The Vote is upon us - Please be sure that your grandchildren's lives fit within the context of your vote

So. Where do you start your consideration of how to vote from? I've posted time and time again over the last decade, on how easily being 'Principled!' in voting, can cease to be principled... such as When acting 'on principle' is unprincipled behavior - part 1, and Part 2 here, or It's time to vote - Why?, and numerous other times over the years - if you'd like a more in-depth treatment, of the matter, look there.

But for the moment now, this will have to do.

Painful as it is for me to say, the only principled choice in this election, is the GOP Nominee, which happens to be Donald J. Trump. If you wish to make a principled decision, then cast your ballot for Donald J. Trump, as the only effective electoral means of defeating the greater threat to liberty and the rule of law, Hillary Clinton. Period.

Some of you might be taken aback by that. I suggest that you examine your principles, before once again consulting them.

What are they derived from?

As I've often said, Principles are a guide to thinking, not a substitute for it. Are you using your 'principles' to think, or to evade that?

Principles are derived from an hierarchical view of reality, from what is understood to be true within a given context, and by applying timeless truths to the moment within time, to determine what are the most moral and the most practical actions to take - if you assume the two are contradictory, you need to give your mind an acid wash and cleanse it of the muck of modernity (clues here)!

If your principles do not adjust to significant changes in the context of a situation, then they are no longer principles, they are merely positions, and to confuse the two is both unprincipled, and deadly dangerous.

To re-purpose an old Buddhist phrase:

"If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!.'

For you coders out there, what this means is that you've taken the intellectual equivalent of an abstract class for managing reality (a principle), and hard-coded some fixed parameters within it, hopelessly tying it to one narrow particular situation. For the rest of you: Don't litter your generalities with specifics - you only transform them into rigid rules that are irrelevant and useless.

IOW if your 'Principles' do not direct you to adjust your actions, when the context of the situation has significantly changed, then they are no longer functioning principles; you've corrupted and zombiefied them, likely by emotionally attaching them to particulars of the moment.

For instance, for me, as my relevant 'principles' are derived from an understanding of the meaning of America, the candidate that I actively endorse and support needs to be someone who demonstrates an understanding of, and respect for, our Constitution and the Individual Rights it was designed to uphold and protect, through the Rule of Law and limited to that purpose. Those principles led me to choose Sen. Cruz over Trump in the primaries, because Cruz's experience demonstrated an understanding of, and his polices were compatible with, my principled understanding (rooted in Individual Rights, Property Rights, under Constitutionally limited govt) of what the President of the United States of America is supposed to be the Chief Executive of. On the other hand, Trump... I'd no idea what he stood for,let alone what his principles were, beyond some managerial skills and popular charisma aligned with a vaguely 'pro-Americana-ish' sensibility.

But Ted Cruz lost the primary, and the primaries are over. Which meant that key, significant aspects of the context of my vote and the election, had radically changed.

My principles towards who I can support and endorse have not changed, but the new phase of the election is not about my choice for who would be the best candidate to run for POTUS. Instead, the election in question is now about selecting a candidate from those options which the electoral process of the nation - of which I am a citizen of - has placed on the ballot, and from which one WILL be selected by the voters as POTUS.

If your principles did not enable you to adjust with that context, if your 'Principles!' have instead urged you to ignore the actual potential outcomes of the election, and have instead led you towards some form of personal self-gratification in the voting-booth, then what you are following are positions, not principles.

The fact is, that the context has changed, and you must choose anew from the available options. While Trump is still an unknown and flamboyant player, he is one of the two leading candidates from which the winner will be chosen. If the two front-runners shared fundamental principles of mine, then I'd choose from the best able to further them. However, they don't. Neither one matches up with what I consider important. However, one will be elected, so the next question to be asked is not how can I wash my hands of this choice, but does one of them pose a greater threat to that which I value, and which is the purpose of this election: the nation, our system of gov, and all of the people living under it?

