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The Greatest Lust Of All: Power Over Others

20 Dec

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.–George Washington

In 1930s Germany, a unitary leader pled for sufficient power to make his homeland safe from the threats faced by his nation.  The German people and their parliament, in the name of security, allowed him to assume virtually unlimited power to make them safe.

The draconian measures implemented to prevent terrorism were soon turned upon the citizens of Germany and they, along with millions of others, lost their freedom.  Who could have imagined how terribly wrong it would go?

In our day, Americans are being asked to trust the head of the Executive Branch to exercise unprecedented power for the purpose of securing the homeland against the threat of terrorism.  Draconian powers including indefinite detention and extra-judicial executions are being authorized against foreigners and Americans alike in a worldwide war against terror that we’re told will last for generations.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the increasing parallels between the former Weimar Republic and modern America are becoming difficult to ignore.

Disturbing as that realization may be, it’s not half as unsettling as the raucous cheers and applause of those who actually celebrate the emerging authoritarian state inflicting harm on others without recognizing the corresponding damage being done to their own liberties.

Like the Germans of the 1930s, Americans appear to be afflicted with a nationalistic short-sightedness that seeks to excuse virtually any abuse of government powers, so long as those powers are directed at others for the stated purpose of making us safe.

As a nation, we stand at a crossroads with the choice of restoring limited government that keeps us free by safeguarding our inalienable rights, or creating an unlimited police state that will promise us security even as it fits us for our restraints.  How our experience with unchecked government power will end is anybody’s guess.

The passage of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with its provisions for indefinite military detention at home and abroad represents an unmistakable departure from the concept of limited government in America.  With the open assertion of executive power to detain anyone anywhere without evidence, trial or due process the bill heralds the approach of a presidential dictatorship legally authorized to use the U.S. military to impose its will domestically.

The 2012 NDAA follows hot on the heels of the extra-judicial assassination in September of an American-born radical Muslim cleric named Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen.  The cleric’s death by Predator drone missile was ordered by the president after a secret panel within the Executive branch labeled al-Awlaki an “enemy combatant.”

No indictment was issued.  No evidence presented.  No proof required.  The president simply ordered the snuffing out of an individual (as well as a few innocent bystanders) based on his word alone.  This wasn’t the first time such extra-judicial killings have been authorized by the Executive branch, but it’s the first time that the power to do so was openly and brazenly acknowledged.

How could such a naked abuse of government power stand virtually unchallenged?

Attorney Glen Greenwald explains:

“What’s most striking about this is not that the U.S. Government has seized and exercised exactly the power the Fifth Amendment was designed to bar (“No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law”), and did so in a way that almost certainly violates core First Amendment protections (questions that will now never be decided in a court of law). What’s most amazing is that its citizens will not merely refrain from objecting, but will stand and cheer the U.S. Government’s new power to assassinate their fellow citizens, far from any battlefield, literally without a shred of due process from the U.S. Government.”

In our haste to embrace absolute security at the cost of proper government and our essential liberties, we’re making the same mistake many Germans made in the 1930s of mistaking patriotism for its belligerent counterfeit: nationalism.

Orwell addressed this phenomenon beautifully in his Notes on Nationalism written in 1945.  He makes a clear distinction between patriotism and nationalism as follows:

“By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.”

The desire to dominate others has been an observable part of human nature throughout the history of mankind.  Writer Christopher Manion notes that St. Augustine, in his work City of God, identified libido dominandi or the lust for power in the very first page.  Manion goes on to point out that, “these lusts are more powerful than simple physical appetites. And they tempt us all.”

A perfect example of this mindset can be found in the ongoing Republican presidential debates.

Of the seven candidates still in the running, six of them are seeking to solidify their voter base by promising to expand government powers to secure America.  Most say they would engage in more aggressive, unconstitutional wars abroad.  They have affirmed their support of torture, indefinite detentions, and continued expansion of the global War on Terror.

They are united in their belief that American exceptionalism justifies the projection of military power around the globe out of the fear that “If we don’t dominate the world–someone else will.”  Concern about the proper role of government has no place in their dialogue; only the desire to see American military might continue as the dominant force globally.

Warmongering, exploiting fear and creating enemies to vanquish is a key to maintaining their power.  It’s no coincidence that the more we send our military abroad to police the world, the less free we become here at home.

One solitary candidate has proven the exception by advocating fidelity to the principles of limited government and strict adherence to the Constitution.  This approach would mean less intrusive government and greater freedom at home and less meddling and interventionism abroad.

Too often, this candidate’s message is met with anger and derision by those whose lust for power over others would be checked by such reforms.

For freedom to be maintained, three things are required.

We must be an educated, independent-minded, clear-thinking people.  This can only occur when we have inoculated ourselves intellectually against the daily onslaught of propaganda that beats against us on all sides.  Mass media in America today does not serve to inform and enlighten the public so much as it exists to sell us the agenda of those in power.

To counter this manipulation of public opinion, there is simply no substitute for the power of a good old fashioned liberal arts education.

