Helping Others Matters

Morality, Society & Culture, Values

It used to be so straightforward. The Scout Slogan is “Do a good turn daily.” And many a Boy Scout has lived up to that slogan, not just when the whole troop was engaged in a community project, but In individual acts of kindness and service.

In today’s self-absorbed society, however, we’re told we should help others because it benefits us! Research “helping others” and you’ll get an array of articles citing the psychological, physical, spiritual and career-enhancing benefits of undertaking what should be a fundamental human activity.

Ayn Rand devotees will recognize this immediately. Objectivists argue that helping others is motivated by selfishness – that the positive feelings and benefits one derives from doing so are and should be the driving force behind acts of compassion or support for our fellow human beings.

Those with religious beliefs will, however, be motivated by the teachings of their canon. I know of no religion that doesn’t preach some form of the Golden Rule, even those the doctrines of which involve destroying anyone who doesn’t believe as they do!

A business associate of mine had the privileged responsibility of heading a centi-million-dollar foundation that was charged with improving health around the world. Explaining what it was the foundation did in that regard, my colleague pointed out, “Do you know how hard it is to give away money?” He went on to describe how difficult it was to identify legitimate opportunities to put the foundation’s money to work doing real good. He recounted story after story of how seemingly valid situations to fund potential health-improving initiatives in third world countries exposed corruption that delegitimized the opportunities. Not all, but way too much of the money would have lined the pockets of politicians, intermediaries and administrators.

We as a society face the same problem as my foundation chairman friend, both as organizations as well as individuals. It’s often difficult to assess whether the cause we wish to support is legitimate. That’s why we have websites and companies that undertake that assessment for us, promising to score philanthropies and causes objectively, while skimming just a wee bit off the top for their service.

As we walk down the streets of our major cities and are accosted by panhandlers it’s hard to know who are truly needy and who have the ability to work and care for themselves but choose not to. As we listen to pitch after pitch on television and on our phone answering machines asking for “just X$ per month”, it’s hard to know for sure how much is really going to the cause and how much is paying for the supporting bureaucracy.

In short, doing good and serving others today has been institutionalized. An array of honest and legitimate on one hand and dishonest and illegitimate organizations on the other have made helping others into an industry. Think about what “I gave at the office” means. It means we’ve abrogated responsibility for doing good to others to organizational intermediaries, or worse, to politicians and officials who with our tax dollars dole out money in return for support and votes.

I recall getting off a commuter train one day among a hoard of people racing to move along the platform and up the stairs to the exit. Suddenly there was a commotion ahead of me. Someone had, heaven forbid, failed to keep up the pace! In fact, uncharacteristically for this time of day, a mother with a stroller, clearly not a commuter, was struggling to fold it while hoisting her toddler into her arms, swing her bag over her shoulder and preparing to climb the stairs. Scowls and under-breath “take the elevator ______” accompanied the rush of people navigating around her.

As I got closer to the scene, having decided to offer my help, a suit-cladded businessman had already stopped to assist the mom and her child. By the time I got to the spot where the human flow had been stalled they were on their way up the stairs.

As it happens, I knew the businessman who stopped to help. He was the multi-millionaire chief executive of an insurance company, but you wouldn’t know that from his outward appearance or countenance. But I knew that the “good turn” he had just done was typical of him, and as I passed by him at the top of the stairs I caught his eye and smiled, saying, “I thought that was you!” and to myself said, “You beat me to it.”

A simple act of kindness. Service to another that cost absolutely nothing, where no recompense was needed or wanted. An example of helping another person not for the benefit it provided the good samaritan but simply because it was the right thing to do.

What would the world be like if everyone sought to help one another as a default state? Each and every day we are presented with multiple opportunities to help others, often in small ways.

May we strive to recognize those opportunities and live up to the Scout slogan.

Helping others matters.

What We Teach Our Children Matters

Family, Morality, Society & Culture, Values

Stand by while I put on my ballistic vest. This topic is a lightning rod and even many Traditionalists won’t like what I’m going to say here. But I’m old and on this subject, grumpy, so I’m going to call it like I see it.

I’ll begin with an anecdote. Some years ago I was attending a church picnic held at a park not far from our home. Families of all shapes and sizes came with their picnic accoutrements and the food, music, games and fun were typical of raucous church picnics.

As my family and I drove toward the area of the park where the picnic was being held, I slowed the car to a crawl as kids and pets were running all over the place. Off in the distance I could clearly see a boy, about 11 or 12, riding his bike straight towards us on this roadway/quasi pathway. I could see even 30 to 40 yards away that the boy wasn’t paying attention to what was in front him but looking from side to side.

