The Bill of Rights which once defined and united us as Americans, is now the issue which least defines and most divides us. Unfortunately what we are so divided over is not what those amendments of the Bill of Rights were written to protect - our individual rights - but over various particulars involved in aspects of exercising them, while the rights themselves are rarely even mentioned. This is especially noticeable in the targeting of the first two, as the importance of those rights that are protected under them, in favor of spittle spewing matches over particular types of speech: 'hate speech','divisive', etc, or in favor of shrieking hysterically over one of the particular types of arms which the 2nd Amendment secures from abuse for us: Guns. This is not the behavior of people who understand and are concerned with the 'inalienable' nature of their individual rights, but that of a people who consider such rights (to the extent they do at all) for their utilitarian usefulness or nuisance value, to the conveniences of everyday living.
This lack of interest is a tri-partisan affair, shared by most on the Left and Right and the non-aligned, so it's not surprising that the rights that are protected by the first and second amendments, are treated not as individual rights, but as lists of privileges that were permitted to us in the past by an old landlord, but which need to be tinkered with so as to be made more useful for the 'greater good' today. In everything from Beto O'Rourke's 'Hell, yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47', to Mitch McConnell & Atty General Barr's memo proposing 'common sense gun laws' (for political purposes), we're awash in proposed legislative assaults such as Red Flag laws, Safe Speech Zones, national gun registration databases, Hate Speech Laws, waiting periods, 'gun buy-backs' or flat out confiscations, all are proposed as a means to alter and reform us by adjusting this or that environmental factor in society, to bring about the 'change!' that they so desire to see in you & me.
The fact that there is absolutely no proof that such tinkerings have ever, or will ever work (and much to indicate that they make matters tragically worse), or that their marching and chanting has more in common with efforts to work sympathetic magic than with objective law, doesn't sway them for a moment, should hint at just how contentedly disconnected from reality such people are - the flashing lights and sounds of the political games they are playing, and their relative ranking amongst the players, are more than enough reward for them.
The responses of those who do still grasp the importance and inalienable nature of our rights, shy away from the virtue signaling and calls for limiting everyone's liberty because the criminal actions of a few, they focus on reminding us of the dangers which these proposals pose to our lives, individual rights and responsibilities; the sober need to punish actual wrongs, and the importance of having a deeper understanding of these important principles. The people who care about our individual rights, tend to see you, not as a statistical blip in a political pinball game, but as a human being, and the need to be secure from our own worst and best intentions, because they see the deep and widespread damage which such tinkering will have on our ability to live lives worth living. Case in point, Dana Loesch's comments about the various proposals of Red Flag laws, has been focused on what most other people seem to work so hard at not noticing, that these proposals are reckless attacks not just on guns, but are attacks [as all regulatory law is] upon concepts that are fundamental to all of our rights, such as “innocent until proven guilty":
1) #RedFlagLaws are an inversion of “innocent until proven guilty.” The standard of evidence is low and while state laws vary, many different people, not just family, can report you.
[Combining two previous posts marking what today apparently doesn't warrant a 'Google Doodle', it is the 232nd birthday of the United States Constitution. Learn it or lose it... and the liberty it was written to preserve.]
Today marks the completion of what both Patriot and Protester, knowingly or not, are unified in referencing. What was signed as completed upon this day, two hundred and thirty-two years ago, September 17th, 1787, by thirty-nine of the fifty-five Framers, was the Constitution of the United States of America, and whether you stand in respect for, or disrespectfully turn away from, the Flag, the National Anthem or the Pledge of Allegiance, you do so in reference to that document which is the oldest existing instrument of its kind, still in operation.
Why?
Is it simply a list of rules for governing by? Is it nothing more than a favorite fossil of 'white people'? A document of oppression? Frederick Douglass once thought so, but because he was a thinker in order to understand what was true, he didn't stop with answers that were given him by others, but continued on thinking upon the matter, and discovered the Truth which such vile falsehoods seek to smother and erase.
But today I'm really not much concerned with your answers to those 'points', but am only interested in whether or not you are familiar with the ideas, principles and purposes which animated the writing of it - are you? And if not... what worth can your opinion - pro or con - have for me, or for anyone else?