For the answer to that, see my previous posts, especially "Perverting Progress into Poison - the Doppelganger Strikes Back - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt.9b", and "Progressively Doing away with Truth - How Pro-Regressives see Regress as Progress pt 9c", is yes, the Pro-Regressive 'Progressive' Leftist candidate is by far, the greater threat. While I still can't endorse Trump or offer my support for his unknown qualifications, I can, and must, oppose that greater threat, with the most effective means electoral means available, which, from those options available to select from, as provided by the nations electoral process, of which we are citizen participants in, that is the GOP nominee, who happens to be: Donald J. Trump.

If you grasp the context, the principles involved, and the threats to them, then there is little reason to quibble, and no room for any of the 'adult' whining about it that I've been painful witness of. The only viable option, is Trump. Done. Grow up, cast your vote and move on.

Hopefully you'll join me, beginning the day after he is elected (fingers crossed), in working to educate the electorate as to what ideas, principles and considerations they should have a more solid understanding of, but until then, we go to vote with the ballots we have.

Would I prefer to have a candidate that I could feel confident would understand, support and defend the Constitution? Absolutely. Sadly, tragically, that is not the option, IMHO, that the American people have left us with. The reality is that we do not have anyone available, conceptually and electorally, who I can see fits the bill, not in the two major parties, or, even if they were electorally viable, in any of the third party candidates. Still, there will be an election - Tuesday - and one candidate Will win it. If this were a cycle with generally pro-American candidates, whose main differences were simply policy, then we'd have an election with someone to vote For, and without having to be too concerned with if they lost (again, sadly, we haven't seen an election like that in over a century).

But that is not the reality we're facing.

We have a front runner for the Left who is possessed of an anti-American philosophy, and if you need a reminder, these are just a few of the founding ideals of the 'American Progressives' that Hillary identifies herself as being:

• "Each year the child is coming to belong more to the State and less and less to the parent."
• "The tradition of respect for individual liberty, Gladden preached, was "a radical defect in the thinking of the average American."
• "...Individuals, Ross maintained, were but "plastic lumps of human dough," to be formed on the great "social kneading board.

Those are the fundamentals which guide here in the laws and policies that she will implement.

If elected, she will have not only enjoy the support of the bulk of Congress behind her in her efforts, but the wide landscape of the judiciary, to which she will deliberately add more equally anti-American judges to the Supreme Court, not to mention the entire bureaucracy of all the administrative agencies, such as EPA, FDA, IRS, etc, that will be behind her as well.

Outside of govt proper, she will also enjoy the full support of academia, the educational bureaucracy, the media, Hollywood, etc. In 8 yrs, Obama has transformed the bulwark of our Constitution, into little more than something of a fundraising talking point for a few of those 'on the right'... and that's about it. And the culture of our nation has slid at least as far down and to the Left. That is where a Hillary Clinton presidency will be starting from. She will Not stop at the level of economic policies, she will do everything in her power to extend govt power past what we can do, and into what we will be allowed to think and hope of doing.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I see the Left gaining power at this point in time, as an Evil, and a far greater one than is posed by Trump, no matter how foolish or corrupt he might be.

The Left Must be slowed. Period. And the most effective means of doing that, sickeningly, is with the GOP nominee.

I don't like it one bit. I've disliked Trump since the 1980's, but this isn't about my preferences or sensibilities, but about attempting to keep the greater evil from gaining power.

Once again, I in No way am a supporter of Trump - I'm an opposer of the pro-regressive 'Progressive' Left. I have no basis in reasoned experience to believe that Trump will succeed in accomplishing anything good, I have reams of information and understanding that the Pro-Regressive 'Progressive' Leftist candidate, is the most vicious believer and operator the Left has fielded in a century.

I am not supporting Trump, I'm opposing the Left's Hillary Clinton.

To treat this election as if it is simply a choice between policy options, is ignorant, and borderline insanity, and the habit of treating the left as just another policy choice, is what has had a great deal to do with the Right's failure over the last many decades; failing - refusing - to confront the meaning of their policies, and I'm speaking of those who think in terms of defining their 'principles', which Are anti-American, has been a futile, foolish policy of 'competitive appeasement'.