So I stopped the car altogether, but on he came, straight for the hood of my car. I thought of beeping the horn but now he was within 20 yards and I didn’t want to startle him. “Surely he’ll look up and see where he’s going,” was what went through my mind, but he never looked up until the very last 5 yards whereupon he slammed on his brakes. It was too late.

He was barely moving, thank goodness, when he crashed head on into the front of my car and fell off the bike. I immediately jumped out to make sure he was alright. He was, but the front wheel of his bike was slightly bent, not enough to prevent it from turning, but enough to make riding the bike wobbly. So my wife and I changed places, she now behind the wheel, and I started walking with the boy, whose family I knew well, towards where they were set up in the park.

As I approached the family with my arm around the boy his father approached us, took one look at the bike, dropped to his knee and put his hands on his son’s shoulders asking if he was hurt. “No,” replied the boy who had gone sullen. Then the Dad asked, looking at me, “what happened?”.

I could see the little guy was fearful that he was going to get into trouble and so I chose my words carefully, explaining not how reckless he was, but rather how he was slowing to pull to the side of the road when it appeared his hand slipped off the brake and he couldn’t stop and ran into the front of my car.

How unprepared I was for the father’s reaction. It would be a huge understatement to say that he overreacted. He practically threatened to sue me for reckless endangerment of his son! Meanwhile, the look on the boy’s face was a combination of astonishment, bewilderment, embarrassment, and humiliation not at what happened, but for how his father was behaving!

I said little to nothing, and began walking over to where I could see my wife had parked our car and had started to take our picnic paraphernalia out. I had to hide my shock and disbelief of how obnoxious and affrontive my neighbor and church acquaintance had been.

And then I thought to myself, “What did that father say to his son after I left? And, what did the whole episode teach him?

Another example. I’m walking through the grocery store one day and a mother is desperately trying to reason with her pre-adolescent son. He is demanding she buy him candy from the shelf predictably placed at the checkout counter. The child is quite literally yelling at his mother saying the most appalling things while mom looks furtively around her obviously worried about what people are thinking.

Practicing tortured restraint, mom says to her son: “Alright, I’ll get you the candy just this once, but you must not speak to mommy that way.” The boy doesn’t even wait for his mother to pay for the candy, and she doesn’t intervene when he tears the wrapper off, throwing it on the floor and begins to chomp down.

What have these parents both taught their children? I’ll let you, the reader, answer this yourself. In both cases, however, I’ll venture a guess that you’ll agree the parents taught them something wrong.

But this is what has happened to discipline in the new millennium. My parents would have hauled me out to the car if I behaved like that in the store, pulled down my pants in front of the whole world, and given me a couple of good swats on the behind. In fact, I’m sure something like this DID happen to me when I was young, but truthfully, I don’t even remember the incidents. Why? Because it only took a few times for me to learn that there are right and wrong ways to behave.

Today, my own kids face situations like those above with their own children, but they are TERRIFIED of meting out ANY discipline, except for time-outs and toy confiscation, even in the confines of their own home! Because if word got to a teacher or school administrator of a spanking, they’d be at risk of “child protective services” showing up at their door. We’ve all heard horror stories of government intrusion in the parenting/child-rearing process.

While the current limp-wristed approach to parenting may work in some cases, I firmly believe the swift swat on the butt I received was far more effective in teaching me right and wrong, and much more lasting.

And right and wrong is what children need to be taught. Unfortunately, in the current environment of moral relativism and permissiveness, the impact of families where these are not taught has a devastating effect on the community at large. Just look at Antifa or, almost as bad, various skinhead groups for examples. Do you think their parents taught them to behave that way, or was it the absence of parental guidance and moral teaching that created them?

We thought OUR generation was spoiled and undisciplined? Just look at the next two after us!

What we teach our children, and our grandchildren, matters!

Delusional Malice

Politics, Society & Culture

The Left’s all out assault on traditional American values is approaching a crescendo. As they see their beloved utopian dream continue to implode they no longer profess to “go high”. Rather, they seem to revel in taking the “low road” at every turn.

Credit to David Limbaugh who penned a wonderful piece on what the true meaning of Make America Great Again means and from whom I learned the phrase “Delusional Malice”. For that describes perfectly what the Left is up to.

