And They Said He Was A Very Great Man
Looting and rioting is easy and fun. After all, Rich kids in Britain do it. It’s cool. “Laura Johnson, 20, was found guilty of burglary from an electronics store and handling stolen goods, and admitted driving fellow looters between targets … Johnson is described as “going off the rails” after a privileged upbringing, which saw her achieve nine GCSE A grades and four A*s at A-Level at the sixth form of St Olave’s Grammar, the fourth best state school in the country. She spent her teenage years in a country house in Orpington with her wealthy parents Robert, 56, and Lindsay, 55, who run their own marketing business.”
Celebrities do it. “The son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour defiled the Cenotaph before joining the baying mob surrounding Prince Charles and Camilla.” Gilmour was a student at Cambridge. “The son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour did not realise he was swinging from the Cenotaph because he had grown up in the countryside without access to television, a court has been told.” Don’t people know it’s trendy to be rebellious? Who knows about what the Cenotaph is except the members of those dreadful clubs that the poor old pensioners belong to and stand for Last Post on Armistice Day?
So when a flash mob of youths ransacked a 7-11 in Baltimore and beat up the manager who tried to stop them, at least you can say ‘they did it for grape flavor, or raspberry’ slurpees. They did for a couple of Mars bars on the shelves. The poor at least retain the humanity of some semblance between act and need.
What happened at the store is the latest example of large groups of young people creating havoc in downtown Baltimore.
On St. Patrick’s Day, police broke up several fights and disturbances as crowds of teens gathered in the Inner Harbor.
That same night, another group beat and robbed a tourist. Cameras have spotted large groups of teens roaming streets in November and caught big fights on July 4, all of it upsetting to downtown workers.
But pure idealists would never loot anything for money. That would be philistine. The acceptable motive is to wreck and burn stuff for fun. To terrify people in a self-righteous, unadulturated display of cruel power. Watch the activist youth celebrate May Day in San Francisco. In some ways, they are way, way below the crowd that hit the 7-11.
Bob Marley said, ‘you can’t blame the youth’. Cause they know the Big Secret. Bill Clinton did inhale. And Barack Obama thanked his drug dealer, not his mom when he graduated from high school. No you can’t blame the youth.
So You can’t blame the youth of today
You can’t fool the youth
You can’t blame the youth
You can’t fool the youth
All these great men were doing
Robbing, raping, kidnapping and killing
So-called great men were doing
Robbing, raping, kidnapping …But What was hidden from the wise and prudent
Is now revealed to the babes and the sucklings
What was hidden from the wise and prudent
Now revealed to the babes and sucking
Lord call upon the youth
Cause he know the youth is strong
Jah Jah call upon the youths
Cause he know the youth is strong
What could go wrong? Well Jah Jah know that Beelzebub literally means the “lord of the flies”. “Jewish scholars have interpreted the title of ‘Lord of Flies’ as the Hebrew way of calling Ba’al a pile of dung and comparing Ba’al followers to flies.” The historical role of the youth has been as fodder for old and evil causes. Someone supplies the s**t and the flies follow.
Youth is not always idealistic, but as Bob Marley observed, “youth is strong”. We ought never forget that the average age of SS Regimental Commanders was 32 and their battalion commanders averaged age 30. What fun they had. No you can’t blame the youth.
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There is something loose in the world. It seems to grow in great proportions in times of stress and dire straits. It is more than just chaos, anarchy and malevolent vanadalism. And all that is just the first go-around, just the opening act.
As Wretchard has intimated the SS Regimental commanders were young, and the young are looking for chaos and violent upheaval. It is an unnamed hunger for chaos and change. It is not revolution for social justice, or getting “The Man”. And it is not socialism versus captitalism. Those are just words and labels, like the whole notion of Right and Left.
Who can tell where it ends, but we are now at the beginning, and the forces unleashed are such as they are, because the whole facade and foundation of Western culture, law and religion have been eaten away by the academic termites for many decades. There is no real place to stand, because anywhere you stand you will start to find that this place too, has been eaten away by the termites.
“When I shouted out
Who killed the Kennedys?
It was after all
You and me…” – Sympathy for the Devil
Ray was a “compression.”
He was pushed off of KPT by a Samoan mahu for witnessing a murder.
I remember remarking to a friend 15 years ago over a couple of pints, “right here, right now, these are the good old days”. Sort of a “roaring 20′s” feeling hung in the air back then. As I’ve watched the crisis gathering strength over the last 15 years, one thing that has struck me is the contrast to the American Revolution and the Founders. They always seem to have been so intellectually prepared for what they faced. The Declaration of Independence was a masterpiece of the genre. The Constitution was undergirded by a profound understanding of the behavior of human beings in large groups. They didn’t just walk in to the Constitutional Congress and pull those documents out of their hats–their entire lifetimes of learning prepared them to do that.
And here we sit, with things threatening to crumble around us, the looming possibility that we might have to re-write things from scratch–with seemingly a fraction of the intellectual resources they had.
Well, one must do one’s best I suppose.
Xenophon, writing in “The Education of Cyrus,” describes at length the upbringing of Persian youths. Of boys in their teenage years, he reports: “For ten years they are bound to sleep at night round the public buildings … and this for two reasons, to guard the community and to practise self-restraint; because that season of life, the Persians conceive, stands most in need of care.”
