Obama to the Left: Wham, Bam Thank you Ma’am – Change you can’t believe in!

You can’t look at Obama’s appointment list of Clinton era retreads, Bush administration carryovers, and of course ‘I haven’t renounced my Iraq war vote’ Hilary herself, without indulging in one very guarded, but nonetheless deep belly laugh!

The current cry of the moonbat is “Change?! What change?! Where?! Where’s my change?!!!”

And in fact if this is a sign of how President-elect Obama is planning to ‘rule’, it does much to temper fears such as those I had, that this would be an overtly anti-constitutional and socialist regime – not allay – but temper.

The reason why my concerns are only tempered, is because he did express his thoughts about the constitution and its role in government – and they were anti-constitutional thoughts and intents. He did express his belief in the socialist sentiment of ‘spreadin’ the wealth around’, he has helped community organizations such as Acorn in their efforts to force institutions to yield to their wishes over their and their shareholders best interests, such as banks, to make loans which made no financial sense in order to promote homeownership (and future financial crisis).

But to think that what Obama said has any direct relation to what he'll do, is to make the mistake which people with principles are prone to make – we assume that others use words to convey meaning. In fact, those without principles use words only as a means to control others, to get them to do what they want them to do, which they otherwise wouldn’t have done except for having thought they heard in what the person speaking said but never meant – saves having to resort to a gun.

If you look at Obama’s own reminiscences of why he began to seek out Marxist professors in college, and the more radical students in the student body, it was because they had power – power of glamour, power of clique, power to command attention. He joined the pacific Rev. Wright's church because it could help him gain power in the Chicago power structure, same with his Alinsky based community organization efforts, as with William Ayers, Tony Rezko, accepting public financing, and so on.

I made the old mistake of assuming that he did this because he wanted power to promote his ideas… when in fact it now seems more likely that he wanted power for the more common reason that most power luster’s want power… because they want to be powerful. Sure, if things aligned well, I’m sure he’d use that power to promote those ideas which he has verbally aligned himself with, doubtless he has a certain fondness for them. But with the economy in an uncertain position, he is more than willing to take the positions needed to keep everyone happy with his keeping his power – but as the moonbat’s are finding out, ‘everyone’ doesn’t mean those who voted for ‘change they could believe in!’, it means ‘everyone’ who has power to help him keep power.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to myself or the moonbats; the left, as they well know, have no principles, they only have positions and passions, and those are only held because they are things which they want, and they will do whatever it takes to get what they want, hence Power being what the left reveres, over Principle. It’s not as if they think that their policies are actually good policies, that they are right and true, only that they want them.

By the way, I’m not letting the Republicans off that hook either, they only hide their lack of principles from themselves better than the Democrats do. Any ‘free marketer’ who claims to believe in property rights and capitalism, but promotes appropriating trillions of dollars (or even one) in order ‘to fix the market’, never held any real belief in property rights and capitalism in the first place – they certainly didn’t understand it’s principles. As with Bush the 1st, who promised ‘Read my lips, no new taxes’ and then signed on to huge new taxes because he thought it would fix things and make them better ‘for the good of the country’, shows that he had no principled grasp or understanding of principles to begin with; the reason why a principled person would say ‘no new taxes’ is because the good of the country is served by no new taxes, and even more so by repealing taxes and divesting the government of powers it has improperly grabbed… argh.

Idiots.

Back to the future - as long as events make it expedient to promote middle-of-the-road people and policies, then Obama will likely do so and govern very much as did Clinton. On the other hand, as soon as events make it expedient to use a heavy hand to promote his preferences, those sitting back in comfort with his current selections will find themselves flat on their backs with the air knocked out of them, just as the moonbats are feeling it now.

The change we can believe in is that the Obama administration will change as it needs to and wishes to, in order not to let power change hands. It is after all a principle of those who seek power: be unprincipled on principle.

And that is Change! that forever remains the same.

Happy Birthday and Semper Fi!

When I first met Sam, we were still new to Missouri, and he and his family were neighbors of ours in a condo development that was starting to slide downhill. Sam, at that time, always had a spit cup at hand for his chewing tobacco, and had a deep rural drawl, that made his larger than normal vocabulary almost sound humorous. He had just joined our Condo board, as did my wife, and though I privately called him 'burp' (he did, alot), he was surprisingly sharp and diligent, surprising to me anyway - at that time, that his being in the Marines didn't really lend much of a plus in my eyes, not that it was a minus, but I still had a touch of the old 'people join the military because they don't have ambition' view, and it played into the rural air about him (hey, this was nearly 20 yrs ago, after playing in a band for ten years on the west coast, gimme a break - Sam did).