Delusional describes the Left’s hopes and dreams:

  • That everyone will live happily ever after with government provided healthcare for all;
  • That confiscating everyone’s guns will eliminate gun violence;
  • That taxing “the rich” (which really means everyone who has a job) will pay for all of government’s social programs, including the provision of universal healthcare;
  • That eliminating plastic shopping bags and straws, large fountain sodas, incandescent lightbulbs, gasoline powered vehicles, etc. will “save the planet”;
  • That we can all live happily in a perfectly integrated, multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-lingual and multi-religious society where we will harmoniously “all get along”;
  • That the distinction between genders will be eliminated so there will be equal opportunity, equal pay, equal time on sports fields, irrespective of merit, experience, or accomplishment;
  • That abortion may be used as contraception in lieu of continence;
  • That God and religion are eliminated from our schools, discourse, laws and society generally;
  • That we will no more have borders or have to worry about national sovereignty once we become one global family;
  • And so on and so forth…

Malice describes the insidious nature of how the Left is advancing its agenda:

  • By calling everyone who disagrees with them a racist, fascist, homophobe, xenophobe, etc.;
  • By indoctrinating and exploiting children to advance their aims;
  • By hijacking the vocabulary and promoting the use of definitions and memes that reflect their views;
  • By outright lying both by omission and commission;
  • By enlisting Hollywood and its supreme ability to make fiction and fantasy seem real to generate heart-string tugs and subtly brain-wash receptive audiences;
  • By dumbing down deviance, i.e. trivializing evil and wrong (e.g. “it’s just sex”);
  • By projecting, in the psychological sense, their aberrance and uncivilized notions onto traditionalists, conservatives and true patriots;
  • By open physical harassment and “in-your-face” confrontation of anyone who opposes them;
  • By refusing to condemn violence and unconscionable behavior in the name of “restraint” and “tolerance”;
  • By exuding hypocrisy to the point of pathology;
  • By seeking to suppress the speech, appearances, writings, even the posts and tweets of anyone who calls out their bilge for what it is;
  • By claiming “science” backs their views when in fact the exact opposite is true;
  • By saturating the air with so much drivel and vituperation that all vestiges of traditional mores and values are obscured.

As I’ve noted before, it’s difficult for Traditionalists to fight this cancer. We care about the High Road, and have been taught that we mustn’t “descend to their level”. We want to be left alone to live in peace as we know we can and should.

But Delusional Malice is becoming more and more manifest as each day goes by, as the Left continues to try to overwhelm the system and create an almost apocalyptic chaos from which only they can save us.

It is not enough to set an example and rise above all the mayhem. We must step up our counteroffensive, calling out lies and Leftist propaganda whenever and wherever we see it. We must push back against the onslaught, against the REAL fascism and bigotry, by opposing in every lawful way each and every initiative of the Left that would seek to drag us further down the slippery slope.

I don’t have any evidence or statistics to support this, but I’ll bet the majority of the attendees at the July 4th celebration on the National Mall two days ago were Traditionalists. It’s inspiring to see so many patriotic people come out and show their support for our flag, our country, and by extension, traditional American values. The Silent Majority spoke up. May we continue to do so and pull ourselves back up that slippery slope!

This July 4th (2019)

America, General, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

As I write this, Nike has withdrawn a shoe fashioned after the Betsy Ross Flag because the NFL player who elected to kneel during the playing of the national anthem says it offended him.

The Democrat candidates for 2020 are all whining about the expense of the celebration in Washington D.C. but have promised to give all illegal aliens free healthcare and have gone from “no crisis” to “manufactured crisis” to “concentration camps” to “drinking out of toilets”.

The 9th Circuit has predictably ruled the President may not use Department of Defense funds to defend the border.

Bernie Sanders says government is the solution to every problem and promises to raise everyone’s taxes to expand it, while promising free college tuition for all.

The San Francisco School Board is going to spend $600,000 to paint over a historical mural of George Washington’s life at GEORGE WASHINGTON High School because they have deemed it racist and degrading to black and Native Americans.

Antifa beats up a gay, conservative reporter in Portland and the main stream media apologies for or defends them.

The Supreme Court has ruled that a question about citizenship that has been on every census up until Obama may not reinstated for the 2020 census.

The President’s son is spat upon in a restaurant, the White House spokesperson is jeered out of another, with no consequences. Many in the public eye condone the actions as patriotic.

You can’t make this stuff up!

Meanwhile, we’re supposed to be troubled that tanks are going to be on display on the National Mall! God forbid we honor those who made them, who operate them, who defend our freedom, the freedom that permits Leftist to spit their anti-American venom.

I grew up in Europe as a teenager in the 60’s. I helped introduce skateboarding to France with a wood Hobie board on the plaza at the Palais de Chaillot opposite the Eiffel Tower. I was in France the day we landed on the moon. I played baseball in the park in Paris. I was there during the ’68 riots. I was there during the Peace Talks. For several years I covertly worked for the U.S. Embassy, trying to advocate against drugs in my school so that American kids would never have to face French justice or see the inside of a French courtroom or jail.