Plainly, the potential for problematic behavior on the part unsocialized young men is neither new, nor unique, to our age. But the Persians had a better way than we do of socializing their young men. He continues:
“During the day they present themselves before the governors for service to the state, and, whenever necessary, they remain in a body round the public buildings. Moreover, when the king goes out to hunt, which he will do several times a month, he takes half the company with him, and each man must carry bow and arrows, a sheathed dagger, or “sagaris,” slung beside the quiver, a light shield, and two javelins, one to hurl and the other to use, if need be, at close quarters. [10] The reason of this public sanction for the chase is not far to seek; the king leads just as he does in war, hunting in person at the head of the field, and making his men follow, because it is felt that the exercise itself is the best possible training for the needs of war. It accustoms a man to early rising; it hardens him to endure heat and cold; it teaches him to march and to run at the top of his speed; he must perforce learn to let fly arrow and javelin the moment the quarry is across his path; and, above all, the edge of his spirit must needs be sharpened by encountering any of the mightier beasts: he must deal his stroke when the creature closes, and stand on guard when it makes its rush: indeed, it would be hard to find a case in war that has not its parallel in the chase. [11] But to proceed: the young men set out with provisions that are ampler, naturally, than the boys’ fare, but otherwise the same. During the chase itself they would not think of breaking their fast, but if a halt is called, to beat up the game, or for any hunter’s reason, then they will make, as it were, a dinner of their breakfast, and, hunting again on the morrow till dinner-time, they will count the two days as one, because they have only eaten one day’s food. This they do in order that, if the like necessity should arise in war, they may be found equal to it. As relish to their bread these young men have whatever they may kill in the chase, or failing that, nasturtium like the boys. And if one should ask how they can enjoy the meal with nasturtium for their only condiment and water for their only drink, let him bethink himself how sweet barley bread and wheaten can taste to the hungry man and water to the thirsty. [12] As for the young men who are left at home, they spend their time in shooting and hurling the javelin, and practising all they learnt as boys, in one long trial of skill. Beside this, public games are open to them and prizes are offered; and the tribe which can claim the greatest number of lads distinguished for skill and courage and faithfulness is given the meed of praise from all the citizens, who honour, not only their present governor, but the teacher who trained them when they were boys. Moreover, these young men are also employed by the magistrates if garrison work needs to be done or if malefactors are to be tracked or robbers run down, or indeed on any errand which calls for strength of limb and fleetness of foot. Such is the life of the youth. But when the ten years are accomplished they are classed as grown men. [13] And from this time forth for five-and-twenty years they live as follows…”
The ancients were in many ways better, and smarter, than we are. Heck, the world of the 1950s, when I grew up, was better than now in so many ways: particularly with regard to manners, public behavior, and social cohesion. Even the inner city–we called it the “ghetto”–was a better place for blacks. There were no flash mobs where I grew up (Chicago); no gang-bangers, drive-by shootings by teenagers, drug wars, etc.
And Ernie Banks was a star player for the Cubs.
And, btw, with respect to comments made in the previous thread, I vehemently disagree with the statement that “the typical American is a buffoon.” I know a lot of typical Americans. In fact just about all of the people I know are typical Americans. The vast majority are not buffoons. They are decent, hard-working people, trying the best they can and the best they know how to live decent, productive lives … to raise their children and care for their loved ones … to make their way righteously through this vale of tears.
Call it by any name you choose. Over recorded history, there have been many. They all boil down to the same root, Evil, pure, unadulterated Evil.
When man rejects God, man has a soulful yearning to replace Him. Man tries any number of things. Ultimately, they all coalesce into man,himself.
I have to wonder if we made the first mistake considering 18 year olds as adults. Obviously it is difficult to generalize but making the military a career, I have interacted very closely with many, many young Americans (and others earning their citizenship). The young are strong, physically but not mentally. That is not to say they are not intelligent, quite the contrary, but they have very little experience on which to temper that intellect. I get to break down the ridiculous liberal fabrications daily. Yes, daily.Most cultures hold the elderly in a special category for good reason. It was this way when I was young but today, I just don’t see it in everyday life. You can’t drink alcohol under 21 years of age but you can vote for the most powerful office in the world? There is a lesson there.
The only reason the youth of today act as they do is we let them get away with it. But for how much longer when it includes violence? Most of us do not go looking for trouble. However, the day it comes looking for us we will have to deal with it. And it will not be pretty.
Youth and enthusiasm is no match for experience and determination. I barely know how to use Facebook but I can hit a man-sized target from 800 yards, reliably.
Make the voting age 25, time to graduate from college and/or get a real job, and we will see better voters overall.
In a related thought, will the same people who complain that Phillip Phillips, the weakest vocalist on American Idol, won the contest make the same connection with voting for Obama, the weakest president in the history of the US? Elections have consequences people.
In some parts of the world riots are considered a target rich environment. This attitude should carry over the the Western World.
We ought never forget that the average age of SS Regimental Commanders was 32 and their battalion commanders averaged age 30.
That was hardly young circa 1940, I would think you’d have to add at least ten years to that to get a modern equivalent. I’ll bet few enough were in school after age 18, and had a life expectancy of around 65, and in any active military engagements, well, a whole lot less.
We have so much time today, and we waste so much time, we’re all fat and lazy compared to most of human history, and we’re just exercised (!) about whether we’re too fat and lazy and should reduce it, y’know, five percent.
Maybe we should stage “hunger games” kinds of competitions but on a grand scale, 100,000 on each side with nothing more than ancient weapons. I mean, what do we *do* with ourselves? Maybe reopen Solyndra and operate it at a loss, as a make-work project. Seriously.
Gonna take some thinking outside the box.
In Cordwainer Smith’s scifi novel “Norstrilia” they had eugenic panels for everyone at the age of 18, they kept their population down and their culture spartan in spite of immense riches, which they thought otherwise would ruin them. OTOH the winners would live a thousand years of perpetual good health.
–
Agree with Roughcoat, the average American is no buffoon. Nor a genius perhaps, but perhaps that’s just as well. The average does pretty well with what they’ve got, and that’s been true for all of American history. The challenge of the political system is to serve the citizens, whatever that might mean, rather than have the citizens serve it.
For the unsocialized yutes, well, I’m not sure there’s anything complex here, just enforce the laws. And yeah, one can launch into a long recitation at this point about getting them socialized, and the schools and the culture, so consider that read into the record.
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se @ 7: Make the voting age 25, time to graduate from college and/or get a real job, and we will see better voters overall.
Lowering the vote to 18 was a direct consequence of drafting and sending 18yo’s to war in Vietnam, with a relatively smaller number of older soldiers. In the absence of a draft, well, perhaps we should at least raise it back to 21? If you’d want to raise it higher, then perhaps put a max on it as well, around 65 or 72 or something. I doubt either would change much, so perhaps we should just leave well enough alone. Probably old and young are more subject to having their votes bought, especially absentee ballots filled out by party apparatchiks.
It’s a city thang. Try that here in the sticks and they would be shot dead. Cenotaph is an empty tomb. I didn’t know that and had to look it up. After the latest poll results, can we call the White House a Cenotaph? I can argue that it’s as empty as Romney’s suit and the One’s politically dead as a doornail.
Roughcoat @ 4: “The ancients were in many ways better, and smarter, than we are.”
To be understood in the Politically Correct world, maybe we should say — the ancients were more sustainable than we are.
It is tough to keep in mind how long human experience has been (let alone the yawning chasms of geological time). There once was an Afghanistani restaurant in Denver, the Khyber Pass. On the back of the menu was a potted history of Afghanistan. The phrase that struck me went approximately, ‘The next two centuries were chaotic & confusing’. 200 years! 10 generations!
Humanity has had many, many generations in which to find out what worked and what did not. A kind of Darwinian Survival of the Fittest ensured that polities and traditions which were not sustainable were weeded out. Family, tribe, religion — they all have very real problems, and all have proven themselves in the real world to be better than the alternatives. Those institutions in their many guises were the sustainable survivors.
