The Gadfly

Ayn Rand on Capitalism

My gods are better than your God, Saith the Liberal

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. - Friedrich Nietzsche

On one hand, liberals who want to seem smart are fond of regurgitating Karl Marx's declaration that “Religion is the opium of the masses.” Quoting the great soothsayer of the left makes them feel stronger, better - even wiser.  On the other hand, those who want to seem more artistic or visual and less learned employ something like  "Religious people are zombies."  But no matter how a liberal chooses to present himself -  for to her everything is about the presentation -  what he has to say in truth but can't because it is ugly is,  "My gods are better than your God."

Now the gods of any one liberal are many and relatively different from one individual to another in terms of combination and aspect. Generally, they aren't really worth talking about, even on the internet. These gods are usually very personal to the liberal, like those stick figures that you used to  love to draw on your parent's family room wall.  Yet one notices that this crude personalization of religion shows its bright pink hair in public with regards to the liberal's worship of science and scientists. Science and technology, to the liberal, is the only source of truth and wisdom. Religion, on the other hand is seen as useless and stupid, but that is only because their understanding of religion is relative to their own understanding, which was initially conceived during potty training with mommy back in the day.

Now It is the human condition to be limited to one's own experience. It is also the human condition to hate that which you love and are disappointed by. Liberals' understanding of religion has lead to their own disappointment in it. Yet many conservatives who are religious rail against the irreligious left. But the truth is that the left only understands religion in their way. Look, in order to talk to the dog, you have to talk in ways the dog understands. The dog will never understand the Ten Commandments, but he will learn to not steal the neighbors shoes or mount the neighbors wife. Same goes with liberals. It is high time that conservatives stop screaming about the dog peeing all over the carpet. We need to take matters into our own hands by first educating ourselves about the nature of the religious liberal. Once we grasp who and why they are, we will be able to communicate more effectively with them.

So, as I said before, the first thing to recognize is that liberals make up their religion as they go along, and that it is a personal religion. They guard it jealously and they are insecure about it because it doesn't seem as solid and as awe-inspiring as rocket science or brain surgery does.  That is why they hold poetry slam contests and flock to the Cannes Film Festival to give themselves rewards.  Some call this "spirituality". Some just call it "following their dreams".  Whatever they call and whatever rules them, the end is the same: there is not much power in it above and beyond personal pleasure and gratification.

But boy do things change quickly. Enter the Obamination: the liberal religion writ large and proud. Obama, the most clever thing invented since sliced bread and XBox Gaming Consoles, is the embodiment and projection of their religion and their god. A hollow man who is able to say or do anything to please anyone and everybody.  If he does something to offend, he can easily hide by doing something less offensive to cover it up. After all, this is what liberals do in their own lives, so why would they blame him for it? In the movies, the protagonist can be a bad guy, and in two hours flat, he can find redemption. THAT is the salvation for the liberal:

...a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing. (Shakespeare, MacBeth)

So when it comes to real news, Obama is not it. He is just a myth and a mythology, the opium of those zombified liberals. He is the anti-religion religion of the left. He has a little Muslim, a little Black Theology, a dose of Christianity maybe, an appreciation for Israel, African heritage,  a little bit of Red perhaps? White too!  Oh, and of course, he has a lot of of soul and great abs! He also understands all the world and so he will fix the climate, the economy, human violence, unfairness, fat content and, last but not least, science! Science, science science. This is what has the liberals so excited. Their gods get science. Now they really know that their gods are better than our God

“The truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry,” President-elect Obama said. “It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States—and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work.” Change.gov

So again, science in this manner is another liberal invention .  Obama laughably appoints Dr. John Holdren as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Whew! That is quite a title.  But Obama might has well have appointed the clearly impartial observations of Mr. Al Gore.

Science magazine has reported that John Holdren, a professional environmental judgment day doomsayer, was going to become Barack Obama's top science adviser. Indeed, on Saturday, Barack Obama announced that Holdren was tapped.
See also NY Times Tierney Lab: Flawed science advice for Obama?
John Holdren is the ultimate example of the pseudointellectual impurities that have recently flooded universities and academies throughout the Western world.

Do you want to know what is his specialization? The easiest path to the answer is to look at his publication list at scholar.google.com. No, he hasn't found anything about laser cooling, like Steven Chu, despite his PhD in plasma physics. Instead, he has only written 3 very well-known texts - with at least 100 citations - and all of them were concerned with the "catastrophic" population growth. A few additional, newer articles with 50 citations or so are about the "catastrophic" climate change. - Science and Public Policy.Org

So make no mistake about it. Obama is using big boy words like "science" and "technology" in order to give himself and is mobistration some authority with the liberals in the land.  He will certainly use this science thing to his advantage. Every tax he will impose will have "scientific backing". "Read my lips, no new taxes unless science says we have to." I had one colleague of mine go positively leg-tingly when he heard about Obama's commitment to science. It was like a dream come true for him. I just stood there kind of scratching my head and figured I throw him a ball. He responded by telling me that he would be perfectly willing to shell out as much cash as was necessary to fight global warming. He was also quite unconcerned about using population control ala China and Planned Parenthood if necessary, in order to preserve the earth. All in a god's days work I suppose. All in a liberal's days work.