A classical education enables us to more clearly see the world as it is.  It also leaves us better equipped to speak with clarity and power while persuading others across a broad spectrum of beliefs and viewpoints.

We must be capable of practicing public and private virtue.  Public virtue means that we are willing to step up and do things that will benefit others generally without thought of recognition or personal reward for ourselves.  Public service used to actually include a degree of public virtue. It can take forms other than public office, but it requires a willingness to serve others to the best of our abilities.

Private virtue means that we rectify our own hearts and minds, as Confucius suggested, before we set out to correct others. It’s not enough to insist that others be good, we must be willing to govern ourselves first. By setting our selves and our homes in order, our communities and states will follow.

We must be willing to love liberty more than we hate our enemies.

We must have correct forms in our government and our personal lives.  A form is what gives wet concrete its structure, limits and purpose.  Without a proper form, the concrete would flow uncontrollably and become useless.  In a similar sense, correct forms in government are what define its proper role and upper limits.  They are what allow the powers of the state to be used wisely and humanely for securing our natural rights rather than for simple domination or mischief.

In our personal lives, correct forms include strong marriages and families and sound personal financial practices as well as greater self-sufficiency.

When these elements are widespread throughout a society, self government and freedom flourish.  When they are generally lacking, even well-schooled, highly technologically advanced societies can be led into the abyss.

Military might and domination alone cannot make us or keep us a great nation.  Abiding by correct principles and doing the right things for the right reasons–regardless of circumstances–can.

 
1 Comment

Posted by on December 20, 2011 in America, correct principles, critical thinking, current events, freedom, issues vs. forms, liberty, president Obama, propaganda, proper role of government, truth vs. error

 

The Iranian Terror Plot: A Matter of Trust

14 Oct

I’m finding it harder to trust our federal government or the mass media to tell us the truth.  Especially when it comes to the latest “terror plot” that’s allegedly surfaced.

Like the little boy who cried “wolf”, too many federal officials have sought to further their foreign policy ambitions by telling us outlandish tales of foiled terror plots that turned out to be monsters of their own creation. Meanwhile, the major news organizations endlessly parrot official government press releases without a second thought or a probing question about the validity of the claims being made.

For instance, the Beltway experts and pundit classes who act as Washington’s official stenographer pool have been trumpeting an alleged Iranian “assassination plot” that was “foiled” recently.  The official narrative claims that elements of the Iranian government sought to hire a Mexican drug cartel operative to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. and to bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington D.C.

Whoa.  This plot really covers the bases, doesn’t it?  Let’s see:

  • Terror on American soil.  Check.
  • Terror against the Arabs.  Check
  • Terror against Israel. Check
  • Mexican drug cartels involved.  Check.
  • Iranian government to blame.  Check.
  • Casus belli for war against Iran. Check.

The conclusion the American people are supposed to draw from this official accusation is that anything their government tells them regarding Iran and alleged terror plots = truth.

For such an accusation to come on the heels of months of official U.S. sabre-rattling and war-drum beating directed toward Iran is certainly a remarkable coincidence.  That the announcement also diverted our attention on the very day that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was subpoenaed by Congress over the Fast & Furious perjury scandal currently rocking the Justice Department, is also just amazing timing, right?

Iran’s stubborn refusal to accede to the demands of certain globalist policy makers has made it a problem child for some time now.  Iranian defiance of the U.S. interventionist agenda has also made it a promising target in the open-ended War On Terror. But with this latest terror accusation, it appears that U.S. power brokers are cranking the rhetoric up to 11 in order to justify their long-desired preemptive aggression against Iran.

Am I suggesting that the same policy makers that insisted they “knew exactly where the WMD” were located as they agitated for war in Iraq, would fabricate a terror plot to justify using their sucker-punch strategy against Iran?

In a word: Yes.  One of the great things about being in power is that when your initial justification for war falls apart like a soup sandwich, you simply make up another one.  This tactic worked beautifully with the Iraq war when talk of WMDs eventually gave way to talk of Al Qeda connections which, in turn, gave way to talk of regime change and spreading democracy.  As each falsehood became undeniably apparent, a new one would arise to take its place.

The fact that Iraq had never materially harmed the U.S. was not considered relevant enough to deter an unconstitutional, unnecessary and unjust war that policy makers were bent on pursuing.

A just war is one that is fought as a necessary, though regrettable, last resort–after all other means have been exhausted.  It was never intended to be a method of hammering recalcitrant nations into submission.

Sadly, with many Americans still fearful after 10 years of War on Terror, a few official pronouncements about a “very scary” terror plot is generally all that’s required to elicit a predictable, bloodthirsty Pavlovian response.  In the absence of critical thinking skills, the more a lie is repeated, the more widely it becomes accepted.

