The Scent of Rain Glorious yet
ominous wispy clouds summon the scent before and after rain. Engulfed days
of misty, foggy, melodramatic haze. Oh, mighty winds
of Father Time, Blowing and whispering
warnings of yesteryear, an omen of grave portent. The biblical
flood a requisite, emblematic of barbaric earthly sin. Cleansing,
replenishing, rebirthing humans, beasts, and land. White dove descends
offering an olive branch to all tribes of man. Present
state of grace for human species to evolve, likewise plants anthesis. Forgiving
all sinful acts, everything abhorrent. Yet, indifference
to redemption, flesh enticed, excessive earthly temptation, Humanity’s free
will determines its destination. Dated cliché
relentless phoenix rising out of its ashes, a rebirth for truth, justice, or
revenge, thirst for blood never quenched, never satisfied, never content. Perhaps courageous
or caviler, shamelessly unrepentant, persistent in errors, doubling down on moral
failings and decay nowadays, is unequivocal especially among those political. Regard yourselves
supreme, nine crooked court jesters in black robes bought and paid for by one
Harlan Crow. Not to be
outdone by one who sits in Peter’s Chair at Vatican City, in a jeweled
accessory white robe. A new beginnings
end, unpredictable behaviors, repeating transgressions akin to Cain and Abel. A generation
born for such a time as this, the foolish MAGA hypocrites, worshiping an antisemitic
deceitful grifter, a traitor, and the vile woke delusional crowd denying basic
truths and biology, arrogantly walking on the wide path theatrically in full
display carry lamps as props lacking oil. Even with nuclear
WWIII staring you directly in the face you continue to debase yourselves, stiff-necked,
living in unimaginable disgrace. Too late in
the game to pretend, we have eyes to see, and ears to hear, we all know full
well how this will end, who will be the victor, who will take the spoils. Nothing new
under the sun, history repeats itself, betrayal, and revenge empty equal endeavors.
Labor lost, fruitless toils. The few wise
not deceived bear their cross walking down the narrow path carry lamps rich in oil
poised to meet the Bridegroom. Diligent in duty so to hear heavenly Father say,
“Well done, good and faithful servant; Enter into the joy of your lord.” I would walk
to the ends of the earth barefoot, in the rain, without sleep, or sustenance, just
to meet Jesus Christ, greatest advocate, my savior, my mentor. I would
throw myself on the ground becoming a human footstool for Yeshua Hamashiach’s feet,
The Beloved, Rose of Sharon, but be that as it may, such an honor, I cannot
portray, I am not worthy. It’s equitable
to convey as I attest, my entire being is jealous of the ground Messiah,
Immanuel, The Bright Morning Star, walked on. He is the
way, the truth, and the life. Most heavenly, righteous, and holy, above all flesh
and everything earthly. The things
we do for those we love goes without saying. A gentleman I
used to date once carried me across a mud puddle so that I would not get my
shoes dirty. To this very day, I will always treasure that special moment and his
genuine undying love for me. A beautiful
memory from a mud puddle, a remnant stemmed from the rain. Life’s
surprising simple pleasures of love, caring, serving and respect are most profound,
nothing lost and all to gain. It bears
repeating and cannot be evangelized enough not to lose hope, keep hold of love and
faith in Father God, family, and loved ones especially in turbulent times. The full
measure of vitriolic aggression from all over the world is overwhelming, loudly in full display. Babylon will
be forced to drink the full serving of God’s justified fierce wrath. Unfurling
before our eyes and in our path, all foretold in biblical prophecy. People
becoming lovers of self and money. Arrogantly mocking God, turning against one
another, father, mother, sister, brother. Wars and
rumors of wars. An eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth, unquenched revengeful thirst. Going
against the descendants of Ishmael, your older brother from another mother. Jews, a people
viciously hunted and slaughtered, now too few, once felt unwelcomed and now it’s
the Palestinian refugees everyone loathes. There is no
room for Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. Not in Egypt, Turkey, Saudi
Arabia, Jordan, Iran, or Iraq. Iran financially
supports, supply’s weapons and combat training to Hamas and Hezbollah yet the
innocent refugees are left to pick up the pieces and are in utter shock. Heinous crimes
committed against Jews. Terrorist
leadership knew their intentions. Civilians
are not Hamas or Hezbollah. We recognized the international humanitarian protection
to civilians including occupied territories in the Geneva Convention. In 1951
Israel signed the oath. Does
Netanyahu also suffer from amnesia? What two
state solution? Politicians need to stop all the pretention. Live by the
sword, die by the sword. The simple obvious
duality throughout life, the first will be last and the last will be first. A bloody
reckoning, genocidal horrors reshaping the land, Gaza’s massive graveyard of innocent
civilians, the ghosts of women and children will forever haunt the desolate terrain.
The Abraham
Accords was like building an arch without a keystone. It is collapsing from
lack of support and legitimacy. There is only one Chief Cornerstone who can bring
credence and authentic peace to the Middle East. Trump, you deceitful
greedy serpent, traitor to all and friend to none disguised your lips with
flattery, double talk, filled your pockets full of money only to betray the
Holy City. You gave Russia Israeli Intelligence. Trump, you hypocritic, you menace! Government leaders’
footprint of utter betrayal and bitter revenge, ignoring the warnings and mishandling
the brutal terrorism acts at the cost of innocent defenseless lives on both
sides, raining endless waterfalls of tears drowning in sorrow. Nonetheless,
to some extent, we have hope in our fellowmen, to a greater extent, faith in
Almighty God’s guidance for future tomorrows. Jews, long
suffering, oppressed, and exiled, you are the apple of His eye. “The bricks are
fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down,
but we will change them into cedars.” – KJV Isaiah 9:10 Twice the Holy
Temple was destroyed, a third will arise with a false ringleader. No doubt,
Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran are to blame in equal measure. The entire
world is left with the impression that it’s perilous to cross the fine line
between justice and revenge. Netanyahu did not blow the shofar, does not have a
strategic plan to stop Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iran. He showed
the terrorists all the cards in his hand. A great leader protects its people first
and foremost through prevention by listening to the pre-warnings. A great
leader knows how to methodically recalibrate and free the hostages without
losing the war or their values, by self-preservation that binds its people and its
Holy Land. Because we are God’s people. We are above the fray. Recently, his
far-right nutty minister called for using nuclear weapons in Gaza as an option.
Israeli people are not to blame for their incompetent leadership. Netanyahu has
lost all credibility. Thus far, 90%
of those killed by Israeli IDF are all civilians. Is this justice or pure
bloody revenge? Justice is
honorably seeking closure by obliterating the disgusting terrorists of Hamas
and Hezbollah, but there is no honor in killing thousands of civilians, the innocent
women, and children. There is never a right way to do the wrong thing. Under the
Geneva Convention, civilians in the realm of war and occupied territories are
protected by 159 articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention adopted in 1949 after
WWII. Civilians must be protected from murder, torture, or brutality,
especially from discrimination because of race, nationality, religion, or
political opinion. In 1951, the
newly established state of Israel ratified the Geneva Conventions along with
196 countries. This is documented international humanitarian law. Are you now divorced
from reality, seeking a disunion? Why does
anyone need to be reminded that it is wrong to kill innocent defenseless
civilians? We are not Hamas or Hezbollah. We are above such animalistic
behaviors. No one can
deny the barbaric horrific crimes against Israel and it has a right to defend its
people and integrity. Every human has a right to exist. It is a fact that Jews
are an endangered people. No human horrors can ever compare to the Holocaust.
That being sad, no form of genocide is ever justified. We are to
forgive so we can be forgiven, love our neighbors as ourselves. The loss of
human life and all hate afflicts the heart and soul. Love must prevail, if only
for the sake of love itself, because that is what it means to be human, created
in the image of God. God is love, therefore, be persistent. Don’t become
the monster you yourselves set out to destroy. The world is
watching in horror and the majority will hold you accountable as well as Hamas
and Hezbollah. Global onlookers won’t hold back, they won’t be coy. Justice is
always warranted but revenge never brings satisfaction, it hardens the heart,
destroys the soul, fills one with regret, nightmares, and misery. Revenge is the
continued destruction to self and others, going full circle to no avail. You dig
your own grave and create your own living hell. If a man seeks
to ruthlessly and unmercifully kill all his enemies including innocent defenseless
women and children, than he too becomes the monster he set out to destroy. Romans
12:19 “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath for
it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. The demographic
in the Middle East is much more complicated to say the least. Wars cannot kill
the ancient ideologies of many tribes. The only mathematical certainty is that nuclear
weapons WILL destroy all of mankind. Many
countries have nuclear weapons attempting to play Russian Roulette. Our own
country is now advocating building a mega 10-billion-dollar nuclear weapon. At
the same time, we are supporting two wars and face another government shutdown.
We cannot pass bills to feed our children, but we can build a 10-billion-dollar
bomb. Where does any of this make sense? Where’s the
logic to such absurdity? What’s the rhyme or reason? Government committing the
ultimate crimes against humanity, final execution, ultimate treason. While others
like Iran, with evil intent, and Saudi Arabia, both having realistic nuclear
ambitions. At the end of the day, all Muslim countries, including Russia,
China, and South America will come against Israel and America. It will be a
killing season. We are in a
dangerous point in history where the entire world is on fire. If nuclear
weapons are used everyone loses. Have we reached
a point of no return? We are
created to handle hardships but cannot survive the rains of nuclear bombs. Human flesh
will melt, eyes will disintegrate in their sockets, people microwaved, horribly burned alive. All will
lose, no one will survive. Is the next
phase for humanity one of blistering scorching heat? Fire, brimstone and hail,
everything all at once. From men’s own free will, going nuclear, and from the
heavens above. Volcanoes
erupting, fires spreading, earthquakes penetrating the thickness of earth’s
atmosphere dividing the oceans and lands. Being
Christian, and part Jew, I stand with the people of Israel, but my heart breaks
for all of humanity. The world
impatiently waits for the conflict to subside, for some sort of resolution,
perhaps a realistic two-state solution avoiding a nuclear holocaust which would
most certainly be the last war fought and all will be lost and nothing gained. If this
isn’t the continued beginnings of WWIII then let’s hope it’s all just a nightmare instead of our now upside-down
reality that no one should become accustomed to. Cooler heads
must prevail unless mankind has a death wish, to which I want no part of. I
want a continued wonderful happy future for my children. Maybe God will bless
me with grandchildren one fine day. Is it wrong to want a chance at love again,
to dance and sing in the rain? If we go
nuclear, there will no longer be sunrises or sunsets, no more baby’s smiles, no
puppy dogs, no more children laughing and playing, no music, no singing, no
dancing, no laughter, no sunny days at the beach, no Grand Canyon, no
waterfalls, no birds chirping, no flowers blooming, no breathtaking nights sky,
roses or butterflies amongst the most beautiful things of nature and life.
Never to experience the gift of the scent before and after the rain ever again.
Those three words are more than the name of this story. It is forever more my life song. God taught me the meaning of those three words during the
weeks of and the week after leading my last Himalaya trek.
His time with me is a two-part harmony, with each with a resounding chorus
on opposite sides of the world. On November 3rd in Nepal (November 2nd
in the USA), the group I was leading experienced a magnitude six earthquake
during the night at the base camp to Machapuchere (Fishtail). We were in bed at an altitude of 12,000 or so
feet when we felt the earth move. It
lasted less than a minute, but when I went outside to see what had happened, I
could hear boulders coming down the sides of the mountain and coming to rest in
the valley. The sides of the Annapurna
valley are famous and ridiculously steep. None were close enough to make me
think I needed to run for my life, but they were certainly loud enough to
warrant my attention. Perhaps two hours later, my group woke up before sunrise to
complete our weeklong trek to reach the Annapurna Basecamp. Only eight of the ten people were able to go,
as one young woman was sick and experiencing AMS (Acute Mountain
Sickness). AMS kills people, and the remedy
I am trained to use because it works consistently is to descend quickly. While the rest of the group went up to
Annapurna, I needed to prioritize taking her down. Two hours later, when it was light enough for me to escort
her down the valley, I looked at the task in front of me. There was audible evidence
that the valley in front of me was experiencing rockslides as part of the
aftermath of the quake. The valley would take me roughly a day and a half to navigate, and I had everything I needed for the task ahead of me. As we stood at the entrance to the only trail out of
the Annapurna Valley, I took a moment to listen to God. “I got this.” I heard nothing else.
God repeatedly told me that he had this situation in his hands. I had no uncertainty at any point over those
next hours, as God repeatedly told me that he had every part of this situation in
the palm of his hand. He showed me that I
was part of that palm. He told me that the
young woman was also in His palm. When
we reached the end of the valley and safety, I closed my eyes and said a
prayer. “Thank you, Lord, for taking us through the valley of the
shadow of death. Thank you for your rod and your staff. Indeed, they comforted me. Thank you that I did not fear any evil.” Of course, some of my conclusions were not correct. I had assumed that once I left the valley, I
would be out of the shadow of death.
That was woefully inaccurate. On the other side of the world, there was a symphonic
response occurring that was also full of evil, like the one that killed over
150 Nepalis in a matter of moments. But
I wouldn’t know about it until I returned home.
The evidence was equally undeniable.
On November 2nd, the bank that held my and my
wife’s joint assets that came from the sale of my business years ago showed
that 50% of the assets had been transferred out. First, to our checking account. Then, via a cashier’s check so as to make
their whereabouts untraceable. Literally,
twenty years of labor, and in a matter of moments, half of it was laundered into
the unknown. Throughout my journey home,
I texted my wife, letting her know where I was during my global commute and
when I would be coming home. When I
walked into my house at the end of a very long series of flights, the other
part of the earthquake took center stage. My wife’s clothing was missing. Furniture and wall decorations were
gone. In the mail was a change of
address notification for my wife, but it failed to list where her address had
been transferred to. There was a note
from her saying the pool was broken, but she had made no effort to get any
professional help to fix it. I later learned this point about not seeking
professional help was to be thematic. The
next day, my inbox had messages from our cell phone provider that her cell number
was being transferred from the account. And upon the counter was the proverbial “Dear John” letter. It had my name on it, and I knew that the
heart of the matter was inside. I knew
better than to open it. I had no clue. I
didn’t see any of this coming. A week removed, I still failed to see that this
event was on the horizon. This was the second earthquake. My wife played me like a violin, knowing how
I would react, and she hit me when I was jetlagged and exhausted. Well done on her behalf.
If the goal were to create shock and hurt of the sort she was experiencing,
she would get the highest marks. Yet, my
hurt and sense of victimhood were secondary in my mind. I was spiritually taken back to Annapurna and
the Earthquake. I stared at the envelope and the partially emptied house, and I
heard God. “I got this.” His words immediately provided me with peace. I knew that
the valley of the shadow of death was again upon me, and I knew he would get me
through it. He was still sovereign in
marital uncertainty as he was during the hours after a deadly earthquake. He was in control of all of this. He knew this was happening, and he knew the
intentions to put asunder what God had joined together was brewing in my wife’s
heart long before the earthquake happened in Nepal. Even now, I see that the earthquake was
preparation for my return home. I was
wrong in concluding that I had passed through the valley of the shadow of
death. Indeed, I am still in it. A few days later, I met with my wife in the presence of our
paster, and she read out loud the contents of her note in the presence of a man
of god. Her shame was evident as she
straddled between living the word of God and following the darker ways of
man. Her last sentence contained
ambiguities that made the pastor, and I pressed her for what she meant. She spoke out loud that the next step was to dissolve
the marriage, and she notified the pastor and me that she had engaged a lawyer
to help her. Over the next 20 minutes,
she quoted passages of scripture often, and the pastor and I made eye contact
briefly. We both knew that this dance between a secular response and passages from the bible was not the
will of God at any level. When pressed if
she would be willing to meet again with the hopes of reconciliation, she wouldn’t
commit. When asked what she meant by next steps, she said to dissolve the marriage. No ambiguity. She asked permission to leave
ahead of me, and the pastor and I spoke for a few moments afterward. “I got this.” God
still had me in the palm of his hand. She admitted that her plan started months earlier, and she had
already notified both of the children of her intentions literally weeks before
she told me. And, from what everyone I have talked to has said, the implementation
strategy at subsequent was not overseen by a licensed, professional Christian counselor. It
is sort of like the pool repairs that didn’t happen. “I got this.” W My marital outcome is uncertain, but I also know that this
is under God’s jurisdiction. For sure,
there are things I need to do to get healthy, but even if I get healthy and
somehow get my wife, I will need to stay close to him as I navigate my way
through the Valley. He orders our ways;
I am responsible for taking the steps. “I got this.” He will be there as we reconstruct our lives together, or he
will be there as I watch her bulldoze her way into aloneness. Either way, I have my faith in him. He gave me a laboratory environment in which
to trust him before I came home and faced the real earthquake. I remain in the valley and still require his
rod and his staff to comfort me. I
probably need to be here more often. On the last morning before we left the Annapurna region, we
had to cross a very long and very high footbridge to get to the place where a
jeep could pick us up and take us back to Pokhara. I had walked on it many times in the
past. Below us was a river that flowed through
the valley for perhaps thousands of years.
However, this time, the impact of the earthquake was visible. There had been a major landslide above the
river. Now, there was a lake in the
place where only a river flowed. A river
remained, but it was only a fraction of what it used to be. The irrigation that the river used to provide
will no longer be as it was. However, a
beautiful new lake was forming, and the waters were already taking shape. It lacked a name, but it needed one. It would be a new name and be in a new place
where none had ever been. Exactly like my relationship with my wife.
