I learned about hypocrisy? Don’t you worry one little bit about ‘my’ faith! Maybe consider spending more time investing in your own faith and based on your commenting on this post, you may need a little one-on-one with God.