Growing Fast - Sowing Destruction

Harry is gaining in size now, at 10 weeks, he's getting very active and very assertive, the teeth are needles and anything he uses them on doesn't stand a chance. Even the toughest toys are starting to show weakness. As for his day bed ...

It is being systematically 'mined' for the stuffing in the bottom cushion. We're not sure why it is so attractive, but we are grateful it is keeping him occupied and away from any attempt to 'mine the cushions in anything else!

One of the more interesting aspects of living with this small bundle of energy is that you can take him for a walk - we do, twice daily - you can have him out in the garden and play until you drop. But the moment you come back inside - Playtime! At least he sleeps from the time we go to bed. But as soon as one of us stirs around 05.00 - Harry is there, ready to go! We're told he'll slow down a bit after the first year.

Only another 10 months then ...

I know this is rather long, but it is worth reading. It comes from the blog "The Old Jarhead" and I repost it because it covers many of the things I have myself pondered in recent years. As G K Chesterton remarked, the absence of religion does not mean the absence of beliefe. On the contrary, it simply means people will believe in anything.

The Great Progressive Church

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/m-the_great_progressive_church.html

Robert A. Hall

Psychologists, I’ve read, say that people psychologically need religion in one form or another, and will always invent a theology if they are not given one. Looking at the multiplicity of religious beliefs through human history, I suspect this is true. Many religions seem very weird to me, like the “Cargo Cult” religion of the South Pacific Islanders during WWII and 21^st century American entitlement voters. I suspect that all theologies seem weird to unbelievers. Understanding that is one reason I don’t try to convince anyone else what to believe. And I know the truth of the old saying that, “People who want to tell you what they believe about religion are uninterested in hearing what you believe.”

I’m a protestant Christian, a Presbyterian when I can find a church and minister I like, but I’ll settle for other denominations. Though I’m never sure of the efficacy, I ask God every day to protect my wife, Bonnie and my Granddaughter, Britnye. As the Brits say, “Can’t hurt, might help.” I ask nothing for myself. I’ve had a great life, and I suspect He doesn’t look with favor on the greedy.

I’m not the first to notice that the rise of thetic, Un-Churched, Godless Secular Humanists has resulted in liberals meeting this human need by converting Progressive Ideology into religious doctrine and admiration for Progressive leaders into unquestioning worship. Self-righteous calls for civility aside, this explains why they get so angry and vicious when you challenge any of their tenets. You are not disagreeing with them over policy. You are attacking the core of their religion, and their reaction is often the same as it you told a member of the Westboro Baptist Church that Jesus wasn’t divine or a member of the Muslim Brotherhood that Mohammad was a fake and Jesus was the Son of God. Blasphemy cannot be tolerated by fundamentalists of any stripe.

Of course, like all religions, the Progressive Church has degrees of belief, from the moderates, who are rather like Christmas and Easter Christians, to the Fundamentalist Progressives, who respond as you’d expect from a Salafist told that Allah wasn’t really in favor of slaughtering Jews. (Why are you picking up that stone?) I forwarded a Progressive on my joke list a funny story about beer. But I hadn’t noticed it came from Fox news, and he used it to launch an attack on Fox and defense of Obama, though it really had naught to do with either. I took him off the joke list. Who needs the aggro?

To understand the Progressive Church, you must first understand for them that intentions matter, not the results for real people. If they can feel all warm and fuzzy about intending good, the actually outcomes are of no interest. Note that they find no cognitive dissonance when their principles collide with each other or with reality—they just ignore it in the grand tradition of many great religions.

And just as some Christians believe in “The Elect of God”—people pre-chosen for salvation—the Progressive Church has groups of the “elect” and groups of despised infidels who are not going to heaven. But as with many religions, you can join the Progressive Church and be among the saved by accepting all the canons and renouncing other political beliefs.

The Progressive Elect are Muslims, Gays, Blacks, Hispanics, Women, the Poor, Government Union Members and other Union Members. I’ve tried to put this in order, but it changes frequently as the Progressive Mullahs issue a new Fatwa. And I’m sure I’ve missed some. Thus, right now, Gays trump Blacks, but Muslims trump Gays. So if conservatives oppose Gay Marriage (I don’t, BTW), it is an atrocity, but if Muslims call for the Murder of Gays, it is a heartwarming display of Multiculturalism.