The message that the world’s greatest religions and cultures taught young people: Seek the truth, do your duty to your family, eat healthy, don’t drink your youth away, honour the gods and your ancestors, marry and have children, and serve your people. The message that social media and pop music teaches young people today: live for yourself, don’t settle or sacrifice, drink, smoke, party, sleep with whoever you want, God is an interpretation, family is a farce, you don’t need a man, you go girl! If young people do not live a life with purpose, mental health is bound to suffer. The consequences of poor decisions cannot be fixed with pharmacological solutions. Of course, it goes without saying that not everyone who has poor mental health is doing something wrong. Many of the codes to a well-lived life, a life of meaning and purpose, are actually quite simple. Religious and cultural values taught us ways to achieve good ‘mental health’ before science had even taken its first steps. It has more to do with what we offer others, and less to do with embracing oneself unconditionally. The most popular value today among the young, educated urban population is ‘self-love’. As a concept, this one has had many proponents on its side, ranging from counsellors to hippies, from philosophers to third wave feminists. Each group of supporters have expanded the application of the notion, sometimes to distorted proportions. Consequently, (one of) the most unpopular values of today is the antithesis of self-love. That is, loving someone else as much, or even more than yourself. The most unforgivable is when one loves one’s romantic partner more than oneself. Fewer people want to get married or have children, and even if they do, they delay it as much as they possibly can. Even fewer have more than two children. An extended bachelorhood is all anyone wishes for any more. Meeting or spending time with one’s parents, siblings or grandparents has become less frequent for adults. Aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews are no better than strangers. Neighbours do not even exchange smiles. Of course, one might replace these invaluable relationships with friendships or colleagues, but there is far less responsibility to be taken there. Long-term, serious, monogamous romantic relationships “scare” people, so that has been replaced with hookups, one-night stands, friends with benefits, and all manner of why-label-anything pseudoships. This incompetence to handle anything with commitment, responsibility or obligation also looks better disguised as “self love”. “Love yourself. Focus on your own needs first. Whatever you do: work, dress, write, earn, travel, it should be for yourself and not for others.” But what’s wrong with putting someone else first? What’s wrong with working a job that may not be your dream, if it helps you to provide for your aged parents? What’s wrong with doing what your boyfriend wants once in a while? Or your parents? Or your brother? What’s wrong with choosing to leave your job to take care of your kids? What’s wrong with making sacrifices for those you love? Are they even sacrifices if they further your own people’s interests? Are we so insecure about our independence that we feel threatened if someone else tells us what to do or what’s good for us? Is the assertion of the self (its needs, desires, rights, freedoms) the only way we feel we love ourselves? Does ‘self love’ mean mindless indulgence of every whim and fantasy? Does it entail prioritising one’s dreams or hobbies or grooming no matter the cost? Does it involve chasing hedonistic pleasures? Self love should be redefined to include love for our loved ones. It includes teaching your son to fix a faulty shower head, helping your wife do the dishes or your nephew with his math homework. Sometimes, these tasks call for sacrifices like missing a career-altering work conference, failing to meet your monthly salon appointment, or losing your place in a beloved novel because you didn’t get weeks to pick it up. What’s wrong with that? Some of this has to do with Western culture. In India, we have what we call a “joint family” system (although family structures in urban India are becoming increasingly nuclear). I grew up in such a family. Typically, this would consist of a man and his wife (with or without kids), who live with his parents under the same roof. Or maybe the parents live with their son. It doesn’t really matter who lives with whom. If the man has a brother, he too lives in the same house with his wife and kids. It might sound outlandish, but it has its benefits. Festivals and special occasions are celebrated together. Children inherit a diverse collection of values from the lived experiences of multiple parental figures. The women go to work at greater ease, leaving their children at home to be watched by the grandparents. The kids grow up listening to stories told by their grandfather, and enjoying sweetmeats cooked by their grandmother. They do not see much difference between their siblings and their cousins. They not only learn to cooperate and share, but also to depend. The man provides for his parents in their old age, and he may even share some household expenses with his brother(s). I do not advocate returning to the joint family system. Times have changed, and logistical problems arise. What I advocate is, returning home. Home to family. Home to cultural roots. Home to sanity. The concept of ‘self’ is also different from that in the West. It may not be carved in stone, but I’d daresay that the definition of ‘self’ includes the family in almost every context. And the working definition of family includes not just wife and kids, but also parents and siblings and nieces and nephews. This working definition matters when one makes decisions. But ‘self love’ as it is understood to be today, has outlived its worth. “Love yourself. Make sure you forgive yourself for everything. You are valid. You are valuable.” How can it be so absolute? You are valuable, period. No conditions whatsoever. Who decides this value? ‘Self love’ would say you do. But isn’t value also decided by the role we play in the lives of others, or how well we play it? How valuable are you if you bring nothing to the table? How about if you have a drug problem? Or if you drink and drive and kill someone in the process? Or if you never bothered to fix your strained relationship with your parents? Even if it is not as extreme as all that. How can you forgive yourself for everything you say or do? If forgiveness is inevitable, then all actions are equal, whether it is as egregious as walking out on your wife and kids or as harmless as passing notes in class. If I ask my grandparents, relatives, or even some of my friends as to how they could redefine self love, they would say: Love yourself, sure. But terms and conditions apply. Love yourself. But only when you deserve it. Dislike yourself when you don’t. Live with that discomfort long enough to make amends for your mistakes.Love yourself. So accept no freebies. Take yourself seriously enough so as not to congratulate yourself just for existing.Love yourself. You don’t deserve everything, simply because you exist. That’s entitlement.Love yourself. But even better, get over yourself. Identity is not only what you decide by yourself. If someone asks you: who are you? You are a person. You can attach adjectives, what you do for a living, what you do for leisure, your political affiliations, a list of books you read, movies you watch, music you listen to, the art you appreciate, whether you like tea or coffee, whether you are a cat or a dog person, morning or night person, or anything else you choose. But more than those individual embellishments, you are someone’s son or daughter, someone’s brother or sister, someone’s husband or wife, someone’s father or mother, someone’s employee, the citizen of a country, the participant in a community. This is where identity is to be found; this is where character is forged. You love yourself when you play these roles well. This is where you derive your confidence. Not by sending flowers to yourself on Valentine’s Day because no man is good enough.
A strange conversation got me thinking on the idea of envy, so I hope that my readers would bear with me as I begin with a personal anecdote. Not too long ago, I took the decision to leave life in the big city, and shift for a year or so to a village in the Himalayan foothills, where the neighbours knew each other and shopkeepers felt secure in merely pulling down the shutters on their shops at night without locking them up. I was a regular customer at a small grocery store, and one day, I realised I had forgotten to pay for some milk I had purchased a few days back. Of course I had meant to, but I didn’t have change then, and the grocer smiled at me and told me to pay for it the next time. As expected, neither of us had remembered it, and about a week or so passed before I recalled the incident. After I sent the money to his account, I told the story to a group of my friends, and asked them what they would have done in this scenario. I was expecting most of them to say that they would pay back the money as soon as they remembered, or else say that they wouldn’t, unless explicitly asked to by the grocer. You’d think there are only two options to act here, and most of them answered one way or another. One response, however, surprised me. “Well, if it’s a small grocery store or I know that the grocer is a poor man, I would pay him back,” said one of my friends. “But if it’s one of those big supermarket chains, I wouldn’t,” she finished. “Why would that matter?” I said, humouring her. I knew why, of course, but I wanted to hear it from her. I wanted to know the words she would use to justify herself. “The poor man obviously needs the money,” she said. “And the big store owner doesn’t? What if the owner of the big store is an honest and hard-working man too?” I asked. “He’s richer, or he wouldn’t have a big store. Even if I didn’t pay him twenty rupees for the milk, it’s not like he would be ruined. His business hurts the smaller shop owners,” she said, shrugging. Her answer bothered me, but I wasn’t able to articulate exactly why at that time. In retrospect of course, I know exactly what I would have liked to say: “If someone is richer than others, why do you assume his wealth is acquired by theft, or otherwise unearned, rather than by honest or hard work? What about your own act of stealing? Even if his business hurts smaller shop owners, how do you justify your own act of stealing by making it look moral? And even if there is an inequality in the amount of money shop owners make, who made you the final arbiter of justice?” Unfortunately, my friend is not alone in thinking in such ways. This is the symptom of a problem on a larger scale. A hatred towards the rich or the successful often disguises as compassion towards the poor and the dispossessed. Success reminds people that hierarchies exist. More so, it reminds them of their own failings. We are envious of winners. I have another friend who has a really weird habit of hiding things. Not secrets, or things he is ashamed of, but good things. The news of a salary raise. Or a new phone he bought. At first, I thought it was out of some distorted sense of humility. You know how some people feel awkward at receiving compliments, I thought it was something like that. But I was wrong. He said that his parents taught him at a young age to hide things from others: anything that was a sign of wealth (a new toy, a new computer, a cell phone, etc.) or success (good grades, news of a promotion, etc.). It took me several conversations to get him to tweak it just the teensiest bit. “There’s nothing wrong with winning. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating that victory with your friends and family,” I would say to him again and again. Of course, one must not show off one’s achievements or possessions. One must not rub one’s own good fortune in someone else’s face, or make them feel bad about what they have. But one must be proud of the right things, of success, of victory, or else we run the risk of forgetting that victory is worth chasing after. Good things happen to us as a consequence of prayer or perseverance, and neither deserve to be hidden out of sight as something to be ashamed of. Should one feel reluctant in sharing good news with one’s friends, an introspection into the character of those assembled within one's sphere becomes imperative. Envy is, perhaps, the most ubiquitous emotion, as well as being the least spoken about. Joy is shown: by the throw of hands in the air, by concealed smiles, by applause, by feasts and by celebration. Rage is vented: by passive aggressive remarks, in yells and threats, through profanity and streetfights. Even sorrow is expressed: with tears, or without, and most often in pregnant silences. As for fear, it makes itself known without the consent of its bearer. But envy? No, we are too ashamed of envy to let it show on our face or in our words. But we are also protective of it; we guard it and feed it until it consumes us, one covetous longing at a time. Just like a parasite grows fat and strong by feeding on its own host. Envy doesn’t want to be seen, no. So it uses disguise. It is a shape-shifter, and takes on many forms, some that transcend the individual and manifest on a social or political scale. Sometimes, it does betray itself, but it has walked cloaked among the ranks of morality, charity and compassion so long that we do not recognise it. In others, and especially in ourselves. Even if we do, we scarcely perceive it as dangerous. Among the plethora of Indian superstitions, there's a star performer known as "nazar" – the evil eye that walks in uninvited to everyone’s success buffet. Indians have mastered the art of "nazar lagna" evasion techniques – from strategically drawing a black dot in kohl on a baby's forehead to hanging lemon-and-chilli combos on our car’s rear view mirror to ward off envy attacks, so ingrained is the belief that envy stalks every one of us all like a relentless enemy, but befriends no man. You would think envy hurts others more by creating an atmosphere of negativity, and driving a wedge between friends and kin. But envy also has a peculiar talent for turning people into performers in the grand circus of self-sabotage. Picture this: you're scrolling through social media, and suddenly, envy sneaks in like the discontented fairy at Sleeping Beauty’s christening party. One minute, you are lying in your pyjamas all comfy, sipping hot chocolate, and the next minute, you have a full-blown fashion crisis because your neighbour apparently owns a wardrobe straight out of a magazine cover or because everyone except you seems to be going on week-long beach vacations. And let's not forget envy's magical touch on your inner monologue, convincing you that your colleague's promotion is the universe's way of confirming your secret identity as the office's unsung hero. As we navigate this cosmic odyssey of life, weaving through its unpredictable twists of triumph and disappointment, riding the roller coaster of fortune's highs and lows, making unforeseen pit stops at the station of regret, and ultimately aiming for the serene destination of contentment, do you really want Envy as an unwelcome hitchhiker, comfortably settled in your passenger seat, incessantly grumbling about the entire journey? Surely, on such an expedition as this, a more satisfying companion can be found to share the ride.
Your home is where your heart is. Your home is your refuge from the storm. Your home is the place of protection from which you can anchor yourself and find strength to go out and face the world. Your home is the foundation from which your life and the lives of your children will grow. I cannot possibly do justice to the importance of the home in this meager article, but without getting too hyperbolic- the home is crucial. A home is more than simply a house, or an apartment, or a place where you sleep. A home is the network of grounded and central relationships from which you orient yourself in the world. It informs how you are going to interact with everything else in life and existence. I have been pondering how easy it is to know how important a home life is, and at the same time deeply puzzled about how everything from consumer culture to government incentives conspires to belittle, demean, shame, and otherwise ostracize people for being stay at home Moms and Dads. The social programming is in fact so pervasive that most stay home parents engage in shaming themselves. I even found myself in a conversation saying, “I am just a stay at home Dad.” As if that is something to be ashamed of. When the kind listener pointed this out to me I realized that I was even demeaning myself in my own words. I was taken aback because it made me realize that throughout my tenure as the primary care-giver in my household I have struggled with this uneasy reality that I am so busy that I have no free time to myself, and yet somehow I ought to be doing more. As if there is some unspoken responsibility to be met, some unearned debt to be paid, some cosmic guilt to atone for, for having the audacity to make taking care of your home and family your primary responsibility. Try as I might to ignore, suppress, or make light of this feeling of shame at being a stay at home parent, it is very real. It is palpable, and reinforced through the unconscious actions and words of almost everyone in our busy western society. The automatic picture of stay at home parent is even the stereotypical housewife sitting on the couch eating chocolates and watching soap operas. As if taking care of your home life is a wonton luxury and a sin of the most egregious type. Perhaps it is a sin- not a sin in the eyes of God, but a sin in the eyes of mammon. A sin in the eyes of mass consumerism, a slap in the face to the gods of materialism and the hamster-wheel existence… finish reading the entire article here: https://johnlaubach.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-homemaking
I sent out links and notes on two of the presentations that were recently given in London associated with the Alliance For Responsible Citizenship (ARC): The First Day of ARC 2023 | Why do we need a better story for our time?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ih8crOO16w American corporations spend over 2 billion dollars a year lobbying in DC.European corporations spend over 1 billion euros a year lobbying in Brussels. -infinite value of every human being -love humanity; something our opponents are unable to do WATCH: Fighting the 3 Mutant Capitalisms | Paul Marshall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2DIEzdJLaA This talk is from the first day of the ARC Conference 2023 where Paul Marshall launched the 'Free Markets and Good Governance' stream. To protect true free market Capitalism, which has brought untold prosperity to the world, we might fight against its mutant siblings - Monopolies, Cronyism, and Woke Capitalism. Sir Paul Marshall is CIO and Chairman of Marshall Wace LLP, founder and owner of UnHerd Media, and an investor in GB News Ltd. He is a founding Trustee of Ark, the children’s charity, and Chairman of Ark Schools. -from 1600 to 1800, human standards of living more or less flatlined -then GDP per person rose as much in 50 years as it had in the previous 1800 years; scientific innovation combined with free markets= industrial revolution -in the last 75 years, extreme poverty has fallen from 90% to 10% -free markets only flourish/prosper in societies where there is a proper shared understanding of virtue and mutual honor -London thrived under the principle that "my word is my bond" -corrupt societies rely on tribalism and cronyism; think Somalia or Sicily or Davos -when virtue breaks down, you start to observe mutant strains of capitalism: (1) monopoly capitalism (Google and Meta control most of the world's digital advertising; 80-90% of health care in most us states is controlled by 1 or 2 entities) (2) crony capitalism = corporatism, not so different than socialism itself. Corporatism is not free enterprise, but the nightmare end game for free enterprise -East India Company had a standing army of 20K soldiers -2/3 of US Congress gets money from big pharma -1/2 of US Congress gets money from gun manufacturers -European corporations spend over 1 billion euros a year lobbying in Brussels. -American corporations spend over 2 billion dollars a year lobbying in DC. -lobbyists and donors and recipients meet once a year in Davos -privatized their gains, and socialized their losses (3) woke capitalism: imposition of a top-down ideology onto the free market system by politically motivated bureaucrats, either from the public or private sector. Their ideology is framed through ESG, although there might also be a garnish of DEI as well. Should instead install the type of governance Adam Smith would have been proud of. -creative destruction: successful new businesses disrupt legacy businesses and destroy jobs at rivals; free trade does this at scale -decision makers no longer live near their own factories, and this creates a problem -need free markets that operate in the interests of the whole of society and not just a small elite So I was asked, by one of my friends who I had sent these two links to, who are the opponents, mentioned above? That is a good question, and I think discussing it might bring a bit more clarity to the situation that is confronting us. Here is my response: I believe he is referring to the "new left", or neoleft; the woke, the social justice warriors etc. They PROFESS that they care for humans and the downtrodden, very loudly. But if you pay attention in detail, carefully, this excludes huge swaths of people; white people, families, conservatives, capitalists, religious people, all males, people who exercise, heterosexuals, and so on. In fact, they LOATHE people who fall into these categories, and their targets actually constitute most of humanity. Which is sort of astounding, actually. Another group they loathe are the Jews, clearly, as one can tell from recent events. But the list of people the social justice warrior types, or critical social justice ideologues find reprehensible and beneath contempt is very long indeed. Just listen to what the people from Davos/WEF say about us, the "little people", the "common people". Listen to what the protesters say in their marches and demonstrations and speeches. People like you and me, and your family, are NOT respected, for numerous reasons. We are heterosexual, we believe in families, we are nominally white, we are educated in STEM, we are capitalists, we believe in mathematics and reason and science, we try to follow the law, we believe in merit and competence, and so on. So you and me are among those that the "opponents" dislike, intensely. Another group that they dislike would be "workers", or manual laborers. Another group they dislike would be those who believe in democracy. The tactics these critical social justice types use has been called "weaponized compassion". They PRETEND to care, but actually, they do not. Now this would seem sort of minor and unimportant, except that this ideology has taken over most universities and now most grade schools and law schools and medical schools and HR departments, and it is being embedded in laws and legislation and regulations throughout the West and many practitioners are in government bureaucracies and in elected office. So this sort of fringe kooky movement is threatening to take down all of Western Culture imminently unless we start to push back a little bit. For example, Hillary Clinton has announced (for about the 10th time) that concentration camps and re-education camps need to be set up to destroy anyone that is not a critical social justice type. Immediately dozens of pundits and news figures and media figures leaped onto the bandwagon to agree with Hillary. The US military cannot meet their recruiting quotas because of it. Even the service academies like West Point and Annapolis cannot meet their quotas. It was proposed a couple of years ago by the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that the US military be expunged of all people who had ever voted for conservatives or Republicans or Trump, and these people imprisoned in military camps. He backed off once there was some push back. The FBI has created documents about plans to try to weed out "nonAmericans" and "disloyal agents". How do they find them? Signs someone is a "right wing radical" and therefore "disloyal to the USA" are that they do not wear a face mask, they served in the military, particularly the Marine Corps, they did not get vaccinated, ever participated in a religious ceremony and so on. Anyone who believes in the US constitution is a "nonAmerican" and "disloyal". People in the NYC public school system who refused to get vaccinated were not only fired, but their fingerprints and files sent to the FBI where they were put in the same classification as child molesters (child molesters are now viewed as "upstanding citizens"; people who oppose them are not). Kelly Jean Kay in the UK was visited by the UK police and threatened with prison because she was "untoward about pedophiles". The FBI has classified parents who attend school board meetings and anyone who attends a Catholic Mass in Latin as "domestic terrorists". So, as crazy as it sounds, we might be facing a bit of a problem. And ARC and others are starting to push back. And the critical social justice types do not like it one bit and want to put everyone who is not on their side in prison, or execute them. The critical justice types are against anyone who displays a US or a UK flag. They also demand uniformity and conformity, in the name of fairness and diversity. They have banned books like Animal Farm and Orwell's 1984 (probably because they are too much like what they are trying to create). They also forbid anyone to disagree with them, under any circumstances, or else be sent to prison, or worse. They are a lovely bunch, for sure... One of their ideas is to implement a permanent lockdown on us, the "little people" forever. And another is to ban all car and train and plane travel, forever. And to make gardening and farming illegal. And to make wealth accumulation illegal. They want to be able to empty your bank accounts and investment accounts at the push of a button for any reason or no reason. And to make private property illegal. And to ban free speech. And to allow criminals and the mentally ill and addicted to roam freely. And to mandate injections that would make people allergic to meat. And to forbid anyone of ethnicity X to eat anything associated with ethnicity Y, or to wear anything associated with ethnicity Z, or to sing any songs associated with ethnicity A, or even to listen to music associated with ethnicity B, and so on and so forth. This is called "cultural appropriation" and it has to be made completely illegal, at all costs. Of course, the "elites" making these rules do not have to follow any of these rules. The rules are just for people like you and me, the "little people". Something else these critical social justice types oppose is "self defense". No one is allowed to defend themselves, except for them, the elites. Another example of books they want to ban would be all Dr. Seuss books. They are supposedly racist or something. And there are lots more. What they are in favor of is kiddie porn; stuff that I would be arrested for possessing has to be available in school libraries and public libraries for kids to see and check out. So, we are fighting a bit of a culture war at the moment. Things have gone completely crazy. I never could have imagined that the world would take such an odd turn. As a final indication of what these elites are in favor of, consider the latest furore that erupted on social media over a letter of Osama bin Laden. A large fraction of the population, particularly the young, is apparently in favor of bin Laden and al Quaeda: 'You morons!': Gen Z'ers praise bin Laden's 9/11 letter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3j5e4PMwHA FOX News' William La Jeunesse reports the latest on young Americans agreeing with Usama bin Laden's post-9/11 letter. The 'Outnumbered' panel discuss the influence social media has on younger generations. 'Idiocy’: Douglas Murray on TikTok users praising Osama bin Laden's ‘Letter to America’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzIfkAV_tz4 Author Douglas Murray has blasted young social media users for sharing and praising Osama bin Laden’s 2002 ‘Letter to America’. The ‘Letter to America’ detailing the former Al Qaeda leader's justifications for the 9/11 attacks was shared millions of times on TikTok. “The parents of these kids of young people have completely failed, they’ve completely failed to educate their children in any way whatsoever,” Mr Murray told Sky News host Rita Panahi. “These children have become these empty-headed, empty vessels in which any ignorance it seems can pour. “I’m amazed by this like there aren’t many things I feel like I can still be amazed by. “The staggering idiocy of these people is just legion.”