As we began to spend more time together, our wives had become best friends and our boys prickly friends, politics and history began to crop up often in our conversations, and something I wasn't much used to began to happen, something that I wasn't used to happening at all, let alone frequently - I was being not only corrected, but shown some wide gaps in what I thought I knew, regarding the Constitution, the Supreme Court, American History in general, and the Civil War in particular, and even about Edmund Burke.

WTF!? How was this jarhead more knowledgeable than... than me?!

Lol.

It turned out that Sam was a fast rising Sgt. (I had no idea how many grades of Sgt. there could be!) in the Marines, a top recruiter in his office, then managing the office, then top in St. Louis, then the district and then over the entire region. He took his job, and the young men his job was about, very seriously. He showed me the recommended reading list for "Riflemen" recruits, and the list he augmented that with, and my jaw dropped. He also was not an unusual character for the Marines, and he saw to it that his recruits followed suit as well. So much for there being any 'poorly edum'icated' meaning to having a rural drawl or any of the other jarhead caricatures. He was a plain spoken man, yet not to be trifled with. A few years later, after we'd both moved out of the condo's to a nicer neighborhood, some poor carload of teen rowdies decided to drive down and up the lawns on Sam's street in the dark of the a.m... their fun met an abrupt end as Sam, clad only in his shorts, flew out of his house with a baseball bat and charged their car, bashing in the windshield, drivers side and rear windows, before their terror could carry them off into the night. Double LOL.

Sgt. Sam was very capable, well informed, widely read, and a damn good guy.

I had the pleasure of being invited to a few of the 'wet downs' after his promotions and to spend time with he and his Marines over the years, and it was always a blast; but not only that, it went a long way towards showing me that my jaded musicians view of the world was the view that was the real oddity, and that a view that saw 'normal' as more likely being that of the solid and trustworthy person, willing and eager to serve and defend their country, that was far more normal and justified a view than I had dreamed - and that was reaching several years back before 9/11 - and what a pleasure it was to be rid of the immature view of the world I'd gathered 'on the road'.

Sam and his family were transferred out of state about 6 yrs ago, and what with another move or two, I guess we haven't seen them in about 3 yrs now, but no matter - come Nov. 10th, it's time once again to wish the United States Marine Corps. a hearty Happy Birthday, and to Sam...wherever you and your family are, a fond

Semper Fi!

The Concord Hymn - for the 44th President of the United States of America

The Concord Hymn -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1837)
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We place with joy a votive stone,
That memory may their deeds redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

O Thou who made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raised to them and Thee.

Looks like Barrack H. Obama has been elected 44th President of the United States of America - I would emphasise the word elected. Clearly and uncontested. Agree with or disagree with it, wise or unwise, the American people have chosen a new President, and that is that.

As President, he is due the respect of the office, the support of the citizenry, and the best wishes of the people.

I will do my best to oppose, as far as I can see, all of his policies, but I will not sink, and I hope no one else I know will either, to the sickening, juvenile, destructive vitriol heaped upon the 43rd President of the United States of America, George W. Bush.

Lets work to clean house in the Republican Party, kick out the stinking rectum's of all the Rino and big Gov't types still standing, work to make it a party of Conservatives and Classical Liberals, and move America forward.

Best wishes and luck to President elect Obama, and the people of the United States of America!

BTW -Senator John McCain, though I disagree with most of his policies, he fought hard for what he believed in, a damn good effort - thank you for fighting for what you believed in.

Burke and reflecting the future forward

I watched a C-Span show about Edmund Burke this weekend by Gertrude Himmelfarb, and one thing she pointed out was how the German philosophers saw a problem between "Das problem of Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations" and she felt that people had the same issue with Burke, that they seemed to think that his prophetic denunciations of the French Revolution, the utter breakdown of civilized society, were somehow in opposition to his earlier writings upon philosophy. But as with Smith, if you pay attention, if you are not opposed to principles, if you don't deny the reality you see before you, if you are not so flatly modern, you will see that regarding their latter positions, not only are they not in opposition to their earlier works, but the later flowed seamlessly from the former.