Mac Slavo puts it into perspective:

“Consider that the President – yes, the President of the United States approved this latest “terror plot” information release – just overtly accused the Iranian government of attempting to assassinate an ambassador on U.S. soil. These are extremely serious charges, the kind that have led nations to war throughout history. The Saudis are calling for Iran to “pay the price,” while Secretary of State Clinton says this is a “dangerous escalation of the Iranian government’s longstanding use of political violence and sponsorship of terrorism.” Israel, parroting Mrs. Clinton, agrees, saying, that this is “definitely an escalation.”

This type of diversion should be familiar to all who remember the August 20, 1998 cruise missile attacks on a Sudanese aspirin factory that coincided with then President Clinton’s admission of an “inappropriate relationship” with a White House intern.  More missiles flew against Iraq later that year as Clinton’s impeachment proceedings moved ahead.

Those million dollar fireworks were supposed to keep the American public from looking too closely at the scandals of Washington’s elite.

But there’s an even seedier side to the kind of manipulation of public opinion that accompanies each alleged terror plot that our Protectors-on-the-Potomac claim to have foiled: most of the plots were hatched by federal officials themselves.

Glen Greenwald of Salon.com describes how the fabricated terror template is used to convince apathetic Americans that government is their savior, albeit by thwarting its own terrorist plots:

Time and again, the FBI concocts a Terrorist attack, infiltrates Muslim communities in order to find recruits, persuades them to perpetrate the attack, supplies them with the money, weapons and know-how they need to carry it out — only to heroically jump in at the last moment, arrest the would-be perpetrators whom the FBI converted, and save a grateful nation from the plot manufactured by the FBI.

Think about that for a moment.  The very terror plots which are used to justify the need for more government and less freedom are, more often than not, a creation of the very entity that’s supposedly saving us from them.  

Judge Andrew Napolitano points out that of the 20 terror plots that have been foiled since 2001 in the U.S., three were interrupted by members of the public, but 17 were foiled by the feds.  Care to guess what else those 17 plots had in common?

Napolitano explains:

They were planned, plotted, controlled, and carried out by the federal government itself. In all of these seventeen cases – from the Ft. Dix Six to the Lackawanna Seven to the Portland Parade Bomber – the feds found young men of Muslim backgrounds; loners who were bitter at America. They befriended them, cajoled them, and persuaded them that they could change the world by killing Americans. In all these cases, agents worked undercover and portrayed themselves to the targets as Arabs of like un-American mind. In some cases, the federal agents used third parties to act as middlemen. The third parties are typically persons who have been convicted of crimes and who, in return for leniency at their sentencings, were willing to work with the same feds who prosecuted them in order to help entrap whomever else those feds are pursuing.

Every time a supposed terror plot is broken up, we’re expected to grovel in gratitude at the feet of those leaders who claim that they are keeping us safe from the world’s boogeymen.  Each incident is supposed to remind us why we need less freedom, less privacy, more government intrusion into every corner of our lives.  But what if our leaders were using this fear and uncertainty to manipulate the populace into support of things that are harmful to our liberties and our national character?

Is it so unreasonable to believe that those in power are also subject to the effects of human nature when it comes to the desire to exercise dominion over others?

Our government’s track record of telling us the truth is not very encouraging.  My once healthy sense of skepticism has finally reached outright distrust of the state and its media enablers based on how we’ve been lied to and manipulated before.

Which brings us back to the question of the alleged Iranian terror plot that was also hatched by our own government.  Cracks are already beginning to appear in the official story.

But two very important questions about the latest alleged terror plot remain:

  1. Will we Americans be as gullible this time as we’ve been in the past?
  2. Are we ready to start demanding straight answers by asking the tough questions that the media gatekeepers are apparently unwilling to ask?

The answers to these questions will determine, in part, whether our liberties are preserved or our government is allowed to become a law unto itself with no limits on its power.

 
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Posted by on October 14, 2011 in America, critical thinking, current events, freedom, liberty, propaganda, proper role of government

 

Brother Beck Jumps the Shark

20 Sep

For sheer entertainment, Glenn Beck is at the top of his game.  His characteristic sarcasm, his irreverent, over-the-top humor and his undeniable passion have propelled him to rightful status as a top talk radio personality.

Beck is reminiscent of a young Rush Limbaugh, who tackled the topics others dared not and gleefully skewered every sacred cow of the smug political class.

On some issues, Beck has led out where even Limbaugh feared to tread.  He’s called into question the Federal Reserve and the soundness of our nation’s current monetary policy.  He has blown the whistle on political operatives like Van Jones who might otherwise have found sanctuary in high government positions.

Beck has been especially passionate about need for each of us to make a stand, to rectify our own hearts and to put our houses in order spiritually as well as temporally.  As with most commentators and pundits, I’ve found myself in violent agreement on some points and quietly discarded those points with which I could not agree.

I’ve tried to be particularly magnanimous where Beck is concerned because he is a respected and beloved figure of many of my listeners here in Southern Utah.  He’s done a great deal of good and I cannot dismiss the fruits of his efforts to awaken an apathetic public from his bully pulpit.