I was proud to be American, and when our family came home in the summer, I cherished a McDonald’s hamburger, fries and Coke (and change for $1, remember?) and wondered what was in Jack in the Box’s “secret sauce” that made their burgers so tasty and distinctive, and was thankful for the “Land of the Big PX” as we used to call it, and round doorknobs, and deodorant, and Noxzema shaving cream, and Converse Chuck Taylor basketball shoes, and Sugar Smacks, and BASEBALL, and REAL football, and real madras shirts with button down collars and fruit loops.

It’s one of life’s truisms that “we crave that which is out of our reach and have disdain for the things we can’t get rid of”. Having had so much of America out of my reach 9 months out of the year, I learned to yearn for and love it, especially juxtaposed against the many ofttimes peculiar European countries which I visited. And, by way of contrast, I grew to hate the oppressive, boot-on-the-neck, quasi-socialist, government-run society around me there.

On this July 4th I’m grateful to be American, to honor those who lived, suffered and died for our freedom, beginning with those Brits who vowed never to be “subjects” anymore, but “citizens” of what became, and thankfully still is, the greatest nation on Earth and the greatest force for good in the history of mankind.

May God bless the U.S.A., particularly now as the assault on everything it stands for intensifies and Good and Evil line up in opposition.

(Left) Right Before Our Eyes

Economy, History, Politics, Society & Culture

In 1966 two radical, Leftist sociologists from Columbia University: Richard Cloward and Frances Piven, put forth a strategy for overloading the welfare system to the point where it would precipitate a crisis and cause the government to collapse. It was to be replaced by a socialist system of guaranteed annual income, under the guise of eliminating poverty. Sound familiar?

In 1971 Saul Alinsky wrote “Rules for Radicals” wherein he too advocated overloading the system, except he went beyond Cloward and Piven to advocate “organizing the world”, going so far as to violently overthrow governments if necessary to create the Leftists’ utopian dream.

We have only to look around ourselves to see that Acorn, Antifa, Occupy Wall Street and the myriad other radical “organizations” are manifestations of this “organize the world” strategy. It is the Leftist demagogue’s goal to ensure that the individual, and individual freedom and merit, are eliminated and supplanted with “one world order” that will bring egalitarian peace and prosperity to all.

In fact, history has demonstrated time and again what should be patently obvious: that Leftist/Utopian/One World Order visions only accelerate the destruction of great civilizations.

We see many more examples of this cancer in institutions around us today: in totalitarian regimes such as China, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Russia (yes, Russia is still totalitarian despite feigning democracy); in globalist organizations such as the United Nations, Organization of American States and European Union that constantly promote collectivism and wealth redistribution;  in so-called philanthropic and policy entities like the World Federalist Movement, the Clinton Foundation/Global Initiative and many similar “one world government” promoters, and in countless Leftist/Social Justice societies, clubs and associations on college campuses and in communities throughout the country. And, astoundingly and regrettably, in courts and schools, and most visibly, in today’s Democrat Party.

How did these beyond-fringe-lunacy to mainstream elected representatives’ rhetoric get a foothold in our great country?

Here’s the crux of the matter. Traditionalists and Conservatives celebrate the individual, self-reliance, independence, freedom and meritocracy. The desire to be left alone, to care for ourselves, our families and loved ones compels us to resist “organizing” the way the Left has. To say the least, way down on our list of priorities is trying to create a collectivist, Utopian society!

Leftists use our value system against us by goading not just the poorer and less fortunate among us but now the entire working middle of our society to protest, to “resist”, thus fomenting class warfare, covetousness, envy and ultimately, to lay the groundwork for extortion. Alinsky’s approach, and that of virtually all “community organizers”, seeks to brain-wash and indoctrinate self-reliant individuals using airwaves saturated with propaganda, and with increasing frequency, to compel compliance with their dogma through the actions of organized mobs inciting violence and mayhem. What’s particularly insidious about this is that the Left couches their rhetoric in emotional appeals to charity and caring for others, of rooting for the underdogs, the “victims”. The hypocrisy is breathtaking!

It’s not complacency that’s allowed this to happen. Ask any hard-working middle class adults whether they see what the Left is doing and whether they care and you’ll get a resounding affirmative answer. The problem is that the productive in our society are too busy being productive and caring for themselves and their families to spend time countering the verbal diarrhea delivered by community organizers in fireside chats at the local library. Thus, Leftist dialogue, what the vast majority of the media spouts and what our eyes and ears a filled with, with the exception of a few conservative/traditional print and media outlets, goes unchecked and unchallenged.