Energy And Our Standard Of Living Posted on November 15, 2023 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, the reason thorium is not explored as an energy source, is the same reason if cheap, safe and efficient nuclear fusion came to the market today, tomorrow a trillion dollars would be mobilized to stop it… because it’s not about pollution, it’s about keeping us down. Cheap safe energy is acid in the face of the elite. That’s why they can’t allow it. Shutting down the Keystone pipeline wasn’t about lowering greenhouse gas emissions, natural gas is one of the lowest green house gas emitters per megawatt produced, it was about raising the cost of energy, to lower our standard of living. Everything the elite do lowers our standard of living. Any other reason provided is simply theater. It’s the snake mesmerizing its prey before the attack. Thorium is essentially an inexhaustible energy supply. The brainiacs that run the world could mobilize the trillions at their disposal to build thorium reactors around the world and end our dependence on fossil fuels. We have the technology, and the ability, but lack the will. Why? It would lower the cost of energy so much the lot of man would be raised accordingly. There are thousands of years of natural gas under the oceans in the form of methane hydrates. Not that we need to tap them anytime soon. What with directional drilling, and fracking, the supply of accessible natural gas in North America dramatically increased. The biggest problem with getting at it is, the government. Why? Because lower energy costs translates to a lower costs for everything, and that’s not acceptable. There is a claim a company has broken the break even fusion barrier and can produce 5 times the energy taken to initiate the reaction. I’m a bit dubious but hopeful. Nevertheless, the moment a company does breach the break even point, lawyers will crawl out of every crevice and crotch in the legal system, to fight its implementation. Billions of dollars will disappear into the legal mire that will have been created to stop it. Many attorneys will become rich in the process, even as innovators will be bankrupted, for trying to improve the lot of Man. Pollyanna would think investing in a company that created safe, cheap efficient nuclear fusion would be a good idea. A wise person knows better. Because if it succeeded, the standard of living of the hoi polloi would be improved. None of these energy supplies will be tapped… because it’s not about improving the lot of man, it’s about lowering our standard of living. Why else do they want us to eat bugs? The reason the elite want to keep us down is multi fold. The utility of wealth depends on wealth being able to buy that which the grazing masses can’t afford. A high and raising standard of living diminishes the utility of wealth. Poor people struggling to feed themselves are not prone to political machinations. North Korea charted the waters in that world. The people’s impoverishment can be exploited as a tool of manipulation. “Your poor because this or that group keeps you poor! So whatever you do, don’t try to get ahead… Because if you do, we’ll break yours…” is the chant of every demagogue. Every action of the elite in the last few decades has been to lower our standard of living. From the unending wars, importation of an anti American ideology and enough supporters of it to cause decades of problems, to lowering our access and increasing the cost of energy. Increasing the costs of energy has the add on effect of increasing the cost of everything. Since everything is created by energy. Somethings, like fertilizer, is made from natural gas as a feed stock. Intentions can be judged by actions. You reach for food when your hungry. Since our elites do everything in their power to lower our standard of living, to keep us hungry, ductile and angry, it’s clear they want us that way. That’s why thorium will never be implemented and fusion will be sued to oblivion. Sincerely, John Pepin
Fundamental Imbalance’s Of Power Posted on November 17, 2023 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, fundamental imbalances of power can only lead to tyranny, oppression and unreasonable demands. Why? Because of human nature. “People, like animals, all seek their own best interest.” -Carneades. Self interest is only balanced by consequences for actions. Without consequences almost everyone would become a predator. When the weak are silenced the oppressors don’t even know they’re causing pain. Ignorance of the suffering only increases the powerful’s willingness to increase suffering… for their own benefit. This paradigm holds true on the small scale as well as the large. A husband who beats his wife with impunity, will continue to beat her until she dies, a corporation with a captured bureaucracy can get away with anything, and a government unlimited creates Hell on Earth. Maturity is the ability to recognize the humanity in others, subvert one’s own interests for greater interests, when it makes sense, and put off instant gratification. When someone has all the power in a relationship, there’s no need to learn any of those things. So the powerful never grow up. Even mature people, given out sized power, become as children eventually. Because that’s who and what we are. We can hope to surpass our limited humanity, but to build a system that depends on us not being human for it to work, is stupid as it is absurd. Imbalances of power then create immature people without empathy. Immature people without empathy invested with total power are unlikely to improve the lot of Mankind, it’s far more likely they’ll lower it… and molest children. Government’s power is supposed to be balanced by constitutional limits. Before constitutionalism was invented, all governments were unlimited. The historic recounting of the total insanity they did proves my point, far better than I could in a single page essay. The recent history of crimes against humanity, like the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust and the Fauci flu, are nothing new. Herodotus gives some fine examples of tyranny in action. Like a deposed Libyan queen, upon returning by force of Egyptian arms, had the breasts cut off every woman in the city as punishment. Unlimited power leads to unlimited atrocities. Now that governments across the west have abandoned constitutional limits on their power, expect the crimes against humanity to increase in scope, nature and sophistication. Corporate power is supposed to be limited by regulators. I say supposed, because the reality is, corporate regulators are captured by the firms they regulate. The bureaucrat making well over 100k a year, gold plated benefits, and with an 80% retirement, needs that corporate job when he or she retires from public service. The corporation will pay a former regulator six figures the rest of their life, in bribe money. A great deal for the corporation. That’s why insurance like State Farm, is going up 100% this year and if you cut coverage to worthless, the rate increase is a mere 50%. Corporations are unlimited and so act it. How else could Wells Fargo get a billion dollar fine a year from the SEC and no one ever goes to jail? Because corporations are effectively unlimited in their power over the consumer. The reality is, our system, one where the elite must be saints for it to work, isn’t functional. For the same reason perpetual motion machines don’t work. They operate outside the laws of physics, or in the case of our political system, outside the laws of human nature. No matter how many times an above the law elite pedophile swears on his pinky finger, that he won’t abuse his power, or kids… he will. Unlimited power makes people children, liars and monsters. When the government including police and the courts, can lie without consequence, and we’re held to the truth by the letter of the law, there is a fundamental imbalance of power. In all spheres of life. Those fundamental imbalances of power is a fatal flaw in our systems. A defect we’re obliged to address. Sincerely, John Pepin
First, to simplify, we will build from examples and hope to imagine what we have not yet imagined. Parent to child- faculty of giving When a child is born- the infant- it is a bag of needs. It needs to be fed. Burped. Kept warm. Slept. Kept from falling or hurting itself. It needs to be watched when awake and when asleep- observed that it keeps breathing and doesn't die from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). You need to wake up in the middle of the night to feed it. And it gives back nothing in return. It doesn't say, "Thank you". It doesn't even smile. Spontaneous smiles don't happen until about 3 months. In the beginning, after birth, the infant isn't even cute. It is a pruned up alien looking thing. So it doesn't even give, initially, in that way. It does cry and those cries are the demands of a distressed infant in immediate need. You have no choice but to drop everything and attend to the baby. All the parents are doing is giving to this baby. And they become attached. It seems that love follows giving. Chemistry Oxytocin. This hormone is the one associated with love. It is released in the milk let down response in the mother that allows for breast feeding. Oxytocin also forms an immediate emotional connection. It is also released in males and in females with hugs. When hugging or receiving a hug, there is release of oxytocin and feeling the generation of love (hugging) and the feeling of being loved (hugged back). This mechanism explains the feeling of love and connection that a breast feeding mother has towards the infant. But I would suggest that oxytocin may also be released when the simple act of giving itself occurs. Mothers who do not breast feed and fathers experience a deep sense of love for the infant. To tell them that they do not is silly. So, it seems that love and giving are connected. Furthermore it seems that the order of operations is that love follows giving. If this is the case, then does love stop when giving stops? Separations In the Holocaust, many atrocities occurred. One that comes to mind that is "mild" in comparison to so many others was an example of a family that was taken to the concentration camps. They were a mother, father and young boy. Measuring love The boy and his mother were strongly attached in a normal, typical and healthy way, prior to being taken to the camp. When they arrived to the camp, they were forced to be separated. The boy went with the father and the mother went with the other females. I do not recall the details or the source of this story so please bear with me. After some significant period of time, by a miracle, all 3 survived. When the mother was re-united with her child and husband she became aware that she did not have the feeling of love that she had had previously. This was not the case for the father who, during the war, had continued having a close relationship with their son because they were together the whole time. It may be that in an effort to protect herself from the pain of loss of her son she built up an emotional wall. But that didn't happen in her love for her husband (who she did not give to in the same way and has a different component to it as we will explore). It can be speculated that there is a possibility that the mother's feeling of love for their son became less because she was unable to give to their son during those years of incarceration in contrast to the father who was able to continue to be able to give to their son and had a strong or even stronger relationship as a result. So, it seems that love follows giving. Hebrew: Love = AHAVA (apologies for all caps- Hebrew doesn't have capital/ lower case so I just left it as all caps as a way to recognize the code more easily) The root word- the root is the part that the word is based on- is HAV. HAV = to give. AHAVA = Love HAV = To Give Love is the feeling and giving is the action- the manifestation of the feeling IRL. And Actions are more powerful than thoughts or feelings in a way because they are tangible. This kind of love isn't "Romantic". It may be more basic and powerful than romantic love. We will explore romantic love, of course. Question Order of operations. Does love follow giving or does giving follow love? And is there a virtuous circle where one then facilitates the other? Romantic example. First date. The young man sees a picture of a woman, has a conversation, feels very good about it- elated, in fact, and on the way he picks up a dozen roses to give to her. If you ask him about the order of operations, he will probably tell you that giving follows love. Even if he wouldn't call it, "love at first sight", he would still tell you that first he had a feeling, if not love, something he considered to be love, and bought her the flowers as a result of the feeling. 2 thoughts. 1. That is conditional "love". Whereas the love for the baby is unconditional, the giving of the flowers was conditional upon the feeling of love. If her appearance deteriorates or she is mean that may impact the man in the relationship where he no longer feels love for her. He stops giving to the woman/ relationship in the various ways one gives and then she immediately starts to feel unloved. This forms an un-virtuous circle whose end point is dissolution of the relationship. 2. Love at first sight is illusory. If someone feels love and a sense of optimism and excitement for the future which is the way I can think to explain that feeling at this moment, it seems that as quickly as it came it can go. The only way for it to survive would be to quickly come into the scenario with giving. If you love her and you start giving to her in the form that works for both of you, i.e. time, attention, effort, then that is a good start. However, after awhile, if she doesn't give back to you, the relationship is also doomed to failure. You cannot have love without giving (and you cannot have giving without love). The romantic feeling, including the feeling of attraction to beauty or sexual attraction, (although sexual attraction requires another chapter unto itself)- that kind of love is also dependent, ultimately on giving. If there is no mutual giving, there may be some kind of addictive relationship going on- a so called, "use-use" relationship, which is more dopamine dependent than oxytocin dependent, but that won't last as long or be as happiness inducing as relationship based on giving. In fact, a relationship of convenience is not characterized by the word, "love". That feeling is conspicuously absent. Furthermore, to the extent that a user relationship is true to its definition, it isn't based on the faculty of giving but rather it is based on the faculty of taking. "What's in it for me?" Although we all do come to the table with some needs, if that is the main or only focus, the relationship will not have legs. Furthermore, in order to have a relationship with a foundation that will support a family, each party must be devoted to the faculty of giving. The idea of 50-50, meaning that you come into the arrangement with the idea of "fairness" where you are responsible for giving half the time and that entitles you to take half the time, the math won't work. Because when the babies come and they need an amazing amount of giving, both parents must be capable of that. If love at first sight then leads to both people dedicating themselves fully and over the long haul, then it can certainly work. If, however, the initial feeling is not followed quickly with giving in its various forms, the feeling will pass as feelings often do, like another cloud passing in the sky. On the other hand, if there is no initial feeling of love but, most importantly, there is no negative feeling- repulsion- and both parties are motivated to dedicate themselves, each to the other, then the feeling of love will inevitably occur. And the feeling of love that would follow giving could be expected to be as strong as the giving that went into it, and continues to go into it, without stopping until now. This form of love- based on giving- is what we can call "mature" love. In opposition, there is a form of love, very strong and immediate- and may be experienced as stronger in fact, than what I have defined as "mature love". This is "infantile love". Infantile love is the feeling that we can speculate an infant experiences towards its caregivers. It is not based on giving but on having its needs met on the spot. Distress --> Satisfaction. Suffering --> Pleasure. This works well for an infant but would be pathological in an adult's approach to love and relationships. Over the course of childhood, as the child acquires abilities to self-soothe and then, to help others, he/she will be able to develop into a giver and love in a mature love way. Infantile love is based on actual dependency. Infantile love some time after infancy is based on the FEELING of dependency, which is different from ACTUAL dependency. Infantile love after infancy can be called, "immature love". Many people's happiness is conditional- it is dependent on something, an expectation. When we create an expectation then that puts us into a state of dependency. For example, if in order for me to be happy I must get a 100% on the test, a 99% will ruin my day or, in certain situations, ruin my life. Immature love is similar. In the case of immature love one must satisfy the other's needs, which are extensive, time consuming and draining. The one that comes to the table with needs galore is "high maintenance" or "needy" and bodes poorly for most relationships where both parties must be strong givers most of the time. One can speculate that a young child who did not get all of his/her actual needs met will not be able to be a giver his/herself as an adult. For example, if a mother and father did not get along and the mother took over/had the role of sole caregiver, the young child will know that he/she did not have a father and that hole will be real and palpable, despite anyone's protestations that it doesn't matter. This young child will develop pathology as has been studied extensively. Young men without fathers have an enormously disproportionate representation in prisons and young women without fathers have a much higher likelihood to engage in sex and pregnancy at significantly earlier ages. It can be speculated that the girls are looking for love and safety from a male to substitute the hole in their relationship with their fathers and the males may benefit from having their needs met by a provider in the form of "three hots and a cot", as awful a solution as that seems. There is a lot more nuance to this as well. Role Fluidity in a loving relationship The way loving relationships work among 2 adults isn't that each person does 50% of everything all the time. That would be what we can call a sibling-sibling model. Rather, there is a rotation that occurs. That is, in one instance, one parents the other and then there is reciprocity. When I use the term parent, I do not mean that one tells the other what to do. I mean that one takes care of the other. Example. (These are traditional and need not be- but I chose these as it is most simple and expedient). Day 1. The husband takes his wife out to dinner. They enjoy the experience and the man pays the bill. In this example, the man has taken care of the woman. He has been the provider, the daddy, and she, the child. Day 2. The wife cooks dinner for the husband at home. They enjoy the experience together. In this example the woman has been the provider, the mommy, and the man, the child. The point- each had the opportunity to parent the other. This was not based on demands. If the man demanded the woman make him dinner, then he was "king baby" where he forces her to serve him like an infant needs to be attended to. On the other hand, if she demands that he take her out for dinner or anything else for that matter, then she is "queen baby" as well. One particular example that comes to mind is the diamond commercial I remember as a child, "Isn't she worth it?" was the tagline. This stayed on TV for years, presumably because it worked. Presumably, this appealed to many women who wanted a ring and had that exact feeling. Again, this is based on the faculty of taking, "Queen baby". And if the relationship is overly one way, where one party is the uber-giver and one is the uber-taker, eventually, eventually, the giver will become exhausted because eventually the uber-giver will wake up and realize how it feels to not be loved. It is quite painful and sad. Need based adult relationships There are these kinds of relationships that tend to be more dramatic. They may make for good movies but they can be painful to participate in as a parent and emotionally torturous for the child. Need based relationships will also often be referred to as, "dependence" or "codependence". When you need the other, you are high maintenance. They must drop everything for you, regardless of what good they may be doing for the world, for themselves or for your and your relationship, ironically. People stay in a need based relationship not because they are better or happier overall. They are willing to trade off some basic necessity for their happiness in order to get something else that they need in the moment. For example, foundational characteristics like truth and basic respect might be traded away for immediate attention or breadcrumb offered to your ego. When one or both parties are loving the other in the "immature love" model, we see one party forcing the other to give to them. Giving of free will choice, voluntary giving is the manifestation of mature love. Being forced to give doesn't lead to love in the giver but rather it leads to a feeling of resentment. The feeling of love, to the extent that it is felt, is experienced in the receiver of the giving only. Immature love model. Furthermore, the feeling of love experienced by the king or queen baby is evanescent whereas the feeling of love experienced by the voluntary giver in the mature love model- that feeling has long tails. Relationship vs. Situationship I asked someone 2 days ago if he was in a relationship. He said, "Well, not really. I'm in a situationship." A "situationship" is when there is a situation. If there isn't one, there is no relationship. So, a situation will always be manufactured. If you cannot have a relationship based on foundational mechanisms that work, then, if one party wants it, nonetheless, he/she will force it by manufacturing a crisis that then compels you/forces you to stay and fix it. As soon as that is resolved you will then be pulled in, ad infinitum to the next problem. Often/generally these have to do with threats to you in some way that you simply cannot ignore. Or, to be prost- (prost means vulgar) "If she can't f*ck you, she'll f*ck you." Someone said this to me recently. He was trying to get out of a relationship. He was saying that if she can't get what she perceives as love and attention and sexual gratification from him, she will do her best to take whatever else he has, his money, his reputation, anything, to destroy him in the process. Need vs. no need It is said that no man is an island. (Source seems to be biblical- Christian- thank you to my Christian neighbors). So, we understand that none of us are able to be need free. That said, the more we can reduce our wants if possible, the happier (and healthier) we will be. A relatively non-need based relationship generally has a simple arc of pleasure. Generally we go from neutral to a certain level above neutral. You can go from neutral to good or neutral to great. And that's a great deal of distance to traverse- from neutral to great. However, when it is a need based relationship, you go from crisis to resolution. You can go from intense emotional pain/ distress to neutral. If that distance traversed is equal to going from neutral to great, just the relief of the crisis averted is more pleasurable than going from neutral to great. But wait, there's more. What often happens in a need based relationship is that you not only go from the depths of awfulness to neutral but you go from the depths of the lowest low to Great. The relief that occurs can result in a rubber band effect where you then become closer than you could have ever imagined just a few minutes ago. Yelling and screaming can be foreplay to passionate sex. So therein lies the payoff. The intensity of those relationships can be confused for the feeling of love and can be more powerful. This keeps these kinds of relationships based on a series of situationships going forward. However, eventually this burns up people's bandwidth. And, going back to the idea of the fight being preamble to connection (or foreplay to sex), what if ultimately it is the reverse? What if sex is the foreplay to the fight? Some people get more pleasure out of winning a fight than out of a loving sexual connection. Those that do are the ones that do not have the emotional bandwidth to love another in a mature way. These personality types are often referred to as narcissistic, borderline or antisocial, the cluster B personality disorders. They are confined to the territory of love as it is experienced selfishly. Sentence Structure "I want you." "I need you." In the first sentence, "I want you", the object is the item that is wanted. Want is specific to "you". In the second sentence, "I need you", the item of focus is the subject, "I". It reflexive. I need is not about you, it is about me. Although need is more intense than want, it also means that you, yourself, are not worth anything, except for what you can provide to me. And as soon as you can't, either I'll make you or I'll just find somebody else. This reminds me of a sentence, "I'm going to get pregnant, and if it's not with you, it will be with somebody else!" Hearing that wouldn't make you feel loved, or special, in my estimation. I think that we all function on a continuum of selfish-selflessness. However, I think that we all start out as selfish. Even before we have an identity as an infant the only identity is, "I'm hungry!". It isn't, "I have hunger" like in Spanish. It is exactly as it sounds in English. But as we mature we become more selfless. I think it is more likely that we can go from selfish to selfless, not so much the other way around. The question is whether we are becoming more selfish societally than in previous generations. And, if so, why? Chapter 2- the legal system and its impact on families and our culture.
