History repeating itself....sort of

Remember the 1950s and the McCarthy hearing? Well, he was right. Too bad we didn't listen to him.

Scatiatta

Here's photo of a Sicilian dish I made yesterday. It's called Scacciatta---and it kicks Pizza's butt up and down the kitchen!

Nullification and Secession

Nullification would be a big step to liberty---but ultimately an express rather than implied right to Secession (a right all the states understood until that snake Lincoln rose to power) should also be added to the Constitution.

I say this because the growing tyranny and brazen contempt the Feds have for We the People. Clearly, nullification and interposition do not provide sufficient bonds to bind the kind of tyranny the Centralized Monstrosity is capable of bringing forth up there in Mordor on the Potomac.

Without that express guarantee, a state would exhaust all its means for justice, and, as a last resort try to secede like one of the 16 Russian republics in 1989.

When that happened, unlike that EVIL Soviet government (allowing peaceful secession without shedding a drop of blood) our BENEVOLENT Federal government would carry on yet another benign, gentle resistance (aka, invasion), under the guise of yet another false philanthropy.

Under the aegis of such compassion history would repeat itself, another half-million would die, a whole culture and region would be totally devastated and remain so for over a century, the seceding state would be reduced lower in status than a conquered province and its people would become the scapegoat upon which every national social and cultural ill would be placed.

The Take Away from this is simple:
The cognitive dissonance between rhetoric and reality is always instructive, but never so much so as when you are dealing with politics and politicians, whose main skill, after all, is that of muddying the waters by means of rhetorical obfuscation. Pay no heed to their words, for they are only there to misinform, mislead and misdirect. Rather, watch their actions like a hawk––and respond accordingly.

Pelosi's Genius Ignites US Economic Boom

NEWS FLASH! Dec. 4th, 2010, Washington D.C.: As a result of Nancy Pelosi's revelation that collecting unemployment benefits is actually good for the economy the entire U.S. work force has quit, en mass, and started collecting unemployment.

One worker leaving his job at Procter and Gamble in Cincinnati said, "We had no idea we were doing such damage to the economy by staying on the job and being productive. It just shows you how stupid we uneducated louts are and how brilliant someone with an elite education like Ms. Pelosi is. I see now what I missed by not going to college."

Another employee, Ed Riggs, danced and skipped his way to the bus stop after he punched out for the last time. Just as he boarded the 43 to Avondale he looked back as the bus idled and said, "I can't tell you how happy this makes me to think I can benefit my family and the nation by just sitting on my ass and collecting unemployment, and all I have to do is make sure my family spends it all each month. I'm thinking about getting an advance from the Feds and taking the whole family to Disney World for the month. Come to think of it, maybe they'll issue me a Government Unemployee's Credit Card or Debit Card I can use." Ed continued,"It's such a relief to know I'm on the payroll of an institution that can just print all the money it needs without having to worry about earning it. So, Hell, we might just go hog wild in Orlando! Nancy Pelosi for Queen of the World...Okay, Barney Frank for Queen of the world--Nancy can be King-in-Drag. She's wanted that all along anyway. Wu-hu!"

Just before Ed's bus arrived he made a quick detour into Cut-Rate Liquors and bought a shopping cart full of California fizzy. Upon boarding the bus he began passing bottles around to the other passengers, including the bus driver. When asked about drinking and driving the driver shouted over the popping of corks, "Like I might lose my job or something?" he chuckled. "Naaah. Not a problem. This is my last run before I do my patriotic duty and quit."

As he closed the door I could hear his muffled voice shout,"Let's roll!" So, with the sound of singing and the lingering smell of diesel in the late fall air local 43 ambled down the street and turned at the next corner. But the singing could be heard for some time after the bus was out of sight.

Pelosi's economic revelation has not only affected individual workers and local businesses. The effects have been national as well, including the Stock Market hitting an all time high. Further nationwide effects have included the congress holding an emergency session and voting unanimously to drop the Social Security retirement age to 36. It seems their vote was the first ever to be sent in by twitter, since none of them were actually physically present.

None of the Lawmakers could be contacted for comments after the historic vote, but Bernie Sanders did tweet a subscriber,"This early retirement should bring unprecedented prosperity. Socialism forever!" When a fellow socialist tweeted Sanders back, asking him what he planned to do in retirement he responded that he hadn't given it a lot of thought, but then twipped, "But I've always wanted to learn to play the ocarina."

When asked what sort of thinking lead Amerika's first Speakerette to such a brilliant, game-changing revelation she said, "My discovery about the great economic benefits of collecting unemployment wasn't really the result of brilliant economic reasoning––though I'm certainly capable of that. It was much simpler. I just woke up one morning and thought to myself, 'Why should I be struggling with labyrinthine logic, mountains of data and a million niggling little details. Hell, I'm the Speakerette of the House! I'm the most powerful woman in the world, uh, next to Kim Kardashian, of course––but I think everyone understands that. Anyway, I said to myself, 'All I have to do to make something true is simply say it's so!' So I did. And the rest, as we all now know, is history. I only wish I had thought of this before we got our asses kicked on Nov. 2nd."

Pelosi's ass kicking notwithstanding, there's no denying: Happy Days are here again thanks to the economic genius of the soon-to-be-former Speakerette!

Believe the ol' Armadillo when he says dear Speakerette's departure can't happen soon enough. Then we'll have even happier days.
--

The Evils of Government enforced Integration

Most people cheered to see the army roll into Alabama to enforce integration of schools in the 1960s. They saw it as a strike against an injustice rooted in racial hatred. There may have been some truth in that. But there was something else was going on that most did not see; the precedent this action set for how the Federal government deals with citizens who act in politically incorrect ways. Few asked themselves the obvious question, "If the government can do this to some states or individuals then what prevents it, once the precedent is set, from doing it to all states and individuals, as it sees fit?

Despite all the self-righteous posturing and platitudes, the actions of the Federal government invading Alabama were reprehensible. The sorry fact is, America gained a dime of liberty at the cost of a dollar, for it set the precedent of government intrusion into every aspect of our lives, both social and moral. You might applaud the invasion of Alabama, but what happens when there's a Waco? What will you do when they come for your state or you?