For the last 2 generations, the western world has been engaging in a giant experiment. Out with the old! Penalize the family; subsidize anti-social behavior; encourage illegitimate births and single motherhood; promote abortion; penalize productive activity. While this experiment may have brought certain benefits to some, quite predictably it is going to fail. The society we are in the process of creating will not be sustainable over multiple generations.
Not to worry. More sustainable elements within the human race will survive and eventually prosper. But the next two centuries may be ‘chaotic & confusing’.
Here’s another delinquent youth of years past past, our Prez. From Ace of Spades:
“Now a soon-to-be published biography by David Maraniss entitled “Barack Obama: The Story” gives more detail on Obama’s pot-smoking days, complete with testimonials from young Barry Obama’s high school buddies, a group that went by the name “the Choom Gang.” Choom was slang for smoking marijuana.
Maraniss portrays the teenage Obama as not just a pot smoker, but a pot-smoking innovator.
“As a member of the Choom Gang,” Maraniss writes, “Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends.”
The first Obama-inspired trend: “Total Absorption” or “TA”.
“TA was the opposite of Bill Clinton’s claim that as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled,” explains Maraniss. Here’s how it worked: If you exhaled prematurely when you were with the Choom Gang, “you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around.”
It’s also fun to roll cars while baked.
Of course, smoking, drinking and driving on mountain roads could also be a little dangerous. Especially the night they tried drag racing.
The race to the top of Mount Tantalus pitted the “Choomwagon” against another friend’s Toyota. Obama was in the Toyota. The Choomwagon made it to the top first. When the other car didn’t show up, those in the Choomwagon drove back down to find them. Here’s how Maraniss describes what happened next:
“On the way down, they saw a figure who appeared to be staggering up the road. It was Barry Obama. What was going on? As they drew closer, they noticed that he was laughing so hard he could barely stand up.”
His friend had rolled the car. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. ”
I wonder when MADD ( Mothers against Drunk Driving) will opine on his behavior. Just wondering.
It’s also fun to roll cars while baked.
I think many of us would yield to no one in delinquency, not even to the oppressed and underprivileged Chooms. But having said that, most of us would probably have the decency not to accuse Romney of ‘bullying’ someone in high school.
GWB should have crashed his F-106 on the runaway and walked into his CO’s office laughing. “You’ll never guess what I did to the …” If you liked the Chooms you’ll love that.
As regards “bullying” have people always taken things this hard? Today you criticize someone’s choice of headgear on Facebook and they hang themselves. Bullying. You notice someone is gay, or straight, or a Mormon or something and mention it on Twitter and they go hang themselves. Bullying.
Were people once made of sterner stuff, or is that false memory? Maybe people were always hanging themselves around us at the drop of a hat, only we didn’t notice.
Or have all the lonely people crawled out from out of the shadows and hung out their fragile hearts on social networking sites where they seek affirmation in a cruel world. That’s it. Back in the day we all knew better than to do that. If we wanted affirmation we could get it from the cat or the dog.
So what is appropriate today? The truth is I don’t know myself. About all one can say is that we now seemingly inhabit parallel narratives where some things are good in one and the exact same thing is wrong in the other. Maybe the Dream is coming apart. A little more now and we’ll feel the kick and wake up in the First Class section of a 747 realizing that we don’t know where its going. Who was it who said that you can never be lost if you don’t care where you’re bound for?
Adam Smith in his “Wealth of Nations” said that the poor can not afford the morality of the rich. Even the middle class could fall from grace if they got to flagrant in their behavior. The wealth could rape donkeys in public but were only accused of being “eccentric.” See George Bernard’s Henry Higgins character remarks about “middle class morality.
Youth – “Tomorrow belongs to me”
Mortality – “No”
Reality wins every time. Falsity immaturity and theft can shrink the pie. They can allow some to consume now at the expense of more for all later. They cannot make the pie larger. That takes work. That takes adults.
A guy I know is with the Civil Air Patrol and he says the kids in that organzation make him realize that the future will be Okay. He was laughing abiout how one girl even said she wanted to wear combat boots with her wedding dress, when that day came.
Add to that the performance of our military – our professional military, including the Reserve and Guard units – in our recent wars.
Very simply, if our military, active duty, former military, and retired, and those kinds of kids who are in the CAP and similar organizations ever get to the “rolling hot” stage…. Then OWS and flash mobs and all those other true and verifiable baffoons are toast, road kill, tomato paste. It’s gonna be Godzilla Versus the Gay Zombies.
A Smith and Wesson beats a royal flush.
Gathered at the cenotaph
all agreed with hand on heart
to sheath the sacrificial knives
- Pink Floyd/Southampton Dock
Roger Waters’ father was killed at Anzio and that loss found his way into many Floyd songs. Maybe Gilmour should tell his son.
W -
I believe Geoge Bush flew the F-105 (known affectionately as the “Thud”).
Aristide @18
F102 (I looked it up)
The state has a lucrative monopoly on fixing things; in fact it’s illegal to fix things yourself, and this isn’t even considering lethal enforcement. Banning all solutions in the name of rights, process, and risk avoidance has made criminals out of all the best problem solvers. Absent illegal remedies, what looks like a 7-Eleven to most people is an unguarded jewelry kiosk to the diseased mind. Not that those deserve robbing too, but you just can’t have something like that even among average people. When things finally get to a point where we can’t have anything, then there is a huge problem to deal with. Until then, 7-Elevens remain an existential threat to security.
As well, it doesn’t help matters that people are raised on propaganda in place of life’s lessons… and no, we shouldn’t inject more dogma and opiates into the mix. While it is easy to blame the state, the fact is this world is afflicted by marauding three-letter cults — in addition to their advisory councils and think tanks — who make damn certain that governments at home and abroad are corrupted and likely to fail, since in their view this the only way to guarantee liberty and respect for human rights. (And oh yes- trillions in oil revenue and in pretending to fix stuff.) There is no other way, they will tell you, for every place is dangerous, their men beat their wives, you will lose your head, die in prison, yak, yadda, blah.
Gilmour, in my opinion, is a most thoughtful artist. Pray that his boy looks back and vomits someday.
F-102 AKA the ‘widowmaker’. Lots of aircraft were nicknamed widowmaker but the F-102 did have the highest accident rate of any US fighter put in production during peacetime (The Cold war wasn’t considered a real war back then). It was aerodynamically unstable and if/when the engine failed, it would flip nose over tail until it hit the ground. Several wing redesigns finally cured the problem.
Sudden thought, Looting should be an Olympic event. I mean, if Ice Skating is…….