But I can no longer consider Brother Beck to be a friend of liberty.  It is one thing to be sincerely mistaken or to espouse a particular point of view based on incomplete information.  It’s quite another to subscribe to and promote a deliberately distorted ideology that seeks to subjugate others through fear-mongering and pandering to humanity’s basest tendencies.

The targets of Beck’s dogmatic vilification are the Palestinian people whom Beck and other nationalistic propagandists have reduced to a caricature of a wild, violent people who pose an existential threat to Israel.  All it takes to transmogrify Beck from thoughtful, impassioned commentator to outraged spittle-flinger is the mention of the word “Palestine.”

Cheered on by his studio sycophants, Beck loses any pretense of nuance or fairness in his portrayal of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that has raged on since before he was born.

Beck’s version of this conflict follows this approximate line of thinking:

  • Israel is good and cannot be faulted for any actions undertaken by its government to protect its interests against the evil of those who would deny its existence.
  • Palestinians (sneer) have no business claiming victim-hood because they lost the land now occupied by Israel fair and square when the UN recognized Israel as a nation.  It’s not like there was ever an officially recognized nation-state called Palestine, right?
  • Anyone who bears even the slightest sympathy for the Palestinian people must have some kind of ulterior motive or wish to see Israel “wiped off the map.”

The problem here is that Brother Beck’s take on this conflict is long on emotion and hyperbole and very short on historical clarity.  It’s part and parcel of the dismissive outrage so often exhibited by Americans who simply cannot fathom that acts of government ruthlessness toward innocent people can indeed spark incidents of violent retribution.   This is even more true when a people feel they no longer have anything to lose.

As Charley Reese once pointed out, If ever a people has been steam-rolled by history, it’s the Palestinians.  Their lands were first absorbed by the Ottoman Turks and then wrested away by the British Empire following WWI.  When the Brits chose to give up their Palestinian Mandate as a home for European Jews following WWII, the occupation of those lands continued, though under new ownership.

It’s ironic that Jewish radicals like Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir used terrorist tactics including bombings to ultimately dislodge the British from what would become the nation of Israel.  In 1948, nearly 700,000 Palestinians were stripped of their lands and became refugees who were forbidden to return to their homes, their businesses and their orchards.

A Christian Palestinian named Elias Chacour unflinchingly chronicles his own family’s experience in his book “Blood Brothers.”  Chacour tells of being forced from his home and beaten by Israeli soldiers.  He writes of the machine-gun and grenade attacks in which those same soldiers murdered entire villages of Palestinians.

Chacour’s recounting of the tale isn’t a call for sympathy and vengeance, but a plea for Palestinians and Jews alike to learn from the atrocities and stop the cycle of revenge being carried out by both sides.

A true peacemaker: Elias Chacour at right

He has been a peacemaker in every sense of the word, though his book tells a side of the conflict that would prove highly inconvenient to the “Israel uber alles” narrative preferred by Beck and others.  Prior to reading this book I was highly Zionist in my thinking.  Reading it didn’t make me hate Israel, but it clearly illustrated that true peacemakers are few and far between in this conflict.

There are enough bloodstained hands and innocent lives lost in both camps to merit a mixture of outrage and sympathy for Israelis and Palestinians.  Beck’s willingness to downplay the plight of hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians is as pathological as the unjustified hatred he claims these refugees are directing towards Israel.

The truth of the matter is that people who started the Israeli/Palestinian conflict have long since passed away or are approaching the end of their lives.  Most of the young people dying for land on both sides of a conflict they were born into are very deserving of our sympathies.  Beck’s stereotyping isn’t helping their plight.

Glenn Beck could use his considerable influence as a peacemaker—if he was willing to remove his ideological blinders.  Instead he is choosing to foment that conflict by acting as a willing propagandist for the Israeli government.

This particular blind spot on Beck’s part reveals a nationalistic streak that is wholly incompatible with liberty.  It seeks to persuade listeners to hate a group of people they’ve never met and to find purpose in exercising dominion over others.  It excuses government actions and policies that would be considered inexcusable if they were happening to ourselves.

Pointing out how aggression and injustice by Israel’s or America’s governments is not the same thing as saying that the Israeli or the American people deserve terror attacks.  When government ruthlessness reigns, innocent people will suffer on all sides.

Beck has led out admirably when discussing many topics, but on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, he’s become part of the problem.

 
6 Comments

Posted by on September 20, 2011 in correct principles, critical thinking, current events, liberty, propaganda, truth vs. error

 

Lies We Choose to Believe

14 Aug

“Of course I’ll still respect you in the morning.”

“We know exactly where the WMD are located.”

“This election is the most important election of our lifetimes.”

Of all the lies we choose to believe, that last one is the most pathetic.  We hear it repeated ad nauseum during every single election cycle.   It’s a manipulative platitude, calculated to keep us confined within the ideological boundaries of a thoroughly corrupt two party system.

The only folks to whom this revelation might come as a surprise are those who believe our nation’s future hangs on the election of a single candidate rather than on following its Constitution.