Yes, the majority at our southern border are seeking better lives for themselves. But they are there in large part because of Leftists with sinister objectives, including, obvious to anyone with eyes, the objective of overwhelming the system. Leftist “saviors” predictably swoop in to offer anything and everything while condemning every person or action that would discourage or disallow the wholesale trampling of our sovereignty.

Why? Is it because the Left really cares about these refugees? No, it’s because the Leftists, in a move that would make Cloward, Piven and Alinsky proud, want to overwhelm the system, bring down traditional and conservative economic and societal values so they can create a permanent voting bloc that will allow them to assert control over the compliant masses, and advance their utopian agenda.

Right before our eyes the Leviathan is thus growing, and is moving ever faster to destroy our country’s values – to overload the system. Let us not be frogs in lukewarm water with the flame turned up under the pot. We simply have to carve out more time, more money and more commitment to traditional candidates, agendas, and initiatives, and we must vote at every opportunity even when we think an adverse outcome is certain, or we will end up being boiled alive.

I, for one, am feeling the heat. 

What We Do as a Family Matters

Family, Society & Culture

Been to a restaurant lately, where a family sits, a three year old with an iPad in front of her watching some children’s program, the 12 year old, with a tortured look, focused on an iPhone screen furiously tapping away, mom and dad’s phones face-up on the table creating an effect something like holding flashlights underneath our chins?

Regrettably, this scene is ubiquitous. And we wonder why the family is breaking down.

Of all the infections eating away at our society and culture today, the fundamental changes to families is the most virile. Of course Leave it to Beaver, the Donna Read Show, Ozzie and Harriet and all the other television fare that we grew up on couldn’t exist today. It truly was a different time. But in virtually all those shows, it was a given that families were, well, families!

Contrast those shows with what we see on television today. Does anyone honestly believe that what’s happening to traditional families is good for society?

The Left thinks that scene played out in the restaurant represents “progress.”

“Mom can monitor the babysitter, Dad is instantly reachable if something happens that needs his immediate attention either at work or at the club, Sally is occupied, quiet and not running around the restaurant disturbing others,” they will argue. No conversation of any substance. No recounting of what’s going on in each other’s lives. No understanding whatsoever of what’s eating at Johnny, or what Sally’s being fed on that children’s program. Mom and Dad just want to get through dinner so they can get back home to Dancing with the Stars and football.

Is it just me or does anyone else see how sick this is? Here’s a family, ostensibly sharing time together, except they’re not!

What happened to a parent’s responsibility to impart their values to their children? What ARE their values, and what IS being passed down? We know the answers, but should it be this way?

Cut scene. A family is gathered around a dinner table on a Sunday evening. No phones or tablets present, some peaceful music plays in the background. The cacophony and mayhem that prevailed two minutes earlier as each family member fulfilled their pre-dinner chores has given way to a more subdued tone as each takes his or her place at the table.

In some households, grace is said. In others, there’s a pause to raise a glass and give thanks that everyone could be together. In still others there’s simply quiet as napkins are taken off the table and placed on laps, everyone waiting for a signal from mom and dad to begin digging in.

As the meal progresses everyone is asked to report on what has transpired in their lives since they were last gathered like this. Even the monosyllabic teenagers are goaded into uttering a few grunts about what’s going on with their friends and at school. You get the picture.

Which scene is better for society? If you think the former, you’re probably a social justice warrior hell bent on “fundamentally transforming America.” If you think the latter, you’re probably nostalgic for a kinder and gentler time, one where the family was the most important unit of a civilized society, where families had pride in their name, and in their school, and in their community, and in their state, and in their country.

Of course these kinds of families still exist. The problem is that they’re decreasingly prevalent. The norm keeps moving towards the dysfunctional, to the “progressive”, down the slippery slope to necrosis.

How about we spend time with our families around picnic tables, playing soccer or stick ball in the park, fishing together at the local pond. How about moms and dads teaching their children manners, and helping them with their school projects, and paying attention to what they’re being taught and correcting misinformation. And teaching them the difference between right and wrong. And establishing and enforcing rules of behavior, and conduct, and respect.

And how about just having fun together. It’s ok to have a movie night with popcorn and soda, watching Frozen for the umpteenth time, but let’s also find examples of traditional goodness, and greatness to expose ourselves to.

We are what we do. Bury our faces in technology, abrogate our responsibility for raising our families to others and that’s who we are. Gather and recount acts of bravery, or sacrifice, or service, or touching others’ lives in a positive way, supporting one another at little league games, or at school plays, or attending a July 4th celebration together, and that’s who we are.

How we spend time together as families matters.