If one man's rights must be taken away to insure another man's rights where is the ultimate justice in that? My father was only able to go to the third grade, but he knew well what the over-educated, under-intelligent idiots in government apparently do not: two wrongs don't make a right.

What right was taken from the segregationists in Alabama? How about Freedom of Association, for starters?

When the government can come into your business and demand that you must serve a certain person or group of persons, is the business still yours? Do you really own anything? Ownership usually means you can use or dispose of the owned object as you please.

Is an injustice being corrected, or are you seeing the horror of fascism in action, exercised by the iron hand of the Nation State, and the seeds of an even greater injustice breaking ground?

If the government can dictate whom you must serve what else can it demand of you? Many wonder today, "Just how far can it go?" There's obviously no limit, because the limits of governmental power is determined by the government itself. The Federal Fox sets the limits of its own actions in the national hen house and has done so since 1861. And no Constitution or bill of rights is of the least bit of protection once the fox sets its' sights on you.

The real question is not how far it can go, but how far will it go? And the answer to that is painfully obvious: "As far as it feels it needs to go in any given instant to accomplish its purpose, whatever that might be."

Let's cut to the chase and take a look at the bottom line: The final results of government intrusion and intervention into local societies and cultures is that the government and the oligarchy of special interests that run it end up being the only ones with any rights.

You may think you have rights, but that is only because, at this point, the Federal Government has not decided or seen fit to take the ones you hold dear. But when it does, rest assured their actions will be spun in a way that shows you to be the problem; an enemy of society, and you will be as helpless as the once Sovereign State of Alabama and its people were in the face of Federal tyranny.

The point is, when we see a certain deed done to correct a perceived societal evil or forward a popular cause most of us applaud. Why not? Wasn't a good accomplished? Yes, but at what cost?

What most of us never concern ourselves with is the nature of the means used. Are there unintended evils resulting from the means employed? Is it possible these unintended evils may ultimately cause much more harm than the corrected evil ever did?

The greatest problem with modern liberalism is the same problem with the impatient "reformers" of history, do gooders and intrusive powerful governments, controlled as they are by social revolutionaries like our present administration: the means their self-righteous arrogance uses to correct the isolated evil results in much greater evil and injustice than the wrong they sought to correct.

A second point is that corrupt, unfitting means may change outward appearances by force, coercion and even bribery, but it does not change hearts and minds, except for the worse. In fact, it almost always increases malice and hatred, creating wounds that perpetually fester and never heal. How can healing and reconciliation take place with the Dogooders constantly picking at it?!?

And why is the Dogooder on one crusade after another? Is it because he has a loftier, more noble vision than us run of the mill Joe and Josephine Schmos? Not at all. It's because they feel inadequate within and have a gnawing need to be important and to matter. It is ego, not charity, that drives them. That is why they are never satisfied. They are compulsive doers and not thinkers, that's why they never consider the unintended consequences of the means they use to accomplish their goals. Once those evil consequences show themselves their egos and narcissism will drive them to deny the cause was their means. Thus, they will engage in their only intellectual activities: obfuscation, denial and rationalization. Liberalism, as Michael Savage so aptly says, is a mental disorder. But it is more than that; it is evil cloaked in the self-righteous garment of compassion.

So if there is some truth in what has been said above, what can justly be done about perceived social injustices? It's simple. Let people work it out among themselves over time; let birds of a feather flock together. If groups do not feel threatened they will learn to live in peace with one another.

What about the difficulties faced by minorities? How can they be corrected?

Such a question is best answered with a question. Specifically, "Who says difficulties and resistant are bad things?" Isn't that an unexamined assumption?

What is the common result of such difficulties? They often create character in the one exercised by them. Anyone who has faced and overcome difficulties knows what great personal benefits resulted from the struggle and how a sense of self-reliance, confidence and self-respect was gained that could not have been gained in any other way.

In contrast we know the sorry results that come from handing someone every thing on a silver platter: a spoiled, rotten, selfish, narcissistic shell of a human being, void of respect for others as well as himself.

So, how are resistance and difficulty bad? The answer is, "They aren't!" They are the unpleasant means resulting in a good end. In contrast, ease and entitlement are the pleasant means to a terrible end.

Any community that is set at a social disadvantage or experiences a certain oppression can rise above it and excel, if they live better, are more honorable and work harder than others. In fact, the difficulties minorities face can help galvanize their communities so that they actually become communities in more than appearance or word, but, as the Lord says, "in Spirit and Truth." Look at how Asian minorities have flourished in America. Look at how Chinese have flourished and become the wealthiest group in Indonesia, despite minority status and laws that set them at a disadvantage. How did they succeed? They did so because they lived better, studied harder, were more honorable and worked harder, not because a nanny state did everything for them as they sat passively collecting government largess.

What is so wrong about government helping? Government intrusion causes the people's will to overcome, excel and triumph against adversity to atrophy from lack of exercise. And in the next generation that moral muscle will never develop at all. People will then become like domesticated animals; still having all the physical capabilities to care for themselves but without will or mind-set to do so. The means to self-confidence, self-reliance and self-respect will have been taken by narcissistic, self-important government meddlers and dogooders.

Instead of actively seeking their own good and exercising their God given powers they will sit and wait passively for their government Masters to fill their bowls, and expect their Masters to deal with their every problem, every perceived injustice or dilemma. Such is the results of using corrupt, unjust and unfitting means to artificially correct a perceived evil. But who thought that as they watched their black and white televisions and saw the U.S. Army march down the streets of Selma in the 1960s?

It is this kind of Dogooderism that creates a passive, enslaved, dependent and decadent people and brings a society to ruin from within.

Lincoln reflection

It seems to me Lincoln was the ultimate forerunner of the modern Liberal, picking and choosing as he pleased.

He liked Jefferson's "all men are created equal" phrase so much he forged of it the crowbar used a little later by the Progressives to dismantle the Constitution, brick by brick.