Of course, all Professing Progressives are among the Elect, including wealthy Progressives, though wealthy non-Progressives are among the worst of the infidels.

Among the Canons of the Progressive Church are:

Multiculturalism. This trumps almost everything right now. Any mention of Islamist violence is, for example, “Islamophobic,” and truth is not a defense.

Environmentalism. Progressives make much of their support for the poor, but are willing to grind them into poverty to feel all green and fuzzy.  So pumping corn into alternative bio-fuel fuel and starving theThird World is tough for the hungry, but high on the list of revered behaviors. The Third World Poor don’t vote here, after all. And Global Warming must be accepted and believed, and the poor must tithe to Al Gore to reduce carbon emissions, regardless of cost. The cascading failures of tax-supported green energy companies don’t signify, because intentions matter, not results. Looking at any contrary evidence is blasphemy, and not permitted, just as the Medieval divines convicted Galileo of heresy for claiming that the Earth revolved around the sun—and to look at the evidence was not permitted.

Gay Rights. Universities kept military recruiters off campus because of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy ordered by Progressive Mullah Bill Clinton. Go figure. Gay rights in the US are sacrosanct. Gays being executed in Muslim countries are not worth mentioning—they don’t vote for or contribute to Democrats after all.

Feminism. Progressives think it’s an outrage if you don’t want to pay for free birth control for yuppie law students, but completely ignore the stoning of women, child marriages, female genital mutilation, honor killings of female relatives for even speaking to a strange man and oppressive inequality of women in Muslim countries under Shari’a Law, because to notice it would be heresy against their multicultural canon.

America is evil and must apologize to the world. They don’t often say it, because it might lose votes among the bitter clingers, unless you catch one preaching “God Damn America” without challenge from any noted parishioners. But you can see they believe it from their actions.

Israel is evil. Israel is not only an American ally, but the only multi-party democracy in the Middle East, and tries to preserve freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and equality for women. Naturally, all good Progressives despise Israel, even Jewish ones. Scratch a Progressive, and if you don’t find a Star of David, you’ll likely find an Anti-Semite. It’s more advanced, of course, in more Progressive countries like France, but violent anti-Semitism will grow here as the Progressive Faith grows.

Race matters a great deal, culture not at all. As a conservative, I believe the opposite, but this is how it is, though they talk about a post-racial America. (If you actually had a way to eliminate all racism, they’d murder you, because it’s their rice bowl.) One of the interesting features of the Progressive Church is their ability to believe that any policy disagreement with Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Susan Rice or Charlie Rangel grows out of your brutal Jim Crow racism, but that their most egregious, vile attacks on Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice, Colin Powel, Allan West or Mia Love were entirely based on disagreement with their policies and actions. Sure. And Jesse Jackson can declare Budweiser racist, not fit to drink for Progressives, until Bud reward his sons with lucrative beer distributorships, when a fatwa was issued making Bud hahal for Progressives to consume again. Racial blackmail is perfectly acceptable to the Progressive Church.

Racism drives everything non-Progressives do. So White Rule inRhodesia was evil and had to be destroyed. Never mind that Black Rule there dropped black life expectancy by 10 to 15 years, destroyed the economy through hyper-inflation and turned the country from a food-exporter to one stalked by starvation. Intentions mattered, not the deleterious results for the poor black folks who actually lived—and died—there. And 59% of whites voting for Romney is clear evidence of terrible racism, while 95% of blacks voting for Obama is not. Thus, the media can edit tapes and pictures to make that “white Hispanic” George Zimmerman look racist, but can ignore black flash mobs attacking whites, Hispanics and Asians. Also not to be mentioned is that 53% of the murders are committed by the 13% of the population that is black, with upwards of 85% of the victims being black folks. But tough law enforcement would be racist, so black folks must die on the Progressive alter. Truth, again, is not a defense.