The Mall Rat Syndrome

Family, Society & Culture

We’ve all seen them, a group of fluorescent-haired, usually disheveled, radio-antenna-adorned teenagers standing around the entrance to a shopping mall, sometimes huddled and quietly mumbling to each other, sometimes overtly eyeing and loudly denigrating the more normal looking patrons going in and out of the wide doors.

But that was then. This is now.

There’s a more contemporary version of this gathering of “mall-rats”, these to-be-pitied, “other-directed” underachievers desperate for attention and each others’ approval because they can’t get it from individual accomplishments. It exists online, in social media.

Misery does indeed love company. Here, behind a wall of anonymity, the same teenagers band together to cast aspersions on, or worse, mount character assassination campaigns against others whom they secretly envy, or abhor, usually due to the praise heaped upon them for their successes or simply because, they’re what we’d call “normal”.

And here, in social media, the mall rats are joined by supposed adults, who carry on in the same way.

Except they’re not adults. Regrettably, our society is filled with people who chronologically should be adults, but who exhibit all the dysfunctional behavior, or worse, of the mall rats. Raised in an “everyone gets a trophy for showing up” society, where “just do it” (with impunity) is the norm, far too many adults today behave like children. Somewhat surprisingly, there’s evidence that there are some children today who, frankly, behave increasingly like adults, but that phenomenon is still rare and not always healthy. That’s a topic for a different discussion.

Social media was supposed to increase social adhesion, broaden relationships, improve community. Instead, it’s brought isolation, depression, social paraplegia and a veritable explosion of mall rats fearful of missing out (FOMO), all seeking attention and sharing their misery. It’s given a megaphone to those who in other times might have been more sheepish but who can now lash out and shout their frustrations with impunity. And it has amplified the lemming effect as demagogues, both adolescent and adult, lead their followers over the edge of the cliff.

One of my sons, who frequently exhibits far more wisdom at his age than I certainly ever did, recently stated what’s going on quite succinctly: “We have rewired the human condition to subsist on personal validation through social media channels.”

And that has given the mall rats undue power and influence.

To be fair, not all of our generation’s behavior is as bad as that of mall rats. But in small ways the diminution of standards and morals continues to eat away at our societal fabric. For example, I sat at a restaurant just last night and couldn’t help but overhear the conversation between two parents and their college-age son. The topic was adult enough…the son was describing the content of the exams he had recently completed. But the number of “likes” that punctuated each sentence, or more like half-sentences, was nauseating. The parents were, appallingly, every bit as inarticulate as the son, despite between fashionably dressed and ostensibly well-educated and well-to-do.

How are we ever going to remain a light shining on a hill if our people can’t string two grammatically correct sentences together? Yes, yes, I know. This problem exists at the highest levels of our culture and society and in our most visible politics.

But it’s Leftist progressivism, infecting as it has our discourse and society like some noxious gas or metastasized cancer that has given license to adult mall-rat behavior. It’s way past time for adults to start behaving like adults and stop acting like mall rats, or tolerating mall rats for that matter. It’s way past time for parents to start acting like parents, instead of trying to be their children’s best friends. We certainly know better. We just need to grow up.

People Matter

Family, Morality, Society & Culture

Seems it should go without saying, but in this new world of technological wizardry, of AI, virtual reality, deep fake photos, avatars and animojis, where Dick Tracy watches are now a reality, and where communications have been reduced to “txt speak”… face to face and even voice to voice interaction is becoming more and more rare.

Our house has a number of floors. The other day I received a txt message from my wife, who was a couple of floors apart from me, reminding me of something. On one hand this saved her having to either climb several flights of stairs or yell at the top of her lungs to get her message across. On the other, without any tone/voice inflection to the communication, with no body language to see, there were several ways I could have interpreted what she was asking. From how soon I was supposed to get this done to whether there were other options, to any clarification I may have needed or questions that I might have had …you get the idea.

In a 1974 Harvard Business Review article, I was first exposed to the concept of “the monkey on your back.” It describes how one person can transfer a problem (the monkey) off his or her own shoulders and make it his supervisor/manager’s problem. Quoting from the article…

“Let us imagine that a manager is walking down the hall and that he notices one of his subordinates, Jones, coming his way. When the two meet, Jones greets the manager with, “Good morning. By the way, we’ve got a problem. You see….” As Jones continues, the manager recognizes in this problem the two characteristics common to all the problems his subordinates gratuitously bring to his attention. Namely, the manager knows (a) enough to get involved, but (b) not enough to make the on-the-spot decision expected of him. Eventually, the manager says, “So glad you brought this up. I’m in a rush right now. Meanwhile, let me think about it, and I’ll let you know.” Then he and Jones part company.”