He was apparently NOT fond of that other part of Jefferson's famous declaration-you know, the one about when a government doesn't serve the needs of the people it was their right and duty to abolish it and form another better suited.

Yup, I don't think the old tyrant and war criminal read the into Declaration far enough to get to that part.

Pity.

Lincoln=Fascist.

Kerry Event Reveals New fund raising tactic for unpopular politicians

NEWS FLASH:

NOV. 26TH, BOSTON, MA:

KERRY CELEBRATION OF HIMSELF MAY BE THE KEY

TO OTHER OBNOXIOUS,

UNPOPULAR POLITICIANS

HOLDING

SUCCESSFUL MONEY-RAISING EVENTS

Usually the most expensive tickets for an event don't sell in the numbers of less expensive ones.

But John "I've got a plan" Kerry's "celebration of himself" event next month at symphony hall in Boston looks to be an exception to this rule.

The top priced tickets are selling like hot cakes while there's little to no demand for cheap seat tickets, at least outside Kerry's immediate family!

"Of course my kids and Teresa will have to pay." Kerry said. "We're Kerry's, for heaven's sake. Do you think we're a bunch of cheap bastards!?! Besides, they'll be getting a volume discount."

So, how did Kerry do it?

How has he sold so many of the premium priced tickets!?!

Other obnoxious, arrogant, condescending, patronizing, foppish, elitist, irrelevant, repulsive, gold-digging, parasitical, unpopular, unlikable politicians nationwide want to know.

Kerry did it due to the genius of his public relations manager, Russell Scruggs.

"It was just simple reverse-psychology," Scruggs said, "and it worked like a charm!"

And when Russ says "it worked like a charm" he's not just whistling "Dixie." (Actually, I don't think he even knows "Dixie" since it's a criminal offense to teach, sing, hum or even play "Dixie" on the radio at a low volume in the People's Republic of Massachusetts.)

Anyway, his plan worked so well the $4000.00 platinum tickets are flying out the door in record numbers and will soon be gone.

Scruggs' plan? It's simple, really.

Buy a platinum ticket and you don't have to attend!

G E N I U S !!!!!!!!

I've already got mine. Actually, it's rumored that Teresa and other close Kerry family members are seriously considering upgrading to Platinum. Better get your's soon. Otherwise the People's Republic of Massachusetts Youth League will be showing up at your door on the afternoon of Dec. 4th to personally escort you to the great event!

Myth and Consequences

Peter Schiff, Dr. Ron Paul and a whole slew of Austrian economists predicted the economic crisis we're enduring presently well before it happened. Schiff endured mockery, ridicule and derision from TV pundits and statist economists for three years. He steadfastly foretold the collapse while they sniggered at him and countered with rosy visions of the future economy––right up to the day it all came crashing down.

Today, those same loser economists who got it wrong did not lose their jobs. Not at all. Many are among Obama's closest economic advisers. The politicians most instrumental in the collapse were not fired or put in jail as they should have been; they were re-elected and promoted and given applause and honors by their peers, just like the Yankee generals who performed the more horrific and criminal atrocities upon civilians in the South were greeted with promotions and parades upon their return north! Things ain't changed a whole lot in these United States since 1865.

But what of Austrian, hard money oriented economists like Schiff, Jim Rogers, Ron Paul and the scholars at the Mises Institute who courageously and correctly predicted this mess, enduring derision and ridicule in the process? Many common folk began to pay attention to them like never before, but to the political class the Austrian economists are personae non grata. Today, the White House keeps them as far from Pennsylvania Avenue as possible.

This seems to be a pattern in today's America: be right and you're excoriated and treated as a pariah; be wrong and you're praised and promoted. Why is this the case? Because, political correctness has become much more important than truth to our twittering political classes inside the Beltway. And great masses follow them because they prefer hearing what pleases them instead of risking facing unpleasant truths.

While all this is interesting, it is not the focus of our discussion here. The real issue at hand is not that the Austrians were right, but why they were right. Why did they see it all coming down and others, highly educated and rife with accolades, awards and praise, miss it by a mile? Were the Austrians just smarter to a man? No. They were not right because they were smarter. They were right because they were wiser: they had embraced the correct principles by which an economy gets healthy, remains healthy and thrives. (Keynsians had embraced a complex labyrinth of novel ideas dreamed up by an early 20th century British academic.)

It is upon correct principles that Austrian reasoning rested. The Keynsians may have reasoned more perfectly but they ended up wrong, wrong wrong. Why? Their reasoning was rooted in the wrong premises and principles to begin with. These flawed ideas caused them to misunderstand and misinterpret all the data. They were, therefore, victims of the GIGO effect: Garbage in, garbage out: you can't get a true answer from a wrong premise--no matter how flawlessly you reason or how complete and correct your data and facts.

The great English writer, G.K. Chesterton was right on issue after issue in his day and was uncanny in predicting the future difficulties and dilemmas we in the West face today. In fact, many would argue that Chesterton is more relevant today than he was even in his time.

Why was Chesterton right when so many of his peers, many more famous than he, were so horribly and tragically wrong? (Some were so wrong they gave tyrants like Mussolini and Hitler the highest praise and looked optimistically upon their rise to power.)

Was Chesterton that much smarter? Was he a more systematic thinker? Did he have information his opponents did not have? Not at all. All the "information" Chesterton had was readily available to his peers, and had been for centuries. It's simply that Chesterton embraced it and they rejected it.

The contest between Chesterton and the intellectual opponents of his time is a text book case of the pridefulness of modern, iconoclastic, rooted as it is in relativism, against that of the humility of common sense.

Chesterton's perspective was the perspective of every common man who has not been intellectually disfigured by university elitists who have educated them into imbecility. (As a case in point I recall making a remark to an Ivy League educated lawyer about certain sexual practices being deviate and perverse. He responded with a superior tone, "I can't judge." I replied, "Then you should ask your schools for your tuition money back, for they've done you a great disservice." (As I saw it, if you pay a bunch of money and they turn you into an amoral, know-nothing idiot you have a moral right, a moral duty to ask for your money back. But I guess his (mis)education blinded him from seeing that as well. I guess an institution can successfully substitute propaganda for education and not be sued. They just have to be careful to withhold the tools of critical thought from students and hope they don't learn them later.)