@9 Josh….vehemently disagree with your thoughts on the average age of SS Troop commanders (but not much else)…they were the perfect age to not have served in the First War and to have their formative years (politically speaking) overwhelmed by the advent of National Socialism. Who, but these youths, could have commanded the Nazi Praetorians.
This is a very dark essay Wretchard (excellent as always). All I can think to say is that The Barbarians are not at the Gates…they already live among us. But we all knew that….
The ’60s were a sharp break from the politics and morality of the past. It’s hopless to force people (like Gilmore) to obey a moral code unknown to them. Let the forgotten world of those dead white males die in peace.
of course …not so rich kid dont do this
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/obama-and-his-pot-smoking-choom-gang/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9289262/Laura-Johnson-millionaires-daughter-who-drove-looters-in-London-riots-jailed-for-two-years.html
regards
SF
(re:drudge)
You don’t graduate from Hahvahd with an MBA and fly century-series interceptors and live to tell about it, if you’re an idiot. Bush the Younger was dead wrong about ‘compassionate conservatism’ but on the big issue (terrorism) he had it right.
I wish to god I could have extended my enlistment beyond the days of BillyJeff (Poontang) Clinton so that his signature didn’t disgrace my retirement certificate in favor of someone who at least was be-clued. But it was not to be and therefore it sees not the light of day to this day. I am ashamed to have that rat-bastage’s name on my certificate.
I also managed to remain at attention in front of the soon to be retired M551A1 whilst Peanut Six (Jimmuh C) slouched his way down the III Corps line (talk about an exhibition of moral courage…). Some days I imagine I know exactly what the Praetorian Guard felt standing before Caligula.
dP @ 23: vehemently disagree with your thoughts on the average age of SS Troop commanders
You raise an interesting point about the timing. Still, Alexander the Great was 32 when he died. OK, that’s not much of an argument, but googling around turns up this, that says US lieutenant colonels were even younger in WWII:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2428002/posts
During WWII, in a USAAF fighter group, the average age of a first lieutenant would be around 21, a captain a year older, a major another year older, a lieutenant colonel around 24-26 and a colonel in his late 20s to early 30s.
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Probably not quite so young in the ground forces, but even so. When there’s major military action the politics count for less than competence and availability, and then there’s the attrition.
I’m just talking out of a vague sense of the demographics, not any special knowledge of military history, but I think the numbers hold.
It’s said that junior officers in Britain’s nineteenth century army used the toast, “Here’s to a bloody war or a sickly season.”, celebrating the two most likely ways to get promoted.
Among other things, you don’t have to be what is usually thought of as an “officer”, which is to say prepared to command a unit, to be commissioned to fly, say, P51s or Hueys in VN (many pilots were late teen CW1 or CW2. You’d have a commish, but you’d be a hotshot stick and rudder man.
Then, with a bloody war, you find these guys actually moving into command slots earlier than the TO anticipates.
Due to incidents like the beating of the Irish tourist in downtown Baltimore by an ‘urban’ flash mob last St. Patrick’s Day, various other attacks and shootings, and now this ‘urban’ flash attack in the Seven-11, the City of Baltimore is going to install 100 more high-resolution security cameras in the Inner Harbor, and assign 50 more cops to patrol there. What will happen to Baltimore if tourists just quit going downtown to visit the inner harbor? Baltimore then will become the next Detroit.
This Memorial Day Weekend there are going to be a number of ‘urban’ gatherings in cities around the country, Just guess what is going to happen to the random tourist who wanders into some such gathering unaware of what he/she has walked into…
I going to spend Memorial Day in the country.
Well the Euro elites must be starting to get really scared. The BBC is writing about the Fall of Rome, analogizing it with today’s conditions. OF course, they lay the blame on Roman-era “right wing politicians.” (I am not making this up!)
Insane taxes and huge bureaucracies were not a problem. The rich, who “contributed much less money than they had in the past to defence and government,” weren’t paying their fair share! The problems that giant latifunda farmed by slaves bring to a society aren’t mentioned at all. Well we wouldn’t want the proles to make any analogies of their own, would we?
Late in the article, the Beeb does get around to conceding that those pesky Angles and Saxons may have contributed just a wee bit to the problem.
The article ends by asking, “And is its fall also a distant mirror of our present crises?” I hope not.
30. el baboso
The BBC just started demanding cookies. They are going broke and the gobbermint pounds won’t be a-flowing. So they want to data mine their customers and sell that data to advertisers. I won’t be going there anymore.
10. stoicheion
Remington 700 with a heavy barrel – $1100
Leupold 3.5 x 10 scope – $1,200
ATN PS22-HPT Night Vision Sight – $3,200
Surfire FA762K Sound Suppressor – $1,985
Box of Federal Premium 7.62x51mm 175 gr HPBT – $24.95
Annual Membership at a local gun club – $100
80 hours on the 300 yard range – $950
Lessons at Thunder Ranch – $2,000
One round 800 yards down range on May Day in San Francisco (with rubber bullets – of course) – Priceless!!!!
“Better put some ice on that maggot.”
@2…
You’re so cryptic…
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KPT = Kuhio Park Terrace = the ‘hood just off the H-1 Freeway in Honolulu — a tropical Cabrini Green — crime central in a high rise viewable for miles…
As for mahu:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahu_(person)
=====
Which begs the question: what are you posting about?
Wrethchard points out something that few of our good audience have noticed.
The youth were involved in society. Used as guardians and police!
Needed, praised for their natural skills, such as being ‘fleet of foot.’
Talking to Dads today about picking cotton, I noticed something.
Our children no longer harvest our food.
Moms frequently talked about people being married (having sex), getting jobs, etc. when they were 14, sometimes younger.
A sixteen year old in 1966 could drive his motorcycle around the US, race in competitions, carry a pistol in his backpack, get a job for a day to pay for his room, meal, or gas that night. My friend did so.
A Sikh friend told me he believes people should get married at 16.
They grow together. By the time they’re both 26, they are too independent for it to last. I agree.
We’ve banned the young from learning through participation, when they’re most interested.
We also live in an urban world, far divorced from our parent’s largely rural world. Who stays with Grampa or Uncle Joe down on the farm for the summer anymore? Todays kid are smothered. We’re afraid to even let them go outside, much less spend the day picking corn or taking off- or getting married near puberty and getting a labor job.
This country was built by people with an 8th grade education.
Children don’t pick the cotton anymore.
Want to solve the problem of dying populations?
Let them marry and work at puberty.
It’s worked for some million or so years.
When did puberty become a crime?
Child labor laws in the 20th cent. came because unions didn’t want cheaper competition- same reasons they didn’t want nonwhites taking their jobs by working cheaper.
The young aren’t different, they just lack experience.