'But surely "blind" is just how you would describe men who have no true knowledge of reality, and no clear standard in their mind to refer to, as a painter refers to his model, and which they can study closely before they start laying down rules about what is fair or right or good where they are needed, or maintaining, as Guardians, any rules that already exist.'
'Yes, blind is just about what they are' (Plato, Republic)

Cross-posted on Modern Conservative

Obama: The Hero of a Thousand Faces Gets a Second Chance

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man. - Joseph Campbell, The Hero with A Thousand Faces

The massive government bailouts will continue for those who are "too big to fail", as the government continues to paint itself as the hero on the white horse. The amount of these bailouts, the source of the money, the actual recipients of this money will become lost. Clarity in regards to America's financial situation will continue to deteriorate because the government is not interested in providing clarity for its actions in this area. It is, however, interested in recreating its image in order to maintain power in the way it wants to maintain it. It will shine light on what it wants the people to see. One light that will certainly shine is the light that is Obama the savior. Brzezinksi, Obama's personal brain,  has already clearly outlined the nature of this light and savior for the world in his new book, Second Chance:

"Brzezinski argues that the world is undergoing a "global political awakening," which is apparent in radically different forms from Iraq to Indonesia, from Bolivia to Tibet. Though America has focused on its notion of what people want (democracy and the wealth created by free trade and open markets), Brzezinski points in a different direction: It's about dignity. The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in the phenomenon of global political awakening," he argues. His worry is that America -- enfeebled by "material self-indulgence, persistent social shortcomings, and public ignorance about the world" -- may not get it. - RealClearPolitics

This image of the government as the savior of human dignity is in line with the image that Obama's "handlers" have projected and will continue to project even more powerfully after his inauguration. The greed and corruption of Washington and the likes of Bernie Madoff  and Blagojevich are simply a characters used to set up the foundational landscape of our protagonist who will triumphantly (and with dignity) lead us into a more "enlightened" and globalized  "American" government.  In order to create empathy for a protagonist who will save us, we must be made to feel the pain of our "current" America, along with him. Obama's corrupt nature is one that we have taken on as our own. That is why Americans have accepted him with open arms. He is their new Christ figure - someone who will take responsibility for all of our "sins".

Obama's close proximity to fraud and corruption, as in the case of Governor Blagojevich and his Washington buddies, simply serves to give contrast to his false but powerfully inviolate personification: he is the angel arisen out of the ashes of hell.  This is important to understand. Obama's association with ideas and people who are abhorrent to any sane American does not seem to stain his image because it actually strengthens it.  America is corrupt. Obama will see us out of it. He is always positioned as the accidental shepherd of the sick sheep (William Ayers, Dohrn, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Odinga) who seem to coagulate around him. Glenn Beck once called Obama the most unlucky man in the world. One characteristic of the classical hero is that he always falls into his lot by chance and uses the sheer force of will and intellect to survive and emerge triumphant. But the hero does not choose to swim in evil and enter the monster's lair: the gods or god (Brzezinski in this case) choose for him. This is why we forgive him easily.

Seeking to find his home, Odysseus crosses each water;
Through Charybdis so dread; ay, and through Scylla's wild yells,
Through the alarms of the raging sea, the alarms of the land too,--
E'en to the kingdom of hell leads him his wandering course.
And at length, as he sleeps, to Ithaca's coast fate conducts him;
There he awakes, and, with grief, knows not his fatherland now. - Friederich von Schiller

 

The disaster that is the economy; the evil that is the Taliban, the intentionally tarnished image of America: all of these are the monsters Obama will fight. Neither the audience nor Obama will be seen as responsible for our country, because the audience wants entertainment, not self-reflection and education.  Yet the truth is that Brzezinski  created the Mujahideen to lure the Russians into war.  The truth is that Obama has benefited handsomely from the thievery that makes Senators millionaires in a day. The truth is that you can't be clean if you play with pigs in a pigpen.  The truth is that we the people once owned this country and we sold our freedom long ago.  Obama always claims that he didn't know that his previous associates were steeped in evil. He always distances himself from every bad apple he has digested:

On Thursday, Obama pledged during a news conference (ostensibly about health care) that he would investigate and release all the contacts his staff had with the governor "in the next few days." He also expressed his personal outrage at the allegations and declared he was "absolutely certain" no one from his office had any involvement in deal-making about his successor.

The sequence was reminiscent of Obama's reaction to controversy earlier this year over incendiary remarks by Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., his former pastor. Among other things, Wright spoke of the "U.S. of KKK," said "God damn America" and said the 9/11 terrorist attacks represented "chickens coming home to roost" for America's racial sins.

Obama initially said he never heard Wright say anything objectionable; later made a highly regarded speech on race in Philadelphia that sought to put the minister's remarks in the context of black anger at racism; and finally disavowed the man. - philly.com

Just as Moses is distinguished from the Israelites and their behavior by being chosen by God as their leader, so is Obama crafted to be distinguished from the people he has associated with.  The power of this imaginarium is greater than the power any money can buy. This is something Americans don't understand because we are a people of logic, science and technology. We look for the causes and reasons for things, not considering that the stories providing context for the causes and reasons are themselves manufactured. We have forgotten and do not learn the Power of Myth. because we believe we are beyond it. We are not beyond it. We are in it.

Obama is forged to replace or perhaps "improve" the Judeo-Christian tradition with entirely new mythological features.  If we don't understand this, then nothing in American politics will make sense and we will continue to suffer the "How/Why Obama" migraine for years to come until history, after our deaths, resolves it for us.  Let us take the Blagojevich scandal again. It doesn't matter if we uncover that a person or persons in Obama's cabinet was dealing in shady transactions. Obama will go after those people and he will become the hero for it. His image as savior and the embodiment of goodness will become even stronger when we watch him turn on his unjust "friends" and "associates" such as Rahm Emmanuel.  His distancing himself from the pigpen will be shaped to enforce the idea that the government, in the form of Obama,  places justice over friendship and "special interests". 

The Obama phenomenon is not a phenomenon illustrating a real,independent, resourceful individual achieving the dream of being president.  That would be the old image of the American, and not the American government.  On the contrary, Obama is government personified and animated in myth. He is no more real than Santa Claus, except that you are more likely to get presents under your tree, than you are to see Obama's promises realized and in the form you had hoped for.  This fairy tale provided by the government, for the government and through the government, is not authored by just any part of government, but only those who hold the real power. These people are ruthless, highly intelligent and know how to orchestrate what is properly called  mass brainwashing. 

 

Many times, Socrates, I have heard Gorgias maintain that the art of persuasion far surpasses all the others and is far and away the best, for it makes all things its slaves by willing submission, not by violence."  -Plato (Philebus)

“Just as different drugs draw forth different humors from the body – some putting a stop to disease, others to life – so too with words: some cause pain, others joy, some strike fear, some stir the audience to boldness, some benumb and bewitch the soul with evil persuasion” -Plato (Gorgias ).