We would see a particularly stark and horrific example of the fruit of elitist education only a few years after Chesterton's death. It was reported that the more education a guard in Nazi prison camps had the more willing he was to commit atrocities upon the prisoners when ordered to.

St. Thomas Aquinas says "Truth is the conformity of the mind to reality." If we are wrong at the very ground of our reasoning we will be wrong in our conclusion as well, no matter how perfectly we reason. Events and experiences are not perspicuous, and facts don't immediately translate into truth.

In order to reach a right conclusion one must begin with fundamentally correct presuppositions and principles, taken from reality itself (reality being "what is"). It is then that the tools of reason can effectively examine events, details and data and dependably lead you to the truth about the matter.

The primary problem that plagues us in America today, despite all the mental energy, discussion and punditry we hear from all sides on all sorts of subjects, is that we have embraced myths and rejected reality; we prefer fantasy to fact. How fitting this land is the one giving birth to Disneyland.

Our reasoning, like that of the Keynsian, fails us because our foundational principles are not rooted in reality. The Empire is making up our history to please us and glorify and justify itself. The Lincoln myth stands at the heart of everything. That is an important fact to consider, because it is hardly possible for a government to stoop any lower than fabricating history for the sole purpose of justifying the wholesale slaughter of civilians and the destruction of the land of their countrymen to the point of desolation in a brutal, unconstitutional invasion of their sovereign states--and call it patriotism.

The suppression of truth and the embrace of myth and fantasy is true for American life on every level, not just economics. The history most of us believe is jingoistic cant and pious mythology designed to justify the actions of the Consolidated State and make it into a quasi-religious institution. The culture is consumed with the metaphysical cancer of Relativism, a relativism that tells us wealth can be pulled out of thin air by the simple operation of efficient printing presses, and that morality is whatever the Consolidated State says it is––for the Consolidated State is the only absolute.

Correct premises and principles are not invented any more than truth is; they are discovered. What is needed to make such discovery? The honest searching for the truth guided by the humility of a good will. Such humility cannot be tolerated by the modern arrogance. It will continue to hold the truth at arms length for as long as possible, just as the Austrian economists have been held at arms length by the government leaders. They will continue to treat the Austrians as they treat the truth: as if it doesn't exist. And they will do this until the truth crashes in on them. Today we suffer under their iron hand imposed upon us in a velvet glove. At any moment the glove might come off. But when the consequences of living on myths and lies reach critical mass the oligarchy will also learn what suffering and pain is.

Utopian Fantasyland in the Real World: A formula for disaster

There are two approaches to Biblical interpretation; exegesis and eisegesis. The difference is worth noting. The exegete comes to Scripture to "draw out" and to understand its meaning. The eisegete comes to Scripture with prior ideas and notions he hopes to "prove" through isolated verses of Scripture. In essence, the exegetical approach seeks to discover the true meaning of Scripture, while the eisegetical approach seeks to impose a meaning upon Scripture––a meaning often foreign to it. The exegete is an honest seeker of truth, the eisegete is agenda driven and a dishonest handler of truth.

The armadillo mentions this because these two contrasting approaches are not limited to Scriptural research. They can be found in every human discipline, including the effort to understand man himself.

The Psalmist asks, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou takest account of him?" A woman seeking an abortion was asked by an abortion protester, "Do you know what that is growing inside you?" She answered, "It's whatever I want it to be." Some in the modern world would give that same answer to the Psalmist who asked about man's nature.

We suffer under conflicting, irreconcilable views in our "modern" world. No, I don't mean the political left and right or the democrats and republicans. I mean the views of the mass of us, on the one hand, who trust in and exercise common sense, know what it is to live in the real world and understand what is required to successfully interact with real people each day, and, on the other hand, those elites who, being well-off enough to detach themselves from the necessities that drive most of us each day, choose to live in the fickle fantasyland of random ideas, presuppositions and notions that evanescently flit between their ears.

The common sense person believes man has a nature, and when that nature is allowed to actualize itself through normal human intercourse the result is both good and reasonable. In contrast, the elite who lives in fantasyland believes that he can be the Author of reality. Such a person believes that man is simply a lump of clay that the conditioning of science, the deluge of propaganda and the force of government can shape and mold into whatever. And if the first try doesn't work so well, not to worry. The failure can be pounded back into a lump and the process begun again. Why not? "Man," they reason,"is nothing but an animal and can, therefore, be herded, manipulated and directed accordingly to conform to the purposed end of the elites. Sure, some will protest in ignorance but they must be silenced. They just don't realize all that is being done is being done for their own good, and in time, they will understand and be glad."

As such are the thoughts of western elites, the nurse Racheds of the 21st century.

The moral, financial and social collapse we are seeing happening all around us in the West is the direct result of the increasingly unencumbered operation of the "lump of clay" philosophers, beginning around the time of the so-called Enlightenment. What this means in practical terms is that elites, seizing political, social and economic power, have purposely and consciously rejected the wisdom of the past, and in a fit of self-importance, pride and arrogance, have proceeded to try to impose the novel ideas of the fantasyland that exists between their ears upon the rest of us.

The first great adventures with these novel ideas were experiments involving Power. This resulted in the rise of consolidated governments, tyrants and, in the past century, two horrific world wars. After the wars a disillusioned mankind in the West turned from Power to Pleasure; hedonism and the meeting of material needs became the practical goal, and regarding man exclusively as a sensorial being became the philosophical flavor of the day. And the result is where we in the west find ourselves at this moment in history.

The process of imposing the narrow utopian views of a few elites upon the mass of human kind has been going on long enough and in enough places to receive some just criticism and judgment. The verdict is summed up in an all but forgotten word, but one we will hear more and more often in the coming months and years: Unsustainable.