Why do so many good-hearted people choose to believe this particular falsehood?

The false dilemma of Republican vs. Democrat, it turns out, is an easy sell to people who have yet to recognize that, on the question of liberty, the real battle has always been the State vs. the People.  Both of the two ruling parties have clearly shown by their actions that they are equally committed to growing governmental power, spending without limits, and expanding the state’s control over the people at the expense of individual liberty.

Yet there are still plenty of voters who foolishly buy into the notion that somehow, this time, those same parties’ candidates might conceivably alter the collectivist course they’ve been steering for generations.

Sadder still are the individuals who recognize, to some degree, just how hostile both parties have been about liberty, but who justify holding their noses to vote for someone who they hope will make the ongoing removal of freedom a bit more gentle.  They fail to recognize that they are merely validating a rigged system that, while giving the voters a sense of participation, carefully denies them any possibility of affecting actual change.

Ron Paul-The Non-candidate

A good example of this can be found in the way that Congressman Ron Paul is portrayed by both the mass media and the power brokers in his own Republican Party.  The recent Ames Straw Poll in Iowa was described by writer Don Rasmussen as the ultimate damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation for Paul:

If Paul polls fourth or fifth at Ames, it will feed the existing narrative that he is a second-tier candidate with a devoted but small legion of fans. Ames will be, at best, a wash. If, on the other hand, Paul finishes first or second, it will feed the narrative that he’s a straw-poll paper tiger with a small but devoted legion of fans that swamped Ames from around the country. The media will give itself permission to ignore the result and instead focus on the “serious” candidates.

As LRC contributor Justin T.P. Quinn explains:

The Ames Straw Poll is very important, but only if Ron Paul doesn’t win. It doesn’t matter whether or not Ron wins, or even how many percentage points he wins by. The Iowa Straw Poll can help every other candidate, but it can only hurt Ron Paul. The voters at Ames can have no bearing whatsoever on Ron Paul’s viability as a candidate. A vote for Ron Paul ipso facto makes it irrelevant.

You see, Ron Paul supporters don’t count, even though they are the paragon of what the ideal political activist would be. They are arguably the only true grassroots activists in existence right now. They don’t wait for direction or leadership from Ron Paul himself. Rather, inspired by Paul’s ideals, they act on their own. Nothing else in history comes close to what they’ve accomplished.

Sure enough, Paul finished second in the Ames Straw Poll, less than 200 votes behind winner Michelle Bachmann.  The media, predictably, are choosing to ignore him.  But check out some of the comments regarding his 2nd place finish in Iowa from self-described Republican voters on KSL.com:

  • No he is not, he is coming in 3rd or worse in every poll, that is real.  He is buying straw polls, and internet polls are getting trolled by his trolls.And in the end, he still gets 14% of the vote.
  • He’s no longer a fringe candidate. But he’s definitely still a nutcase.
  • If nothing else, support of his views are an indication that the American people are looking to the Right this election cycle.

Fellow brother in liberty Jason Smith posted this comment on his Facebook page after visiting with Republican staffers at his county fair:

Had several interesting conversations with the “tea party and Republican” groups at booths today at the Washington County fair. I asked them if they are supporting the Republican front runner Ron Paul- not surprisingly I got looks of hate and anger when I mentioned Paul, but not one said they were supporting Ron.
They sure hate to have someone rock the status quo.

If this really is the “most important election of our lifetimes” wouldn’t it make sense that we’d be as studied and  well-versed as possible in the actual principles that are at stake?  Wouldn’t we be exerting ourselves to know which candidates stand on principle and which are merely giving lip service?

Not if we’ve chosen to believe the lie that voting for a principled candidate somehow equals throwing our votes away.

Pragmatists like to chide those of us who are recovering two party system voters, telling us that in the real world it comes down to choosing the lesser of two evils and standing on principle is to commit political suicide.  Some go so far as to justify their actions by claiming that even though they recognize that both major parties are in the process of driving our nation over a cliff, they’d rather vote for the party that is doing so at the posted speed limit.

Our essential freedoms are being bargained away in the name of security.  Government spending continues to grow at record levels and the separation of government powers is being ignored for the purpose of consolidating influence.  Those who refuse to vote their principles refuse to admit that the two major parties only differ in the speed with which they act to centralize their power.

So what are our options?

Voters who have come to recognize the futility of voting the “lesser of two evils” are faced with a dilemma.  They can stubbornly abstain from voting in defiance of the conventional wisdom that views the privilege of voting as the highest expression of democratic government.  They can vote for a third party candidate to show their displeasure with the statist two party system as Congressman Ron Paul suggested in 2008.

Or they may wish to consider a third option offered by attorney Sandra Hamilton that not only allows one to vote his or her conscience, but also forces the state to show its cards and reveals just how rigged the game really is.

The key to this third option is to either write-in candidates who actually reflect the values and principles of the voter or simply write in “none of the above.”  The catch here is that many states will not recognize a write in vote unless certain conditions are met.  Some states simply refuse to allow write-ins of any sort or disallow candidates who ran but lost in the primary election while only a handful of states actually count all write-in votes as legitimate.