My favorite from Burke is his "A Philosophical inquiry into the origin of our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful", and I'm going to excerpt a couple key passages here. I think they bear greatly upon our current world views, and which lacking his insights, indicate why we are so ... separated, in large part because of the perils of Wit without Judgment.

"But in the imagination, besides the pain or pleasure arising from the properties of the natural object, a pleasure is perceived from the resemblance which the imitation has to the original: the imagination, I conceive, can have no pleasure but what results from one or other of these causes. And these causes operate pretty uniformly upon all men, because they operate by principles in nature, and which are not derived from any particular habits or advantages. Mr. Locke very justly and finely observes of wit, that it is chiefly conversant in tracing resemblances; he remarks, at the same time, that the business of judgment is rather in finding differences. It may perhaps appear, on this supposition, that there is no material distinction between the wit and the judgment, as they both seem to result from different operations of the same faculty of comparing. But in reality, whether they are or are not dependent on the same power of the mind, they differ so very materially in many respects, that a perfect union of wit and judgment is one of the rarest things in the world. When two distinct objects are unlike to each other, it is only what we expect; things are in their common way; and therefore they make no impression on the imagination: but when two distinct objects have a resemblance, we are struck, we attend to them, and we are pleased. The mind of man has naturally a far greater alacrity and satisfaction in tracing resemblances than in searching for differences; because by making resemblances we produce new images; we unite, we create, we enlarge our stock; but in making distinctions we offer no food at all to the imagination; the task itself is more severe and irksome, and what pleasure we derive from it is something of a negative and indirect nature. A piece of news is told me in the morning; this, merely as a piece of news, as a fact added to my stock, gives me some pleasure. In the evening I find there was nothing in it. What do I gain by this, but the dissatisfaction to find that I had been imposed upon? Hence it is that men are much more naturally inclined to belief than to incredulity. And it is upon this principle, that the most ignorant and barbarous nations have frequently excelled in similitudes, comparisons, metaphors, and allegories, who have been weak and backward in distinguishing and sorting their ideas. And it is for a reason of this kind, that Homer and the oriental writers, though very fond of similitudes, and though they often strike out such as are truly admirable, seldom take care to have them exact; that is, they are taken with the general resemblance, they paint it strongly, and they take no notice of the difference which may be found between the things compared.

Now as the pleasure of resemblance is that which principally flatters the imagination, all men are nearly equal in this point, as far as their knowledge of the things represented or compared extends. The principle of this knowledge is very much accidental, as it depends upon experience and observation, and not on the strength or weakness of any natural faculty; and it is from this difference in knowledge, that what we commonly, though with no great exactness, call a difference in taste proceeds. A man to whom sculpture is new, sees a barber's block, or some ordinary piece of statuary; he is immediately struck and pleased, because he sees something like a human figure; and, entirely taken up with this likeness, he does not at all attend to its defects. No person, I believe, at the first time of seeing a piece of imitation ever did. Some time after, we suppose that this novice lights upon a more artificial work of the same nature; he now begins to look with contempt on what he admired at first; not that he admired it even then for its unlikeness to a man, but for that general though inaccurate resemblance which it bore to the human figure. What he admired at different times in these so different figures, is strictly the same; and though his knowledge is improved, his taste is not altered. Hitherto his mistake was from a want of knowledge in art, and this arose from his inexperience; but he may be still deficient from a want of knowledge in nature. For it is possible that the man in question may stop here, and that the masterpiece of a great hand may please him no more than the middling performance of a vulgar artist; and this not for want of better or higher relish, but because all men do not observe with sufficient accuracy on the human figure to enable them to judge properly of an imitation of it. And that the critical taste does not depend upon a superior principle in men, but upon superior knowledge, may appear from several instances. The story of the ancient painter and the shoemaker is very well known. The shoemaker set the painter right with regard to some mistakes he had made in the shoe of one of his figures, which the painter, who had not made such accurate observations on shoes, and was content with a general resemblance, had never observed. But this was no impeachment to the taste of the painter; it only showed some want of knowledge in the art of making shoes. Let us imagine, that an anatomist had come into the painter's working-room. His piece is in general well done, the figure in question in a good attitude, and the parts well adjusted to their various movements; yet the anatomist, critical in his art, may observe the swell of some muscle not quite just in the peculiar action of the figure. Here the anatomist observes what the painter had not observed; and he passes by what the shoemaker had remarked. But a want of the last critical knowledge in anatomy no more reflected on the natural good taste of the painter, or of any common observer of his piece, than the want of an exact knowledge in the formation of a shoe. A fine piece of a decollated head of St. John the Baptist was shown to a Turkish emperor: he praised many things, but he observed one defect: he observed that the skin did not shrink from the wounded part of the neck. The sultan on this occasion, though his observation was very just, discovered no more natural taste than the painter who executed this piece, or than a thousand European connoisseurs, who probably never would have made the same observation. His Turkish majesty had indeed been well acquainted with that terrible spectacle, which the others could only have represented in their imagination. On the subject of their dislike there is a difference between all these people, arising from the different kinds and degrees of their knowledge; but there is something in common to the painter, the shoemaker, the anatomist, and the Turkish emperor, the pleasure arising from a natural object, so far as each perceives it justly imitated; the satisfaction in seeing an agreeable figure; the sympathy proceeding from a striking and affecting incident. So far as taste is natural, it is nearly common to all."