The consequences of great suffering, penury and privation are now beating down the door of the novel, utopian, hedonistic fantasyland of western elites.

In other words, the novel experiments of the Thought Meisters have been, one after another, colossal failures. Some of them sounded wonderful in theory. Some of them even seemed to work grandly for a time. But now most of us see that "for a time" for what it really was: the time before the consequences began to manifest.

Now that the consequences are here it is clear. These novel notions that thumb the nose at common sense, deny human nature and play God with reality are Unsustainable in the Real World non-elites must live in day after day.

What is needed for governments to begin to repair the damage their mad policies have caused? The answer is simple: "Get out of the way; let man be man and God be God––for both God and man's sake!"

Contrary to the insistence of elites, it is not necessary for governments to be proactive, intervene and meddle in order for humans and economies to prosper. All that is needed of governments is to not enshrine policies in law that are hostile to private property and inhibit, suppress or encumber the free exchange of goods and services between peoples. Government interference and micromanaging can only result in waste, suffering, injustice, failure and de facto, if not formal, slavery.

With a nod to that popular sophist, John Lennon, we might offer this advice to statists and government toadies: "Why not give freedom a try?"

Free markets, human nature, human need and the common reality we share can all work together to take care of the details and create a beneficial result for all––except, perhaps, for the self-important elites, of course. They will be left to face their own pathetic lives, the failure and stupidity of their pet notions, and the sickening reality of their parasitic, prideful natures. It is in such a quagmire they will be left to deal with their own ineptitudes, foppish irrelevance and individual psychoses.

When that day comes (and it will) it will be a grand day, indeed.

The American Schizophrenia

"The preliminaries of the proletarian [communist] revolution, the measures that prepare the battleground and clear the way for us [communists], such as a single INDIVISIBLE republic...is now convenu [taken for granted]." F. Engels, co-founder with Karl Marx of modern day communism.

The writer of the Pledge of Allegiance, Edward Bellamy, was a committed socialist who well knew what he was doing when he wrote "one nation, indivisible,..." in his famous pledge; a pledge which most Americans incorrectly confuse as a quintessentially American statement.

It is not.

It is a statement of the monolithic, consolidated state (Engles' indivisible Republic, if you will); the very thing, according to Engles, needed to effectively institute the collectivist ideal.

Bellamy knew his Marx and Engles very well, and depended on the fact that the vast number of Americans did not. According to him he wrote this "pledge" as a means of inculcating devotion of American youth to the Consolidated state.

In other words, Bellamy did not make the Pledge to be a patriotic act of loyal, free Americans; he made it as communist/socialist propaganda posing as patriotism. And boy, did he succeed.

Think about it for a second: With a forced union from which escape is not possible and the invention of a socialist creed repeated daily by millions of Americans from their earliest school years, is it any wonder we have been sucked into socialism and now almost reflexively look to the Central government for every solution and the exercise of every power?

Marx wrote "Religion is the opiate of the people."

This, of course, is a lie. Religion is, among other things, the divine consolation of We the People who must suffer under the hand of government tyrannies concocted by pathetic losers like Marx––a man consumed by envy and covetousness.

If we consider there is some truth in Marx's statement about religion and the necessary role it plays, it is not hard to see that the Consolidated American state that rose out of Mr. Lincoln's unconstitutional war is the perfect foil even Marx did not consider in his plan.

In the Consolidated American state we have the best of both worlds---if you're part of the ruling elite. It is the perfect foil because it can effectively dispense with Religion altogether.

Why? Because the oppressor can also pose as the consoler, not unlike an abusive husband comforts the battered wife with hugs and crocodile tears. That is, simultaneously we receive oppression from the Consolidated State in practice and consolation from the Consolidated state in the form of rhetoric.

In other words, we suffer under a Hamiltonian tyranny in practice while being fed the rhetoric of Jeffersonian individualism to make us think we're still free.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, "No people is more enslaved than those who falsely believe themselves to be free."

The America historical schizophrenia is the perfect means by which a tyrannical government can most effectively carry out such a delusion among We the People--especially when it has also usurped the means of "educating" the masses in public propaganda mills--uh, I mean, schools. It is there our children are propagandized for a minimum of a dozen years to become good little Barackobots.

If only Marx and Engles could be here to see how effectively all this has worked in the post-Linconian former Republic of Republics they would immediately begin feverishly revising their tactical writings to include such an approach.

In a newspaper article today it was reported that, "More than 45 million Americans, or 20 percent of U.S. adults, had some form of mental illness last year, and 11 million had a serious illness, U.S. government researchers reported on Thursday. Young adults aged 18 to 25 had the highest level of mental illness at 30 percent, while those aged 50 and older had the lowest, with 13.7 percent, said the report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration or SAMHSA. Makes sense, since 18-25 crowd voted in highest % for Obama and over 50 in lowest %.

Five for our fanatical friends

Muslim terrorists intend to beguile.

They wake every morn with a smile.

They laugh till they tear

Then declare loud and clear,

"Americans will never profile!"

LAWMAKERS BAN EAR MARKS: REPLACE WITH BEER MARKS

NEWS FLASH: LEGISLATORS BAN EAR MARKS; REPLACE THEM WITH BEER MARKS. Day after historic legislation passed every bill presented went through without a hitch, only three fights broke out; singing could be heard as far as the Treasury Building.

The Plan Revealed

nurse nancy

Today Pelosi parties in Washington, celebrating the achievements and the ensuing democrat blood bath that resulted from her reign of terror as psychotic Nurse Rached over the American People in the person of McMurphy (played by Jack Nicholson) all part of the charade that is the American political asylum.

To quote Nurse Nancy Rached, "It's for your own good..."

Don't let him fool you with those ears. Sure, he hears fine, but he doesn't listen worth a damn!

ANDY'S NOT DONE

ANDY LIBERAL-MORON SPEAKS OUT ON THE ISSUES

Here Andy makes the best, de facto case for government healthcare, along about the lines of the quality of the VA Hospitals.