The beauty of this approach is that those states who unceremoniously round-file their write-in votes are demonstrating exactly how undemocratic the voting process has become.  The state makes a great show of the election process by pretending that we actually have a choice when they know full well that the game has been carefully rigged in favor of the two party system.  It’s a system that refuses to acknowledge anyone’s dissatisfaction with the false choice they’ve been given.

By forcing the state to show its true colors as it throws votes in the trash, the voter is essentially demonstrating that, despite its lofty rhetoric about the importance of getting out the vote, the state is too threatened by his or her dissent from the state’s “choices” to allow the vote to stand.

This approach is far preferable to the apathy of simply staying home or holding one’s nose in that it encourages the voter to exercise the precious right to vote according to his or her principles, albeit in a way that exposes the hypocrisy of a system that increasingly seeks only to protect the franchise of those who are already a part of it.

It takes courage to refuse to run with the herd, but real change requires individual acts of boldness.

When we deliberately vote the “lesser of two evils” we lend legitimacy to a rigged system that needs willing participants if it is to give the appearance of democratic principles while actively stifling those votes that may challenge the status quo.  With enough voters forcing the state’s hand to reject their right to vote their consciences, the public may finally begin to recognize the emperor’s nakedness and the carefully maintained illusion of our “right to vote.”

There is much we can do outside of the voting booth.

Those who are truly interested in the well-being of our nation and their liberty will find that their efforts are far better spent by developing their influence within their own homes, neighborhoods, congregations, and communities as opposed to expecting solutions to come from some party-assimilated Borg member they helped send to D.C.

The current system is too insular to allow us to make meaningful change from the top down by working within it, but it is powerless to stop us from starting at the individual level and working our way up.

Just as it has taken us generations to drift away from our founding principles, it will likely take generations of serious effort at a level where the state’s corruption has not yet taken hold to bring our nation back on course.  It is extremely unlikely for this to happen at virtually any level of government,  but that shouldn’t hinder our efforts to educate ourselves politically, economically, spiritually and philosophically and by so doing, inspiring our children, family members and friends to do the same.

Impatience sometimes compels us to try to reach everyone in one fell swoop, but the masses are already too distracted by the spin doctors and pundits.

In the same way that it’s difficult to fill a row of milk bottles with a fire hose, a more methodical, one on one approach is likely to produce far better results.  The key is to begin right now, where we are and to refuse to defer our personal responsibility to others—especially to politicians.  When each of us has honestly developed and refined our personal character, we will no longer choose to believe the lies by which others control us.

For some it will enable us to recognize and elect those candidates who embody the principles necessary for good governance.  For others it will enable us to be the candidates who embody those principles.  If we wish to reap a better harvest, we must sow better seeds.

 
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Posted by on August 14, 2011 in America, correct principles, critical thinking, current events, freedom, liberty, propaganda, truth vs. error

 

Groupthink and Crimes of Opinion

02 Aug

The beauty of totalitarian concepts like groupthink and crimes of opinion is that everyone is a potential thought criminal in need of sensitivity training.

For instance, when a student at Alta High School jokingly donned a white pillowcase with eye-holes during a school pep assembly last spring, a few people were understandably offended.

Was it a silly thing to do?  Absolutely.

Was it an act that could be interpreted as making light of what a Klansman might wear?  Yes.

Was it an act of overt racism aimed directly at the school’s minorities?  Hardly.

But in the age of political correctness, never underestimate the willingness of opportunists to take offense to dizzying new heights.

One of those offended, a student named Larz Cosby, brought the incident to the attention of members of the Salt Lake media who sensed an opportunity to fan the flames of contrived outrage.

The anti-racism witch hunt that followed would see both the Principal and Assistant Principal of Alta High placed on leave and both eventually leaving the school.  Meanwhile, the Canyons School District’s office of civil rights sought to find and punish the student who had worn the pillowcase.

In the spirit of politically correct overreaction, district officials somberly affirmed that even misinterpretation of the difference between a pillowcase and a Klan uniform leaves absolutely no room for snickering at youthful foolishness that fails to conform to acceptable attitudes.

It should have stopped there, but when enough professional offense-seekers got wind of the incident, it quickly reached critical mass.

Next, the U.S. Department of Justice intervened and Sandy police cited three students for misdemeanor unlawful acts for the incident.  Two of the students were also cited for texting an image of a burning cross with the words “Alta pride”.

Not once did it occur to officials that blowing the incident out of proportion might spark something other than cringing servility on the part of those who had violated the innumerable unwritten rules of political correctness.

The district soon announced it would institute plans to combat racism.  After all, a student behaving insensitively could only be seen as proof of deep-seated, institutional racism running rampant through the high school.  But the worst intervention was still to come.