Breaking The Cycle Of Integrity To Corruption Posted on December 8, 2023 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, power corrupts, in several dimensions. One dimension is the individual is corrupted by power, groups are corrupted by power and power corrupts all over time. One of the most corrupting facets of power is it’s ability to shield the wielder from consequences. When consequences are shorn from action, there’s no limit to action. Perhaps we should set out an alternative plan to the UN’s tyrannical, anti human, and Satanic agenda 2030? Create a mechanism to inject consequences for actions and accountability for outcomes to the elite? Set goals for human freedom and plans to carry them out? Instead of being passive maybe we should become active? This is so vitally important because of the power of power to corrupt. That should be our first goal… limit the power of the elite. Power corrupts the individual and a group so imbued. The powerful are protected, by their power, from consequences of criminal actions, the results of political decisions and even from the outcome of both. A person with political favor, a judge, senator, congressperson, celebrity, etc… can drive around drunk all day long every day, and the police will turn a blind eye. Worse, there are countless examples of the police abetting the behavior. Like Senator Galuchio of Massachusetts. In these cases power protects the criminal from consequences. US education scores have been falling for decades, even as the money spent on our public education system has shot up. This is an example of failure by every metric. Yet, has anyone in the system, been held accountable? No, they’re given raises and teams of assistants. Look at the Ming dynasty. It was founded in virtue by a peasant uprising ejecting Mongol invaders from China. Initially it fostered economic, artistic and infrastructure advancement. Then, over time, as power was amassed, deeded and shored up, the rulers became corrupt. So corrupt they were overthrown by another peasant leading another rag tag army. Starting the cycle anew. History is nothing but the recount of societies rising in virtue and falling in corruption. Some of the most virtuous people have become corrupt once given power. Robespierre they claim, was a very nice man… until he became a butcher with a guillotine. That’s why power has to be limited. Once we limit power we can start on the next phase of our human prosperity, liberty and security recovery plan. The reason this cycle exists and has never been stopped is because the virtuous don’t need oversight and the corrupt will not tolerate it. The corrupt will resort to every measure to evade oversight, consequences and accountability. Every one of their failures is someone else fault… the excuse of the immature, oblivious and psychopathic. Like habits cycles are hard to break. Breaking them requires great effort and strong measures. Some cycles can’t be broken without breaking the very system itself. Like the economic cycle of boom bust. As demonstrated by the Federal Reserve’s failure to do so. This cycle, the cycle of liberty to despotism, has yet to be tested. To break the cycle, we must limit the power of power, to corrupt. Which requires, accountability, transparency and consequences. If we could break the cycle, there’s no telling how high mankind could reach. Unfortunately, that cycle is harder to break than it looks. I’ve proposed… a Numa or Fourth Branch of government, to be the police of the elite. Total, utter and complete transparency of all government functions as the default, any secrecy must be adjudicated first. As well as a consumer protection agency for the consumers of bureaucratic services. This would be a strong deterrent for government to continue doing jobs better suited to charity and the private sector. A Constitutional requirement that all laws and regulations be equally applied to government would also go a long way toward cutting the corruption. Yet cut the corruption is a thing we must do. Because, unless we act, we’re in the last stages of a collapsing society. Sincerely, John Pepin
“If we get to choose our pronouns, why can’t I choose my adjectives? I demand to be called mighty and wonderful. And if you don’t comply, you’re prejudiced.” How long before people begin to demand such changes next? If the sanctity of language breaks down for individual whims, some of the greatest advances of civilised society, such as marriage certificates, country constitutions, peace treaties, employee contracts, will break down. It will be the end of dialogue as we know it. Peace was never the default state of man’s societies. It was negotiated, often after long periods of war and violence. The stability (relative) of our times is hard-won. And by no means, is it irrevocable. The pages of history are bespattered with blood, and the good times of today are erected upon the corpses of lives lost in the process of reaching where we stand today. Are we so accustomed to it that we take it for granted and hack away at the very foundations that made this peace possible? Or do we knowingly seek chaos because we’ve had too much of order? Indeed, so much is dependent on words that it escapes our notice. Our economic, legal and sociocultural systems work the way they do, because the meanings of the words do not change too quickly or too drastically. It is the reason why constitution amendments require a long-drawn out procedure, and why refusing to read a document before signing it is frowned upon. On a more individual level, we use language to describe the world. If the meanings of words change too fast or too much, how do we describe reality? Will not reality change too much or too fast too? Has it begun happening already? Are we to be caught between competing narratives, a tussle in which actual reality is soon to be lost, or worse, unrecognisable? Negotiation (through words) is humanity’s greatest achievement, at par with the invention of the wheel and the discovery of fire. This is because of its ability to prevent or stop violence. It is an invaluable tool that enables people who are as diverse as they can be, to cooperate and work on an agreed-upon goal for an agreed-upon time. We throw it out of the window like last night’s leftovers. An attack upon language is an attack upon thought. Since thought shapes identity, it is an attack upon identity itself. Your individual identity is under attack. Not only will words soon be put in your mouth, but a new voice will soon be put in your head too. Some ideas will become inexpressible, some unthinkable. If it hasn’t reached you yet, it will. Speak, if you can, until you can. Be not fooled by those who want to “fix” you, even when, especially when, they assume the moral high ground. This war will bring no spoils, for any of us. If this sounds like doomsday discourse, know that this doom is upon us, and the day is today.
Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the greatest philosophers whose works are still impactful today, the author of oft-quoted works like Beyond Good and Evil, The Antichrist and Thus Spake Zarathustra, is also perhaps the most misread author of the 19th century, some would even say, of all time. The ideas of geniuses are so original, that it is understandably tempting for a reader to fit them into pre-formed templates through which he has learned to see the world. This calls for slicing them up where necessary, distorting their shape or intent, and even breathing ideological fervour into them. “It is difficult and painful for the ear to listen to anything new; we hear strange music badly.” - Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil. In order to be able to reach somewhere, one must run the risk of thinking freely no matter where it may lead you. Conclusions are to be drawn out of the observations, rather than the other way round. Observations are not to be shaped to substantiate pre-existing conceptions or conclusions. Of course, this means that one may not always like the conclusions, especially if they stand in contradiction to one’s political principles. Nietzsche took this risk knowingly. Of course, the misappropriation of Nietzsche’s ideas has been argued to have been carried out on a historical scale by the Nazis. But what I’m interested in is how today’s world, in which sophistication and nuance is a matter of modern pride, is party to the misinterpreting and misappropriating of Nietzsche. The Death of God Let’s begin with the most obvious one. The most notorious example is Nietzsche’s realisation: “God is dead.” A simple-minded reader who hasn’t outgrown the atheistic charm of our younger, rational(?) years (let’s face it, we’ve all been there) might mistake this claim to be a triumphant one. Far from being an optimistic proclamation, it was, instead, a lament. The madman in The Gay Science (the work in which the proclamation first appears) expresses grief about the consequences little understood by the modern man who rushes to crown rational thought as the highest ideal after the death of God. Perhaps the full quote captures Nietzsche’s sentiment better than the synecdoche: ‘“Where is God gone?” he called out. "I mean to tell you! We have killed him,—you and I! We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction?—for even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife,—who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it?”’ Now, one might say: “Finally, we can put aside the oppressive indoctrination that religion carried out on little children to turn them into soldiers who would fight wars in the name of religion if it came to that. Nietzsche was a strong critic of religion, especially of Catholicism, I’ll give you that. But he wasn’t the conspiracy theorist that the misreader makes him out to be. I’m fond of playing the devil’s advocate. Looking on the brighter side of things, Nietzsche did say that the death of God had the potential to usher in an age where the Übermensch could come forth - strong, independent and with the capacity to transcend himself - and this would perhaps give meaning to the inevitably disillusioned generation deprived of the transcendental. A misreader (especially one with progressive leanings) might say: “Now that God is dead, we can focus on human values like liberty and equality from a more rational perspective instead of chasing illusions of Heaven promised by an invisible deity in the sky.” But how? Many of these values had roots in religion essentially. Equality before law came from the idea of every man made in His image. How do we expect great humanitarian ideals to manifest in the societies all the while hacking away at the foundations of morality itself? The moral and the rational choice are not necessarily the same. In fact, I would go so far as to say they may even be opposite. Even a scientific field of medicine requires scientists and practitioners to make everyday moral (not rational) choices. Why not let tuberculosis kill man? Is the bacterium not “equal” to the man in its innate need and right to survive? Even as the most hardened, fact-concerned doctor administers the penicillin, he makes a moral choice - to save man. Master-slave Morality A second example would be the master-slave morality on which Nietzsche wrote extensively in several of his works. Had Nietzsche lived and published in today’s time, his works would have been cancelled over and over again, for he dares not only to make distinctions between master and slave identities, but also to openly advocate in favour of master morality and show disdain for slave morality. Somewhere in the outrage of it all, his message got lost. A master morality is a kind of identity, in which various values and behaviours are bundled together. For instance, the Masters are strong-willed, noble, independent and nonconforming. The Slaves are weak-willed, timid and resentful. The Masters create values - they judge for themselves what is good or bad. The Slaves conform to this hierarchy of values, albeit resentfully. Inevitably, the Slaves assert their will to power by subversion, and redefine their choices as the more moral position. The misreader would argue that Nietzsche is in favour of the more powerful oppressing the less powerful. But Nietzsche is not necessarily talking of actual masters and slaves. It would be useful to see the master-slave moralities as mindsets rather than lived experiences. The category of masters do not only contain the powerful or wealthy; Nietzsche would place artists, writers and thinkers here too. Another point that is overlooked by the misreader is that even the Slaves have a stake in power. They simply assert it differently. (Nietzsche believed the Will to Power as being the main driving force of humans.) When Nietzsche expresses contempt for slave morality, and praises master morality, he does so because he believed that the former was the precursor of nihilism due to its insistence on pulling down competing values, levelling the playing field and making mice out of men. People willing to question their precious worldviews and entertain controversial, but thought-provoking ideas like these, in a sense, people wishing to look beyond good and evil might belong to the noble temperament that Nietzsche considered distinctive of master morality, which might have been his own playful motive behind making his meaning elusive. Nietzsche, the Nihilist People may differ far and wide when it comes to the specifics of Nietzsche’s works, but one thing they all agree on, one thing that is apparent even after reading just a few pages - Nietzsche is ruthless. Whatever topic he chose to write on (he is famous for his non-specialisation), his take is trenchant, and often emphatic. Reading a work like The Gay Science, in which he covers a vast range of topics, a misreader may be inclined to think that Nietzsche denounces everything and strips everything of meaning. In that, he may term Nietzsche as a nihilist. Nietzsche’s caustic tone, his repudiation of the tables of values and critique of Christianity are all taken to be arguments cited when seeking to establish his “supposed” nihilism. Without going into an interminable discussion on the many meanings of nihilism, it is clear that for Nietzsche, nihilism was more than a contemplative ‘what’s the point of life’ utterance followed by a collective sigh reverberating in the confines of day to day life. Rather, it was the negation of life itself. It was the ultimate “nay” as Nietzsche would say. Nietzsche affirms life, despite everything. The concept of the Übermensch flies in the face of nihilism. What else could a strong, free-thinking individual that strives forward to create new values, posited by Nietzsche as the very goal for the scoffing, God-deprived human race, be, except a solution to nihilism itself?
Ruled By Fools Posted on November 24, 2023 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, a point I have been trying to make, is that people who become enraged at debate, silence others by claiming truth is misinformation, using the power of government to promote one point of view, while exploiting that same power to silence others, demand we tolerate the intolerable, while they themselves can’t tolerate disrespect, even as they claim the moral high ground… are immature brats. Our leaders for example. People who lack the basic maturity we see in teenagers, invested with unlimited power, without accountability. We all know this to be true. The answer to this problem, according to the elite, is to give them more power, with less accountability. I propose a different solution… take away the power they have, and severely limit the power they’re left with. More evidence, as if we need it, of the immaturity and lack of wisdom of world leaders today, is their lack of veneration for the systems, laws and constitutions, that give them authority. The authority they’re busy abusing every chance they get. From the courts denying states a day in court to deeming criminal defendants guilty, and holding trials to decide how guilty they are, like Alex Jones and Donald Trump, is the epitome of abusing authority and undermining the very institutions that give them the authority to do it. Only people utterly lacking common sense would do such things. Such wisdom is inculcated by years of living through the consequences of actions. Strip consequences from action, and there’s no limit to actions, because there’s no learning from life. What the childish elite demand we get outraged at and what we are not allowed to get outraged at, is another sign of their total lack of wisdom. Imagine, the elite in Ireland can’t understand why Irish people would be outraged, at children being stabbed by an immigrant. A guest in your home attacking your kids. Yet the protests against the stabbing of school children is called outrageous by the elite. Should immigrant children in Ireland be targeted in a similar stabbing attack, by an Irishman… those same elites would condemn all Irish as evil and encourage the riots, bloodshed and arson that the immigrants would visit on Ireland. The obvious hypocrisy of the elite is proof enough, our elites are not the caliber of people to run their nose, let alone the world. They’re not the geniuses they think they are. The elite across the world prove beyond a reasonable doubt every day, every time they open their mouths, and whenever they censor, that they’re retarded toddlers with too much power. Biden is riddled with dementia, the man can’t find his way off a stage, and he thinks he is qualified to run the world with unlimited power? Only a fool is stupid enough to think their smart enough to do that. To think oneself capable of running the world from a central authority is proof of a complete lack of wisdom. Anyone who actually thinks the centrally planned economy is still feasible, after the twentieth century, is too dumb to learn. Yet our elites, the world over, are so moronic they actually believe themselves capable of it. Could there be people so stupid they think their that smart? Yes. Our leaders. The more they screw up the world, the more power they demand from us, to fix it. Never for a second thinking they’re the problem. Lacking the wisdom to even consider such a thing. Narcissists don’t have the ability to understand they could be wrong about anything ever. So far, giving them unlimited power has resulted in, inflation in a world reserve currency, world war and a collapsing world economy. Failures by any measure, except in the minds of the fools that did it. I think it’s time not only to replace them, but to cut the power from the governments of the world, so that in the future, when the next crop of fools, simpletons and retards rise to power, they won’t have the ability to screw things up as bad as our elites have. Limit the power of fools to destroy the world and the world might not be destroyed. Sincerely, John Pepin
Have you seen the
average picture? It’s the usual head shot with a smile. Then there
are the posers. The ones who pose as if they are a famous movie star.