The Rich are evil—but only if they earned their money in business and are not Progressives. So Mega-Millionaires Michael Moore, Warren Buffet, Al Gore, George Soros, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, Tax Cheat Tim Geithner, Angelo “Friends of Angelo at Countrywide” Mozilo and any number of entertainment and athletic stars are all righteous people, while a couple each working 60 hours a week to bring home $260k are among the evil rich who aren’t “paying their fair share.” Of course, Progressives who get caught with their hands in the cookie jar become invisible. See Obama’s real estate angel and convicted influence peddler Tony Rezko or Obama bundler Jon Corzine, who misplaced a billion bucks of the customers’ money. Hey, I bet you’ve misplaced at least $100M yourself more than once.

The Bush Tax Cuts Benefited only the Rich. Never mind that the tax bill for average folks also went down, that many on the lower end stopped paying any taxes at all, and that after the tax cuts, the wealthy paid a larger share of the total tax revenues—which went up. Intentions matter, not results. Raising taxes is about theology, not revenue.

Guns are evil. Never mind that the cities with the strictest gun control have the worst crime, or that as gun ownership has gone up crime has dropped, or that thousands of decent citizens save themselves from violence every year with their legally-owned guns. The ProgressiveChurch decrees guns evil regardless. And don't think of making your hunting rifle into an "assault rifle" by putting a black folding stock and bayonet lug on it. Guns that look more dangerous are more dangerous.

Everything depends on who says it. If Obama said in 2008 that raising the debt ceiling was unpatriotic, and in 2011 that voting against raising the debt ceiling was wrong, both statements were true, because Obama said them. If Democrats and George Bush both looked at the CIA intelligence and concluded there were WMDs in Iraq, the Democrats were using the best data they had, but Bush lied. When Obama and Susan Rice repeated CIA talking points about Benghazi(that were mysteriously changed by persons unknown) they weren't lying, they were repeating the intelligence they had. If Bush had said it was a spontaneous demonstration, that would have been a lie, of course, because Bush said it.

Children are a high priority. As long as they are children of the Progressive Elect voting blocks in the US. So banning DDT to save the birds to feel good about the environmental was wonderful, and several million dead black, brown and yellow kids from Malaria in theThird World mattered not at all. Nor did the birds, of course, when it was time to build eagle-chopper wind farms in homage to Big Green.

A Progressive Fatwa making something Halah (allowed) or Haram (forbidden) may be issued by any of the Progressive Mullahs such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, Michael Moore, Harry Reid, Jo Biden, Paul Krugman, Nancy Pelosi, the New York Times or many others and will be instantly adopted without question or thought by all Fundamentalist Progressives. There is, it must be noted, a theological debate right now in the Progressive Church as to whether Barack Obama is the reigning Progressive Pope, or actually a Progressive God—our “Lord and Savior” as Jamie Foxx recently worshiped him.

The issuing of Fatwas means that new Progressive Canons pop up all the time. The most recent one is that requiring voters to identify themselves to vote is racist, there is no real voter fraud and thus requiring ID is evidence of conservative voter suppression. (The NBPP thugs with nightsticks outside polling places in Philadelphia are, of course, not voter suppression because they are black.) Never mind that voters were required to have voter cards for a long time without Progressives noticing the racism. Never mind that voter fraud has a long history in the city political machines (mostly Democrat, but some Republican too) from Tammany Hall to the First Ward in Chicago, where “floaters” were paid 50 cents a vote to chain vote as often as possible. (I recommend The Lords of the Levee.) Never mind that Lyndon Johnson because a US Senator through voter fraud and JFK may have been elected president in 1960 due to it. The Church decrees now that fraud doesn’t exist.

But if you ask why it isn’t racist to require minorities to identify themselves to cash a check, fly, drive, buy a gun, buy alcohol, buy tobacco, sign up for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Welfare, or to enter a government building, Obama rally or the Democrat National convention, they will deflect or ignore the question. Apparently it’s fine with liberals that a large number of Blacks and Hispanics are prevented from doing these things because they can’t get ID, as long as they can vote as often as they want, no questions asked. The Fatwa was issued by Mullah Holder and others and they all now really believe that any effort to eliminate fraud is racist. And they will not look at the evidence. One Progressive told me there was no evidence, but if I sent him some he’d look at it. When I did, he decided the site that linked to the evidence was biased, therefore it would be blasphemy to look at the links—thus saving himself from having to look in the telescope or challenge his beliefs.