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The United Fakes

I have written many times regarding the fakery that is the United Nations. They are a front group for corruption, greed and power.  Here is a great video illustrating the hypocrisy that goes on at the United Nation Interfaith Dialogues. The entire world should know about these criminals and those who would tell Americans that we should support the U.N. and its policies of world government and peace. Unfortunately, Obama is one of those people. Tell your friends, folks.  They will have been warned.

 

The Gadfly is also posting on Modern Conservative .  Please check it out!

History and Narcissism

After the conflict at Actium, and when it became essential to peace, that all power should be centered in one man, these great intellects passed away. Then too the truthfulness of history was impaired in many ways; at first, through men's ignorance of public affairs, which were now wholly strange to them, then, through their passion for flattery, or, on the other hand, their hatred of their masters. (Tacitus, Histories, Chapter I)

Human history is difficult. As most people realize, there are various perspectives and opinions regarding what has exactly happened in the past. Who do you believe? How do we know that the historian is biased?  The same problem faces us up close in regards to the daily news. There is already a strong awareness that the news of today is written without reference to the truth, but only in reference to the particular viewpoint of the writer and/or the company/government who employs that writer. Facts are left out. Other facts are exaggerated. Stories are created and skewed in order to further the newsmaker's agenda, whether that agenda may be to sell magazines or papers, or whether the agenda is to get a certain candidate elected to office. As a result, we have lost a sense of trust, trust in our nations, trust in each other. At bottom, we believe that most writers write for the sake of their identity. In other words, we have bought into the culture of narcissism.

None of this is new however.

The quote at the beginning of this post from the great Roman historian, Tacitus, is meant to illustrate the challenges facing any historian or student of history - much of what is left in writing is a lie or exaggeration and some of it is a misunderstanding due to ignorance.  Tacitus knew and we all know that freedom is the only way an honest pursuit of history (and the news) becomes possible. A government that tries to control freedom of expression in any way shape or form is trying to "reinvent" history by hiding the truth.  As such, this government behaves like the old Pharaohs who would transform their nation's constitution and history by wiping away all remnants of the previous Pharaoh. The so-called "Fairness Doctrine" or what is known as localism is something that we are going to face during the Obama administration.  In such a state, the definition of what it means to be an American will be determined based on the ideology of this administration, and not on the basis of principles of freedom. In other words, when censorship does occur, it will suffocate all expression to such an extent that the very foundation of American identity, as conceived by the Founding Fathers will be burned with the rest of the history books. 

Unfortunately today, all news organizations, with the exception of independent bloggers, are owned and operated, by  what   termed as the government-media complex. That is to say that nothing has changed since the days of Rome, when Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome, employed writers (poets) in order to provide the propaganda necessary to cement Rome's legacy and power beyond even his lifetime. This does not mean that every employee in every news organization has sat down with the government in order to discuss how they will brainwash an entire generation. Doesn't quite work that way. The marketing of ideas is a slow process that in America's case could probably be traced back to the days during the Hoover presidency, when a few progressively minded intellectuals (later known as FDR's "brain trust") in the media and government decided to take a trip to see the evil tyrant Stalin, and spent the rest of their political lifetimes advocating the Soviet public policies as instituted in Stalin's Five Year Plan. FDR is the man who finally let them free to try out their "experiments" in what was known as the "New Deal" and his agility with propaganda made it all possible. Lies take a long time to become the "New Truth". (Hopefully, many people interested in discovering the truth around FDR and the nature of the New Dealers, will pick up Amity Schlaes' remarkable history about the Depression and the New Deal wittily entitled The Forgotten Man.)

Now the liberal response to this kind of transformation of history is to take the French revolutionary approach. Voltaire said that "History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions.".  Those who think this way simply point out that history is impossible because it's truth is impossible. To them, history is a simply an artful expression of some historian who has no real authority on the subject: he makes up his "history". This is how they support their anti-American positions: the history of America is a lie. This is how they support their anti-religious positions: God is a lie. The only truth, the only god, to them, is themselves and their freedom. Narcissism, in every form, is the essence of tyranny and it is also the essence of the extreme progressive liberal of today. To them, history is a tool of the ego, not a pursuit of truth and truth-telling. This is because the liberal cannot see beyond the base human instincts that plague his own rattled mind. Narcissism in fact is the source for the deconstruction of history. It is the source of the deconstruction of everything, simply because it brings everything down to the lowest common denominator. The faith in mankind's higher spirit is replaced with a faith in his sexual and predatory instincts. Belief in God is replaced with a worship of youth and the plastic surgeon. Knowledge of history is replaced with FaceBook. The mind is thought to be the stomach, and intellectual choice is confused with emotional will. To the liberal, we are no better than the animal. This is what we have come to. The liberal animal, the narcissistic beast is what voted for the narcissistic president-elect Obama, for narcissism only votes for its own reflection in the mirror, a reflection that is very much the child of whimsy and fabrication.

As individuals and as a nation, we now suffer from social narcissism. The beloved Echo of our ancestors, the virgin America, has been abandoned. We have fallen in love with our own image, with images of our making, which turn out to be images of ourselves...America has been a land of dreams. A land where the aspirations of people from countries cluttered with rich, cumbersome, aristocratic, ideological pasts can reach for what once seemed unattainable. Here they have tried to make dreams come true. Yet now... we are threatened by a new and particularly American menace. It is not the menace of class war, of ideology, of poverty, of disease, of illiteracy, or demagoguery, or of tyranny, though these now plague most of the world. It is the menace of unreality.” - Daniel J. Boorstin, American historian, professor, attorney, and writer.

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Charter of Compassion: Technofascist Religion

Under conditions of peace the warlike man attacks himself. - Friedrich Nietzsche

"I have seen the burden which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts,
yet so that man can't find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end." - Ecclesiastes 3:10-11.