The incident began as a molehill of poor taste that might have been smoothed with a simple apology.   Instead it quickly became a mountain of racism from which the infamous Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) came to Salt Lake City to publicly condemn its pet crimes of opinion while simultaneously dispensing its preferred brand of groupthink.

Under the guise of “tolerance training” select parents, students and faculty of the Canyons School District are being taught by members of the SPLC to form acceptable attitudes that conform to the sensitivity standards of political correctness.

To understand what is happening to the participants of this “training”, one must first recognize the consensus-building and group manipulation techniques that are being employed.  Professional alarmists like the SPLC rely on tolerance workshops to conduct a not-so-subtle form of psychological warfare.

Their goal is to create a culturally Marxist mindset through values clarification.  Old school Marxists referred to it as “collective spirit” but the group manipulation tactics are the same ones that have been utilized for centuries by those seeking to dominate others.

It’s a psychologically proven fact that groups are easier to control than individuals.  With this in mind, consensus-building exercises like the ones being taught by the SPLC are a powerful and effective tool to indoctrinate groups of people with politically correct dogma using the power of peer pressure.  It’s especially effective on those who don’t recognize that they are being manipulated.

A recent article in the New American magazine lauded author Beverly Eakman whose book How to Counter Group Manipulation Tactics: The Techniques of Unethical Consensus-Building Unmasked should be required reading for anyone who wishes to retain their individuality.  The quest for official conformity takes many different forms, but the ultimate goal is still thought control.  Control the thinking and everything else follows.

Mrs. Eakman cautions that such tactics may be encountered in “the workplace, a community forum, airport security, or the PTA” where consensus is valued above individual conscience and over unique ideas.  It’s the same old Marxist tactics, just re-invented and marketed as “sensitivity”.

She writes:

“A consensus is essentially a collective opinion that isn’t necessarily reflective of anybody’s private view. Manipulators get away with this because the collective good (or “team”) trumps the individual — a socialist concept.  Provocateurs, or agitators, often call themselves ’facilitators’ because that sounds neutral. But what these pros really do is to work the group over to ensure a predetermined outcome which they call a ’consensus.”

Resisting such tactics will get you labeled as a resister or worse.  Count on being ridiculed, pressured and ostracized by the facilitator and members of the group when you refuse to engage in their politically correct consensus.  Just remember that this has always been the price paid by individuals who refuse to surrender their conscience to collective thought.

Remember, the facilitator’s and group’s goal is to assimilate you into the Borg of politically correct thought.  They’ll tell you that resistance is futile, but stand your ground anyway.  So long as you refuse to give in to the groupthink, you win.

The freedom to think for oneself is of inestimable value.  Sacrificing that freedom for the sake of psychologically manipulative conformity is simply unacceptable.  Above all, do not fear the willingness to assert your freedom of conscience when the manipulative cry “racism”.

In a free society, holding unpopular opinions should not be a crime.  Nor should clumsy, insensitive, juvenile humor be criminalized just because a few overly sensitive officials blew someone’s poor manners out of proportion.

If there was ever a time our society needed individuals who are unafraid of thinking independently, it’s now.

 
1 Comment

Posted by on August 2, 2011 in correct principles, critical thinking, current events, freedom, issues vs. forms, name calling, political correctness, race card, truth vs. error

 

Do These Shackles Make Me Look Fat?

24 Jun

It’s an interesting aspect of human nature that we tend to remain oblivious to all but the most tumultuous changes taking place around us.

Few of us notice the first few pounds we’ve put on.  It’s not until our clothing becomes obviously and uncomfortably tight that we begin to suspect that something is amiss.  Even then few are willing to step on a scale to confirm the suspected weight gain and fewer still are willing to actually change their diet or exercise habits to correct the problem.

This same tendency can be found in our collective attitudes towards the cause of liberty and its preservation.

Changes in our society, our culture and our government from the local level on up seem virtually imperceptible to us as we focus on more pressing matters like keeping up on our payments, working our jobs and staying entertained.

But the changes in how we free we are individually and as a people continue to drift in a direction that leaves us with less freedom than before.

When our leaders choose to cloak their acts in secrecy for “national security” reasons that may never be revealed to the people who elected them, there is a corresponding loss of freedom.  When those actions extend to domestic spying, denial of due process, kidnapping, torture and unlimited detention without charge, everyone suffers a diminishment of their liberty—even if they’re not the ones being spied upon or detained.

The power of government has gradually shifted from its intended purpose of guaranteeing unalienable rights to simply consolidating its control for its own security.

Such changes are generally gradual in nature and carry euphemistic and benign sounding names.  Examples include the PATRIOT ACT, the Military Commissions Act, and a slew of other executive orders, presidential signing statements and other liberty-destroying devices.  But the incremental effect they have on personal liberty is real and lasting

They effectively remove the limits essential to a Republican form of government and allow the systematic creation of an authoritarian state apparatus that is restrained only by the consciences of those in power.