By anti-American, I don't mean they are bad people who kick puppies and are mean to all - I've far too many friends and family who are leftists, who I know to be wonderful, kind, generous people, to give that a moments consideration. But then I don't define America by is boundaries or 'baseball, hot dogs, apple pie...', but by the ideas that first made it possible, and which our founding documents embody. That means ideas that recognize and uphold individual rights, property, and a rule of Law that recognizes their being upheld, as its purpose. To deliberately infringe upon, or negate those principles, Is to advance ideas and positions that are, necessarily, anti-American.

And by evil, I mean that the driving philosophy behind the Left, is opposed to even recognizing that reality can be known (see Kant), is deliberately intent upon imposing their will over and against what is real and true, and because they prefer their wishes to reality, they feel justified in having 'experts' and legislators 'force us to be free', which goes back to Rousseau, and as this quote indicates, has persisted from then, to Joseph Stalin, and has certainly not been denounced in our day,

"...We will mercilessly destroy anyone who, by his deeds or his thoughts—yes, his thoughts!—threatens the unity of the socialist state..."

as well as every PC re-education program anyone had ever been sentenced to, is alive and kicking in the left.

Finally, it is the intent and deep desire of the Left, to not allow people to live their own lives, but to use govt power to live their lives for them, and I most definitely do see that as being evil.

Tomorrow, don't react,; think, before you vote, vote as if your grand children's lives depend upon it..

Perverting Progress into Poison - the Doppelganger Strikes Back - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt.9b

For most Americans, even today, their natural reaction when they see an error, or a falsehood, or some other wrong, their impulse is to try and correct it. While the belief that they can correct it, is cause for us to hope, the fact that their corrections are so full of obvious errors is cause for despair. But even so, the belief that they can correct it, that comes from our recognition that there are facts and that we can know them, and that because we understand that we can know the facts, and that paying attention to what is, and is not so, will help us to understand what is True, we then presume that we can put ourselves on the path towards understanding what we ought to do, because of what we know to be true.

Which all seems so very obvious, reasonable and commonsensical. Right? And once upon a time in The West, not only would it be thought possible and normal to distinguish between a 'fact' and a 'lie', there would have been no dispute about the wisdom of correcting it with what was Right and True.

But that sort of sense is no longer acknowledged by those in places of intellectual power over the world we are living in. Most such folks will deny that there is any connection between what IS, and what Ought to be done about it (and that definitely depends upon what you think the meaning of 'is' is). To be sure, these 'thought leaders' are exceedingly quick to tell you what is right for you to do, but they will, often in the same breath, also tell you that there is no way to know what is True or Right.

This progressive reversal of perceptions and moral fortunes has been turning the Western world upside down, and has been brought upon us by those who have the nerve to call themselves 'Progressives', and the effects of it reach far beneath those appearances which they prefer to stay above. From academics to policy wonks to media gadflies and political activists, they feel the zeal to tell others what they should do, while also saying that no one can know what is true, and somehow they have the effrontery to call this position 'Progress!'.

The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress

• pt 1: The Lawful scares of October... and beyond 

• pt 2:Why a Govt of Laws, and not of men? 

• pt 3:Who Benefits from transforming Rules into Laws 

• pt 4:We hold these truths to be self evident 

• pt 5:Thoughtful Images - Turning to the Rule of Law without turning away 

• pt 6a:Snapping snap judgments, lest auld acquaintance be forgot 

• pt 6b:Locke's Lab for DIY Political Science Experiments 

• pt 6c:Property - The Progress of Cause and Effect into Life and Law 

• pt 7:Artificial Reason turns the Pen into the might of the sword 

• pt 8:Mutating Justice into injustice: the far reaching properties of Property

• pt 9a:Trick or Treating like it's 1984

• pt 9b: Perverting Progress into Poison - the Doppelganger Strikes Back

• pt 9c: Perverting Progress into Poison - How Pro-Regressives see Regress as Progress

Now for the first time since nearly as far back as Woodrow Wilson, We The People have on the ballot for our President, a self professed 'American Progressive' in the person of Hillary Clinton, who's also supported by numerous others who more than fit the same bill, wouldn't it be wise before choosing whether to cast your vote for Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump - or to avoid the choice through a 'third party' alternative - wouldn't it be wise to try and understand what it is that they, and she, mean by 'Progressive!'?