I didn't know quite how to begin writing about this organization called The Charter for Compassion, a new peace outfit fashioned by the technofascists over at T.E.D.  and created by T.E.D. prize winner and Islamic sympathizer  Karen Armstrong., whose interpretation of religion is ideological, elitist and decidedly wrong. I mean, when something is just so wrong, like a cake made with salt instead of sugar, one generally will just throw it away. However, if you notice that people are beginning to eat these salt cakes, you start to worry for their health and their minds, not to mention their taste.  You then go and try to tell them not to eat the salt cakes. They don't listen, protesting that the salt and the sugar are the same color and consistency and the person who made the cake put her heart in it. At that point, when you realize you must go all the way back to and explain the fundamentals of food science or the culinary arts in order to eventually show to them that that salt cake is awful cake, is deadly cake and tastes awful, it can appear, at first, to be a pretty daunting task.

To make my job easier, I will employ collective intelligence and won't repeat what Willis E. Elliot , John Mark Reynolds, Brad Hirschfield, Hugh Fitzgerald have said about Ms. Armstrong. Please read their comments, particularly Fitzgerald. For liberals and those who eat salt cake, right or wrong and true or false doesn't matter. As long as her "heart" is in the right place, she is okay. As Fitzgerald says "For Karen Armstrong history does not exist. It is putty in the hands of the person who writes about history. You use it to make a point, to do good as you see it. And whatever you need to twist or omit is justified by the purity of your intentions – and Karen Armstrong always has the purest of intentions." 

As I have said before, the technofascists don't care a wit about history, because they weren't taught that in Computer Science 101. As such, they are able and willing to think Ms. Armstrong is a fabulous source of knowledge for all things religion, because she wants to transform all religions into some kind of meaningless and vacuous orgy of elitist condescension. T.E.D. is so elitist, it even has a special question addressing the question regarding its elitist status: Is TED elitist. One could write an entire book on their response to that one question alone.

Back to her.

Karen Armstrong's elitist cult is all about peace and compassion. This, to her, is what all religions are about.  Heaving hearts and bosoms to be sure. Yet,  to understand her you do need perspective. I do think she is correct if she is talking about creating peace between elitist technofascists having religious arguments around Starbucks lattes and biscotti.  Being able to bear them for more than a second and continuing to remain peaceful requires TONS of compassion - no small feat.

Liberals, over their coffee and their pointy shoes and fingers, are fond of pointing at religion, and particular the Judeo-Christian based religions, as being an example of violence through ideas, but I have to say, at the very least, that the history of the peace movement has done very well murdering on its own without religion's help. Nonetheless,  Karen's The Charter for Compassion implicit premise  is that religions are violent and have caused a lack of peace in the world. As a result, they have mobilized and have announced that we are all invited to participate in the creation of the Charter for Compassion.  Their - or should I say "our"-  web site is an invitation for everyone to contribute. It is a collective effort that is reflecting the ideal global society it wishes to establish, with the consent of its own participants, who it also calls "you".  However, I do not believe they will want to wait for anyone's consent. In fact, they arrogantly suggest ,in their proposed preamble to their charter, that if they fail (read: fail to brainwash the world), "we" will not have a functional world to hand down to our children:

Compassion is a key and universal value in all faiths. The most urgent task of our time is to build a global community around this idea, where all peoples of the world can live together in harmony, appreciation and mutual respect. If we fail to achieve this, it is unlikely that we will have a viable world to hand on to the next generation. We believe that the religions of the world have a unique contribution to make and that is why we have issued this Charter of Compassion.

This group is no more and no less a group formulated in accordance with the globalist agenda as it manifests its tentacles all over the world. She herself recognizes this, that the Charter exists for the purposes of promoting and supporting the myriad of peace groups around the world: 

The Charter for Compassion will not be a new organization. There are hundreds of existing organizations around the world already working tirelessly in the name of compassion and interfaith dialogue. Our goal is to highlight these groups in effort to raise the profile of their work.

The mask they wear is always one of "compassion" and "peace" but if you remove the mask, you will find only one simple thing: a will to power and enslavement of the world through the use of global charters, international courts of law and the destruction of autonomous nations, particularly the United States. All one has to do is look at the U.N. Charter and you will see it is formulated by the same peace-propaganda that is employed by the Charter for Compassion which is ironically enough based on an intense hatred and misunderstanding of religion:

PREAMBLE

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

-to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

-to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

-to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

-to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

AND FOR THESE ENDS

-to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and

-to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and

-to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and

-to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS

Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations. 

 

So for all intents and purposes, the Charter for Compassion IS the Charter for the U.N. The fact that they are presenting themselves an organization to be formulated and fulfilled by the public itself is shockingly manipulative and typical of the organizations who brainwash people into thinking that they are speaking with their own minds and not parroting what is being said to them day in and day out in the media, on web sites, in the workplace and on the radio: global peace, cultural harmony, sustainable living, sacrifice for the common good and, last and not least, Obama Obama Obama the Savior of this slave new world.

Granted, it is difficult to be critical of an organization or a movement that plans to legislate and institute, like God himself, global peace and harmony without getting tomatoes hurled at your face. However, I remembered the Pax Romana which was essentially a peace forged and forced by military force.  I also remembered Hitler and how he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933:

"I say that Hitler ought to have the peace prize, because he is removing all the elements of contest and of struggle from Germany. By driving out the Jews and the democratic and Left element, he is driving out everything that conduces to activity. That means peace ... By suppressing Jews ... he was ending struggle in Germany" (Gertrude Stein, New York Times Magazine, May 6, 1934).

Let's see. Who else was leader for the sake of world peace? Well, how about Stalin and the International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples.