Here's what we're up against

Individual man must be subjected to the greater good. The state is the institution that perpetuates the litany by which man worships man in the aggregate: Mankind. This is Marxian NewChurch collectivist doctrine; the Godless Radical Relativism that wars with the Church, the dignity of the individual and Western Liberty. It's where we're headed under Barack Hussein Obama, under the false philanthropy of "the public good."

Reflection on Nov. 2, 2010

NPR: setting the bar at a new (and absurd) level

The left has put liberal fascist reality on a whole new level.

Really!

We're not kidding.

They have out-Owelled Orwell at his 1984 best.

If they are to be taken seriously–––

it is now not only necessary to be careful to always use Newspeak (especially in public discourse);

it is now no longer necessary to labor daily and diligently at scrubbing the mind of any thoughts or notions that do not comport with the views of the politically correct left––

Something more is now required.

I say this because NPR has raised the bar, so that one is now no longer permitted to "feel" feelings that are contrary to leftist orthodoxy or admit to themselves and others that they have felt such feelings.

Congratulations NPR, you've taken political correctness to a whole new and absurd level.

Dear God! If only Stalin or Hitler could rise from their new domiciles in Hell to offer commentary they would give Vivian Schiller the highest of encomium.

When one considers the mood and tenor of Ms. Schiller's comments on the firing of Juan Williams today when she spoke in Atlanta, it is clear the dictators' comments would please her immensely.

No doubt, she would respond gladly and graciously to their praise, making a curtsey of feigned humility, giving a slight smile (aka smirk) and then responding, "Praise from Caesars!"

The Difference

Now, there are those who are always talking about being "inclusive." They say not all Muslims are trying to destroy us. It's only a small %.

I think that's true. It's only say, 10%.

Let's see. 10% of over a billion Muslims comes to 100,000,000.

So, then we ask what's the difference between the Muslim factions?

Here it is:

The difference between the

Radical Muslim Gihadists

and the

Moderate Muslims is

the difference between

the New York Jets on the field

and their fans in the stands.

We better get used to it.

SORRY

Where I come from this word meant "worthless", "no good",...."rotten". As in: "I thank themther Wynn boys livin' over the ridge up Gabe's Branch are the sorriest, good for nothins I ever seed!

Win, lose or draw, the RNC MUST learn!

Karl Rove has opined that in choosing Christine O'Donnell the Republican party has lost what would have been a sure win for the senate in Delaware.

That may be so. But whose's to blame?

The blame can be laid squarely at the feet of the RNC. This is apparently a hard lesson for them to learn but the lesson itself is simple: stop giving us crap for candidates;

*Stop putting up liberals who have consistently voted for horrific programs that expand government and increase taxes and debt.

*Stop putting up go-along, get-along, good ol' country club, back-room-deal boys we have to hold our noses to vote for.

Let this sink into your ears, RNC Establishment: WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR GOOD OL' BOYS' CLUB AND ENTITLEMENT MENTALITY. IT MEANS NOTHING TO US. WE'RE MAD AS HELL AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE. PRINCIPLE MEANS MORE TO US THAN WINNING, AND IF YOU MAKE US CHOOSE BETWEEN THE TWO WE'LL CHOOSE PRINCIPLE EVERY TIME!

SERVE UP DEMOCRAT LIGHT FOR US RATHER THAN A SOLID CONSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATIVE AND EXPECT THE SAME RESULT AS YOU JUST GOT IN DELAWARE, NEVADA, UTAH, ALASKA AND FLORIDA, to mention only a few. Keep doing it and we'll end up with a three party system, and you will find yourself third in line––if that.

Beware the sign of the dead Owl, RNC, and see your soon-to-be fate if you continue to consistently betray and abuse your base!

Brilliant observations

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." (Hunter S. Thompson)

Those who are last shall be the most tenacious

In the early 90s of the past century the Soviet Union collapsed, the leaders repented of their centralized command and control socialism, the 16 Soviet republics seceded and achieved independence..without a drop of blood shed: a lesson in freedom a tyrant like Abraham Lincoln refused to learn. His intransigence resulted in the deaths of over half a million souls and an open wound that poisons the union to this day. We of the south, in fact, will NEVER forget what was done to us in the name of Union (which became in the mouth of Lincoln and his henchmen just another name for totalitarian rule and Empire).

Juxtaposing the actions between this American tyrant and his late 20th century Russian counterparts it is manifestly clear that where the Russians were reasonable and decided not to force a blood bath to sustain the Soviet system of centralized power Lincoln stopped at nothing to establish one.

Now, twenty years after the fall of the Soviet union and a half century of centralized, socialist rule in Cuba, Fidel Castro has made big news. Half a million government workers have been sent home, with perhaps thousands more to follow. And, here's the kicker, Castro has come out and admitted that the communist system in Cuba has failed and is failing. If the Cubans are to survive economically they will, like the Chinese, have to alter their system and turn to the free markets. It seems Castro is quite willing to do this---and not a drop of blood shed to date in the process.

Sad to say, we cannot hope for such compassion and reasonableness from our leaders that are so enamored and fascinated by socialist ideologies.

Our centralized command and control, big government advocates presently in reigning in the halls of American power will never be so benevolent as the reasonable Soviets or even the sociopathic Fidel. They will also never be as reasonable in the face of the failure of their policies and programs. They will keep saying it's not working because the effort is too niggardly. They will be like the mad knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail---shouting, even as the economy is systematically dismembered, that all that is needed is more spending, more control, more regulations, more taxes, more intrusion into the lives of citizens--the moment that point of Critical Mass achieved all will behold the gleaming Utopia that will magically appear.

This is just the kind of message Chinese workers get with their monthly required dose of indoctrination served up by Government apparatchiks. They return home and the filth of such nonsense washes off with their next shower, and the next day they proceed to do what God made the human person to do: act in his own perceived best interest.

So, we have before us two classes of leaders.

The first class is made up of those brought up in societies that were struggling. In search of a solution they latched on to a set of ideals that sounded good, but which repeated experience showed, in some critical way, to be intrinsically defective and, therefore, unworkable in actual practice. According to the results they changed their minds and turned to ideals found to produce the sought after prosperity in other lands.