Because I've gotta tell you, especially for those of you who do have a negative view of 'Progressives', if you think that their ideology is somehow equivalent to being a corrupt bureaucrat, or a corrupt businessmen, or a crook, or even if you believe that it's equivalent to being an authoritarian 'Statist', or even a flat out 'Tyrant', you are not only greatly mistaken, but your mistake is aiding and abetting that same pro-regressive 'Progressive' agenda that you have such a negative view of, in much the same way a cold blooded murderer would benefit from being treated no more seriously than you would a swindler.

One thing which this series of posts on 'Progress and Regress and the Rule of Law', has been illustrating, is that simple abuse of power, and abuse of the law for political power, is what we've had with us throughout all of human history - but abusive, tyrannical government is not how you identify

Mutating Justice into injustice: the far reaching properties of Property - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt.8

Mutating Justice into injustice
You’d probably not be surprised to know that I was highly aggravated that the FBI didn’t recommend Hillary Clinton's prosecution for the crimes related to her email server - but for me, that wasn’t the most disturbing part. There was of course plenty to be outraged over, with the FBI stating that her actions had violated the law, that she was extremely careless with classified materials, that she was not truthful about her handling of them, and yet in the face of all of that, the FBI would not recommend that she be prosecuted for those violations of the law (and gave much of her staff immunity from prosecution). They didn't dispute that she’d done what she should not have done, only whether she should be prosecuted for the violations that they’d determined she had made.

What was even more disturbing than all of that, for me, was that Director Comey made a point to say that his conclusions should in no way lead other (meaning someone less important?) govt functionaries (oh ... such as a sailor, for instance, gotcha) to think that the laws won't be applied to them, if, someone else, in a position of power, feels like they should be applied, in their case.

That, my friends, is a demonstration of the Rule of Men, being raised above the Rule of Law. BTW, on a related (by marriage) point, the reason why a person of influence, such as Bill Clinton, tries to get away with questioning what the meaning of 'is', is, is to encourage, exacerbate and exploit this very inversion. When men in positions of power can arbitrarily rule over the application of those laws that rule over all of the rest of us, based upon the power and influential relations of those who are involved in or have an interest in, themselves, that is Might Makes Right, and with little or no effort to conceal it. That is the reign of the Doppelganger (the evil twin of the Rule of Law), which is the default societal baseline that civilizations only become respectable civilizations by fruitfully struggling to progress away from… and yet here we are, busily progressing 'forward!' in the wrong direction, at breakneck speed.

Seeing all of this, many people have naturally asked:

“What is the point of having laws if those who break them at the top never face consequences?”

, and although I get the sentiment, surely they must realize that the question contains its own answer, right? Once upholding and defending Individual Rights for all is no longer the purpose of your laws, then as surely as night follows day, defending the wealthy, powerful and influential few, has already become the point of those rules by default, no matter how persistently we continue in calling such rules ‘laws’ ('LINO'?).

For those wondering how and why this has happened, it's worth considering a few questions which, IMHO, help explain how and why we are where we are today:

1. Can you tell me what it is that connects you to your Property (IOW: if you think you have a Right to it... why)?
2. Do you know what anchors the Law into protecting everyone's Individual Rights?
3. What is it that enables those in power to turn any and all of the laws against whoever they wish, as they wish?

These three are tied together, each dependent upon the other, and if unanswered, result in extra-legal situations such as those we're seeing here, so let's work our way through them from the bottom up, taking it from the present into the past, and so get a glimpse of our future. In considering the last question first, a better question to understand it here and now, would not be 'How does this happen?!', but how could it not happen? And a question that'll help provide the answer to #3 above,

• How much can what is Right and True matter to people, when Lies are acceptable to them?

How we got to where we weren't going to
Have you forgotten about Gruber admitting that Obama’s entire ‘If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor’ line was a lie they’d consciously concocted and told in order to pass ObamaCare over

The Rule of Law's long "Weekend at Bernie's" finally comes to a close - long live the Rule of Law!