The history of world peace on earth is a history of violence, deceit and evil.  So there is one point where I agree with, without condoning, the teachings of Islam: Peace is achieved through Jihad, something Armstrong either naively or nefariously ignore:

The word Islam itself implies different shades of meaning. It is often translated as "peace"
which signifies a sense of security and permanence, soundness, freedom from defects, perfection,
preservation, salvation, deliverance, salutation, accord with others, resignation in the sense that
we are satisfied and not discontented. It is for this reason, among others, that Islam is in
continuous pursuit of peace in the ordinary sense as well as in the different shades of its
meanings. Peace in all its significations becomes the real goal of the religion of Islam, indeed of
every religion. Mischief in whatever form is strongly condemned so that peace is the desired
state of affairs to be established - Jihad Struggle for Peace and Justice

The ideologues of peace will stop at nothing to defend their lily white ideas, their little gods.  To the elite intellectuals who worship these idols of vapour, ideas and ideal leaders are worth far more to humanity than individual bodies and souls. For example, Bill Ayers' Weather Underground was prepared to kill millions of people for the sake of peace. People who prize peace above all things, will kill for its own sake, because to them the ends justify the means. Just take a look at this statement from a globalist. Pay attention to the language of urgency and her reference to "mental" and "sprirtual violence", whatever that means:

It is true, the present culture of violence - not only of physical, but also mental and spiritual violence - must be made to disappear, replaced by a culture of peace. - Kamala Sarup

Makes me shudder. But maybe that's just me.

Now I will say that there are actually two kinds of peace, just like Hesiod describes two kinds of Strife (the other side of the same coin):

So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature. For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honour due. But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night, and the son of Cronos who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with is neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel. - Hesoid, Works and Days

So one peace is a dangerous ideology that usually ends in violence or bloodshed or both. It ends in violence or force because it is vacuous and cannot manifest itself in a world governed by natural laws and reason, so the only way it can walk the earth is by forcing it down our throats like the monster that it is. The technofascists, sweet pacifists and mighty men of modern mind and intelligence that they are, will resort to their muscular and trojan-like engineering skills in order to subjugate and dominate the uninitiated sheeple who don't even know how to reformat their hard drives.

Using innovative group decision-making software, people of all faiths, from all across the globe, will contribute their words and stories on a web site designed specifically for the Charter.

The technofascists will eagerly offer their genius skills  before the alter of worldwide global peace to further proliferate her lies and ignorance. I mean, who needs religious scholars or religious study anymore, when we have "group decision-making" software available to all?  Who would have thought that a new dark age would be ushered in by cool technology? Who would have thought the technofascists would become leaders and manufacturers of this new empty religion that is the global state?

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Democrats Begin Decision 2012: Conservative Witch Hunt

“The Bush administration overstepped in its exertion of executive privilege, and may very well try to continue to shield information from the American people after it leaves office,”- New York Times

This is only the beginning of Decision 2012. The Bush Administration (read: conservatives/republicans) is going to be made the national scapegoat, for years to come or, at the very least until 2012.  Even when Obama does something unpopular, even shocking, the Democrats are going to point to the Bush Administration as the cause: "We must do x because Bush did y".  As a result, national fear and national anger and frustration will be, in totalitarian fashion, redirected unto some target entirely other than the white-as-snow government of Obama. Remember, Obama is the good guy here. He is the messiah incarnate.

Only through lies and manipulation of a very emotional  and, frankly, idiotic and ipod saturated public can a man who, after blatantly lying, stealing and faking his way to the presidency, turn around and point at Bush as a criminal.

Of course, Obama, to absolve himself of appearing to be on a Republican-Witch hunt, has said the following:

“If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated,” Mr. Obama said, but added, “I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we’ve got too many problems we’ve got to solve.” - New York Times

The fair Obama has spoken, true to the fake image he create. Obama assures his flock of sheep, through describing himself as a man who understands the difference between "stupid actions" and "crime"; who is going to deal fairly the (evil)Bush Administration.

Congress has already said under no certain terms that is bent on spending the next four years investigating the Bush Administration's actions. 

And Congressional Democrats say that they are determined to pursue their investigations — and that they expect career officials to disclose other issues after the Bush administration leaves. “We could spend the entire next four years investigating the Bush years,” Mr. Whitehouse said.

Now that's exactly what I want to hear from our elected officials. Unfortunately, the American public, through mind numbing media such as the Daily Show, Colbert Report, The New York Slimes, The LA Slimes, MSNBC and a host of other unsavory morons who can't tell the difference between historical news and propaganda of the highest order (in fact , they think that creation of propaganda as an achievement is newsworthy in itself), is most certainly going to welcome in this totalitarian witch hunt of the highest order.

First it was Palin. Then Bush. Next? Talk Radio perhaps. But eventually, "my friends", it will come time to YOU.

 

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Islamic Submission: Global Government, Robert Malley and Earth Citizens

"Change the values and take a different course of living, then evolution will continue. Do not forget that from now on you have to be Earth citizens."  Robert Muller speaking at the Global Citizenship 2000 Youth Congress

There has been much talk on net regarding Obama's "senior foreign affairs advisor" Robert Malley. Malley has never been, based on his writings, shy about offering critique of Israel and its policies in relation to Hamas and the Palestinian state, however he continually asserts that his criticism is always constructive criticism.  He points at AIPAC as being far-right,"neocon" and fascist in its policies regarding Israel, and so has been involved in the creation of a new left pro-Israel lobby, J-Street.  J-Street is to AIPAC as Obama is to Bush. Nothing in the world is an accident.

So Malley feigns to be an objective and unbiased observer in the conflicts in the Middle East, and he appears to treat Israel and Hamas as if one were apples and other oranges, with neither fruit getting along in the fruit bowl.  In other words, he employs moral equivalence and the appearance of impartiality in order to persuade his readers to his point of view, a point of view that is nothing less than the destruction of Israel, Zionism and American moral ties to both. Robert Malley, if he is not an anti-Semite, is a globalist looking forward to the eradication of both national and cultural identities and self-defense of these identities. Malley is an "Earth citizen", so he doesn't care a wit about citizens of anywhere else.

Apparently,  Malley believes that the U.S. broad-brushes murderers and rabid anti-Semites and that we do not analyze our enemies or understand them enough. This, he claims, is why we will ultimately fail before our enemies.