As with any great Religion, there is a lot more to the ProgressiveChurch than this brief overview, but I hope I have put it into perspective. I will continue to engage with Moderate Progressives, who are willing to discuss policy rationally. But I’m going to try to avoid the Fundamentalist Progressives, who believe anyone who disagrees with them is evil, stupid or both, because disagreement is heresy. It’s not worth the conflict. And, eventually, they’ll justify violence as a response. The extreme Left, like the extreme Right, always does. Progressive Jihad is coming.

Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts Senate. He is the author of “The Coming Collapse of the American Republic.” All royalties go to help wounded vets, but for a free PDF of this 80-page book, write him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com.

The Vexed Question ...

Reactions to the tragedy in Connecticut have been interesting, some might say, in some quarters, insensitive. Predictably there have been calls for an outright ban on firearms, something I find myself, as a former gun owner, opposed to. I do not believe a "disarmed" public is safer. Plus, if the UK's crime statistics are to be trusted, the immediate effect of the Blair government's ban on the ownership of handguns resulted instead in a huge leap in the use of illegally owned guns in crimes. That is reflected in the Australian statistics as well since the introduction on a firearms ban there.

The fact is that many countries which do have a high proportion of gun ownership do not have the same high death rates with them as the US. Canada has as many gun owners per capita as the US, but less than a tenth of the number of gun related deaths, and the same applies to Sweden. Norway also has a high proportion of gun ownership and only one recorded "amoklauf" as the German's have it - that of the lunatic Brivik and most of the weapons he used were not "legal." 

The abuse of firearms is always a problem, just as is the abuse of any other lethal weapon. I suspect that in the day of William II "Rufus," there could well have been calls for the banning of Long Bows after one "accidentally went off" while he was hunting and killed him. I think we can be sure he wasn't the only such casualty either. Weapons of any sort are dangerous, but in the hands of someone responsible are no more than a threat. And therein, I think, lies the problem.

Samuel Colt, the man who created the .44 (and the later .45 "Peacemaker") calibre six shot revolver which became the best known handgun of the 19th and early 20th Centuries, called his guns "the Equalisers." No longer was the strongest man around able to enforce his will on others, with a Colt revolver in his hand, even a weakling or a woman had the same authority. The trouble is that this mindset seems to have become entrenched, and I can think of several popular movies where the possession (and the willingness to use it) of a firearm has swayed the outcome of a confrontation between a "baddie" and a much less powerful "goodie" in favour of the weaker party.

That is one aspect of what seems to underlie many of these incidents. But there does seem to be another element in play, one that is extremely sensitive. In fact it is, ironically the same lobby that demands the outright ban on weapons that refuses to assess or discuss the part this may play.

A study of the last such tragic shooting spree in the US turned up the fact that the perpetrator was a sociopath. A look by the same researchers found a similar pattern in other such incidents (indeed, it applies to Brivik as well) and there is another element to it, the use of antidepressant medications seems to increase the risk posed by some people with similar conditions. One researcher suggest these "amoklaufers" suffer from an Asperger's-like Syndrome and likens it to a form of Autism. Now, here is the super sensitive part, there are a lot of people who suffer from Asperger's and Autism, but the vast majority learn to manage their condition and don't go on murder sprees! So what could explain the few that do? 

The simple answer seems to be the use or abuse of anti-depressants. But even that doesn't seem to be the whole answer, there do seem to be other influences and triggers in play, as yet only vaguely identified and understood. OK, that seems to go some way toward explaining the sort of mass shootings, but it doesn't explain these statistics - 

An ongoing nationwide study by the Violence Policy Center documents that since May 2007, citizens legally allowed to carry concealed handguns have killed at least 14 law enforcement officers and 499 private citizens, including 35 shooters who killed themselves after the attack.

In Michigan, from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, 38 lives were ended by Michigan concealed handgun permit holders in non-self-defense deaths. In addition, conceal carry licensees have committed at least 23 mass shootings (three or more victims) that claimed a total of 103 innocent lives.   (With thanks to a lawyer friend in the US)

Other statistics show that the average death toll in the US is around 40 people per day in shooting incidents, and here the difference appears to be that in the US a lot of people seem to feel a need to carry their weapons on their person. Why? Those who defend this claim it is to "protect themselves." 