No, the Rule of Law did not just die with the FBI's recommendation of no prosecution for Hillary, it's just that the nearly century long "Weekend at Bernie's" has finally come to a close - it is dead, but it happened long before today, and although dead, it's only mostly dead.

If you haven't seen the movie "Weekend at Bernie's",

"Two losers try to pretend that their murdered employer is really alive, leading the hitman to attempt to track him down to finish him off."

, give me a moment, and it's plot will become familiar to you.

Keep that narrative in mind as we review the facts, which begin way back in 1837, when the Rule of Law had contracted a lethal disease in the Charles River Bridge v. Proprietors of Warren Bridge case, so much so that one of the deans of American Jurisprudence, Chancellor Kent, wrote in The New York Review, that

"A gathering gloom is cast over the future. We seem to have sunk suddenly below the horizon, to have lost the light of the sun."

, and when famed lawyer Daniel Webster desperately fought to save it, on losing the case, he simply, and he remorsefully stated, that it meant

"That's the death of property rights."

Sadly, those who might have cured its disease, the colleges, had themselves been infected, and soon after wards took to their deathbeds as well, dooming the entire Educational System to a similar fate, and so no relief was ever able to come.

By 1913 the disease had metastasized and spread to the patient's Constitutional System through the 16th, 17th & 18th Amendments, and from them to its political system, and for those paying attention, it was clear that the end was near. And so, sadly, in 1938, at the close of the Gold Clause Cases, Justice McReynolds pronounced that:

"this is Nero at his worst. The Constitution is gone."

, and so, tragically, nearly eighty years ago, our dear Constitution, together with its close companion, the Rule of Law, had officially died of its Progressive infection.

How did you not know of this?

Well, the news of their demise, if made known, as in the movie, it would have made matters very uncomfortable for two rather opportunistic and deeply desperate characters, an Elephant and a Donkey, who contrived a bold plan to take turns moving the body about admidst the crowd of drunken party goers, as often as necessary in order to make it seem to still be alive. So they'd move an arm here, shake its head there, and amazingly, everyone was fooled! Naturally though, as their interests conflicted, they sometimes battled over the body, leading to awkward moments where the eyeglasses would fly off here and there, but remarkably, in deep, dark comedic fashion, they pulled their ruse off.

Until today.

Today, following shortly after former President Bill Clinton's secret (almost) meeting with Attorney General Lynch, and on the day after the 240th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the long "Weekend at Bernies" finally came to a close, as it was no longer possible for anyone to pretend, with a straight face, that the body was still alive, no longer possible to mask its death with only a pair of dark glasses and clever repositioning of the corpse, as the fumes of bodily corruption and decay seeped out in the FBI director Comey's presser announcing that Hillary Clinton had broken numerous laws, but would not be charged because, seriously, she's Hillary Clinton, "no reasonable prosecutor..." is going to take that case.

Not even CNN could swallow that one whole.

But I've forgotten to mention the third character in the "Weekend at Bernie's" plot, haven't I, the hitman - who is that? That'd be modern philosophy, and it goes under many aliases: Misosophy, Marxism, Pragmatism, Pro-Regressivism; but whatever name it goes by, what it depends upon is your accepting that what IS, isn't. Reality is deniable, unidentifiable, that reality 'in itself' is something beyond our ability to know... which ultimately means that reality is whatever you want it to be. How else do you think we got to the point of men 'identifying' as women? That Truth and Justice are meaningless because there is no truth, only what 'works' (for the moment). But what it all comes down to, is if your words have no meaning, there can be no Rule of Law, only its Doppelganger, the Rule of Rules.

Can you guess who it is that is served by the Rule of Rules? That's right, those with the power to make the rules, transforming "Justice" into, as one Meme wag put it:"Just us!"

So yes my friends, the Rule of Law has died, but that death occurred long, long ago. What is important now, however, today, is that people not attempt to remember it by the grotesque positions that the body has been placed in over the last eight decades, or even to focus on those later judgments that were given during the advanced moments of its deep illness. Instead, We The People should do our part to remember the Rule of Law when it was in fine health and good condition, fully alive and in control of its faculties, when its sole purpose was to uphold and defend our Individual Rights and Property under the understanding of Natural Law. Never forget, that the Rule of Law, Natural Law, Individual Rights and Property, are ideas, integrated concepts that enable men to know what is, and as such, they can't truly die, it only requires a people to attend to them, learn and understand them (as I'm attempting to help with in these posts), for them to live in that people's heart once again.