The second class of leaders are those born in the prosperity of those "other lands," but were never taught to understand what caused that prosperity. What's more, they were taught by their parasitic professoriate to have contempt for those ideals and to embrace such vague notions like "social justice," the "public good," "the greatest good to the greatest number," "from those according to their ability to those according to their need,""centralized command and control," ad nauseam.

This class of leaders uncritically accepted these propositions similar in character to those Lincoln articulated in the Gettysburg Address to justify the seizing of power and the avarice of Yankee bankers and industrialists: propositions that beg the question at every turn. In other words, propositions that assume that certain ideas, concepts and understandings of history are settled and commonly embraced certitudes when the truth is they have never even been honestly debated––and some, like Lincoln's claim that the Federal government created the states, are downright absurd.

But the propagandized and truly brainwashed, like Lincoln, are seldom interested in truth, historical or otherwise, and the extent to which they dabble in reason is only to rationalize their position. In the place of debating their opponents they simply slander them, attacking their character and motives.

This second class of leader is what we presently endure in Amerika--and they are so blindly convinced of the ideals they have embraced that they refuse to consider any other possible alternatives. Before they would see the truth they would stand reality on its head, and declare that man exists as fodder for the creating of their glorious, collectivist Utopia and not the reverse.

Because these Marxist abstractions are seen as the very principles of humanity's corporate salvation no human sacrifice is seen as too great to ask––no, to demand! The exalting and establishing Government of, for and by the Government must be achieved at any and all cost, even if it means the wholesale slavery of the entire populace ...even if it requires a massive shedding of blood in an attempt to succeed.

Lincoln, the convert of Clay, Hamilton, Story and Marshall to all powerful centralized government, unhesitatingly ignited a blood bath in the defense of his "tariff" and his "proposition nation" held together by the force of government brutality. Our present batch of leaders, taking Lincoln as their model, will not hesitate for a New York minute in following suit.

Just because their usual M.O. is the soft tyranny of bribery and extortion, Americans must not labor under the illusion of having a benevolent class of leaders. They, the last who came to embrace a repeatedly discredited ideal, will be the most fanatical and tenacious in a final attempt at making that failed idea succeed. What they are doing is the classical definition of insanity. And being insane, they will stop at nothing.

Raufie wins hearts and minds in the Middle East

click to increase size

The Cordoba Mosque, The Twin Trade Towers and yet another Teachable Moment Missed

For some time now the militant purveyors of Islam have been schooling us. And we're not only failing the course––we don't even recognize that the class is even being held. For weeks now your humble Armadillo has been watching fellow westerners debate the 9/11 Mosque issue with other westerners and with sundry apologists for Islam as well. Few westerners, their position on the Mosque notwithstanding, have the slightest inkling what is really going on and has been going on for decades. The most clueless are our so-called public servants.

Professor Thomas Sowell, perhaps the most brilliant and insightful of present day commentators on American culture, economics and politics, opened his recent article on the Mosque subject with the following delicate and highly appropriate imagery. He wrote, “The proposed mosque near where the World Trade Center was attacked and destroyed, along with thousands of American lives, would be a 15-story middle finger to America. It takes a high IQ to evade the obvious, so it is not surprising that the intelligentsia are out in force, decrying those who criticize this calculated insult.”

Bingo! Where others have missed it completely Dr. Sowell describes it completely, and with amazing economy and concision. The situation is, in sum total, just as Dr. Sowell concludes it to be: a calculated insult; just the kind of insult the decorous, degree-clad, self-appointed western cognoscenti routinely miss. It goes right over their mis-educated heads. It is not in their universe to conceive that others, especially those whom they clandestinely look down upon and feel superior to, are treating them with such condescension.

Once again Muslims are taking them to school and they don't even know class is being held. Such is the lack of awareness of those made imbeciles by the uncritical study and willing acceptance of western pluralism, secularism and relativism. It is, indeed, a philosophical position that renders its beneficiaries (a.k.a. victims) incapable of philosophizing and blinds them to the obvious glaring them in the face.

Exactly what is being taught to western relativists by this ancient force invading its reality up close and personal for the first time in three centuries? Well, being a westerner the Armadillo has but a limited perspective to say with any kind of authority. But being a westerner does provide the advantage of saying what is understood in the common language of the western imbecile (a.k.a. those having attended institutions of higher learning in the west). If the Armadillo were a Muslim he might put what he understands this way:

Once again we have tried to help you see yourself and you have failed. It is your failure and not any aggression on our part that is the source of your collapse. You see what we're doing as the actions of an enemy. This is how foolish you are, that you cannot see an act calculated for your benefit; a benefit you are, to date, incapable of recognizing, let alone taking advantage of.

I see you are perplexed with my generalities, so let me get specific. We try to wake you up by escalating acts of physical destruction. We're sorry, but you've become so metaphysically insensitive that physical violence is the only thing you understand―and even then you only understand it in terms of “loss of dollars.”

We hoped, by such destruction, you would begin to see your moral decadence, that you would turn from corrupting influences that are rotting your society from within. What have you done? Just the opposite. You've escalated the perversion and those reprobate moral factions and elements have demanded full acceptance and social legitimacy even more vociferously―and they're getting it––and you are powerless to stop it! You worry about us destroying your “way of life.” How foolish.

You are doing such a good job of self-destructing neither we nor anyone else need lift a finger. What we do we do for your benefit. If we really wanted you destroyed quickly we'd simply do nothing.

Look at what you've become; you with your arrogant hostility to your ancient religion and the unbridgeable gulf you've created out of a distinction between the sacred and the secular. You've so dogmatically separated religion and government that you've made enemies of them---something your Founders never conceived of. And this needless hostility has weakened you and has made it possible for the foulest of perversions to publicly flaunt itself and parade down your main thoroughfares―while decent people gape fecklessly on the street, all the while trying to shield their children's eyes.

Your distorted view of your precious liberty has put you in fetters and made you incapable of defending liberty against its enemies foreign and domestic. See how we flagrantly put up our symbol of victory and are helped by your leaders. See how they defend us in the name of “your way of life” and “American liberty.”