The age laws, for just about everything, where did they come from?
Look at the YouTube videos posted here. Look at the kids doing the beating, the stealing, the rioting — occasional aberrations like May Day in SF notwithstanding. They belong to the same demographic group that commits slightly over half the murders in the US. And if I tell you which one, I will be tarred and feathered. So will any newspaper, politician, or pundit who does the same.
We do not have a race problem. We do not have a poverty problem. And we do not have a youth problem, you reactionary old cusses. We have a black ghetto trash problem. There. I said it.
I feel so free. Wheeee.
/twirls finger in the air
33. blert
I did not mean to be cryptic.
Wretched posted above about Obama thanking his drug dealer:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/a-users-guide-to-smoking-pot-with-barack-obama
The article referred to “Ray the dealer” who worked at Mamas and was murdered by his gay lover with a hammer.
Ray is an amalgamation of drug dealers who worked for Mamas in the 60′s and 70′s. They were my classmates and cousins. Delivering pizza gave them great mobility.
Honolulu was a very small town back then.
Guy was the one who was pushed off of the roof of KPT (a Samoan high rise housing project) by a large mahu. As I said – Guy had become a liability.
The amount of drug use, criminal activity, and death in the upper and upper middle class families back then was incredible.
No one was prepared for it. Parents thought we were just surfing and smoking pot.
A great and sad book could be written about that time.
Do any of you remember the Kui O Hawai’i surf club?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olvFNdpudXM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyRAVbeLFnI
A great and sad book could be written about that time.
Baz Lurhrman is remaking the Great Gatsby. There’s an enduring fascination with great and sad times which gets you to thinking that maybe they are twinned. Not everyone has a chance of greatness, but tragedy consists in that everyone has a glimpse of it.
We all know about Jack and Diane, but just maybe the Chooms lived in a different world. Penn Jillette’s big insight, which all of us have probably surmised but had but never fixed upon, was that Barack Obama’s class warfare shtick was real but going in the other direction!
The blackness is a disguise. He is, as his girlfriend once said, a man without a black bone in his body. I wouldn’t hold it against him, just noting the possibility. But however you define him the question you have to ask yourself is: ‘do you want to play in his game?’
Because that’s how that universe seems to architecture itself out. There are the subjects and predicates and objects. And what really have to make up your mind about is whether you want to be the object of the predicate. Some people think that growing up is about reconciling yourself to becoming just a beach ball that can be kicked around the sand.
But consider, what does a worn out beachball have to lose? The longer you live the more one realizes that about the only thing you can take with you is your sense of self. Your visual acuity, physical strength, glossy hair and teeth you may eventually leave behind, but your sense of self is what you must keep to the last. Eve if it means guarding yourself against the great and the sad.
The one realization that Jack and Diane have to carry with them to the end of their days is that they too had the germ of greatness, equal to if not better than the Chooms. That doesn’t mean telling the Chooms where to go. But it does mean something.
We are all of us bearers of great and glorious memories. In later years we forget this, but never, if we intend to remain free, should we entirely let it pass from our recollection.
Flash mobs of culturally feral children, including adolescent 30 year olds, is the standard of a culture that holds immediate personal gratification as its greatest value. How could it be otherwise?
Who are the enemies of the state? Corporations that demand that prospective employees have actual competency, institutions (the Church) that continue to insist that not all deviant behavior is acceptable or even natural, teachers that think that test scores are more important than inflated egos, stores that want payment for their goods, the father that says no.
If I had to bet on an outcome we will see the feral children flash mob phenomenon become more common and more violent over the next several years. What in the culture will discourage it from becoming so?
22. stoicheion
Sudden thought, Looting should be an Olympic event. I mean, if Ice Skating is…….
For the Olympics, I believe that would be called Synchronized Looting…
“back then the US was built by folks with an 8th grade education.”
On Lou Dobbs the other night, Lou read some questions from an 8th grade exam from 1949:
1) name the seven rules for capitalization.
Flash-mobs are a peculiar product of the anonyminity provided by the internet and wireless technology. They pander to the basest behaviors and the odd obsession that youth have with “(a)social media”. You get to be “part of something” sticking it to The Man, rebelling against society (never mind that the guy running the store is working 60-70 hours a week and barely getting by, and thus, hardly a 1%er).
We don’t have many flash-mobs here in Detroit, not much left to steal and too many guns.
39. tharkun
22. stoicheion
Perhaps they would have to organize a shopping list on Twitter as they ran 100 yards toward the store, the team that returns to the finish line with the most complete list of goods wouls be declared the winner.
Ah yes the child labor laws that kept people under 18 out of factories because they were too dangerous for children. So what was so safe about working with boiling grease in a fast food restaurant. Becoming a street hustler because you couldn’t compete with the adult migrant labor for that fast food job. Living at the YMCA and dodging the more aggresive Homo’s. I find it interesting that Japan only requires an education through middle school and getting into high school can be rough if you’re family is short of money. There are public high schools but….
Trade apprenticeships not too long ago used to be available for teens.
toadold @ 42: “Ah yes the child labor laws that kept people under 18 out of factories because they were too dangerous for children.”
And what about the environmental laws that kept adults out of factories because that production was (allegedly) bad for the environment? (However, due to some hard to understand physical process, the same production in a Chinese or German factory apparently does not hurt Gaia).
As a society, we have been running this huge experiment that simply does not work. Yet read the politicians and the pundits talking about the collapse of the Euro and notice the one subject that never comes up: maybe they need to trim the deadweight of bureaucracy, roll back excessive regulations, and simplify Byzantine tax laws. (Geoffgo @ 40 — Was that correct application of the rules for capitalization?)
No one on Lou’s show knew. I’m nearing 70, so I would have leart’em over 56 years ago. One thing about Alzheimer’s is your not stuck in the past.
My grandfather had not time for that foolishness, his father was killed in accident when my grandpa was in sixth grade. Being the oldest son, he dropped out of school and took over earning the $ to support the family. That lack of education did not stop him from doing very well (also very helpful in all of that was Grandma who in terms of education was the opposite with a Master’s degree).
The old saw of the devil makes use of idle hands is so true and that is what makes our youth problematic, they have no responsibilities but abilities and sometimes those abilities are used for ill.
I know the Amish have a few exceptions to the child labor laws and the O administration is working hard to overturn those exceptions.
Flash mob @ 7-11 huh? Those Baltimore punks need to step up their game.
Not sure 10 hoodies makes a mob, but at least they passed on the Skittles & slurpees and went right to the designer rags.
Nordstrom’s Bro!