What just happened? The monkey got transferred from the subordinate to the manager.

Email, voicemail, texting…these technological ‘solutions’ represent the ultimate in monkey-transferring. How many times have your heard, when asking for an update on an assignment you’ve given someone, “I sent him an email.” How many times have you sent a text message to someone and found yourself irritated when you didn’t get an immediate response? And when was the last time a person actually answered a phone when you had a question in lieu of entering voice-mail-jail? Monkeys are jumping all over the place!

Some of the other effects technology is having on interpersonal communication and relationships:

Superficiality: Some things simply cannot be communicated in a 140 character ‘tweet’ (now, I gather it’s 280 – big whoop!)

Constant Distraction: I’ll address the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) phenomenon in another post, but we’ve all seen what eyes pressed on little screens has done to threaten, perhaps even eliminate concentrating on any one thing. It’s the high-tech equivalent of trying to have a conversation with someone as their eyes dart around the room.

Lack of Privacy: there’s a price to pay for “free”. For example, to get ‘free email’, we give up our privacy. We allow the email service providers access to our communications. The ability of one person to talk in confidence with another goes out the window with technology.

Isolation: everyone has seen how people hide behind technology both creating false impressions of themselves or others, or simply “lurking”, i.e. observing what others are saying and doing. Why actually talk with other people when you can interact with them without every leaving your locked room?

Depersonalization: this is the ultimate “dis” (short in popular culture lingo for disrespect). By avoiding human interaction and communication one is thumbing one’s nose (I can think of another way of saying this using a hand gesture) at anyone and everyone with whom they interact. The lack of direct communication between tech users displays the ultimate disregard for others, i.e. people.

Instead of the pejorative “I’ll have my people get in touch with your people,” soon we’ll be saying, “I’ll have my iPhone get in touch with your iPhone.”

If we are to survive as a civilization, I posit that we will have to restore human to human speech, face to face conversation, and figure out whether we want to remain human, or become human/machine hybrids.

We need to stop hiding behind our technology and start talking to one another again.

People matter.

Globalism

Politics, Society & Culture, Uncategorized

The Left promotes Globalism, along with Multiculturalism, Social and Economic Justice as some sort of enlightened path to Utopia. They condemn sovereignty and patriotism as evils that will bring about an apocalypse. This is a classic case of Projection. Exactly the opposite is true.

As I often find, someone has said it better than I ever could. The following is extracted from an article written in February, 2018 by Vic Biorseth to whom credit is unequivocally due. In his article, he uses the term Marxists. I have interchanged that label with my preferred one: Leftists.

 “Globalism is about removing distinctions. Modern American Leftists simply don’t know right from wrong. It’s been indoctrinated and propagandized out of them. If their formative education was in public (i.e., government) schools, and if all of their advanced education was in the best Ivy League Universities, and if all of their current news sources are restricted to Mainstream News Media sources only, then just about everything they “know” is wrong.”

“They firmly believe in Climate Change, for instance, and a Population Problem, and an Unsustainable Planet, and a future of cultural break-down and Mad-Max imagery of post-civilization dystopia.”

“And they believe that the horrible future of this unsustainable planet may only be delayed for a time by voting for the Democrat Party and supporting the move toward a giant Global Government, because these problems are too big for nations to solve.”

“If you want to see real evidence of real dystopia brought on by the Left, visit San Francisco, one of the most openly Leftist cities on earth. But before you go, you had better examine the new San Francisco Poop Map well ahead of time, to avoid stepping in anything or encountering horrific and potentially infectious noxious odors.”

San Francisco Poop Map

“The map is put out there to allow tourists to avoid the crappier areas of the once beautiful city. It is loaded down with little poop emojis, to show where all the homeless and the illegals are encamping and dumping in public, which are also the most likely places any tourist might be accosted or assaulted. As a Sanctuary City, San Francisco protects the criminals and the illegal aliens from the federal government, and tries very hard to remove all distinctions between them and the regular American citizenry, at least in the minds of the public. And, as good Leftists, they are determined to do it at all costs.”

“Nancy Pelosi was among the Leftists who attacked the President for using the term “Sh*t Hole Countries” referring to all the countries in which the Leftists are encouraging, luring, attracting and perhaps bribing people to illegally migrate here from.”

“As Rush Limbaugh asked recently, what kind of hole would you call San Francisco?”

“Nancy Pelosi’s 12th District appears on the map as a giant pile of poop.”