ON THE third anniversary of the US invasion in Iraq, the United States is still fighting an enemy it barely knows. Washington relies on crude, broad-brush identifications -- Saddamists, Islamofascists, and the like. Rather than analyze the armed opposition's strategy and objectives, it assumes them. Rather than listen to what the insurgents say, it dismisses it. All of which is mystifying and, of far greater importance, self-defeating. - The Enemy We Hardly Know

Oh really? We don't know the enemy? Where do I begin here. Let's just take a look at the "enemy", the one we don't understand. I guess we could start with the assertion that Hamas is a radical Islamic organization hell bent on the destruction of Israel and America in order to establish Islam throughout the world. To gain familiarity with its principles, one need go no further than the Hamas Charter:

That Hamas is an Islamic organization is decidedly true, based on Articles 1,2 and 3:

"The Islamic Resistance Movement draws its guidelines from Islam;
derives from it its thinking, interpretations and views about existence, life and humanity;
refers back to it for its conduct; and is inspired by it in whatever step it takes."  - Article 1

and,

"The basic structure of the Islamic Resistance Movement consists of Muslims who are devoted to Allah and worship Him verily [as it is written]: “I have created Man and Devil for the purpose of their worship” [of Allah]. Those Muslims are cognizant of their duty towards themselves, their families and country and they have been relying on Allah for all that. They have raised the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors in order to extricate the country and the people from the [oppressors’] desecration, filth and evil."

Hamas' primary intention - one that it shares with Iran - is to wipe Israel and all Jews off the face of the map:

"Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors."

"our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave, so much so that it will need all the loyal efforts we can wield, to be followed by further steps and reinforced by successive battalions from the multifarious Arab and Islamic world, until the enemies are defeated and Allah’s victory prevails."

"The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim)."

"We cannot fail to remind every Muslim that when the Jews occupied Holy Jerusalem in 1967 and stood at the doorstep of the Blessed Aqsa Mosque, they shouted with joy: “Muhammad is dead, he left daughters behind.” Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims. "

 

Hamas has no intention of creating, let alone keeping peace between Palestine and Israel or the "unbelievers". Even worse, it regards peace talks as simply a waste of time, as indicated in Article 13:

[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion; ...There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. The initiatives, proposals and International Conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility. - Article 13.

So in Hamas we have, on one hand, a worldwide radical Islamic organization that will stop at nothing to destroy the Jews and all other unbelievers in the world. On the other  hand, we have our so-called "expert" on Middle East affairs, Robert Malley, who, in feigning to be an objective observer of his subject matter, is in fact, an implicit supporter and apologizer of terrorism and the terrorist entity, Hamas.  He has helped to create J Street which asserts that it wants to help create two states: Palestinian and Israel, which is laughable considering that Hamas has no intentions of sharing the world with Jews at all. J Street also rejects any military reaction towards Iran. Well, hope that works out for Israel if Iran points the bomb directly facing them.  Seriously, WHO exactly is not listening to our enemies here?

Now why would Malley really take the absurd position that he does, a position that denies a small country the right to self defense in the face of rabid enemies intent on its destruction?  The answer is pretty simple, if one looks the organization for which he works so laboriously namely, the International Crisis group.  ICG's general mission "to prevent conflict worldwide", and it is a mission that is in accord with the mission of the United Nations itself, in regards to establishing world peace and the end of national sovereignty of nations.  In other words, ICG is in the service of creating the eventual "One World Government". 

Now ICG is a group funded by billionaire George Soros.  Yes, him again. Now what does Soros think about Israel? Well, he does not believe that the U.S. should support the Israeli government if support means defending Israel against groups who want to destroy it. Better to be destroyed and preserve peace, than to fight back and destroy peace.

The Bush administration is once again in the process of committing a major policy blunder in the Middle East, one that is liable to have disastrous consequences and is not receiving the attention it should. This time it concerns the Israeli–Palestinian relationship. The Bush administration is actively supporting the Israeli government in its refusal to recognize a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, which the US State Department considers a terrorist organization. This precludes any progress toward a peace settlement at a time when progress on the Palestinian problem could help avert a conflagration in the greater Middle East... Israel, with the strong backing of the United States, refused to recognize the democratically elected Hamas government and withheld payment of the millions in taxes collected by the Israelis on its behalf. This caused great economic hardship and undermined the ability of the government to function. But it did not reduce popular support for Hamas among Palestinians, and it reinforced the position of Islamic and other extremists who oppose negotiations with Israel. The situation deteriorated to the point where Palestine no longer had an authority with whom it would have been possible for Israel to negotiate. - On Israel, America and AIPAC

Soros' view is entirely compatible with Malley's.  The above quote is take from an article that also addresses attacks upon critics of AIPAC. He complains that the Jewish lobby is downright fascist in its suppression of criticism and its power of American politicians. Soros wants us to believe that his criticisms on Israeli and Bush policies are actually in the interest of Israel and that it is the corrupt AIPAC that is actually going to cause the potential destruction of Israel. Soros, like Obama, wants to negotiate with terrorists, with murderers and fanatics, and he wants to do so regardless of who they are and what they say they intend to do.  That Soros actually thinks his position is for the good of Israel, if it were not so vile, would be laughable.

So Soros is on the board of the International Crisis Group. Also sitting proudly on the board is former United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who shares the same perspective on AIPAC as Soros:

Mr Brzezinski said "it's not unique to the Jewish community – but there is a McCarthyite tendency among some people in the Jewish community", referring to the Republican senator who led the anti-Communist witch hunt in the 1950s.

"They operate not by arguing but by slandering, vilifying, demonizing. They very promptly wheel out anti-Semitism. There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel." Telegraph

Now, whether or not these men are actually anti-Semitics, can neither be known nor proven either way. What is clear however is that they are, in accordance with the U.N.'s mission for global peace (slavery), supporting the destruction of national identity and national defense, in the case of both Israel and the U.S.  Or, if they are not supporting the destruction of it, they are supporting its submission to it, to a new world order.

Again, that word "submission", which is in fact the meaning of the word Islam.

 

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Obama is Now a Conservative!