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/04/portland_police_release_video_1.html
As a general sign of the times and as evidence looting can be intellectual as well as physical there is this;
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/26/vatican-confirms-pope-butler-arrested-in-leaks-scandal/?intcmp=trending
The Vatican is probably dreaming of a return to the halycon days of sodomising choir boys.
Civilization is collapsing all around us.
One wonders if the Won is a trigger for calamity or just riding the wave with the rest of us.
It’s not a mistake to consider 18 year olds adults, so long as you’re willing to consider 12 year old’s Adults-in-Training. Perhaps even able to hold down a job? We give our teenagers almost zero preparation for adult responsibility. A majority of our minors spend the years leading up to magically becoming an adult almost totally devoid of responsibility. Even beyond that age, we still don’t as a society consider them fully independant. The Obamanauts consider extended parents medical insurance coverage of their offspring to the age of 25 their guy’s crowning achievement.
Alzaebo has it right. We ban them from participation in anything that might prepare them to be responsible. We’re letting them vote before most of them have ever had to be really accountable for anything serious.
There are people who want to raise the driving age from 16 to 21, and they cite the much higher accident statistics for drivers from 16 to 20. However, the real correlation isn’t with age, but with experience. The accident statistics for 16-20 year olds are not significantly different than the accident rate for drivers of any age in the first 4 years of driving. We can set the voting age as high as we want, but if we don’t require real responsibility and accountability from the voters before they reach that age, we won’t get better results.
Personally, I think we need to make a change to voting laws, but not based on age. Rather based on demonstrated responsibility. I think dependency should be a disqualification from voting, regardless of age. If you’re being supported by your parents or by the government, you don’t get to vote.
Aubrey:
I believe that was the traditional wardroom toast on Thursdays in the Royal Navy of Nelson’s time. sunday’s was to “Absent Friends”.
47. stoicheion
Please keep in mind Wretchard’s observation that “there is such a thing a manners.”
Bad manners are also a manifestation of civilizational collapse.
#47
Like it or not the Vatican (the Church) is the most substantial, and maybe the only, bulwark remaining in the West between us and barbarism. A little honest perspective wouldn’t hurt.
50. Peter Boston
“Like it or not the Vatican (the Church) is the most substantial, and maybe the only, bulwark remaining in the West. . . .”
Along with the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran church. Dang, them are some tough guys! I say that as a Catholic, and as a brother in Christ. Missouri Synod-ers, you rock!
The First Toast would be to the Sovereign. The Second to the honourary Colonel, usually some royal. The last toast I believe is for “Absent friends.”
No one, other than enlisted members of the armed forces, who gets the majority of their income from a public treasury should be allowed to vote at that level of government. At one time dependents could not vote. Not sure if the XIVth would be read as prohibiting that.
@50. “The Church” is not the only or maybe only bulwark against barbarism. It is a construct of man. The only bulwark against barbarism is your parents (A construct of GOD). See the third world and its percentage of practicing Catholics versus the self evident possibility of being killed or robbed in said third world. As for that matter look to the Mafia for evidence that “The Church” isn’t a bulwark against anything because the priests on up are only men and are subject to corruption.
How is that for honest perspective?
Raise a child in the ways and morality of the LORD and in his majority he will act accordingly.
Respectfully,
J.F.S.
stoi @ 47 – Civilization is collapsing all around us.
One wonders if the Won is a trigger for calamity or just riding the wave with the rest of us.
He did not create the troubled times, but certainly was the beneficiary of an unresolved crisis of public tranquility. The sliding cursor of the lens of the disconsolate public, unable to reconcile the antipodal perspectives, delivered the electorate into the domain of dissembling democrats.
“See the third world and its percentage of practicing Catholics versus the self evident possibility of being killed or robbed in said third world.”
I don’t think that the possibility of being killed or robbed in the Third World is so self-evident as you do. Wretchard has described his youth in the Philippines, and I remember him writing about how total strangers would instantly give assistance to a stranger in trouble. A lot of the places in the Third World are dangerous because there’s a war going on, or they’ve been invaded by drug growers and dealers. Or else Christian lands are being attacked by marauding Muslims.
And even if the Catholic Church were a construct of man (which it isn’t), so is barbarism. I don’t think Peter Boston meant “a bulwark” to mean “an impenetrable force field”. The job of fighting barbarism is up to humanity, and the Catholic Church is one of the tools God has provided for us to do so, even if it is populated by humans and not angels.
Ah, the Church! In some places a bulwark, in many a placeholder, in few places a leader. Here in Los Angeles a corrupt and venal hierarchy attempts to control everything stifles anything not congruent with its CYA PC mandates. The Holy Spirit nevertheless is a work in secret and mysterious ways and will not, in the end, fail.
Apropos of the Church’s failures to live up to its commission, awareness of its defects goes at least as far back as the patristic period (St. Paul’s admonitions to the Corinthians, Galatians, et al. indicate the problems go back to the apostolic period itself). St. Jerome once remarked that the Church could be fitly compared to Noah’s ark in that the only way you could stand the stench of the beasts inside is the knowledge that the storm outside is even worse. And St. John Chrysostom said in one of his letters to a friend that hell is paved with the skulls of priests, and the bottommost pit of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops. No triumphalism there.
#53
I would suggest only to not make the perfect the enemy of the good. I think it irrefutable that no institution in human history has done more to promote and protect the procreative family than the Church.
I think it unfortunate that 20 centuries of Church history is often reduced to a handful of villainous episodes because it is so much richer and transformative of the human condition. At least folks like Hume and Nietzsche hated the Church for what it really is – an implacable obstacle to the exercise of unrestrained human will.
We are seeing, in the West, the full expression of the widespread final effect of Marxist theory where all authority and traditional structure are broken down and the state has control. Destroy the family structure, Lyndons not so Great Society, aid to dependent children etc., destruction of schools, classical educcation and you have as a result a modern version of the French Revolution.
At some point if this goes badly we are going to have a free fire zone between Red state folks, properly named the Marxist east and west coasts and mid-continent cities, and the American heartland hard core. It won’t be pretty and it will be choatic but somehow we have to rid our selves of the parasites and reorder society along classical lines where actions have consequences.
Red Americans against White Americans to paraphrase the Russian revolution. Any bets as to who wins? At this point I’m not sure.
49. Roughcoat
I suspect ‘manners’ means something different to you then me;
http://www.answers.com/topic/manners-and-etiquette
“Manners and Etiquette go hand in hand, but are not the same. Etiquette is a set of rules dealing with exterior form. Manners are an expression of inner character. According to Emily Post, perhaps the most influential American writer on etiquette in the twentieth century, “manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them; manner is personality—the outward manifestation of one’s innate character and attitude toward life.” Manners are common sense, a combination of generosity of spirit and specific know-how. Rules of etiquette are the guiding codes that enable us to practice manners.”