My friends know how I feel about the right to self defence and to defend my property and family and the useless UK legal position on it. That would see me charged with "assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm" if I dared to injure some scumbag breaking and entering my home, or who assaulted me, my wife or my family members in the street. The whole of that depends on whether some smart lawyer can convince the court that my response was "unreasonable" or that I used "disproportionate" force in my defence or even a weapon not available to the criminal. Either way, I could end up being convicted for defending myself. That said, the US obsession with the use of lethal weapons for self-defence does seem to go way beyond the realms of "reasonable" even in my book.

Reading the reports and the available information on previous massacres perpetrated by people like the young man in Connecticut, does suggest that there needs to be a much tighter control on the issue of licences to possess firearms and to use them. I would suggest that a great deal of careful thought needs to be given to the mental conditions of those who have committed these crimes, and then there needs to be a very careful appraisal of the conditions which pertain, politically and socially, that give rise to the feeling of insecurity that drives many to wish to own a firearm for "self-defence."

Care must be taken to get the right controls in place. These need to address some of the extremely tricky issues such as the mental state and the medications used among many other things. That may require a type of "profiling" of applicants. This must not be rushed and the emotions must not be used to guide the solution. Emotive responses are seldom either rational or, in the longer term, the answer.

And while it continues, we should all pray for the latest victims, the families and friends - and for those who must find the answers. 

What can one say?

There is almost nothing one can say regarding the tragic murder of 20 children and at six adults in a school in Connecticut. I have no doubt we will eventually learn what motivated this young man, and I have no doubt that nothing can ever replace the children he has killed, or assuage the grief of the parents and others affected by it.

How does one prevent these events? There is no easy answer. We cannot "un-invent" guns and even where there is tight control there is still abuse. That leaves only the question of what kind of person can commit such an evil deed? The weapons this young man used did not select the targets or pull the triggers or load and reload - he did. Had he not had access to his mother's weapons, he would probably have found some other weapon to use.

All any of us can do at present is pray for the departed and those left to mourn.

Growing Bolder

Having settled in, Harry is making himself comfortable and getting set into carving out his place in the family. Here he is with some of his toys.

The little fellow is bright, quick and learning fast. Already he knows how to ask to be let out for his 'business' and he's starting to pick up on some commands. Tomorrow he goes to "Puppy School" for the first time, so we'll see how he gets on, though he does have a bit of a tummy problem at the moment which the vet says is diet related.

He's also proving to have a lot of "bounce to the ounce." But he's a great little fellow and fast becoming a fabulous little companion.

The UN 'Regulate' the Internet?

My immediate response is "No way, Jose`!"

I'm not concerned about the "commerce" aspect that is exercising the minds of the many "western" governments. What concerns me is that once the UN, probably the least democratic and least efficient organisation we've yet managed to create, gets control of the "information highway" we could find ourselves being fed only the latest propaganda for certain "special interest" and "Non Government Organisations" and all alternative views and information being denied.

When you realise that the General Assembly is made up of a majority of totalitarian and marginally democratic governments, you very quickly realise that you would soon see them campaigning for the banning and shutting down of all websites and information streams they don't like. They are trying to pass this power grab off as "just an extension of the existing telecommunications treaty." Yeah, we've heard that one before, and anyone who regularly travels to some of the more deprived parts of the world will also know that many of them already use clauses in that treaty to restrict access to telecommunications, shut opposition movements out of them, or monitor private and business usage.

No, the United Nations is entirely the wrong organisation to allow to regulate the internet in any way, shape or form. It will simply become an excuse for all the advocacy propagandists, all the authoritarians and all the control freaks in every capital in the world to make use of the "international law" to once again attack the freedoms our forefathers fought so hard to win.

Let the UN regulate the Internet? No, no, no and again no!

Reliable References?