Whether you mouth its praises, or make showy protests against it, without understanding what it is you are referencing - your praises and protestations fail to even rise to the level of being wrong, they are but verbal dust to be brushed away, meaningless and of no consequence. But if you are one of that thoughtless many, you may take comfort in the knowledge that you are in the happy company of millions of such Pavlovian 'Conservatives', Pro-Regressive Leftists and Libertarians, for whom the United States Constitution is little more than a paper bell which they bark at.
But for those of you who do see it, not as a mere object of ink upon paper, for those of you who don't insult the memory of they who strove to produce it as having been anything other than men of flesh and blood, for you who understand that it was written so as to give physical form to, and to best enable, the implementation of some of the greatest political ideas of Western Civilization -
that men who understand that are capable of self governance,
that well ordered argument can lead to a self-correcting means of governance,
that such a system, established by such a people, can enable lives lived in liberty while in society with others, so long as the beast of Power is bound down and limited by laws whose purpose is to uphold and defend the Individual Rights of every person
, and that for such a people, intellectually armed through a document such as this, Liberty is possible.
But it is only possible for those who understand that.
For those intemperate folk who simply wish to sing the praises of, or rain curses down upon, that
Doubling down on their efforts to deny and rewrite reality, the New York Times today tweeted that "... airplanes took aim and brought down the World Trade Center...", which they've for some reason deleted. Why, I can't imagine, as they also ran a full story today "The Twin Towers After September 11: A Tribute or a Painful Reminder?" which mentions neither 'islamist' nor 'terrorist'.
As I've said many times before, in everything from this B.S., to the 57 genders, to ilhan omar talking about 'somone did something', what the Pro-Regressive opposes most, and is most terrified of, is identifying what is real and true. It burns. Well... burn 'em.
On September 11th, 2001, islamic terrorists attacked America by hijacking four passenger planes, and turned them into weapons that killed 3,000 Americans. And they were able to do that, because for decades we failed to identify their nature and the nature of the threat they posed to Western Civilization in general, and to America in particular.
Remember that... or be prepared for the Gods of the Copybook Heading's, return to remind us, once again.
And now, I return you to September 11th:
[I first posted this back in 2012, and I haven't seen anything from then thru now, to alter my opinion. Worse, especially in light of the GOP not only ignoring warnings but permitting the Iran Deal to not only go forward, but to schedule the vote on it on Friday, Sept. 11th, 2015 - I can do no less than double down on it.[and of course the newest 'Iran Deal' in 2016, and with paying billions of dollars in ransom... nothing's changed]
There's no doubt that we will remember 9/11 for quite some time to come, but what we remember and why, is far less certain.
More than remembering where I was 11 years ago, I remember how we got there. By denying the reality of what we faced in the World Trade Center bombing, the hijacking of airliners and cruise ships, the bombing of our interests around the world and of the USS Cole, by refusing to deal with evil as is required, evil strolled up and gave us a hug on 9/11, 11 years ago.
Have we learned the lesson? I don't even need to turn on the News to know that the answer is: Not even close.
The cost has been, and no doubt will again be, the likes of 9/11, as the Gods of the Copybook Headings limp up to explain it once more... reasoning with those who are unreasonable, giving measured responses in reply to savagery, enables the evil to harm the good. Remember this 9/11, that 'measured responses' are why those who attacked us on 9/11, 11 years ago, were still alive and able to attack us - the fruition of a decade worth of 'measured responses'.
Leftists deny the existence of Evil, and 'Conservatives' deny the necessity of dealing with evil as the evil that they are. Fearing that Just retribution brings us 'down to their level', they insist on 'reasonable' and 'measured' responses, blind to the fact that such measures extend a hand up to evil, which it will use to reach up and hammer you in the face - the face they never could have reached without the aid of those 'measured responses'.
Conservatives like O'Reilly are the reason why I'm uncomfortable calling myself a Conservative. For conversations sake, I use the term as a shorthand, half-step towards the more accurate term, Classical Liberal. And I have a holy hell full of spite for the ProRegressive Leftists who have made it necessary to tack 'Classical' onto that.
