We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Who can know or understand all of this crap? All people know is that you can get in trouble if you do not. Insane, but it keeps lawyers and lobbyists employed.
People tend to discuss psychopaths (aka sociopaths) as if there were a sharp division between them and normal people. It seems as if it were, when you just look at the extreme end of the spectrum but, as in most traits, there's a spectrum.
I have always found it fascinating that while elitists and NWO champions constantly proclaim that morality is relative and that conscience is not inherent, somehow they are the ones who possess the proper definition of the “greater good.” If “good” is in all cases relative, then wouldn’t the “greater good” also be entirely relative? This inconsistency in their reasoning does not seem to stop them from forcing the masses through propaganda or violence to accept their version of better judgment.
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We would be far better served as a species if we were to turn our back on the NWO altogether and move swiftly in the opposite direction. Imagine what tomorrow would be like if there were no controllers, no statists, no despots and no philosopher kings. Imagine a tomorrow where people respect the natural-born rights of others. Imagine a tomorrow where people’s irrational fears are not allowed to inhibit other people’s freedoms. Imagine a tomorrow where interactions between citizens and government are rare or nonexistent. Imagine if we could live our days in peace, independently building our own destinies, in which our successes and failures are our own, rather than the property of the collective. It may not be a perfect world, or a utopia, but I suspect it would be a much better place than we live in today.
Surely some of our readers went to the 1964 World's Fair (Peace through understanding, and It's a small world after all). NYC is an endless wonder, adventure, and delight to me as a country boy.
Took a trip to Queens on Friday evening to see some theatrical performances celebrating the 50th anniversary of the most recent NY World's Fair. The site is now Flushing Meadows Corona Park. A bit bedraggled but very pleasant large park filled with Queens people, mostly with kids. We spoke with a proud resident of Queens who had attended both the 1939 and the 1964 world's fairs sited there. At the edge of the park, the Mets' new CitiField, and the National Tennis Center.
A cool place. The futuristic remnants of 1964 are strange, rusting, and apocalyptic in a way. None of the fountains work. The Space Center is all gone now.
The Unisphere fountains are now a place for kids to practice bike-riding and roller-blading. The lights and structures behind the treeline are the US (Billy Jean King) Tennis Center:
In Left-wing La-La Land everyone should either work for The Excellent Benign Government or sell puka shell necklaces to each other (if you can comply with the 4,000 pages of Puka Shell Necklace regulations.) Failing that, Nancy Pelosi suggests writing poetry, an apparent high-paying growth industry.
I’m not saying that parents should take their toddlers into the wilderness and leave them there to hike their way out. What I can’t understand is how our society has lost the ability to distinguish between that and letting your pre-teen hang out in the car for a half-hour or spend some time in a nearby park. As Jessica Grose says, if this had been illegal in 1972, every single mother in America would have been in jail. Yet millions upon millions of us lived to tell the tale.
'Tis true, 'tis day; what though it be? O wilt thou therefore rise from me? Why should we rise, because 'tis light? Did we lie down, because 'twas night? Love which in spite of darkness brought us hither Should in despite of light keep us together.
Light hath no tongue, but is all eye; If it could speak as well as spy, This were the worst that it could say - That being well, I fain would stay, And that I loved my heart and honour so, That I would not from her, that had them, go.
Must business thee from hence remove? Oh, that's the worst disease of love! The poor, the foul, the false, love can Admit, but not the busied man. He which hath business, and makes love, doth do Such wrong as when a married man doth woo.
Some good history and some good thinking about the modern (and ancient) administrative state with its extra-legal powers. I have no doubt that the founders hoped to prevent a Versailles-like giant central bureaucracy, but they failed at that. Why? They wrote all they could to prevent it.
The USA Progressives borrowed our public school structures, and developed our central governmental administration, from the Prussian models. As Hamburger says, "as American as Bismarck."
"There is always a 'necessity' for increasing government administrative power."
To deliberately wage war so that your own people can be telegenically killed is indeed moral and tactical insanity. But it rests on a very rational premise: Given the Orwellian state of the world’s treatment of Israel (see: the U.N.’s grotesque Human Rights Council), fueled by a mix of classic anti-Semitism, near-total historical ignorance, and reflexive sympathy for the ostensible Third World underdog, these eruptions featuring Palestinian casualties ultimately undermine support for Israel’s legitimacy and right to self-defense.
In a world of such Kafkaesque ethical inversions, Hamas’ depravity begins to make sense. This is a world in which the Munich massacre is a movie and the murder of Klinghoffer is an opera — both deeply sympathetic to the killers. This is a world in which the U.N. ignores humanity’s worst war criminals while incessantly condemning Israel, a state warred upon for 66 years which nonetheless goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid harming the very innocents its enemies use as shields.
Makes some sense, as long as that doesn't get dumped on the taxpayer. Of course, having a bankruptcy on your credit report will not do much for your future prospects.
How did the old assimilationist model work? Brutally and effectively. In our grammar schools during the 1950s and 1960s, no Spanish was to be spoken on the playground—officially at least. Groups of four and larger were not allowed to congregate at recess. When we were caught fighting, nontraditional kicking instead of the accepted punching earned four, rather than two, spankings. A rather tough Americanism in class was rammed down our throats—biographies of Teddy Roosevelt, stories about Lou Gehrig, a repertory of a dozen or so patriotic songs, recitations from Longfellow, and demonstrations of how to fold the flag. “Manners” and “civics” were taught each week, with weird lessons about not appearing “loud” in public or wearing glittery or showy clothes, and especially not staring down strangers or giving people the “hard look” with the intent of “being unpleasant.” Our teachers were at times insufferable in their condescension as they disclosed the formula for “making it in America”—but make it in America the vast majority of these immigrants did.
Two images from around the web this week that, I think, capture how many see this:
Educated people often make doctors’ worst patients: anti-vaxxers, cancer treatment rejecters, herbal remedy enthusiasts. Why do otherwise brilliant minds ignore science and reject modern medicine?
Read the article. I think people tend to be skeptical because "the science" is always in flux so many would rather go with their relatively-uninformed judgement than with the expert judgement of the day which may be obsolete next year. Remember the big scare about hormone replacement? Remember when they claimed that broccoli was good for you? Etc. People do know that physicians are smart and well-educated, but they like to make their own decisions for better or worse.
... intellectuals are a paradoxical product of the market economy, because “unlike any other type of society, capitalism inevitably and by virtue of the very logic of its civilization creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest.” Like Hayek, Schumpeter described intellectuals broadly as “people who wield the power of the spoken and the written word.” More narrowly, “one of the touches that distinguish them from other people who do the same is the absence of direct responsibility for practical affairs.” That is, intellectuals do not participate in the market (at least not in the areas they write about), and do not generally rely on satisfying consumers to earn a living. Add to this their naturally critical attitude—which Schumpeter argues is the product of the essential rationality of the market economy—and it is easy to see why intellectuals would be hostile to the market.
What Are the 
Governors are 
Break of Day
Some good history and some good thinking about the modern (and ancient) administrative state with its extra-legal powers. I have no doubt that the founders hoped to prevent a Versailles-like giant central bureaucracy, but they failed at that. Why? They wrote all they could to prevent it.
Image via