One of the key elements in any treatise intended for academia is to include 'references' for everything you rely on in your research or your final outcomes. In essence it is a sound system, it should mean that if I study something and draw certain conclusions from it, I should be able to point to support for my hypothesis in other work by others in my field. Ideally I should include references to work which differs from my outcomes and state why I disagree. However, there are pitfalls to this. Quite often the "references" have a tendency to become "circular" and the outcome can be predictable because the author has fallen into the trap of accepting, without challenge, something said by someone else.

As I'm sure Josephus will be able to show at some point when he has time, these 'references' tend to become self-perpetuating and once they have entered a sort of magic zone where they have been relied on by so many other 'experts' they become unchallengable - yet may well be of decidedly unreliable provenance. An example I came across recently relates to the "Mayan Prophecy" that the world will end on 21st December of this year. Tracing the origin of this exposes the fact that it first appears in a book written by someone named McKenna in 1979. The book itself is a rather strange mix of "New Age" ideas, hallucinatory "revelation" and very little actual knowledge of the Mayan artifacts or calendar. So how did it get so widely spread and so wisely adopted?

It turns out that McKenna was one of the "gurus" followed by a small group of later authors, one of whom recently gave an interview on their writing, who all agreed that the way to get noticed was to draw on each other as "reference" material in support of their ideas. According to the article he freely admits that many of the ideas of "Nibiru" and "Planet X" crashing into the earth on this date were "revealed" on "magic mushroom trips." So, the question really, is how did their ramblings become so widely quoted and spark this whole zany movement that now expects the end of the world to occur in 9 days time?

The answer is "referencing." As soon as someone uses a "reference" from something someone has written, it begins to be used by others, quite often without their actually having read the "referenced" item fully. And sometimes the original "quote" is completely spurious, an invention of the imagination of the original author. Suddenly the game changes. Another common misconception is that everything on the internet is true, proved and indisputable. The problem here is that often misrepresentations are posted and go viral because they feed into the expectation bias of certain groups. A good example are some of the quotes and refences used against Christianity - quite a number have become "authenticated" by the reputation of the originator. No one has ever questioned the origins of the opinion - for that is often all it is - of the original author. Many of these can be traced back to authors like Bertrand Russell, and most, when you examine his support for the statement, are unsupported and just his blatantly biased opinion. However, for those of like mind, Russell said it, he's the "expert," therefore it is true.

This is what has happened with the Mayan "Prophecy." It no longer matters how many real experts on the Mayan culture, artifacts and calendars (there is more than one) try to correct the garbage, it is ignored, "because McKenna was an expert" and his interpretation was supported by ... who was quoting ... and so we go round in a circle to discover that they have all been quoting each other as "expert sources." Some of their thinking was inspired by Erich von Daeniken's books (1976) which sparked more than a few entertaining and equally whacky books on the questions he raised.

The "scientific" and the "philosophic" communities of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries were particularly good at this trick and I note with interest that it still goes on today. During my own ventures into writing dissertations for my degrees I have several times investigated some of the quoted references  in works I was pointed to for study and found myself going round the same proverbial roundabout. "A says, because B says; B says, because X says; X says because Y said and Y said it because he read a paper by A ...

In another paper for a different forum, I did a considerable amount of research online and found some similar patterns. More alarmingly I found a huge amount of material which was not just misleading, or inaccurate, but totally spurious and written by people with either an axe to grind, or with some whacky ideas they wished to peddle. In both cases, the actual understanding of the subject and the material quoted tended to be either totally spurious or so off the mark it was complete nonsense. I could see this, but I would suspect that the vast majority of people accessing this material would not. In fact it was only possible for me to see it in some cases because I started out with a very thorough grounding in the subject.

Returning to my starting point, the use of references and quoting sources for ideas, theories and so on is good practice. It has been practiced for as long as men have attempted to build our understanding of everything around us. The Greek philosophers did it, the early Church fathers did it and if one ignores the inventions of the late 18th Century anti-Church movement - whose quotes and references frequently fall into the example I gave above - one finds that even the much maligned Church was drawing on Aristotle, Plato and Socrates to name but a few, for their scientific views and ideas. The problem comes in when someone steps outside that trail, and creates their own "source" without anything other than their own "reason and intellect" to support their hypothesis - and launches a new set of references of the circular kind ...

Sometimes one has to be very careful of one's sources.