, and a short distance further,

"So long as we are conversant with the sensible qualities of things, hardly any more than the imagination seems concerned; little more also than the imagination seems concerned when the passions are represented, because by the force of natural sympathy they are felt in all men without any recourse to reasoning, and their justness recognized in every breast. Love, grief, fear, anger, joy, all these passions have, in their turns, affected every mind; and they do not affect it in an arbitrary or casual manner, but upon certain, natural, and uniform principles. But as many of the works of imagination are not confined to the representation of sensible objects, nor to efforts upon the passions, but extend themselves to the manners, the characters, the actions, and designs of men, their relations, their virtues and vices, they come within the province of the judgment, which is improved by attention, and by the habit of reasoning. All these make a very considerable part of what are considered as the objects of taste; and Horace sends us to the schools of philosophy and the world for our instruction in them. Whatever certainty is to be acquired in morality and the science of life; just the same degree of certainty have we in what relates to them in works of imitation. Indeed it is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observances of time and place, and of decency in general, which is only to be learned in those schools to which Horace recommends us, that what is called taste, by way of distinction, consists: and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment. On the whole, it appears to me, that what is called taste, in its most general acceptation, is not a simple idea, but is partly made up of a perception of the primary pleasures of sense, of the secondary pleasures of the imagination, and of the conclusions of the reasoning faculty, concerning the various relations of these, and concerning the human passions, manners, and actions. All this is requisite to form taste, and the groundwork of all these is the same in the human mind; for as the senses are the great originals of all our ideas, and consequently of all our pleasures, if they are not uncertain and arbitrary, the whole groundwork of taste is common to all, and therefore there is a sufficient foundation for a conclusive reasoning on these matters."

So what we find, is that as with the men judging the smoothness of a marble block, the first is "Smooth!", until a second and third, each smoother is presented to him. As a clear measure of distinction is made known, and makes finer judgments possible, it is the system of similarities and differences approached in a systematic way, which makes ever clearer thought possible. The person who never becomes aware of the second and third marble block, is quite content from a distance to call them no better than his own, and wave off their claims of finer quality.

It was through elemental observations such as these, an understanding of how the basics of thought occurs, the methods and principles by which we make our lives in this world, that Burke, 218 years ago, was able to see the horrors that must come, the Terror that would be, where others who presumed to look farther without first learning to look closer, and declared that they saw Change! as being nothing but change for the better, saw all as being good and for the best.

Look carefully at the things you find similar, observe the distinctions which separate them, take care to judge whether those distinctions enhance what they have in common, or make the commonality but the thinnest of illusions.

To have great wit, coupled with lesser judgment, is to have a powerful vehicle but without the means of braking or steering it, a fact I think our MSM and 'intellectuals' who clamor for 'The One' demonstrate loudly and often. Such intelligence is worse than useless, it is careless, reckless, and supremely self satisfied - as was Thomas Paine, some 200+ years ago. Luckily for him, he escaped, just barely, with his head, from the French prisons and Guilotine of those he helped give the power to imprison him.

Intelligence isn't enough. You must do the hard work of using your judgment.

When you look at the two candidates running for president, remember that that the one who seems smooth, may be rougher beyond measure. Remember that at one time the French Revolution was seen as something to be embraced and spread around the world, and the person opposing it was sharply denounced for his positions as anti-reason, and in opposition to all of the common fashion and wisdom of the day. If you look at surfaces only, if you don't do the sometimes distasteful work of examining the differences from the position of principles which you know first hand to follow from reality, there may be severed heads in your future as well.