Some have themselves in situational environments like a Getty Image.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing, just observing. On my
gmail account, I have a picture of Fabio as my picture. Funny, right?
But why a fictitious
character like Yoda? How about Darth Vader? I like the redeemed
father image, but Darth Vader is not a good representation of myself.
My own looks are ho-hum, average. Certainly nothing to write home
about if you saw me walking down the street. Genetics didn’t bless
me with the looks like Fabio. Somehow, my dad’s good looks didn’t
make the final cut neither. I have what I have and that’s it. Over the years, I
have met many souls. Many different faces. All unique. I never really
thought too much as to what looks were good or not so good. It
doesn’t really matter. When we interact with others, it’s a name
we see, more than the face. Secondarily, we hear the voice. My image
of people is a combination of the voice and what they write. You can
tell a lot about someone by these. Think about the radio personality
you listen to. You would think behind that voice would be a
sophisticated man dressed in a suit that everyone would want to talk
to. And then real-life shows you, he’s a nerdy looking and sounding
guy, wears flip-flops and shorts in the winter with a “scruffy
nerf-herder” look. Actually, that’s me. I joke to myself that I
dress like this purposefully to ensure that I am as unassuming and
unattractive as possible. It works. And yes, I’m laughing. Of
course, when I go out in public with my wife especially, I look much
more presentable. Not bad actually. My wife is pleased and that’s
good enough for me. Enough of that. I
suppose we all have an image of ourselves, of what we want to be. My
personality, which is still a work in progress is not that of an
Alpha, but I’m neither a Beta. I incorporated silence and stoicism
in my list of attributes. If one insists on some form of
categorization, I would fall into the “Sigma” category. These are
just labels and don’t have solid psychological definitions but they
are somewhat helpful. My image of myself is that of the Singularity;
that shining light that is bright and regardless of how close you
get, still has no shape or form. I think that image is a good
representation that I am still being formed. You know, work in
progress; that there is room for improvement, room for better
thoughts. Much like a fictitious character. So, I picked “Yoda with
Sunglasses”. I like the idea of being wise with an edge. That’s
what Sun-glasses depict. And of course, Yoda is the wise Jedi Master
that everyone holds in high regard. I’m getting there if not there
yet, but I like to think that a wise soul is a form to aspire to. So, that’s why I
have the ‘Yoda with Sunglasses’ as my picture.
Do Elections Make A Difference? Posted on November 26, 2023 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, the US election of 2020 proved the truth of the phrase, often attributed to Mark Twain, “If elections made any difference, they wouldn’t let us have them.” While this paradigm is increasingly true in the US, with mail in voting, ballot harvesting and outright fraud by officials, elections are becoming merely the chiffon nighty covering our elite’s naked tyranny. Meanwhile, in other places, where the democratic element hasn’t been tamed by such measures, the will of the people is becoming apparent. In Argentina, a man was elected that appears to embody all the virtues of the International Capitalist Party. In The Netherlands, of all places, a Euro skeptic party has received a literal majority of votes. Along with other sane parties gaining ground across the planet… like Reform in Britain. Of course, to the global elites, anyone who doesn’t zealously believe in a world government, run by a totalitarian despot with unlimited power, accountable to no one… is a radical right winger. Someone to whom no one should pay any heed. Because only a crazy person would think regular people should be allowed any freedom at all… especially the freedom to think for themselves! Like when Darius I discovered Smerdis was actually a Magi and murdered the impostor. Then argued for arbitrary rule for Persia… and was rewarded kingship, after cheating in the contest for the throne. That’s the caliber of man that typically ascends to power… a murderer, cheat and narcissist. Today, that’s the cut of the jib of our elites, they all epitomize corruption, psychopathy and thirst for power. Anyone else is a radical. Democracy is the buzzword of all would be tyrants, who immediately suspend elections once they have power. How many elections have there been in the West Bank or Gaza since the first? How many vibrant democracies did Obama’s Arab Spring birth into the world? None. How many tyrannies did it raise from the corpse of democracies it killed? Several. The reality is, the elite like democracy, only as a legitimization mechanism. If it stops legitimizing their usurpations, corruption and oppressions, with the appearance of popularity, they’ll drop democracy like a hot potato. I already see it in the mockingbird media. They’re discrediting election outcomes they disagree with, with propaganda, claiming only the elections of globalist Marxists are legitimate. If we measure failure as a declining standard of living, war and rising crime, and success in a rising standard of living, peace and a lowering crime rate… by those measures, our elites are failing miserably. Trump had the US and part of the world turning around and getting on the right track, so the elite released the Kraken, Covid 19, to upend the success. Because the elite in the UN, Europe, China, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and especially the US, are selling us poverty. They want us to get used to a declining standard of living, high crime, and constant war. Generational poverty driven by the welfare state is a feature, not a bug, in their new world order. That’s why examples of success are to be stopped at all costs. Even a pandemic. Because failures can’t allow the example of success. If Geert Wilders gets a coalition government together, and stops immigration, sends back the terrorist element, NEXITs from the EU, lowers taxes and cuts regulation… Wilders will be wildly successful. That can’t be allowed. His majority party will be shut out, politically or by the court. Even as Javier Milei’s policies, if he’s telling the truth, will result in amazing economic prosperity in Argentina. Which will get him framed and arrested. The example of Argentina abandoning the fascist corporatist rent seeking system, for a free market one, can’t be tolerated by the rent seekers. There is the chilling possibility they could change the paradigm though. Despite the forces that’ll be arrayed against them. We’ll see if Wilders, Milei, and Meloni’s elections actually make a difference. I hope and pray they do. Sincerely, John Pepin
While reading Luke’s gospel account of Jesus’ last supper before His
crucifixion, Luke includes a verse telling us that an argument breaks
out among the disciples and he also includes Jesus’ response to this
argument. Perhaps this argument was prompted by Jesus sharing that one
of them would betray Him, but perhaps, this was just another flare-up of
an argument that Jesus’ follower had debated many times before. But here at the last supper, Jesus has a powerful response. After
quieting the disciples and getting their attention, Luke tells us that
Jesus said, “The kings of the non-Jewish people rule over them,
and those who have authority over others like to be called ‘friends of
the people.’ But you must not be like that. Instead, the greatest among
you should be like the youngest, and the leader should be like the
servant. Who is more important: the one sitting at the table or the one
serving? You think the one at the table is more important, but I am like
a servant among you.” (Luke 22:25-27 NCV) Jesus draws our attention to something that we think today. This
belief is as widespread today as it was in the first century. Jesus
points us to this key idea when He asks, “Who is more important: the one sitting at the table or the one serving?” (Luke 22:27a NCV) If we were to ask ten random people this question, almost all of them
would say the person sitting at the table is more important. Those in
the board room at the table must be more important than the factory-line
worker. This is the widespread belief – and it is one that Jesus
challenged with His life. In Jesus’ follow-up statement, He shares the truth people think, and He contrasts it with how He has lived. “You think the one at the table is more important,” Jesus says, “but I am like a servant among you.” (Luke 22:27b NCV) Jesus came and lived the life of a servant to illustrate how
God sees greatness. While those at the table are important in God’s
eyes, those serving are equally important. Without people serving, there
would be no table for others to sit at. Because of this truth, the case
could be made that service is more important than meetings. Jesus
called each of us to be like Him, and this means that we are to take the
servant role whenever possible. Jesus focused on finding ways He could step down and
serve. As His disciples, stepping down and serving whenever possible
should be a priority for us as well. This post first appeared on ReflectiveBibleStudy.comWhat do you think? Do you agree/disagree? Leave your thoughts below.
Intelligence and character.Watching the degeneration of intelligentsia, the cream of the cerebral caste, into a world where you could lose your clinician license for stating the obvious about sex, ..Is it likely that intelligence correlates inversely with character?In Ontario, Peterson stands as the exception to that which proofs the tule. There is an irony to watch the small town boy make and walk among the giants of the profession, in Harvard, in U of T, in Montreal and the UN, fully successful, only to look around at his world and see the smallness that academia has become. The hallowed halls filled with the resentful and small, the banal.It is like fulfilling your dreams to find that the dream was real, but that world was a cloud that has no substance. The reevaluation of all values is complete, gravity renounced up is down down up. It is like unleashing monsters, gremlins, the incel armies of Hamas and their identity associates.These are the machinations of small, resentful, intelligent, connected people bricking bricks together, pride inflamed by the offence of not being marketable, contempt for the successful for having what they have not.It is the morality of slaves and slavers, united to the cruelest of desires.Peterson is a Jungian. That is about as standard as a psychologist gets, Psych 101 on through.And when they come for him, the whole industry whistles past their own graveyard.The banality is the evilThe religious saying goes that fear of the Lord is a better predictor of behavior than wisdom. It could be the anxiety, or it could be that we are creatures ruled by the heart and not by the head.
One of the subjects I've taught for many years is "Leadership". One book on leadership that has made a lasting impression on me is John Maxwell's "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership". John devotes the last chapter, the last irrefutable law, to legacy. A recent post on this topic presented two conflicting views on whether leaving a legacy is important. One day toward the end of a class period, one of my students asked me, "So what does this all mean? Why are we here?" Because I was teaching in a public school, I decided not to wade into the religious answers to the student's question. I simply said, "If nothing else, try to leave the world a better place than the one you were born into." Leaving a legacy (a good one) is one of my life's goals. That is why I get my extended family together every other year. I want to leave a legacy of a tightly knit family that is always mutually supportive. I want to leave a legacy of love and kindness, of care and goodness. If I can accomplish just that, I will consider my life a success. Having accepted Christ as my personal savior, I know where I'll be after my body dies and I want to make certain that I will see my children and grandchildren there. Following an event at my school last spring, a small group of students had gathered around me, trying to convince me that I shouldn't retire. It was a very touching moment, but one student made a statement that caused me to give pause to my retirement decision. She said, "You taught us about life". That is the only time I ever had second thoughts about my retirement. For me, that was a powerful moment. And it is times like that that convince me that "legacy" is critically important.
In what may be one of Jesus’ most ridiculous comparisons, in the
illustration of the plank and the piece of sawdust we find a clear
description of the term hypocrite. In this comparison, part of me
wonders if some of those in the crowd actually laughed at the mental
picture Jesus painted for them. While preaching the famous “Sermon on the Mount”, Jesus draws our
focus onto a big truth using this illustration. Matthew tells us that He
challenged the crowd by asking, “Why do you look at the speck
of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in
your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck
out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3-4 NIV) Then Jesus hits on the big point for this section of His message. He continues by saying, “You
hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will
see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:5 NIV) Here we have Jesus clarifying what it means to be a hypocrite. Jesus
defines the person who pays more attention to other peoples’ faults than
their own as a hypocrite. According to Jesus’ definition, to not be a
hypocrite, one must focus more on personal growth than on helping others
grow. But we must be careful to not make the passage say what it doesn’t say. Jesus ends off by saying, “then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:5b NIV) Helping others grow is important, but more important is that the one
doing the teaching has also lived the message they are sharing. A
hypocrite is someone who gives advice that they are not following
themselves. A hypocrite rationalizes their situation as not needing the
advice, but they don’t make any exceptions for others. To break free from hypocrisy, we must be intentional about sharing
our failures and our successes. We must be honest about where we
struggle, and what we are doing to overcome these challenges. We must
speak from our experience more than from our intelligence. This is one
definition for the idea of “sharing our testimony”. Most of us know what we should be doing, and to really break
free from hypocrisy, we must start doing these things. Helping others
without being a hypocrite means that we have lived our advice and found
it to be beneficial. Only after living our advice can we then help others without being known as a hypocrite. This post first appeared on ReflectiveBibleStudy.comWhat do you think? Do you agree/disagree? Leave your thoughts below.
There is a growing tendency towards the embracing of communism and neo-Marxism, and the casual disregard of systems and institutions, among the young, educated people of modern societies. Especially in universities. Of course, endless debate has been carried out on the whys and hows of this phenomenon, and endless solutions offered by personages wiser than I am. However, I offer a wild solution, with absolutely zero data on whether it will achieve the desired outcome. I think there is a lot of emphasis on the teaching of modern history in schools. That is, history of wars and nations, and economic history post the 1800s era. What happened before that is generally covered in very little detail and usually not beyond elementary school. (Of course, I speak from the point of view of education in my own country, and I’m aware that the structure would be different in every country.) Here’s a wild idea - teach young children about the economic history of our civilisation in much greater detail, (especially the pre-industrial era). Teach them about the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age. About the advent of paper currency and the history of the banking system. About the Northmen, the Mongols, and what it was like to live in fear and insecurity, how the prevalence of that sentiment led to the yearning towards establishment of stabler systems. About the richer Asian economies of China, India and the Middle East. About how maritime trade developed, about the domination of trade routes by bandits and by conquerors. About the textile and spice industry. About explorers and their expeditions. About how nations achieved self-sufficiency in the production of grain, the invention of the loom, tubewell, threshing machines and the printing press. About the history of the plumbing system and important advances in medicine. About the history of labour laws. The boons of the modern era are often taken as granted by young people today. Discussions on capitalism versus communism, the failure of economic systems, financial crises and their (mis)handling, etc. are predicated with far too many presumptions. Some of the brilliant ideas of the past came to become modern presumptions, that we take as given in our discussions. How and what came to be given, and who gave it, is glossed over in the process of education. I have a sneaking suspicion that teaching these things might inculcate more gratitude about the gifts of civilisation and the painful journey undertaken by our ancestors to get us here, and young people would not carelessly and arrogantly denigrate the institutions that they stand to benefit from. After all, an economic history of the world, is nothing other than a history of privation and human efforts to overcome it.
Who Normalizes Pedophilia? Posted on November 29, 2023 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, the same people who demand your children see a grown man dressed up as a harlot, wagging his bare rear end in their face, would freak out if you showed their kid… a Holy Bible. You know it’s true. How many hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in the legal system to eradicate the Holy Bible from society? Untold wealth has been mobilized to silence prayer in the public. As the same people zealously defending their right not to see a Holy Bible… are spending even more in the legal system, to force your kid to watch a drag show. The hypocrites demand from us, things they would become violent over, then justify their violence as a rational response. Meanwhile we aren’t even allowed to be outraged. Creepy weirdo hypocrites will hypocritically normalize pedophilia I suppose. Hypocrisy used to be the most discrediting thing a person could do. Hypocrites were considered less than human. Because they acted less than human. In the classical era to the very recent past, hypocrisy, even the moniker hypocrite, was to be shunned at all costs. Someone who demanded from others that which they wouldn’t tolerate, ordered others refrain from doing that which they are doing, and the demagogues who point a finger at another while three point back… once discovered, were permanently discredited. No one would take a hypocrite any more seriously than they would a hamster, gold fish or snake. Today the elite have manufactured a paradigm shift, in that hypocrisy is not only acceptable, it’s to be lauded, as the ability to hold two distinctly opposing ideas and consider them equally valid. I have to wonder what’s the goal of showing children adult men’s rear ends? It must be pretty important for someone to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, in the legal system, to insure it happens. Most regular people don’t have the extra money, especially today, to donate to political law. Apparently someone does. I don’t know who, but the legal costs must be astronomical. Those top legal firms don’t give their time away. An attorney you or I might get could cost 200 to 500 an hour. Those top firms make that look like chump change. So, the people pushing through the legal system, the right for adult men with deep psychological trauma, so profound they’re confused as to their sex, can display themselves dressed up as prostitutes, to children. Kind of like normalizing pedophilia? Even more money, measured in today’s worthless dollars, has been spent to keep the holy Bible from children’s eyes. The threat of seeing moral stories is so great that hundreds of millions of dollars has been spent, and continue to be spent, to insure no child need see or hear the story of Moses, Jesus or heaven forbid, a saint… like the story of the real Saint Nicholas. Such examples are for adult eyes only and only those adult eyes that were perverted by them in their early years. Ideas like the Golden Rule are acid in the face of a hypocrite. The Golden Rule is the opposite of hypocrisy. A hypocrite can’t follow the golden rule, and someone who follows the golden rule, can’t be a hypocrite. The one makes the other impossible. Apparently, the people spending the money in the legal system, want hypocrites. Men with deep psychological issues don’t have the wealth to pay a lawyer 200 an hour, let alone buy the top legal firms in the nation… to drive their perversions through the legal system. Welfare recipients, people on SSDI, and those addicted to fentanyl, generally aren’t in the top 50% of the wealth bracket. Someone, or group, in the top 1% of wealth must be the ones paying for the legal panzer division. Rich pedophiles pushing hypocrisy as a virtue. No wonder they’re so afraid of the Holy Bible. Anything that teaches the Golden Rule undermines everything they stand for. Perhaps spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the legal system, to stop the spread of biblical morality, and normalize pedophilia, is worth more than that money could otherwise buy… to rich pedophiles. Sincerely, John Pepin
During the night of Jesus’ arrest, before Judas the betrayer had
arrived with the mob, Luke includes a detail about the time Jesus was
praying that the gospel writers do not include. This prompts me to
wonder if not all the disciples slept during the first part of that
night. Luke tells us that while Jesus was praying, “An angel from
heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. In great anguish he prayed
even more fervently; his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the
ground.” (Luke 22:43-44 GNT) Tradition says that Jesus experienced a condition in this event known
as “hematidrosis” which is where blood mixes with one’s sweat when
under extreme stress. This is very possibly what happened, but when I
compared a number of translations, they all said that Jesus’ sweat was
“like” drops of blood. Maybe this was because the sweat looked red from
experiencing hematidrosis, or perhaps it was simply sweat that was
pouring and dripping off of His face like blood running out of an open
wound. But Luke’s record of this medical condition is not the main reason
why his description stands out to me. It is the presence of an angel. There are only two times I can think of in Jesus’ ministry where an
angel appears to strengthen Him. The first is following Jesus’ time in
the wilderness when He was tempted, and the second time is this one
recorded in Luke’s gospel. Both times Jesus has faced a pretty intense
trial, and it is likely that both of these events faced some pretty
intense moments of temptation. I wonder if, like the angel came at the close of Jesus’ temptations
in the wilderness, the angel came at the close of Jesus’ prayer before
the last time He went to wake the disciples up. I wonder if the angel
brought a last word of encouragement from God reminding Him of the
reason He came. Perhaps many of those living in the first century
wouldn’t be saved, but the angel may have reminded Him of the millions
of people before and after the cross that Jesus would be giving His life
for. What if the angel reminded Jesus of your name while He was in the garden? Jesus faced extreme anguish in the garden – probably even
more stress and pain than the torture and the cross. The war in the
garden was a war of the will, and once Jesus submitted to the plan of
salvation they had put in place at the beginning of time, the angel came
to remind, validate, and encourage Jesus of all those His life would be
saving. This post first appeared on ReflectiveBibleStudy.comWhat do you think? Do you agree/disagree? Leave your thoughts below.