The Rule of Law is dead - long live the Rule of Law!

As President Obama & Mrs. Clinton ask: What's in a name, you should ask: What isn't in it?

What is in a name?
President Obama and Hillary Clinton, after avoiding a certain name for a number of years, are now turning back and asking 'What's in a name?'

CNN reports that on being pressed on the matter of using "Islamic Terrorism", President Obama 'went on a tirade':

"He hammered Trump over his "dangerous" mindset and "loose talk and sloppiness" about who exactly America was fighting, implying that Trump's remarks were actually driving Muslims who might be prone to radicalization into the arms of ISIS.

And he doubled down to repudiate Republican campaigns that he was abetting terrorism by refusing to use the words "radical Islamic terrorism."

"What exactly would using this label accomplish? What exactly would it change?" Obama asked during remarks at the Treasury Department. "Would it make ISIL less committed to try and kill Americans?" he continued, using a different acronym for ISIS.

"Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer is none of the above," he said. "Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away.""

The Washington Times notes of Hillary:

"Mrs. Clinton said she preferred the term “radical jihadism.”

“To me, radical jihadism, radical Islamism, I think, means the same thing. I’m happy to say either, but that’s not the point,” she said on NBC’s “Today” show. “All of his talk and demagoguery and rhetoric is not going to solve the problem. I’m not going to demonize and demagogue and declare war on an entire religion.”

The former secretary of state later dropped “radical Islam” when she delivered a speech in Cleveland, where she vowed to defeat terrorism with a sustained air campaign and the help of an international coalition."

And, no, of course "Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away", is quite correct, merely using a name, in and of itself, does and will do, nothing, nothing at all, and "demagoguery and rhetoric is not going to solve the problem" is so very, very true, they are quite right there.

But that hardly makes it unimportant. In fact, the only thing their comments and questions serve to do, is to distract the listener (that'd be you America) from what is worthwhile in that frustration which they are now responding to. Finally.

It might make things a bit clearer, to take a moment to ask another question:

"Why avoid using the correct name?"

That opens up some interesting issues... yes indeedy.

You see, what with few people today being nominalists, the name itself isn't the issue, but what it identifies IS, and not using the correct name, avoiding using the more meaningful name, using other less appropriate names, can succeed only in misidentifying the nature of the problem that is being spoken of - as President 'adjunct professor' Obama, and Mrs. 'the meaning of IS is' Clinton, must surely be aware of. And directing people's concerns and efforts towards a misidentified, or by that means, unknown, purpose, is potentially a very dangerous thing, especially when you're talking about the security of an entire nation.

Why don't they understand this? Or worse, why do they understand this, and persist in the diversion?

Maybe an additional small example would help... maybe, for instance, if someone were to identify President Obama and/or Mrs. Clinton as... say... Traitors - would that be an issue?

Ahhh... I sense that that particular mis-identification might have stirred up a few emotional responses... why is that? Isn't 'traitor' simply a label for a person in leadership who fails to act decisively against an enemy? Wuh? There's more to it than that? Why quibble over details? Hmm? Because they're not traitors? Well what of it? Why demagogue on the issue, it is only a name, after all.

Right?

Hmm? Oh, you think it does matter? Really. Why?

Might it be, because a name isn't simply a sound that we mouth, but a term that serves to correctly identify and distinguish one thing, from other like things, as 'throne' and 'stool' do. More, when a name is attached to a complex concept, one that is integrated within a deep and wide ranging set of additional issues and concepts, one that is likely stir a particular response in your listener, then using the correct name can serve to motivate a people with a certain sense of mind, and determination towards a very particular purpose, and with such motivations, even an entire nation's attention and efforts can become galvanized and united towards a definite and particular goal.

So again, it's not 'what's in a name' that is the important question here, but what isn't in the name that is being used, and why are they avoiding that?