“The city is experiencing a roaring hepatitis epidemic. Lamp posts, sign posts and buildings are stained, corroded and eroded from human urine. Human feces is common everywhere, and in some places, the smell is simply overwhelming. The transportation authority has stopped video recording of crimes on city transportation, because watching the videos might make people start to “discriminate” against the illegals and the races of the perpetrators. Can’t have that.”

“San Francisco is one of the highest taxed cities on earth. It is a perfect example of actual  Leftist Dystopia portrayed as Utopia.”

“The Leftists,, the UN, the EU, and, believe it or not, Pope Francis, would like to take this sort of thing to the Global Level. They are going all in on the supposed socio-economic Justice of Leftism and Globalism.”

“It is like a cancer. There are no symptoms at first… Cultural Leftism may be the greatest deceptive device ever incorporated by the Leftist drive to world revolution.”

“The threats against freedom are huge. Cultural Leftism comes at us from all angles. It dominates elite thought today. That’s why we, in the hinterlands, the common people who make their way in the world by practicality and common sense, always appear to be in the minority.”  

“Common sense and practicality have a close relationship to Truth.”

“The abandonment of Truth means the acceptance of Nonsense.”

Wow. Wish I could have said it like that.

Some have suggested that we resign from the United Nations and form a new organization of Democracies. The time has come. Globalism is just another meme for the Leftist Utopian fantasies that fail to acknowledge differences, along with cultures, preferences, heritage and so many other distinctions that make up the world, and that have and always will exist.

Nearsightedness

Politics, Reason, Society & Culture

There’s a new narcissism in the land. Too many people view the world through lenses that are two inches in front of their nose. “What does that have to do with ME?”, they either consciously or subconsciously ask. And then they wonder how what’s going on around us got this way.

Some of this nearsightedness is understandable. Those of us with traditional views on hard work, merit, dedication to family, etc. have been too busy to pay attention to, much less do something about what I call Leftist Creep. Except it isn’t creep anymore. It’s a full-fledged tsunami of idiocy: a deafening, shrill assault on values, traditions, norms, fundamental decency and principles that are the bedrock of the greatest nation and force for good the world has ever known.

Some of the nearsightedness is due to self-respect. How could that be? Simple. People who care about their reputations, who truly care about their community and country, who care about how they are perceived by others, don’t seek to draw attention to themselves. They don’t lash out and condemn anyone with whom they disagree with labels and slurs. They’re not activists and community organizers. They’re not loud and noisy and obnoxious. They go to work each day to provide for themselves and their families. They don’t look or ask for handouts. They acknowledge those who truly matter: God, family and friends. They respect the Flag and our country’s position and responsibility as guiding light and standard bearer of freedom and truth to the world. They’re the silent majority. They’re the REAL people of America.

Many are actually clothed in Leftist garb, speak in Leftist terms, and nod when they hear Leftist drivel. But they know something’s terribly wrong with what their leaders are saying. They won’t answer poll questions honestly. To do so would make them outcasts, pariahs, less accepted at cocktail parties where they gush over the latest victim fundraising goals while stuffing their faces with prawns. But they’re the ones who, in the privacy of the voting booth, have the courage and self-awareness to vote for candidates with traditional views and policies that they know made this country great. They are what I call Closet Traditionalists.

One of the insidious strengths of the Progressive Left is that they simply don’t care about what people think of them. They will say and do just about anything to advance their agenda. They don’t care if they make fools of themselves. They’re not even aware that the nonsense that comes out of their mouths or their perverted actions are foolish! They see themselves as righteous social justice warriors, true believers in a utopian fantasy at least. At worst, their ‘leadership’s’ addiction to power and dominion breeds the kind of corruption, anti-American cancer we see advancing day by day.

And because Traditionalists aren’t noisy and obnoxious, and care what others think about us, we have ceded the battleground to the Left. And the Left has taken advantage of our silence and absence, our nearsightedness. The louder and more obnoxious they have become, the more people have been brainwashed by their verbal diarrhea. Even those of us who are focused on what’s right can’t help but slow down and look at the accident by the side of the road. We see the gathering of idiots in the field and the train-wreck happening, and can’t help but be poisoned, even a bit fascinated by the spectacle.

And like the frog in tepid water that remains until it has been boiled…like the death by a thousand cuts, our country is being eaten alive by this Leftist cancer. That’s how we got here. Nearsightedness.

So what do we do about it?

We need to see beyond our noses and have the courage to stand up and throw the BS flag as often and as clearly as needed. We need to strengthen our families and resolve to teach correct principles, to think critically, to not just shield ourselves from Leftist Creep, but fight back against it. It’s nothing short of the war between the between the doers and the slothful, between the producers and the takers, between right and wrong… frankly, between good and evil.

We need 20-20 vision and 24-7-365 action.

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