Legitimate Government Posted on December 1, 2023 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, there are several ways to discern if a state is legitimate or not. The first and primary is, does the state work for the benefit of the entire population, or a segment of it? The second is, does the state have the actual consent of the governed? The third is, do the elite follow the dictates of the Constitution to the letter? Finally, is the state or any of its elites above its own law? If any of these questions are answered incorrectly, that state is illegitimate. A government that violates any of these dictums is effectively a criminal state. The people have an obligation to overthrow a criminal state in favor of a state that will follow all of these legitimizing orders. The problem is, almost all governments violate several of these requirements, if not all, an are effectively police states today. Since the time of Aristotle, the idea that the legitimacy of a state, rested on its ruling for the benefit of all the people. In his Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle broke “right” forms of government from “wrong” forms of government. A right government, such as monarchy, aristocracy or polity, contrasted to wrong forms of government, like tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. The distinction being, the right forms rule for the benefit of everyone, while the wrong forms rule for the benefit of the rulers. Simply put, a government that rules for the benefit of a segment of the population, and not the whole of the people, is a criminal enterprise. It’s a swindle. Thrasymachus said, the people are marks, and it looks like he was right. Moreover, those that rule in such a way are hypocrites. Democracy is often confused with polity. They seem to have the same meaning. The distinction however is important. In democracy, everyone votes for their own narrow self interest. While in polity, people vote for the best interests of the whole of the nation. Someone smarter than me once said, democracy will work until the people realize they can vote themselves largess from the treasury, then it can’t but fail. That phrase highlights the difference between polity and democracy. That’s why the US founding fathers set up a republic. To balance the forces of democracy, oligarchy and tyranny, so that the state wouldn’t become a wrong form, while maintaining the consent of the governed. With mail in voting, consent can be conjured up, as a phantasm, demon or a narrative. An elite that can’t follow its own constitution is an elite that’s too criminal to run register, let alone run a nation… or the world. People arrogant, self righteous and utterly lacking self awareness, are the dross that rises to the top of any political institution. They’re the same people who sentence a youth to prison for a DUI, and have to be put to bed by the police every night, because they’re driving around hammered. Like dozens of judges, senators and other elites across our great nations. A state run by criminals incapable of following a constitution’s limitations, let alone those who can’t even follow their own laws, hypocrites of the highest order, will create oligarchies, that will devolve to tyranny sooner or later. A state in violation of its constitution is illegitimate by definition. Power attracts scum like a magnet does iron filings. Every capital city across the planet buzzes with shoo flies. Parasites seeking to exploit the power of the state to their personal ends. Bending the state to a wrong form. People who are more inclined to work for their largess, aren’t attracted to power, but opportunity. In capital cities, the only opportunity is to suck up to power. That’s why nearly every state is illegitimate today. Almost none if any serve the people, few have the actual consent of the governed, I don’t know of a government today that follows its constitution, while the elite are everywhere above their own laws. Which means hen’s teeth are more common than legitimate governments. By this measure, perhaps Iceland, Singapore or Andorra are legitimate? Maybe… but probably not. Sincerely, John Pepin
“Both Sides” Argument in the Israel-Hamas War | Something For Everybody 208
Solo episode of Something For Everybody. I discuss and breakdown “both sides” arguments in the Israel-Hamas war and DEI. -Sponsors: AMARE GLOBAL: The Mental ...
www.youtube.com
The Hidden Force Posted on December 3, 2023 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, human beings are social, and social interactions are political, therefore political favor effects all human interactions. Political favor is the privilege that people give to a person, group or organization. It can be derived from popularity, power or position. Political favor exists not only in elections, but in bureaucracies, corporations and courts. Once you realize everything the state does, including the passing and enforcing of law, depends on political favor, everything government does, snaps into focus. That’s why gathering political favor is the primary job of a politician, a lawyer without political favor can’t win cases, and why a corporation is better off spending profits on lobbying than innovation. Political favor is the hidden force behind all human interaction. One of the reasons we use lawyers is to lease their political favor for our benefit in court. A poor person has no political favor, and a poor person with a state provided attorney has no political favor in their lawyer either, so they are guaranteed to be found guilty. A defendant who the citizenry hates, has negative political favor and so can’t get a fair trial, bench or by jury… no matter the political favor of their lawyer. A defendants negative political favor can diminish their attorney’s political favor. In all cases, even where the law is clear, political favor always trumps law in court. That’s the reason we have the saying, “Railroaded…” Because the railroads had so much political favor in the nineteenth century, they couldn’t lose in court, no matter how absurd the ruling. We see it today in a myriad of cases. Political favor affects your work environment. Hard work is one way to garner political favor, another is to suck up to the boss. Hard work alone however, even of top quality isn’t enough, if your coworkers undermine you. Like a barrel of monkeys, the one trying to climb out will get pulled back in, by the others. Meanwhile, the worthless monkey is helped out, because he or she is liked. Buying and selling is effected by one’s political favor. Remember the Seinfeld episode about the “John Voight car?” It was all about the political favor, that rubbed off on the car, because it had been owned by someone with political favor. Which means, theoretically, that John Voight would have received more money for the same car… than you or I. Because of his popularity derived political favor. Government is where political favor really shines. A politician or bureaucrat with political favor can perjure themselves before congress, all day long, and the DOJ wouldn’t consider bringing charges. The definition of riot depends, not on the actions of the participants, but the political favor of the group they belong to. The politically favored even get better treatment from the bureaucracy. Do you think any bureaucrat would deny Barak Obama a permit to build a cabana on his property? You or I, on the other hand, might have to jump through a few hoops, pay a fine, and even then, just not get the permit. Because it requires a variance, and a variance can only be granted by the variance board, that only meets once a quarter, and they just met. Political favor effects every aspect of life because politics comes into play in every aspect of life. We’re social animals, so society is based on politics, and lubricated by courtesy. Therefore, affected by political favor. Socrates was executed, not for any crime, but due to a lack of political favor. I don’t like it, but you have to admit reality, even if it isn’t to your liking. Now that we’ve loosely defined political favor, how will we react? Gather all the political favor we can, like the elite, and use it to get away with molesting kids? Maybe we could try to change mankind’s nature, like Marxists, to suit our preference? Perhaps instead, we could add the knowledge to our understanding, then apply it when viewing events. To better understand, and put them in context, so we can act in our own self interest. Sincerely, John Pepin
The Slut Life Posted on December 6, 2023 by john Dear Comrades, You’re ordered to believe, the slut life is the best life for a woman, other than, obviously, having her precious little uterus ripped out, and adopting the persona of a boy. Motherhood and tending a home is the worst possible outcome for a girl. The joy and fulfillment of raising a family and watching one’s children grow up, being an integral part of nature in the most intimate way, is to be shunned. Hopelessness, sterility and loneliness are to be balanced with sex with strangers, wealth, and diversions of all kinds. If those fail, encourage suicide. Canada has the right attitude. They kill teenagers for having teenage angst. Very progressive! You’re further ordered to believe, mankind is a blight on the planet. Especially western civilization. Remember, racism is bad, so hate white people. Little girls are to be instructed in the ways of being a sexual plaything as early as possible. This will put the notion of the fun slut life in their impressionable heads early. Get their hormones to do their thinking for them and half the job’s done. Once they have been with half the school, their options for matrimony diminish. Then we can manipulate them into being angry, at the all men and maleness, as the source of their loneliness. If we play our cards right, we can scoop a large percentage off as lesbians, taking away almost any possibility of having offspring. Those that become regular sluts can use abortion as birth control. That serves two purposes. It lowers people’s respect for human life and feeds Moloch at the same time. A win win. Blurring the line between boys and girls, is a way of helping children understand they’re less then human, and even less then animals, since beasts know what sex they are. Mental illness is to be encouraged at every turn. There are a ton of kids that experience teenage angst, and that can be used against them. Everyone wants to become part of nature, it’s our job to make that impossible, and make it look like they did it to themselves. Let’s close the doors and make suicide the only way out. Our bootlicks in the field of psychology have done yeoman’s work in getting mental illness reclassified. Confusion of sex, gender and persona was a genius move. Now we have to exploit those tools to destroy ever more lives. The planet deserves no less from us. Motherhood, family life and connecting with nature on the most intimate level is to be attacked. Use a little girl’s own mother as an example of how bad motherhood is. Highlight the negatives while ignoring the positives. If someone brings up a positive, attack the person, not the idea. Lay into them so vehemently, no one else will dare speak up about how being a mother, having kids and raising a family, makes a person part of something greater than any mere human paradigm. Allowing girls to realize being part of the circle of life, is dangerous, to us. The first two strategies are doomed to failure if girls are allowed to understand this basic truth of life. So vilify mothers, parents and families as oppressive, patriarchal and limiting. Make kids hate being in a family and they won’t want to start one. By destroying the nuclear family, we’re reducing mankind’s footprint on the planet, and thus serving a greater goal, speciescide. With the rest of you gone, the few of us left, the privileged, can remember the philosophy, science and look at the art, so in some small way, the rest of you will live… in our memory. The planet will thank you, as will all the other planets we won’t be visiting, let alone colonizing and turning into capitalist jungles. We post modernist elites are the acme of mankind’s evolution. There can be nothing beyond us. Once the rest of you ball and chains, with your ethics and self interest, are taken away, we can become gods! Then all the suffering we’ve inflicted on humanity, not spreading life to other planets, and the loss of future generations… will have been worth it. Hail the slut life! Sarcastically, Commandant John
When reading the different gospel writers, and how each describes
Jesus’ parable about the farmer scattering seed, something Luke says in
this event stands out in my mind because it is unique. This thing is
actually one of the few differences in these three records of this
parable. The unique statement Jesus shares comes at the close of Jesus’
explanation of what the parable means. When describing the good soil,
Luke tells us Jesus says, “But the seed on good soil stands for
those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by
persevering produce a crop.” (Luke 8:15 NIV) Mark concludes Jesus’ words about this group by saying, “Others,
like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a
crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.” (Mark 4:20 NIV) Matthew concludes Jesus’ description about this group by saying, “But
the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and
understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred,
sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23 NIV) Each gospel writer that includes this parable has a different angle
on the person who is like the seed falling on good soil. Mark’s people
hear the word then accept it before ultimately producing a crop. Matthew’s people hear the word then understand it before producing their crops. These two gospel writers draw out two key ideas that are both
necessary. Knowledge must be accepted and understood before it can have
the greatest impact in someone’s life. Looking at only Matthew and Mark
might make us think that only accepting and understanding are needed to
exponentially multiply what God has blessed us with. But if we only take
these two gospel writers, we miss out on the crucial pieces of
information that Luke describes. Luke draws our attention to these people hearing the word, retaining it, and then persevering to produce a crop. Information must be accepted and understood, but it also needs to be remembered and applied to really make a difference. Luke might not be popular in this regard, but he may be the most honest: Growing a crop takes time, energy, and effort – and it only happens through perseverance. But Luke also shares another characteristic of this group of people. Luke describes this group as “those with a noble and good heart.” (Luke 8:15 NIV) Luke’s description of the people who have God’s word in their
hearts is a challenge for Christians everywhere. These people have a
noble and good heart, they remember the gospel message, and they
persevere until the end. It is the people Luke describes who have the
greatest impact on God’s kingdom. This post first appeared on ReflectiveBibleStudy.comWhat do you think? Do you agree/disagree? Leave your thoughts below.
‘ . . . virtually all psychiatric disorders are to some extent artifacts of the time and place in which they occur.’‘When we suffer from underlying psychosocial vulnerabilities . . . our unconscious looks to culturally sanctioned garb in which to clothe our distress.’ Lucy Marchiano’s essay is Chapter Three of Inventing Transgender Children and Young People. It is already clear that a number of ‘book reviews’ of this book will serve us well.* Marchiano’s essay makes fine sense. She begins with details of two historical ‘fads of mental illness’: the hysteria of the 1800’s, and the anorexia of the 1970’s. She then suggests that ‘I’m in the wrong body’ is just such a fad. However, she also mentions ‘the dangers of well-intentioned attention to these kinds of contagions’ (because it makes them worse). Now let’s make an ugly suggestion: there are two imbalances. The first lies with political cadre with a history of being ruthlessly not-well-intentioned. Twenty years ago, they were desperate to regain political traction after the failure of class politics. Are such activists likely to see the problems of our era as complex? Or would they seek a single cause that boosts their cause? The second imbalance is the trans craze that these activists have brought into being – the one that Marchiano sees. Both common sense and the tending-to-reductionism history of the left suggest that Marchiano is right.Common sense suggests that what we are seeing is not a vast ebullition of cis hatred towards non-cis folks. Thus, two imbalances co-functioning. It’s a krazee-go-round. PS Kudos to Abigail Shrier, whose book Irreversible Damage has both great statistics and an insight into why teenage girls are particularly susceptible to being railroaded. *The chapter on how activists influenced the U.K. National Health Service into accepting all-politics-no-science gender theory is a lesson in how hopeless Gubmints have become. We’ll Post on this shortly.
A recent advertisement by the AM/ NS India initiative has been lingering in my head for too long and I feel compelled to pen down my thoughts on it. To give a brief introduction: ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel, two global giants in the steel industry, joined forces to establish a formidable partnership known as AM/NS India. This collaboration brings together the expertise and resources of ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steel producer, and Nippon Steel, a renowned Japanese steel manufacturer. AM/NS India represents a strategic alliance aimed at leveraging the strengths of both companies to create a powerful and competitive force in the Indian steel market. As mentioned in the ‘About Us’ page on their website, this collaboration signifies a shared vision to contribute to the dynamic growth of an “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” (Self-reliant India). The ad is a beautiful portrayal of the vision behind the initiative, and encapsulates perfectly the essence of economic growth and progress. The message is profound: it captures the aspirations of a nation striving for self-reliance. The ad alternates between visuals of happy school-children (symbolic of the future) and workers across different sectors (construction, infrastructure, defence, agriculture, energy) making painstaking individual contributions towards a collective effort. (You can watch the full ad here.) It makes you think: every day, thousands of construction workers, truck drivers, freight handlers, engineers, power line technicians, etc. put aside the individual complexities of their life - financial worries, health problems, the vagaries of moods and idiosyncrasies - to work towards an agreed-upon goal in conditions of rain, storms, snow and scorching heat, so that everything everywhere works with near perfection. It is the hard work and integrity of these people who make our lives predictable, so we keep our anxieties at bay and have our groundhog day. Each day, the typical urban Indian rises from slumber, strolls with drowsy eyes to a nearby store at 7 a.m., effortlessly procures a readily available carton of milk, brews morning tea on a gas stove fueled by a reliable gas cylinder, charges their cell phone through an electric socket (as long as they remember to flip the switch), and boards a punctual metro that consistently arrives on time for the daily commute to work. He remains unconcerned about the availability of milk, the value of the 100-rupee note in his pocket in present times, the punctuality of the metro, or the potential collapse of his office building while he is inside. Another thought that crossed my mind - what does a B2B venture like AM/ NS India stand to gain by producing a public advertisement? Why go through all the trouble to make an ad targeting people who aren’t even your customers? Aside from the obvious benefits of enhanced brand visibility and the creation of a positive corporate image, there is another advantage for the company through such advertisements. For a B2B company, the public serves not as customers but as potential investors. In this scenario, public advertising becomes equally, if not more, crucial. Unlike B2C enterprises, where the average consumer directly purchases the product and has greater familiarity with it, for ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel, public advertising becomes instrumental in conveying the company's mission to a broader audience, influencing potential investors who invest not in a tangible product but in the overarching goals and principles of the company. The key message of the ad - “Banaunga Main, Banega Bharat”, that roughly translates to “I build, India thrives” - resonates deeply with the average Indian citizen, positioning him as a direct stakeholder in the nation’s development rather than a passive beneficiary of a nation developed by a government. By emphasising the importance of individual initiative and entrepreneurship, it not only aligns personal ambition with the broader narrative of the country’s development, but also inspires a sense of belonging and responsibility to work collectively towards a shared dream. It goes beyond a mere business strategy to become a call to action. Simply put, it portrays capitalism at its best.