You, not us, have made yourselves as helpless as a new born child. You can defend nothing of what your forefathers wrought because you have perverted and misunderstood it all.

You don't see it do you? How blind you are? Can anyone be that stupid? You speak of your way of life and of liberty, but even when you speak of your own ideals you show you don't understand them. I mean to say, you certainly don't understand them as your Founders.

I see you are incredulous at such a claim. “How,” you ask, “can a foreigner to America and American values say something so brazen with such assurance?” It's simple. All we have to do it look at history.

The most superficial glance at past events makes it clear your Founders would never have behaved so foolishly as you in the face of an ancient and implacable enemy. They understood these founding ideals were propagated for the blessing and benefit of themselves and their posterity. These ideals were to help them live their lives. They were not to be understood in such a distorted, doctrinaire way that it made them unable to recognize foreign, hostile and encroaching elements that threaten them. These ideals and values were not to be twisted in their minds by some cleaver sophistry so that the hostile elements could not be driven out. Your Founders didn't hold their ideals in ways that forced them from some misguided principle to slavishly extend full rights and benefits to those intent on using those rights to destroy them and establish their own draconian system in its' stead.

You do not hold the view of the values of your founding as the Founders did because they did not allow the holding of those values to make fools and victims of themselves as you are. You, in fact, have no respect for these values. You only respect the radical moral relativism and narcissistic subjectivism you've been brain-washed in believing as you attended those institutes of lower living you call institutes of higher learning. You do not see Liberty but a grotesquery distorted by the lenses of relativism, subjectivism and pluralism. It is this pervse thing you promote as Liberty. Your Founders would never have tolerated such a thing––not for a moment.

You've been nourished on moral anarchy from the infant formula your care-giver fed you. Your mother's milk was denied you because your mother was too busy with more important things, like trying to act and live like men and game the system to dominate them whenever possible.

From your first breath your life has been artificial, superficial and rootless. You have lived life so shallowly and thoughtlessly that, even now, you do not see that your relativism has not freed you as your perverse professoriat promised; it has enslaved you and made you unable to defend yourselves, your families or your institutions. You will see; we will dominate while you equivocate and talk in circles.

I have little sympathy for your so-called western values, but I do recognize that your Founders were not fools. They were men of some courage and honor. But the respect I give them I cannot give to you, and I'm glad, for their sakes, that they do not see the moral, political, social and economic monstrosity you have created from that hopeful thing they left you, with all its honorable and creative possibilities. Such is the enslavement of a people ruled by bankers. Again, your Founders warned about this. They knew how to preserve Liberty--and it was not by giving every Tom, Dick and Abu Hassan unrestricted license to game the systems of Liberty.

Your warped, distorted view of liberty, corrupted by moral relativism, religious pluralism and a prideful self-proclaimed moral superiority has opened you to attack from within and without. You have let your oligarchic intelligentsia use this distorted understanding of liberty to attack the liberty of a dwindling majority within your borders that still has some common sense and moral decency. You have made them victims to the tyranny of a hostile, parasitic and perverse minority, to which your courts, ruled by mis-educated, agenda driven imbeciles, pander day after day.

Your Founders would never have allowed that. That you are the defenders of American Liberty is laughable. You defend nothing but the moral anarchy of license and call licentiousness normalcy––something your Founders dreaded would happen. You are not their heirs, but the corrupt manifestation of their worst fears. Your relativism has destroyed your ability to name evil for what it is or recognize an enemy for who he is. You have little more instinct at self-preservation than your domestic turkey. Relativism has left you with a system that sees its only virtue as being its lack of virtue.

These things and more we have tried to teach you, but you are dull of hearing. Hate them though we do, we understand your Founders and Founding better than you. Reject it though we do, we have more respect for your Christianity than you. You have less piety than the barbarians and the pagans! How can you survive when you hold venerable institutions with such contempt and twist and distort your founding principles as you do? Rejecting these institutions you are rejecting the only force that has effectively resisted Islam for fifteen hundred years. How could we be anything other than confident of our position.

I doubt that you are as Osama said, "a paper tiger." If you are paper at all you are paper maché. How can you defend your own institutions and religions when you have allowed society's formers to teach your children to hate them? Is this what you call Liberty? We call it the path a fool takes to self-destruction.

When you crumble from your own corruption, perversity, licentiousness and avarice we are determined that you shall not look back on it and say we did not do all we could to wake you up. Perhaps we arrived too late. Evidently so, since you passively allow your leaders to treat you with contempt and force you into servile obedience with their politically correct rhetoric. While you argue in circles among yourselves we are erecting this flagrant insult to the injury of 9/11––all in the name of religious liberty. And you still don't get it. I suppose we could laugh in your faces and you would still not get it.

So with little to no resistance up it goes, our––how is it your venerable Dr. Sowell put it?–– our “fifteen-story middle finger” to America. Ha. At least one American is awake!

We're glad there are not many of his likes in America and that the vast majority of Americans, including those of his own race either don't know him or treat him with indifference and contempt, while holding fools, useful idiots and egotists like Barack Obama and Al Sharpton in such great esteem. We owe them a great debt, for their racially inflammatory rhetoric has created thousands of recruits for radical Islam. Obama, Wright, Jackson and Sharpton have taught them to hate America, blame their problems on America and the white man––now we'll show them how to really “get even.” Thanks a million, reverend! What dupes!

Why do we even waste our time with you? You are patently unteachable. You cannot be taught, but you will be easily ruled. It won't be long now. Just sleep a little longer while the middle finger rises to the sky and the cry “Allahu akbar” will be heard, triumphantly echoing down the steel canyons of the serene New York skyline past where the idolatrous towers to western materialism once proudly stood.

So here we have told you the truth about yourselves--the truth you need to preserve yourself and sustain your way of life and restore Liberty. But we do no fear. Even now we know you will not respond or wake up. Sleep on while we construct our version of a fifteen story "up yours!"

Fools!