You know, I had a co-worker today tell me that Obama is a conservative. No, really. As crazy as it may sound, it makes total sense that he would come to that conclusion. This is the conclusion that many other progressives will come to. It is very clear to me that a primary goal of the progressive movement is to utterly destroy the conservative party and they will do it by virtue of abrogating its nomenclature for themselves. "No no no," they will say, "WE are the centrist and the TRUE conservative party. They, those Bush extremists, are the evil backwards ones hell bent on destroying us with their hate-mongering divisiveness. "

The Obama revolution is not just Change of administration. It is a change of values, a transvaluation of values. It is a change in the language of our culture. THIS is what is truly revolutionary about this election, not that Obama is a black man or that he is ultra left wing. That he is ultra left wing has become a non-issue in this election. People don't care. What we do have is a reworking, a redefinition, a usurpation of conservativism. There is, first of all, the "old GOP partisan conservativism" and now, may I introduce,  the new "progressive conservativism". It is, folks, the true manifestation of "compassionate conservativism" and its form and function has been created to destroy any remnants of true American conservativism as we know it.

Let's first of all look at the exit poll numbers. As reflected by the fact that Obama easily won in traditionally conservative states such as Virginia, exit polls show that what put him over the edge into the finish line was the conservative vote. Conservatives have migrated towards this new conservativism.

As the election postmortems continue, it seems a metaphysical certitude media representatives will cast Tuesday's results as indicative of a continued national shift to the left they believe began when the Democrats took over Congress in 2006.

However, the exit polls don't reflect such a shift at all.

In fact, there has been virtually no change to the percentage of folks claiming to be liberal or conservative in their political ideology since 2004.

Here are the relevant numbers (2004 here and 2008 here):

• 21 percent claimed to be liberal in 2004 versus 22 percent in 2008
• 34 percent claimed to be conservative in both 2004 and 2008

Interesting, wouldn't you agree? If the past two elections were indeed a reflection of a huge leftward shift in the national ethos, shouldn't there be a serious increase in the number of folks that view themselves as liberal, and a decrease in conservatives? - NewsBusters

Yup, it is not liberals who gave Obama the presidency. It is the conservatives.

So what has happened here? In typical progressive fashion, there has been a deep but gradual and deliberate effort to, not only persuade, but to actually transform the conservative base into something entirely other than itself. On one hand the conservatives were offered a weak candidate in John McCain. In point of fact, I wouldn't consider McCain conservative at all. Bush himself, meanwhile, has strayed away from and angered his conservative base over a long period of time. His lack of leadership has been disastrous. He and the Republican party basically allowed the media to steamroll right over them. One really has to stop and think about that. If he really really cared about the image of the Republican party and the survival of conservativism, would he have allowed it to go to hell in a handbasket. My answer is a definitive no, especially when you think of the resources he has at his disposable: the political PR machines, the money, etc.

And to make matters worse, there were a number of other "defectors" from old conservativism such as Peggy Noonan, Colin Powell , Ken Adelman et al.

In sum, watching these puppets be walked off the conservative side of the state, watching the captains of ship abandon: well, it causes panic and fear amongst the sailors, the conservative base. So what do many do? They just follow and hope that they too can swim...

But those who remained continued to watch with horror the grand finale of the play: the scapegoating and ostracism of Sarah Palin. If Americans were not such a kind and gentle people, they would have been stoning her to death in the streets. Notice how the media and the so-called GOP painted Sarah Palin as the paradigm of conservative values and trotted her out on the stage for all to see and marvel. Note how she was utterly destroyed as many Americans squealed with delight. Effigies of her hanging by a noose, SNL episodes used as proof of her stupidity, insults and jibes hurled at her family as if they were of less value than pond scum.  Notice how everything she stands for was transformed and twisted into  a caricature of old conservative dead end values. The verdict on Palin and Conservatives? They are a bunch of racist rednecks. Only in a climate like this, could a Murtha get re-elected. Only in a climate like this, can I feel and hear the palpable hatred the progressives have for old conservativism.

I see America's treatment of Palin as a metaphor for the death of conservativism as we know it. I truly believe that, if Zeus and the Olympians enjoy a good comedy as much as the next one of us, they are surely laughing aloud now. Am I suggesting that this is all an orchestrated display for those "in the know". Yup, I am. Can I prove it? Nope, I can't. I only connect the dots, I can't prove the connection.

So what does this all finally mean, this transvaluation of conservativism?  What is the goal of destroying true conservativism and replacing it with progressivism? I believe that America is headed towards a one-party system - or at least this is the desired goal. The one-party system will be called bipartisan. To demonstrate this so-called bipartisan nature of the new government, Obama will choose cabinet members that are both Republican and Democrat. To the progressive conservatives, this will appear to be miraculous, kind hearted and fair on the part of the Obama administration. The Republicans will embrace it and both parties will resolve to end their conflicts of the past evil Bush regime. Its the Hegelian dialectic showing its hydra head again.

So once they have the government centralized to their liking, they will eventually move onto the media. They will work to enforce something like the Fairness Doctrine, in the name of bipartisanship and an "equal playing field". Anyone who doesn't play along will be cast as being unreasonable and "difficult", as old school, red necked , Bible thumping and close-minded. The media and corporations will enforce this (corporations internally already do). What happened to Michael Savage folks, when he was abandoned by various companies for saying certain things, will happen to all the talk show hosts. They will lose money and be put out of business. And again, to the progressives, this will appear to be also miraculous, kind hearted and fair on the part of the Obama administration. 

As this transformation unfolds, people who actually see what is going on will be silenced either by force or by shame. Either way, there will be no voice for the truly conservative independent thinker. He or she, like Palin, will be laughed at, mocked, scorned and shamed his way out the door into nowhere land, because there will be nowhere to turn.

Since the Nixon era, conservatives have claimed to speak for the "silent majority." Obama represents the future majority. It is the majority of a dynamic country increasingly at ease with its diversity. It reflects the forward-looking optimism of the young. It draws in new suburban and exurban voters whose priorities are resolutely practical -- jobs, schools and transportation -- and who dislike angry quarrels about gay marriage, abortion and religious orthodoxy. - Washington Post

 

The progressives will then declare, after they look upon all that they have created and will say: "This is the Good" - and you had better agree.