The word, both written and spoken, is the means by which we give shape to formless potential, a way to breathe spirit into the lifeless; indeed, a means to de-obscurize (to coin a terrible term) the world. Historians have chronicled our journey in words. Political leaders and rulers have used the power of words and rhetoric to mobilise entire nations. Both trade and peace have been negotiated by diplomats through words. Lawmakers have contained in their wordy laws the proper way to live in a society. Priests have done their preaching, in large part, using words. And of course, most obviously, great authors have brought about revolutions, elevated mindsets, all by means of the humble(?) word. On a more individual level, each human being thinks in words, reflects upon one’s experiences and understands them better when he puts them into words. To put something into words is to specify, to give a name to things. Without this christening of the problem (as I like to call it), how do we conceptualise a solution for it? However, are there perhaps some instances where we use it precisely to the opposite end? Namely, to obfuscate the world further? There is no end to articulation, it sometimes seems to me. You sit down to speculate and explain to yourself exactly why or how something happened, and my experience has been that you will find an answer if you grapple with the question long enough. If you are habitual at this, you may even find more than one answer to the question. But is it enough? Are there not endless interpretations? Would it do to contemplate one’s life away and forget to act and live? And since articulation is evidently a self-preserving habit, how would one draw the line at which it becomes counter-productive? I do not have satisfactory answers to these questions yet. But something does gnaw at me on rare occasions when I have been contemplating. It is a sudden impulse to stop. Such occasions are few and far between, but they want their due. We must not forget, we are children of the Information Age. We have at our fingertips as much information on any topic we want. We are more aware, more informed (at least as far as facts go) than any generation that ever lived. We almost revel in this superiority from time to time. Google can pretty much answer every question that pops up in our mind, ranging from reasonably important - How to calculate my credit score? - to ridiculously irrelevant - Why does Mickey Mouse wear gloves?. Go through your Google search history, if you don’t believe me. Our generation is the first to live with this privilege. Not long before, one would have to pore through volumes of books to get one’s answers, or humble oneself to ask an expert, should one be lucky enough to find one. But are we equipped to live with unanswered questions? With a certain good-natured ignorance? Or even with uncertainty? Can we ever snap out of the Q&A mode even for a day or so? We question everything and everyone incessantly, and when anyone questions us, we are superb lawyers in our defence. For every solution, we come up with new problems. For every problem, we have our arguments lined up. In the end, it is not so much about truth versus untruth, fact versus fiction, information versus ignorance. Instead, it is a battle of narratives. When I was growing up, if your mother scolded you for keeping your room messy, you didn’t think much. Perhaps you sulked internally, but you cleaned it. You didn’t come up with reasons to legitimise the problem. That is not to say that reasons (even justified ones) do not exist, but simply that the reasons did not absolve one of the responsibility of solving the problem. If your annoying relatives mocked you for being unemployed at the age of 25, you didn’t come up with reasons why you are justified or why you were unlucky in life, or on the receiving end of a layoff or some such tragedy. You felt uncomfortable with their judgement, and you didn’t defeat it with your superior intellect. You solved the problem. Why? Because you can either devise a narrative that absolves you of the responsibility using wit and words, a narrative that justifies any and everything, a narrative that has the strongest arguments for whatever it is that you are doing OR you can simply try to not stave off the temporary discomfort that comes with being called out or judged or scolded for a mistake and solve the damn problem. The cost? A little less contemplation, a little less narrative building/ articulation, and a little more bias for action. The reward? You end up with a cleaner room, and a job at 25. “Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground.
‘A 2017 study revealed that boys who behaved in ways more typical of the opposite sex were eight times more likely to identify as homosexual at age 15 than those whose behavior was more typical of their sex.’ The notion that trans theory is homophobic has been mentioned repeatedly, but Chapter Thirteen of Inventing Transgender Children nails it. Fantastically, the trans industry operates on old-fashioned stereotypes like ‘male=rough and tumble’ and ‘female=dolly tea party.’ Consequently, girls who are ‘tomboys,’ for example, are not being allowed to grow up to be happy tax-paying butch lesbians, but are being railroaded into thinking that they are ‘really’ boys: trans boys. Now let’s cut to the chase: in ever more desperate attempts to take over the world, the political left has in recent decades thrown so many groups of long-term supporters under the bus that claims that ‘the political left’ no longer even exists are quite valid. One: the left has uncritically supported – indeed cosseted -- Islam, a sexist and homophobic political ideology. Two: the left has formed alliances with its former nemesis, capitalism. Three: the left has demonized working-class White people. Four: the left ridicules the massive number of women who don’t want people-with-penises in their women-only sanctuaries. Five: the left is – we need to strengthen our understanding of this – ‘erasing’ homosexuals. Wow!
The traditional values -- industry, integrity, independence, duty, bravery, resilience, sincerity -- have been dethroned, because these values make us different, and consequently, unequal, to the others who do not strive in their pursuit. They aim to create developed individuals.The modern values -- compassion, equality, open-mindedness, tolerance, freedom, and above all, humility -- have taken their place. They aim to create better societies.But it is the continual negotiation between these traditional and modern values that maintains the equilibrium of the microcosm and macrocosm, which now, is skewed.We live in times where self-negation and deprecation are clad in virtuous robes. Preaching humility is one thing. One must show gratitude to one’s roots, to the hands that feed us, to our caretakers in the home and in the society, to the law, to luck, and above all to God. It is good to recognise the privileges (I hate that word) that one may have been born with. It is good to attribute some of your success to your family, teachers, friends and other social systems.But that is not where it stops. The individual is taught shame in the name of humility: “Never be proud of your qualities. Never take credit for your achievements. Your wealth is always theft, your victory is the outcome of systemic prejudice, and your personal overcomings are never your own triumphs.”What is being preached is celebration of failure and the shame of success.A group of twenty-somethings passing around beers, chatting and guffawing over what? Their failures - at academics, at work, at marriage. Each has a story of their own personal failure to tell, and it is this failure that binds them together. This is how they bond. This is what they celebrate.No one can look at success for long without squinting, be it professional or personal. One is envious of the success of others, and quick to point out two or three privileges that said person had or the asymmetry inherent in the game itself. One is guilty about one’s success too, and hides it like a mark of shame. What of those brave and strong heroes of old, who ventured into the unknown to battle monsters and returned victorious? There was a time when their stories were narrated over the evening campfire. Their stories became the culture we threw away. No one bonds over war stories any more.Why celebrate success when one can sit with one’s chosen bunch of losers and revel in one’s defeatedness? And now, this mass defeatedness attribute is crowned as the virtue of ‘humility’.Success is quickly renounced lest we be better than anyone else. We are all the proud losers of equality. Everyone must be equal, even if everyone stays mediocre. That is the ruling virtue of our times.“No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.” - Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra.
Note: this Post relates to a forthcoming discussion of ‘reproductive futurism.’Readers, we need to acknowledge a weakness of our analysis. sighWe originally defined Lysenkoism in part as ‘the enforcement of bogus science.’ But ‘enforcement’ takes many forms!!For example, a government could order the physical removal from school grounds of a student who refused to wear a mask. Now, that’s the use of state power to enforce a mandate.But what about mandatory attendance to DEI courses? Do you hope to advance your career? Well, then you better say some Woke stuff in that class!What if you can’t send emails on your company’s email system without providing a preferred gender? Forcing folks thus forces them to ‘pseudo-endorse’ an ideology they may vehemently oppose.A notably central aspect of this issue is how social media has come to have so much control over our communication.Okay. That’s enough for this Post. All we need to acknowledge here is that social engineering of unprecedented complexity has become the daily reality of life in western nations.Physical force, fear of surveillance, fear of unemployment, using our children as an ‘ideological back door,’ vituperation, the fallacy of false dichotomy/'virtue-cloaking,' withholding of social privileges, provision of rewards, incremental shifts in definitions, the simple human desire to belong to in-groups, advocacy journalism, the undue influence of political zealots on government processes, left-wing AI chatbots – feel free to add to the list!
The flame of creativity flickers dangerously. Prometheus’ punishment, was it all in vain? This is the information age. Information, information, everywhere. Constantly assaulting your senses. Information is mainstream. Access to information has never been higher. But it is not the same as access to knowledge. A lot of this information is actually anti-knowledge. The advent of the search engine led to an explosion of information available to the everyman. As did social media. A hundred extraneous details about the lives of people you know far too little, and like even less, are now buzzing around in your head, even if you do not want them. Irrelevant trivia about the number of goals scored by a certain athlete in a 1972 game, or the affair between a prominent celebrity and his stepdaughter. The random useless things you end up google searching on your everyday train of thought. Just because you can, you know? So much so, it’s become impossible to shut out. Art is fading away. Where is it left? In the galleries, where the more incomprehensible a painting, the more artistic it’s considered to be? In the theatre, where the greater the degree of depravity, the more critically acclaimed the work? In your head, with the endless buzzing of ideologies and extracts of pointless conversations and the most mind-numbing data about everything under the sun? Even in the streets, they will pull down the statues of our heroes soon. As soon as the people finish urinating on them in the name of freedom. The boundaries between beautiful and depraved merged until they meant the same thing. Symmetry used to be beautiful. Realism used to be beautiful. Method used to be beautiful. But that beauty is cliché as per modern definitions. Stream of consciousness. Excessive sentimentality. Exaggerated tragedy. Bleakness with edges blackened further in order to be recognisable. Deconstructionism. These are the new parameters. The only parameters. “Art doesn’t have to mean something. Art doesn’t have to be beautiful. Art doesn’t have to be understood. Art doesn’t have to have a point.” But doesn’t it, though? Some artists are eccentric. Maybe even all. But all eccentrics are certainly not artists. How do you think creatively when your university has been stripped of its arches and gargoyles? How do you write a romantic novel in an over-sexualised world where love is ridden off as a naive distraction? How do you write poetry when you hear profanities screamed all day long? When did we become so rich and poor at the same time? Will our children inherit this poverty? What a victory! Possibly, too many are unconcerned, even unaffected by this. Can these “stoics” carry on the legacy of human creativity? They see, and they do not flinch.
“metaphors for living outside of respectable society” [Day off, too much coffee and Patti Smith’s Easter album] Lyrics of Babelogue:
outside of society “I would measure the success of a night by the way, by
the way I . . . By the amount of piss and seed I could exude In, in, in, in, in heart, I am a Muslim, in heart, I
am an American I have no guilt With the way my hair was cropped a sleepy Comanche lies beneath this netting of skin” While you listen to Patti shouting the n-word, you can
check out her sexy armpit hair on the album cover. This is what ‘being outside
of society’ looked like in 1978. Really, Patti? 'cropped hair'? That’s the best you can do? Not gonna
have your breasts removed? Take Imodium and amphetamines, and let drug-addled penis-women
serially sodomize you? You’re still a woman? Got just one gender? Sooo passe! You could be Jeffrey Marsh? Here’s Jeffrey -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjhGn6VcTiY
Check at 1:15. You could sing, ‘I’m a creepy man/Got a tampon deal/Wear
a yellow dress/If you don’t have a family that loves you/I will be your family
[on Youtube -- you can’t come around to my actual house!]’ What about penile preservation vaginoplasty, Patti?
You know, when you have a neo-vagina installed behind your scrotum? Get
with it, Patti! ‘I’m a Comanche with my knees open/ Got a vagina behind my ball bag/ We people have the power/ Kill any women who disagree with you/ Burn down the cop shop with the cops inside/ Fiery but peaceful protest/ Genital tourism for kiddies/ I love the enforced orthodoxy of the UK biosecurity
state to which every politician, institution and public figure must pay homage
and exhibit dogmatic obedience/’ How about Joy Reid: “Vaccine disinformation is
spreading among kids . . . especially on social media” – but cross out ‘vaccine,’
and write in ‘transgender’? ‘Transgender disinformation is spreading among kids .
. . especially on social media/ N-word, n-word/ Got a tampon deal/ Got a vagina behind my ball bag/ I'm a kitchen chair/ Confirm my chair-ness, you f*ckin' Nazis/ Breasts and uterus removed all in the one day/ Back at work within the week/’
Do you have a ‘job’?
I have a ‘job’. Basically, the ‘job’ is series of
requirements. I show up on time (these days it’s more like login
on-time). I open all my applications like email, Teams, and our
ticket queues. Sometimes I have to reboot my laptop due to all of the
new software that was loaded while I simulated sleep the night
before. Many times, I have to reboot just to reset things. It’s
software you know. That takes time. Then, I read my emails; follow up
on the Teams chat I missed and start looking into the queue for some
emergency issues. Otherwise, I play catch up. That takes time.
Sometimes I just stare at the screen. It looks like I’m working.
Then I space out for about 15 minutes. Oh wait. That’s ‘Office
Space’. Lol But I think you get the picture. That’s the mundane
stuff. The work I love to do is dig into the performance data and
look for patterns, trouble spots, changes and the lot. One of my
strengths is that I can see things that don’t belong. I’m pretty
good at it. I’m better at it with a clear mind. I see patterns that
most people simply do not see. My brain is just built that way. One
time, years ago, while driving I saw a dollar bill fluttering in the
wind. It was at least 1/3 of a mile ahead on a straightaway. I told
my wife, who was with me, that I saw a dollar bill. She was
perplexed. I pulled over and picked it up. My wife was shocked that I
saw it that far back. Anyway, I see what most don’t. The pattern I
recognized and why I’m writing this article is that I realized I
was getting paid for my opinion. Yup. That’s right. My opinion.
See, I figured out that the part of the brain that solves problems is
the same that forms opinions. When I’m digging
through data, I see the emergence of many patterns. Many cascade
within each other. Sometimes like the idea of what came first, the
chicken or the egg. In the world of web-based applications, there
usually is no directed-flow. It’s a series of events. In this case,
a series of click this and click that. You can generally move
multi-directionally in an application. But in the performance data,
you see metrics that show you the response time of a call or the
latency of a database query. I won’t get into the details of what I
do with this since it’s the not context I’m discussing. But
rather, while I’m looking into the why something happens, I’m
forming an opinion. Being right → left brained, I actually create a
story of what I think is happening. It’s no different than you
describing an event you saw on TV (the flat panel or a video). You
invariably, build a story line. It’s an opinion, it is what I think
is happening. At work, I get paid
for creating this story. That’s what they pay me for. (yes, I ended
in a preposition). And then I thought, why am I not getting paid for
my opinions outside of work? Maybe, someone can pay me for this
article. I suppose I can write a book over the subject, but that will
take too long. Besides, books are antiquated. Even though I like
books and I have many, reading takes a lot of time. In this world of
technology, the speed of information traversal is critical. Once you
receive information, the speed in understanding it, is another
variable. Like I said, I’m right → left brained. Again, I create
a story with this data. One of the things I
thought about very deeply is the question “should I say something?”
Do I want to tell somebody what I think and have it wasted or
discarded? Nice thing about the internet, is that my audience is
anyone willing to read this. I figure, my ‘opinion’ is in goods
hands and readily available. So as I wrote this,
another ‘opinion’ is emerging, in question form. Should I even
reveal this idea, opinion? Will I get paid for it?
MAKING YOUR HOME A HAPPLY PLACE Romans 14:9 INTRODUCTION: 1. Family being attacked. Discover God’s plan, principles, and promises. 2. If you have failed it doesn’t mean you can’t succeed in the future. We must try. 3. Let us look at some guiding truths. I need the message on 7 things you can do to build up your mate. (BE A BUILDER UPPER!) 4. ILL>Sheep herder in Wyoming observing behavior of wild animals during the winter. How horses respond- ed from attack from pack of wolves and how donkeys responded. 5. We have a choice. Anybody can tear down. It is absolutely stupid to tear, claw, and gnaw at your mate. *Many are catching attitudes from TV. *Takes no brains, no self-control, no learning from mistakes *Degrading character assassinations *We need to be participators in the Mutual Admiration Society...I Thess. 5:11, Edify means to build each other 6. There is no one who cannot, with Christ’s help, become a builder-upper instead of a downer. I. EDIFY TREATMENT...Rom. 14:9 A. Regret...Eph. 4:29 (Verbal Abuse) B. Rehearse...I John 3:18 (Listen to yourself-how you talk to your mate) C. Respect...(Disagree yes, but Disrespect no) D. Refuse...Rom. 14:13; Gal. 6:1 (To blame or criticize your mate. Overcome evil with good...Rom. 12:21) ----------------------------------- II. EXTEND TREATMENT...I Cor. 13:4-5 A. Rule...(#1 for getting along with anyone is treat with courtesy) 1. Good for preparation for marriage and strong preservative of marriage 2. ILL>John and wife talking with Jane, a beautiful 28 year old single woman. Jane drops something. Immediately John reaches down and picks it up for her. Later, wife drops baby’s diaper bag, and he didn’t even attempt to pick it up. B. Remember...Courtesy costs so little and means so much that you can’t afford to be without it. 1. Honor wife as weaker vessel. 2. Prayers could be hindered...I Pet. 3:7 3. Little things - “Hearts, like doors, will open with ease to very, very little keys; and don’t forget that two of these are ‘I thank you’ and ‘If you please.” ----------------------------------- III. EXCHANGE TREATMENT...Luke 6:31 (Golden Rule Treatment) A. Point...Every person has feelings. Each has worth and value. B. Problem...Easy to take advantage of those closest to us. Take our frustrations out on them or take them for granted. C. Practice...Mutual admiration society, Consideration --------------------------------- IV. EXPRESS TREATMENT...Phil. 2:3 A. The Amazement...One word of praise can kindle new warmth. It’s amazing what praising can do! B. The Awareness...Praise may be the only pay check a wife gets. How would you like to work and not get a paycheck? When was the last time you verbally praised someone in the family for a job well done? ----------------------- V. EXTRACT TREATMENT...I Pet. 3:1-12 A. Wives bring out the best in your husband by OBEYING HIM. B. Husbands bring out the best in wife by HONORING HER. Have compassion. Don’t whittle your mate down. ---------------------------- VI. ENFORCE TREATMENT...Luke 11:17 A. The Confusion...Division 1. Never allow anyone to come between 2. Never allow anything to come between. ***House divided against itself will fall. B. The Choice...Stick together like glue... “cleave.” ------------------------------- VII. ENDURE TREATMENT...I Cor. 13:7 A. We all make mistakes. 1. Every man has his good points and bad points. 2. Every woman has her good points and bad points. 3. Center on other person’s faults and you are going to be miserable. ILL>Young mother left her small child unattended while she was doing the laundry in basement. Child found some adult medicine, drank it all, and was DOA. Mother sat stunned and stricken waiting for husband to come. What would he say? He idolized the child. Took wife in his arms and said, “Darling, I love you.” B. We all can make much ILL>Notes from Nancy to me in annual ------------------------------ CONCLUSION: BE A BUILDER UPPER!!!!! -----------------------------------
Have you ever had an impression of someone, simply from what other
people have said about them, but then found out later that they were not
what you had thought? In some cases, the person you meet came as a high
recommendation from someone you trust, but you find out after meeting
them that they are not as great as you imagined. In other cases, the rumor mill has run wild and someone has a
horrible reputation – whether it is because of their occupation, their
friends, or simply because they are in the spotlight – when in reality,
they are a much better person than their reputation suggests. When I read this story of Zacchaeus, I am presented with two sides of
a coin. On one side, we have the traditional view, which Zacchaeus
being the stereotypical cheat – the reputation that tax collectors had
in those parts of the Roman empire. Looking at Zacchaeus from this view
is easy and it is what people have done for years. On the other side of the coin, I am presented with a different
picture – one that will take a little bit of math to explain. One
morning, as I was reading and studying this passage, this other view
changed how I saw Zacchaeus from that point forward. To begin this shift in thinking, I began with the logical assumption
that Zacchaeus was good at math. As someone who was the head tax
collector in the region, he would have had ample experience crunching
the numbers – whether it was “creatively” doing the math or accurately
doing the math. Next, I looked at Jesus’ positive response, which affirmed Zacchaeus’
response and generosity, and concluded that in Zacchaeus was being
genuine and honest in his promise to give his money away. Jesus would
not have reacted positively if Zacchaeus did not mean what he was
saying, or if the promise was empty. Then, I crunched the numbers of what Zacchaeus promised. First he
starts by allocating half his wealth to go straight to the poor, and
then secondly, he promises to repay anyone he cheated four times the
amount that was cheated. Let’s do the math:We start at 100% and give 50% away to the poor. We now have 50% left. That is the easy part.With the 50% left, Zacchaeus then promises to repay 4x the
amount anyone was cheated by him. Leaving investments and other ways of
growing money aside, we must divide the remaining 50% by 4 which leaves
us with 12.5%. The conclusion is that no greater than 12.5% of Zacchaeus’ money was
gained through cheating – otherwise he would have bankrupted himself in
this request. If Zacchaeus was exaggerating and over-promising in this
declaration, I don’t believe Jesus would have responded positively. If
Zacchaeus was bad at math, he probably wouldn’t have acquired/kept the
money in the first place. So what does this mean? Where was Zacchaeus spiritually before this
encounter – since Jesus’ response implies that salvation was not a part
of Zacchaeus’ life before that night? What I came to realize after doing the math, and analyzing what happened, is that this event is less about the numbers, or even about the generosity, and more about the focus and the heart.