Regardless of the grandiose, sugarcoated titles or endless prattling about how “national security” justifies such measures, the end result is that liberty is reduced and the power of the state is increased.  Lacking the fanfare of mass rallies, rousing speeches and new flags waving in the breeze, life simply goes on for most of us as if nothing were different.

But the change has occurred and whether we personally feel the effect today or not, the loss of freedom is real and will be felt by future generations.

Even when the changes become blatantly apparent, there are few people willing to figuratively step onto the scales and measure how much freedom has actually been lost.  And among those willing to face the unpleasant truth, there are precious few who are willing to speak out for fear of being marginalized and labeled unpatriotic.

There are simply too many pleasant distractions that give us the excuses we need to continue to give our silent consent to those things happening around us that might require a degree of risk or effort on our part to correct.

Former Soviet dissident and exile Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote,

“It is impossible that evil should not come into the world; but take care that it does not enter through you.”

A person who pays attention to their personal health can determine early on if they’re putting on extra weight and then adjust their lifestyle accordingly.  The earlier the correction begins the easier it is to affect change.  Conversely, the longer the correction is put off, the more difficult the changes will be.

Constant vigilance is likewise required to detect the incremental changes that rob us of our freedoms.  And the longer we wait, the more difficult our task will be to restore liberty.

It’s past time to take notice of the winds of change blowing about us, and where a course correction is necessary, to boldly make it.

 
3 Comments

Posted by on June 24, 2011 in correct principles, critical thinking, current events, freedom, liberty, proper role of government

 

What My Dad Taught Me About Legitimate Pain

18 Jun

My dad has been gone for 21 years.  That’s nearly half my life, yet sometimes it seems like an eye-blink.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve encountered him in my dreams and seized precious moments to say what needed to be said only to wake up to the reality of his absence.

One of the greatest lessons my dad taught me during his short 56 year lifespan was the value of legitimate pain.

Pain Can Be a Good Thing?

Few things in life are as under-rated as legitimate pain.  Many of us spend our entire lives in a state of pain avoidance as if any pain whatsoever is somehow evidence of failure.

To be sure, pain is never fun and only a masochist would actually seek it out.  But some types of pain are a necessary part of living in that they serve the essential purpose of teaching us lessons that refine us and leave us better than before.

An example of this is the pain experienced by those who exercise and push themselves beyond the level of sedentary comfort.  It’s a temporary pain, evidenced by sore muscles and burning lungs, but it serves a purpose and the body is stronger for having invited it and endured it.

There is also well-founded pain in the sorrow that follows a realization of wrongdoing and it is what helps inspire the repentant individual to steer a more true course.  Legitimate pain has a purpose and should be distinguished from illegitimate pain.

Avoidance of legitimate pain is a short-sighted mistake in that it robs us of powerful opportunities to grow on numerous levels.

How I Learned My Lesson

On the day after Thanksgiving 1989, my father informed me that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and nothing more could be done.  As he wasted away, it became increasingly difficult to accept the reality that he would soon be gone.

This was the first time I had faced the loss of someone close to me.  I was deeply confused by a flood of powerful emotions that surged over me.  In a fit of misplaced anger, I defiantly resolved that I would be strong and would not allow myself to shed a single tear over his passing.

To make good on my vow, I stubbornly refused to visit my father’s death bed or speak to him during his last two weeks. I even made a point to steer clear of my grieving relatives.  The legitimate pain and doubt that followed this decision was not avoided, but merely deferred.

What should have been a natural period of mourning followed by healing instead became long-term sorrow and suffering that persisted for years.  All this for trying to avoid the legitimate pain of losing my father.

By contrast, when my grandfather reached the end of his life, I made a conscious decision to spend as much time with him as possible and to openly tell him how much he meant to me and how I would miss him.  I was with him as he drew his final breath and was stunned at the sense of peace and calm that filled the room as he passed.

The healing from the loss of my grandfather was swift and sure, unlike the doubts and sorrow that dogged me for years following my father’s death.  There were no regrets for missed opportunities.  The pain that accompanied my grandfather’s death provided me with much needed strength and growth.

It was a powerful lesson about the benefit of embracing and not avoiding legitimate pain.

Better Than We Were Before

Avoidance of legitimate emotional pain is a very simple trap to fall into.   Fortunately, the harmful effects can be negated and the value of legitimate pain proven by squarely facing those individuals or situations in which we find pain then earnestly seeking to mend what’s wrong.  Somethings cannot be fixed, but the pain still serves a purpose.

In the case of a dying loved one, this can take the form of expressing your love for them as well as your sorrow.  Something incredibly healing occurs for both parties when a dying person is wiping your tears away.  There is great peace found in extending sincere forgiveness to those with whom we are estranged whether they accept our overtures or not.

Strangely, these are things that must be experienced to be believed.

Instead of wearing ourselves out in an effort to avoid pain at all costs, we must distinguish between destructive pain and legitimate but temporary pain that, while unpleasant, ultimately leaves us stronger and wiser than it found us.

 
1 Comment

Posted by on June 18, 2011 in correct principles, truth vs. error

 
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