I’m not sure exactly what you perceived as a lack of manners. The crack about choir boys? That wasn’t ill mannered but FACT. The topic, unless I’m mistaken, is the overall breakdown of social norms. Etiquette in one sense. The ‘Church’ has been given as an example of a “bulwark against barbarism”. My minor contribution to the conversation was to point out that as a bulwark the ‘Church’ is tissue paper and at least as barbaric as an other part of society. If one is looking for a bulwark to cower behind, one needs to look elsewhere.
Religion is good. The church as a manifestation of religion is evil incarnate. Religion is acknowledgement of god’s beauty and worth. The church is the devil corrupting that beauty.
I think I’m overposted, so I’ll have to leave this there. I’ve never considered a debate to be ill mannered. I apologise for being such a poor writer as to allow you to misunderstand me. Ill mannered no, inept yes.
60. stoicheion
Suggest you dial it back a notch. I get that you’re angry. You’re entitled to your opinion. But you’re going full retard with it; and, in the words of the immortal Kirk Lazarus, “you never go full retard.”
“Ask Sean Penn, 2001, “I Am Sam.” Remember? Went full retard, went home empty handed…”
@61. You get that he is angry but you don’t get that he is angry because you called his character into question. You call my character into question and I will get angry too. So might it be you that should dial it back? As to the going full retard comment, well that says volumes about your character.
@58. While perfect is the enemy of good enough. In life a church that proposes to tell you that their Pope is a conduit from GOD to man and no other avenues to GOD can exist, well that don’t work for me. I have no quarrel with the Catholic church although they saw fit to try and extinguish my blood line. Not once but twice. I am and will stand with the church against those who would see the end of Christianity and those who would kill an unborn child. But to crow that the world has only the church to stop the barbarians, well that just aint so as President Reagan once said.
Respectfully,
J.F.S.
Docbill @ 59: “Red Americans against White Americans to paraphrase the Russian revolution.”
Ah! The corruption of our language; the ultimate triumph of the Lefties.
The point about the coming Civil War II is a good one — it is already in a Cold War phase, and it is debatable whether it can be resolved without going hot. But leave that aside for now, and address the simple question: Who are the Red Americans in that struggle?
Historically, as the Russian Civil War made clear, the Reds are the Big Intrusive Government types. And that is the way our language has been used for a century or more.
Quite recently, modern Leftie media decided that the bitter clingers with their God and their guns lived in the “Red States” — obviously trying to obfuscate the historical message. And you know what? It worked! Today, even writers like Mead have surrendered without a fight and use the term “Red State Model” back to front.
There is a Biblical story about the Tower of Babel which might be relevant here.
62. JFSanders
Oh, I get it. You and your running mate can traduce the Catholic Church and then bristle with indignation when someone responds to your comments in a way that displeases you.
Sorry, sport. Not playing that game.
JF et. al.
A couple of corrections: the Pope is considered infallible only in matters of church doctrine, the Church being considered the Bride of Christ. And the Church would never assert that no other avenues to God exist. Just don’t know where that came from.
The percentage of Catholic clergy who are guilty of molestation (4%) is lower than the percentage of teachers (5%).
And about Barry and his relationship to the uptick in conflict and barbarism. The most recent story about his reaction to being in a car that flipped tells us something very important, that he gets a kick out of it when things get wrecked.
@64. Sorry sport, you are reading into my statements as a humiliation of the church by use of misrepresentations. I have done no such thing. I only see your righteous indignation and the following response to stoicheon as a willful traducement of his character. Something that should only be done with due process and serious thought. Neither of which I believe you have done.
@65. Never said anything about percentages and even one percent is too much either in teachers or priests or anyone in a position of authority over children. Two wrongs do not make a right.
NO man is infallible. Not in the matters of the church nor in any other undertaking of man. To say that the Catholic church was created by GOD does not wash with me.
“Matthew 16:18-19, “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Matthew 18:1, “At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
In Matthew 16:18 Jesus is declaring Peter as “the rock” upon which Jesus builds His church. TWO CHAPTERS LATER the Apostles are asking “who is the greatest…” The Vatican declares Jesus placed Peter as “the greatest” in Matthew 16, yet much later on in Matthew 18 we find this is a lie because the Apostles, of which Peter is one, are asking who is the greatest.
If Jesus really did install Peter as Pope that day as the Vatican claims, there should be no question as to “who is the greatest.” By the way, the Lord Jesus Himself said…
Matthew 20:25-26, “But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;”
In other words.. you should not have a Pope.
Now all that being said, I still stand with the church against those who would see the killing of the unborn as normal and those who would seek the destruction of the church. I am not against the church. I would only ask that those who show too much pride in anything, dial it back a notch or two.
Is that better sport? I am out of turns so this will be my last response.
Respectfully,
J.F.S.
#60
The church is the devil corrupting that beauty.
That kind of comment is an expression of ignorance. I might have expected more but willful ignorance seems fashionable these days.
Perhaps the opportunity will come another day but I will gladly defend the position that no institution in human history has done more to benefit and advance civil society than the Catholic/Oriental/Orthodox church.
Kin @ 63 If we are in a Civil War II, it is largely a leaderless one. Our elected Republican Leaders simply refuse to fight for us. Or maybe, it’s because they are actually on the other side. On the matter of Eric Holer’s lawless conduct in the Fast and Furous Probe, Roll Call has this little gem:
“Behind the scenes, Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have expressed reservations about the political impact of holding Holder in contempt…..
A GOP aide also warned against a racial backlash if Republicans are seen as unfairly targeting the first black attorney general, who is serving under the first black president. “Especially after Trayvon,” the aide said, referring to slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.”
Oh no, we can’t be upholding the law,” especially after Trayvon”.
maineman, Peter Boston, it’s useless arguing with anti-Catholic bigots, whether they style themselves libertarian atheists or evangelical followers of the True Milk of the Word of the Foursquare Church of the Brethren of Holiness. They’re exactly like Leftists: they have The Narrative to guide them, and though they don’t babble on about the Whore of Babylon the way they used to, it all comes down to “Rome Hath Erred” and there’s nothing more to say. They won’t be taught, so it’s useless to offer them facts about Catholic belief or practise. There mere fact that you’re arguing against The Narrative proves that you’re compromised, and so nothing you say can possibly be worth learning. In the end, they know it all.
Unsk @ 69: “If we are in a Civil War II, it is largely a leaderless one.”