 

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Election Day: The Day Philosophy Died

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague." - Marcus Tullius Cicero, Against Catiline I

I am not a professional philosopher. Really, there is no such thing.  Yet, I did pursue and recieve a degree in philosophy. To this day, friends and acquaintances still ask me as to why in the name of the almighty dollar, would I have pursued and continue to pursue something so, well, "fruitless."  Meanwhile, today is election day, and today is the day which marks the beginning of something unprecedented for our country. A strange growth indeed:  I believe that Obama will easily take the White House. The enormous force of propaganda and excitement generated out of it, the likes of which I have not seen during my lifetime, except in the case of perhaps a movie like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, is a tsunami that is just too massive for the majority of Americans to resist.  People have flocked to the Obama show and have been swept up by his character, his drama and his platitudes. However, whether it be a day or a week or a month or years, many people are going to wonder why and how we got here.  People are either going to be in shock for what is to come or they are going to be in such a narcotic stupor, so zombified, that they won't even notice. They won't even notice to what extent our minds and our wallets have come into utter slavery.

They don't notice because we don't teach our kids "fruitless" philosophy.

It takes times like these to see that philosophy is probably THE most fruitful of all the pursuits. I say "most fruitful" because where else are kids going to learn the origins of Marxism, communism, socialism and every other -ism for that matter? Sure, kids can learn about the  -isms inside history, inside the variety of movements throughout the world both present and past. You yourself can hear Obama or Al Gore utter -ismic type sentences. However, if you want to see what truly rules the world, you will find that it is the ideas and the imagination these ideas provoke. And once understanding these and seeing their weaknesses and their lies, you can really see the absurdity and dangerous nature that is an Obama, that is antiscientific Global Warming theory, that is the United Nations, that has become our nation.

I furthermore ask as to where are kids going to learn the distinction between political thought and metaphysical/religious thought and scientific thought? Where are they going to learn that the distinctions matter? In computer programming 101? In social studies? In Spanish class? I don't think so. But in today's world, do we even recognize that you can't apply principles of, lets say, computer programming, to political science? I read many technology blogs, many of which assume that their expertise in matters of technology apply to matters of human politics and ethics. A combination of unbridled ego, a lack of education regarding the various types of knowledges and distinctions that had created by Aristotle and passed down into Medieval thought, has resulted in mass confusion, faulty logic and unbelievable arrogance, the likes of which is only reflected in the leader we will choose today, namely, Obama.

You see, ideas are like big monstrous babies. You need to keep a sharp eye on them. Otherwise, they could hurt themselves and everyone around them. They grow tentacles and roots and they insinuate themselves into the crevices of every life form on earth. They even take on the forms of other more benign beings, just to gain more power and more adherents to their cause. Really, after studying philosophy for many years and just paying attention to what is going on in the world, I don't need science fiction to entertain me.  Everyone knows how insidious, how unexpected and how powerful a cancer like this can be to a body. It grows from within, not from without. It festers and overtakes the body until the body is no longer the body it once was and then, finally, it will kill at any moment, instantly.

As you can see, Obama is not our only problem, though he very well is one of the heads of the hydra. The disease has spread. And while writing this, I am reminded of Cicero's speech against Catiline before the senate, where is is warning them of the dangers of this man, Catiline, who attempted to overthrow the Republic:

Though there are some men in this body who either do not see what threatens, or dissemble what they do see; who have fed the hope of Catiline by mild sentiments, and have strengthened the rising conspiracy by not believing it; influenced by whose authority many, and they not wicked, but only ignorant, if I punished him would say that I had acted cruelly and tyrannically. But I know that if he arrives at the camp of Manlius to which he is going, there will be no one so stupid as not to see that there has been a conspiracy, no one so hardened as not to confess it. But if this man alone were put to death, I know that this disease of the republic would be only checked for a while, not eradicated forever. But if he banishes himself, and takes with him all his friends, and collects at one point all the ruined men from every quarter, then not only will this full-grown plague of the republic be extinguished and eradicated, but also the root and seed of all future evils.

- Marcus Tullius Cicero

Philosophy is like gardening. If a nation does not practice it, the weeds and the diseases will continue to grow unchecked. That is what is really meant by "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Philosophy always wants to keep all the powers in check by keeping the mind free as it swims amongst all the various beliefs and creeds, and chooses the ones it knows to be best:

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789

Philosophy *should* teach young people how to wake up, become aware of the power of thought and mind and knowledge and learn how to use it, how to tend their own garden and think for themselves. This is kids learning how to be free human beings. Are we going to allow our children to continue to be slaves to the -isms and MSNBCs of the world, or do we want to teach them how to wrestle themselves out of it through the exercise of mind and make better choices based on "common sense" rather than unchecked idealism. THAT is one of the many benefits of philosophy and that is why Plato's famous dictum, in the mouth of his character Socrates is: "Know Thyself!".  This dictum does not mean go out and experience your feelings or find your inner woman. It doesn't mean go out and buy self-help books and experiment with different positions and different genders. What this means is to know who you are as a human being; Know what you are capable of and incapable of; explore your own power and use it WISELY.

If Americans do not wake up. If Americans refuse to follow Plato's and Ciceronian wisdom, we will continue down the path of slavery which is slavery of the soul, slavery of mind and the perpetuation of our rulers' unchecked power over us. The cancer will continue to spread. Power that is unchecked is corruption. America is already deeply, deeply in a state of utter corruption. Philosophy, the way Plato invented it, is meant to prevent or cure the corruption through questioning what you think you know; through experimenting through thought rather than experimenting on society a la progressivism; through exercising what freedoms we have to force those in power to be accountable for what they say and do. If we do not do this we will only have the history of America, but no longer America, because we simply gave up the gardening to something completely foreign, to something completely destructive to ourselves.

Socrates was put to death for the practice of philosophy in a democracy that became a tyranny. I believe that the election of Obama is the final death sentence for this nation. We have chosen the course we want to take, but it is a course that we really don't understand. It is a course that Obama calls "Hope". As such, America will never be what it was again, at least not in our lifetime, because today is the day philosophy died once and for all.

Still I have a favor to ask of them[the people of Athens]. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, - then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.  - Socrates addressing the jury upon his death sentence. Plato, The Apology

Over two thousand years later, Jefferson responds, making clear that that "for which they ought to care" is in fact the virtue of freedom:

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826 (in the last letter he penned)

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