If the policy of the interviewee in this video, Leonard Peikoff, had been followed back in 2001, I believe we'd have been done worrying about Iran & the Middle East a decade ago. Instead, we followed the lead of dunderheads like O'Reilly, whose 'measured responses' have drawn the conflict out, strengthened Iran and put us in the position we are in today.
A proper foreign policy is "Mind your own business & we'll mind ours. Mess with us or ours, and we'll destroy you. Period."
Anything less, reasoning with those who are unreasonable, giving measured responses in reply to savagery, etc., are concessions and only serve to enable those who wish us harm. The history of the last couple decades is that of those who wish us harm, understanding this truth, and understanding that we don't understand it, and using it to play us to their benefit.
And the cost has been, and will be, the likes of 9/11, as once again, as the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more:
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
Please, try to remember 9/11 as the lesson we won't have to learn once more.
Reality will not be denied, and Evil will not be turned aside because you choose to turn away from it. Deny that, and the Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return. Please. Just face the facts and learn the lesson so we don't have to learn it once more.
There are more causes than we can count for why so many people today have so little interest in living lives worth living or showing respect for human life - theirs or others. While we can't say what causes any one person to choose to murder as many of their fellows as they can manage, we can identify some causes for why living respectful and worthwhile lives was not central to the lives they chose to live out in our midst, and IMHO identifying why so many lack that is more meaningful to know than the endless and meaningless details of these shooters lives that are obsessed over in our tragically repeating news cycle.
I pointed out in the previous post that causation in human affairs was once understood to have a deeper more pyramidal structure than the cartoonishly flattened out 'cause & effect' (see gun->shoot people, hate brown skin-> shoot all skins, be bullied by someone-> shoot everyone, etc.,) accepted today, and pointed out how at least one central issue that is lacking in each of these shooters, is also lacking in those who shriek the loudest afterwards about disarming their fellows ability to defend themselves against such attacks - shooters and shriekers alike lack a regard for that fundamental ideal that America was formed from and upon: a respect for individual rights. This absence is 'present' in all levels of our society today, and should be even more disturbing to us than these mass shootings which are its most extreme effects, and the fact that most who lack that ideal have not yet chosen violence (though a great many do enjoy talking about it), should be cold comfort indeed - we as a society are imperiled not by the things surrounding our lives, but by what is lacking within our lives.
This lack of regard for an ideal that is so fundamental to America is not only concerning, but puzzling, as all societies have a means for understanding, elevating, spreading, and acting on their highest ideals in daily life - why does ours now (for clearly we once had it) lack that? Previously we looked at the effects which the lack of that ideal can have on a individual thoughts and actions, this post will look at what is lacking in our means of transmitting that ideal into the American people. Again, by not getting distracted by the many meaningless effects, and concentrating instead upon what is meaningfully lacking, we can better see the layers of the pyramid of causes from top to bottom - material, formal, efficient and final - in our means of conveying our most fundamental ideals.
A Material Cause
The ideal of individual rights is vital to the mind of any who is deliberately an American, but despite their good intentions it is unlikely to be sustained alone in a person for long, without the support of that person's habits, actions and aspirations, which is what makes a person's character the Material Cause (“that out of which” something is done) of their behavior.
Of course one essential character trait that's present in those who are not inclined to slaughter their fellows, is that they value and admire living a good life, and doing so requires them to have developed a habit of making choices that are respectful of what is real and true and good, which in turn requires a person to have developed a habit and method of thinking - IOW a reasonable method of asking questions that lead to a deeper understanding of what is true, while identifying and rejecting what is false - and a sufficient wealth of supporting knowledge, understanding and inspiration to draw upon, for successfully carrying their choices towards, safely through, and past, the turbulent passions of the moment.
Having and sustaining a good character is not such an easy thing to do, and an important point to acknowledge about virtuous habits, is that they're an extremely unnatural thing for a human being to seek, develop, and sustain. Even with the benefit of a good character, it is not easy to choose to do what is best and right, over what is easy and tempting, but it's damn near impossible to do so when caught up in the midst of your passions, with no habits or anchoring truths whatsoever, to help you