Agreed. The Institutional Republicans are worse than useless. Arguably, we have what could be called a ‘pre-revolutionary’ situation. The BIG (Big Intrusive Government) guys have been throwing their weight around, creating lots of dissatisfaction. But there is nothing around which that dissatisfaction can gel — no cause, no individual.
I have wondered about the ‘Great Man’ interpretation of history. Individuals like Alexander the Great or Oliver Cromwell made a difference during their lifetime; but after their deaths, things largely reverted to status quo ante. On the other hand, things were never the same after George Washington. Maybe real change is a combination of the Great Man and the times?
The present situation might be seen in chemical terms as a supersaturated solution — just waiting for a seed crystal to trigger a phase change. Ross Perot, where are you now?
Leaderless revolutions are more difficult to behead. Personally, I enjoy the ongoing mainstream talk about “the zombie apocalypse” not recognizing it as a code word for Civil War III (Whiskey Rebellion, Civil War, etc).
I had a run-in with anti-Catholic bashing yesterday at my family’s Memorial Day celebration when my sister-in-law launched into a tirade over the butler’s arrest. She used it as a platform for a feminist critique of the Church (no female priests, the crackdown on American women religious, etc), although others here have used it to remind folks of the child molestation scandals.
I suspect the affair is an internal effort tarnish Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone more than anything else. He’s the Vatican’s Secretary of State, the Pope’s Number Two, and also a conservative. There’s a leftist wing of Cardinals, seen most publicly lately in their call for a global central bank, and then there’s guys like Bertone who horrify them by saying things rejected by elites that embarass them, like pedophilia is rooted in homosexuality. The butler has appeared like Deep Throat in what is most likely a politically motivated skullduggery drama.
Critics of the Church from outside aren’t much of concern. But, those within it, those seeking to ‘update’ the Magisterium to accomodate their modern views, those like my sister-in-law and some of the radicalized religious (which are far too commonly found), are a concern. The Left never stops attacking, its calls for ‘change’ are ceaseless, in its fervent drive towards dystopia.
Speaking of Zombieland, today’s news brings the story of a naked man found on the street in South Beach while eating the face off another naked man. Of course, I thought, that had to happen.
74- Yet there is no significance to the story, except for poetic illustration (cheap propaganda). Only The Drudge Report has been using intense apocalyptic imagery lately, while >99% of everywhere in the world is at peace.
Some kind of play is in motion. It’s ugly and offensive, and it won’t be effective at anything since it’s all based in lies.
Looting is still looting whether it’s wrapped up in altruism or not.
A couple few years back I had a conversation with a self-described ‘communitarian’ neo-hippyish friend wherein I tried to describe how charity is really a personal act of grace…That being a charitable person -even in a group- is not some thing for which one can credit themselves by simply causing, or acquiescing to, some institution (or mob) coercing everyone [else] into participating in…Particularly while skimming some cream off the top and bottom lines.
She didn’t seem quite able to grok the difference between being charitable, and the act of ceding over authority to seize the fruits of one man’s labor (his property) without his consent, to give to others. Conflating taxation with charity -even in supposed service to ‘democratically’ decided redistribution schemes- is little more than dressing up theft in the vestments of good intentions. Consensual might is not in and of itself equal to right. Thou shall not…
Wheeew…The subtleties sailed right over her head like clouds on a moonless night sky…She could only discern their presence through the absence of stars. Good enough I suppose – in this day and age where up is down, and wishes are donkey-sized rabbits merrily ho[p]ping their way into comfy warm fumaroles, but then again, I’ve also had to explain to her why the symbolic barter item we call money, wasn’t necessarily the famous “root of all evil” she was convinced it was; that perhaps “the love of money” might not be quite the same thing as money itself.
So anyway, with as charitable a heart as I’m able to muster; have a memorable Memorial Day y’all.
Monkeyfan, you nailed it truly.
The sort of blinkered person you describe now abounds here in battalions and armies, marching in lockstep to a cadence drilled into them by long decades of Progressive, Marxist perverted logic. Think of the old psychology experiment (actually, physiologic more than psycho…) in which subjects were given goggles with lenses that inverted the images so everything is seen upside down. The human brain is so plastic that within a day or so, all subjects tested (if I recall correctly) were completely accustomed to the inverting glasses, and to them the world seemed normal.
Just a metaphor; can’t call THAT adjustment evil. But the blindness that allows them to acquiesce to the premises of intimidating, enslaving, spiritually bankrupting Marxism… THAT is as evil as things get.
The results in every country where Marxism has seized power have been an immediate and enduring prison state, enforced by the most brutal methods imaginable.
75. Baobo
The police acted stoopidly.
mf @76: And yet, much of our government entitlement was put in place as a “safety net” after the first depression, and to a large extent it has helped save our ass in this second depression. Now, a safety net is for when good times institutions suddenly fail. That is a separate issue from good time supports like welfare, basic unemployment, and food stamps. So the first mistake is lumping it all under the category of “charity”.
It is also going to be a big political issue in the presidential and general campaigns this year. Romney’s Mormonism will have to be pulled in to show his charity, outside the government. “Voluntary” if you will. You can see the discussions to which that leads. All this versus “the foodstamp president”, which I think Obambus would happily be photographed blazened across his t-shirt, whether because he really believes it or just because he (and Axelhead) think it makes for good campaign, I dunno.
It’s just hard in the heat of a political campaign to debate the merits of generous government support for layabouts, who have to be carefully separated from those unemployed by the antics of Citibank and AIG, and a generation of college grads who can’t launch into the job market at all. Things tend to (over)simplify in politics. It won’t be pretty.
It all boils down to propaganda doesn’t it?
In the widespread absence of desire to think or act wisely upon anything greater than the texture of the lint in our collective navels, who have we as a society allowed to fashion and wield The Narrative…And to what ends?
Of course they have long told us of the ends…And of the means; which are keyword searchable under “any” and “necessary’. They’ve published them in detail and parcel out ‘prestigious’ awards for the cleverest confabulations…And our gatekeepers are drunk, bribed, or true believers in the snake oils they peddle.
Everywhere I turn anymore I see the triumphant braying of arguments that would have caused any one-room school kid of the 1800′s to laugh uproariously at the sheer absurdity…As if a musket-wielding circus clown dressed as President Washington himself had stood before the class and proclaimed in all seriousness that Niagara really fell upward, or chickens shall henceforth hunt foxes.
The greater part of my tendency toward a wee touch of the cynicism of late comes from the realization that a near plurality of the heirs of the single greatest experiment in self-determination have already crossed the red river Rubicon. “The die has been cast.” Really?
At other times I remember the history of miracles Great and small…And Proverbs 28:26.
And I prepare.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2010/apr/10040101
Here’s a little perspective for those taking cheap shots at the Catholic church.