The Zacchaeus event was not recorded as a statement that warrants all
“rich” people must give away their money, or that all “rich” people
obtained their riches dishonestly. The Zacchaeus event was recorded because it amplifies a temptation we all face: Do we place accumulating (i.e. saving) ahead of giving when it comes to our resources? Zacchaeus was an excellent saver and investor, but a horrible giver.
When his heart changed, his focus changed, and salvation came to his
house that very day. When we let Jesus change our heart, and when we change our
focus from what we can get to what we can give, salvation knocks at the
door of our hearts as well. Zacchaeus is a model of where we are before
Jesus and how our lives and focus change after encountering Him as our
Savior. This post first appeared on ReflectiveBibleStudy.comWhat do you think? Do you agree/disagree? Leave your thoughts below.
MAKING YOUR HOME A HAPPLY PLACE Romans 14:9 INTRODUCTION: 1. Family being attacked. Discover God’s plan, principles, and promises. 2. If you have failed it doesn’t mean you can’t succeed in the future. We must try. 3. Let us look at some guiding truths. I need the message on 7 things you can do to build up your mate. (BE A BUILDER UPPER!) 4. ILL>Sheep herder in Wyoming observing behavior of wild animals during the winter. How horses respond- ed from attack from pack of wolves and how donkeys responded. 5. We have a choice. Anybody can tear down. It is absolutely stupid to tear, claw, and gnaw at your mate. *Many are catching attitudes from TV. *Takes no brains, no self-control, no learning from mistakes *Degrading character assassinations *We need to be participators in the Mutual Admiration Society...I Thess. 5:11, Edify means to build each other 6. There is no one who cannot, with Christ’s help, become a builder-upper instead of a downer. I. EDIFY TREATMENT...Rom. 14:9 A. Regret...Eph. 4:29 (Verbal Abuse) B. Rehearse...I John 3:18 (Listen to yourself-how you talk to your mate) C. Respect...(Disagree yes, but Disrespect no) D. Refuse...Rom. 14:13; Gal. 6:1 (To blame or criticize your mate. Overcome evil with good...Rom. 12:21) ----------------------------------- II. EXTEND TREATMENT...I Cor. 13:4-5 A. Rule...(#1 for getting along with anyone is treat with courtesy) 1. Good for preparation for marriage and strong preservative of marriage 2. ILL>John and wife talking with Jane, a beautiful 28 year old single woman. Jane drops something. Immediately John reaches down and picks it up for her. Later, wife drops baby’s diaper bag, and he didn’t even attempt to pick it up. B. Remember...Courtesy costs so little and means so much that you can’t afford to be without it. 1. Honor wife as weaker vessel. 2. Prayers could be hindered...I Pet. 3:7 3. Little things - “Hearts, like doors, will open with ease to very, very little keys; and don’t forget that two of these are ‘I thank you’ and ‘If you please.” ----------------------------------- III. EXCHANGE TREATMENT...Luke 6:31 (Golden Rule Treatment) A. Point...Every person has feelings. Each has worth and value. B. Problem...Easy to take advantage of those closest to us. Take our frustrations out on them or take them for granted. C. Practice...Mutual admiration society, Consideration --------------------------------- IV. EXPRESS TREATMENT...Phil. 2:3 A. The Amazement...One word of praise can kindle new warmth. It’s amazing what praising can do! B. The Awareness...Praise may be the only pay check a wife gets. How would you like to work and not get a paycheck? When was the last time you verbally praised someone in the family for a job well done? ----------------------- V. EXTRACT TREATMENT...I Pet. 3:1-12 A. Wives bring out the best in your husband by OBEYING HIM. B. Husbands bring out the best in wife by HONORING HER. Have compassion. Don’t whittle your mate down. ---------------------------- VI. ENFORCE TREATMENT...Luke 11:17 A. The Confusion...Division 1. Never allow anyone to come between 2. Never allow anything to come between. ***House divided against itself will fall. B. The Choice...Stick together like glue... “cleave.” ------------------------------- VII. ENDURE TREATMENT...I Cor. 13:7 A. We all make mistakes. 1. Every man has his good points and bad points. 2. Every woman has her good points and bad points. 3. Center on other person’s faults and you are going to be miserable. ILL>Young mother left her small child unattended while she was doing the laundry in basement. Child found some adult medicine, drank it all, and was DOA. Mother sat stunned and stricken waiting for husband to come. What would he say? He idolized the child. Took wife in his arms and said, “Darling, I love you.” B. We all can make much ILL>Notes from Nancy to me in annual ------------------------------ CONCLUSION: BE A BUILDER UPPER!!!!! -----------------------------------
Consequences And Limits Posted onNovember 10, 2023 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, when there are no consequences, there are no limits. This applies to all human beings. The baby unlimited with consequences, lives a short, crime ridden life. Just as the politician unlimited with consequences for abuse of authority, corruption and rent seeking, will abuse their authority, be corrupt and rent seek. Given enough time, a lack of consequences would corrupt anyone. Because even the most benevolent of us, given free reign to his or her id, sooner or later, and probably sooner, will become a demon. Since that’s the case, how much more so, psychopaths addicted to power? That’s why I think our world is a latrine fire. The people invested with the most power to do damage, are unlimited, while the weak are crushed under law. Because the elite suffer no consequences for corruption. The child unchecked by discipline will first be a brat, then become an out of control teenager, and finally blossom into a criminal. This pattern has been repeated throughout history, in every culture and by every ethnic group, with the same results. Because at heart, we are all the same. Psychologists call them unsocialized children. They weren’t socialized at the critical point in their lives and so they’re doomed to a miserable life. This is a societal cultural problem and is best addressed with social and cultural solutions. The point is though, a child unchecked with punishments will grow into a criminal adult. This is a well documented fact. It’s due to human nature. People who can get away with anything, will sooner or later, do everything. A saint give free reign to his or her id will soon become a demon. No matter how well controlled someone thinks their id is, the reality is, our ids control us. The subconscious has been described as an elephant, and our conscious selves as the rider. We control it to some extent, but the id does all the real work, and if it gets out of hand, we have no effective control. Now, take away consequences for letting that elephant get out of control, and anyone will let it get out of hand ever more often. Since controlling it takes so much effort. The lazy will give in first but even the strong will capitulate eventually. Look at Kim Jong Un. He was born into a family that could do anything… and he’s grown into a mortal demon. But would he be as despicable, had he been born elsewhere, into a Baptist, Jewish or Mormon family? Then there is the example of Robespierre. He was born into a Christian family and was raised to be a pacifist. He wanted only equanimity between the elite and people… until he came into power. Upon being stymied, and knowing there would be no consequences for his actions, he ordered his political foes beheaded. Becoming the spring of a river of blood. A mortal demon. Until he himself was executed by guillotine. History is nothing but examples of people corrupted by lack of consequences or born into an elite without consequences for their actions. In every example, the consequences to the state, people and society have been devastating. Every great empire, civilization and society has been felled by their own elite, once they become utterly corrupted by a lack of consequences. Today we live in a situation where the elite are above, not only the law, but the constitution’s that were written to reign them in. Why? Because those contracts between the governed and the governors, lack consequences for abuse. With only political consequences, far removed from action, and those don’t apply at all to the bureaucracy… there are effectively no consequences for corruption, abuse of authority or even pedophilia. As the Epstein murder called suicide proves. Without consequences… there are no limits. This is the natural order of things, and will remain the natural order, until we limit our elites with consequences for their actions, and the outcomes of their policies. No document with a binding pinky swear will limit people without consequences for their actions. Only consequences will. Sincerely, John Pepin
The lie is the truth and the truth is the lie-- Isaiah 5:20--24 20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, And prudent in their own sight! 22 Woe to men mighty at drinking wine, Woe to men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink, 23 Who justify the wicked for a bribe, And take away justice from the righteous man! 24 Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble, And the flame consumes the chaff, So their root will be as rottenness, And their blossom will ascend like dust; Because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. John 17:17 17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. Proverbs 6:16--19 16 These six things the Lord hates, Yes, seven are an abomination to Him: 17 A proud look, A lying tongue, Hands that shed innocent blood, 18 A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that are swift in running to evil, 19 A false witness who speaks lies, And one who sows discord among brethren. John 8:32 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:44 44 You are of your father the devil , and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. The Lie and The Truth They say that one day The Lie and The Truth met. The Lie told The Truth: “Good morning, Truth.” And the truth, checking to see if it was really a good day, didn’t see rain clouds. Several birds sang and seeing that it was really a good day, The Truth responded to The Lie: “Good morning, Lie.” “It’s so hot today,” said The Lie. And The Truth saw that The Lie was telling the truth, so he relaxed. The Lie then invited The Truth to bathe in the river. He took off his clothes, jumped in the water and said: “Come on, the water’s delicious.” The Truth believed what The Lie said and without doubting The Lie, The Truth took off his clothes and prepared to jump into the water. The Lie came out of the water and dressed in the clothes of The Truth. The truth, however, refused to dress in the clothes of the lie. Not being ashamed, the truth walked naked down the street. And in the eyes of other people it was easier to accept the lie in the clothes of the truth, than the naked and raw truth. ===================================== ===================================== American are told wear a mask-- then two masks--then one but it must be cloth--then two but the cloth won’t work--then cloth is the best-- Wonder why people don’t trust. the shot--they get two and a booster but yet they still getting it--not as bad but it is very high in the vaccanited group--they were told it would provent them from getting it? we are told gas prices high is due to russia--but we are also told we have more than we need but we can’t get it--leases are out there-- but thay can;'t use them because our goverment won’t let them. so what is the truth? Question is where can we find the truth. Jesus------his word the bible but people are not attending church corporate and groups are lossing members ---over all less and less is giving God any time. we went from sunday morning-- sunday evening--wednesday evening and lots in between--now maybe 2 hours on sunday morning--no sunday night--maybe some on wednesday evening--small groups sometimes in some chueches but all these are losing members that don’t show up. your pew is enpty--your attendence on the internet is empty--what is so important that people can’t give God more that maybe 2 hours per week --remmeber in a 7 day week there is= =168 hours--so what are americans giving their time to and what is your Idiol remember God loves you--the truth is hard and even sometines it hurts. It is better for us to hurt and know the truth--than to end up in the pit of fire. because of the lie that is dressed like the truth. Point--Be very careful what you believe--
Things that won’t get you in Heaven Not of Works “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6 Eph. 2:8, 9 Romans 3:10, 12 The Bible clearly states that there is only one way to go to heaven. That way is by trusting in what Jesus did on the cross to pay for our sins. Good works cannot earn salvation from the punishment of sin. ----------------------------------- Before I was saved, I was convicted of all the sins I had committed. Guilt from my sin was a mighty burden that was getting too difficult to carry. The religion I had been raised in taught me that forgiveness and salvation could be earned. I started wondering, “If the promise of heaven can be gained by good works, have I done enough? How many good deeds do I have to do? Is it 100? 200? 10,000?” ---------------------------------------------- Since that time 28 years ago, my almost daily Bible reading has never shown me a number of good works one must perform to get to heaven. The reason a number is never stated is because good works have nothing to do with getting one to heaven. God’s Word clearly states that the only way to heaven is through what Jesus did for sinners on the cross. He paid the price for our sin. There is nothing we can pay to have our sins pardoned. ------------------------------------- Although many nod their head in agreement to the verses stating that Jesus paid the price for our salvation, most still try to add deeds to be assured of their salvation. Some of the works performed for salvation are: Anointing of the sick Baptism Being good Confirmation Daily Worship Donations Eucharist Fasting Good deeds Keeping the Ten Commandments and other laws Kindness Marriage Obedience to church or religious teachings Penance Pilgrimages Praying to the dead Praying to gods or goddesses Priestly vows Sacrifices, and ... Although some of the deeds may be good things to do to please God after one is saved, they do not earn anyone a place in heaven. None of man’s good works are mentioned in the Bible as ways to heaven. -------------------------------------- It may be natural thinking that if good deeds outweigh the bad deeds, that we will get to heaven. The Bible, God’s only word on the subject, clearly states that salvation is not of good works! Jesus is the only way – plus nothing! ------------------------------- “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephesisans 2:8-9 “ Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:” II Timothy 1:8-10 “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Romans 10:17 (Good works are not included.) =================================================== Ephesians 2:8--9 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:" You can not earn your way to heaven. Just as any gift, to have it, you must reach out and receive it unto yourself. Faith was counted unto Abraham as righteousness. Our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is what gives us our righteousness in God's sight. Jesus put us in right standing with God, when He paid our debt in full with His blood at Calvary. We must say, thank you Jesus for dying for me. That is why we are saved. Jesus is our Saviour. The gift of God, to all mankind who will accept it, is eternal life in Jesus Christ, our Lord. -------------------------------- Ephesians 2:9 "Not of works, lest any man should boast." There is no room for boasting. The only thing we might consider boasting of is the greatness of God and His plan of salvation. Work will not get you to heaven. If we love God, and appreciate what He has done for us, we probably will work for Him, but our work does not save us. It just tells Him we love Him. ======================================================= Romans 3:9 "What then? are we better [than they]? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;" Romans 3:10 "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:" In the 23rd verse of this chapter Paul makes it very clear that all have sinned. Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" Psalms 14:1 "{To the chief Musician, [A Psalm] of David.} The fool hath said in his heart, [There is] no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, [there is] none that doeth good." The Jews could not and did not keep the law and the heathen did not even have a law to keep. All have sinned, but praise God, He sent a Saviour named Jesus Christ. His righteousness is what we must have. Our righteousness is but filthy rags. Romans 3:12 "They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." Even the Jews who had the law were not keeping it. The priests were twisting the law around and carrying their own customs out in the temple rather than carrying out God's law. Jesus came to save the lost world. Just as this Scripture says, no one truly deserves to be saved. God sent His Son because He loved us, not because we deserved that love. ====================
Emotional Channelization and Political Power Posted onNovember 12, 2023 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, woke, political correctness and the ostracism, are channelization devices. They steer our emotions in the direction that the elite want. Are you outraged? At what? Whatever the elite tell you to be outraged at. That’s what. The elite want us livid at Make America Great Again, Christianity, and white people. Those are the enemies as defined by our elites today. Islamists slaughtering people at a peace concert, whole villages in Africa and the continuing Armenian genocide, are nothing to be alarmed at. Our elites fret about Islamophobia instead. As protesting a stolen election is the greatest threat to democracy since Solon established the Athenian system. Our outrage is channeled by political correctness, outrage and fear of social ostracism, to serve the elite’s desire for unlimited power. The media is the propaganda arm of the ruling elites. They tell us what to hate, love and be outraged at. Those things that the elite don’t want us justly angry about, are covered up with censorship, distracted from and lied about. People would be justifiably outraged if the media reported accurately about the deaths and side effects of the Covid vaccine. That they haven’t, shows the elite don’t want us outraged at those deaths. The deaths of Hamas terrorists however, are of great concern to the international elites, so their deaths are front and center in the propaganda machine. Heck, reporters were embedded in the Nov 7 terror attacks. Abetting the beheadings, rapes and torture… very progressive! Yet your not outraged by that, because you haven’t been told its okay to be outraged, by the elite. We are largely controlled by our emotions. Those who can channel our emotions, control us. To a degree we would never believe possible. Add the innovation of mass media, and you have the perfect recipe for despotism, masquerading as democracy. All the elite need do is channel us to feel whatever they want. Ostracism is crushing. People need to feel included. So, the mere threat of ostracism is enough to hold most people in line, with even the most absurd thought rules. Because to be ostracized is to be cast out, alone and without friends. A state of affairs that’s intolerable to all but the most introverted, independent and disagreeable. That’s why the ostracism is so effective at controlling people. The emotional toll is so great folks will do almost anything to avoid it. Then there’s that wonderful tool of manipulation… demagoguery. High unemployment? Blame employers. High inflation? Blame retailers. Demagoguery is a form of political correctness. The politically correct… the in crowd, the right kind of people, or the “woke,” are above reproach. While those not in the group are incapable of virtue. The incorrect are all racists, filthy, slave material, etc… No one wants to be one of those people. The west’s version of Dalits. Untouchables. To stay out of that group, people will do anything asked of them. How many Jews are “self loathing,” and despise Zionists because of this? How many white Christian’s hate white supremacists, maga people and the basic tenets of Christianity? Notions imposed by demagoguery, the threat of ostracism and political correctness. It’s not possible to disconnect from our emotions. The solution to political correctness and ostracism then, is to point them out, and ridicule the people who use them. Turn the tables on elites who would manipulate us with our emotions. Be outraged at political correctness, censorship and ostracism. Use your emotion to the opposite of what the elite want. Instead of hating the vilified group, call out the demagogues. Keep your eyes open, and don’t rely on a single source of information… they’re all biased, all trying to manipulate you in some way, and so untrustworthy. That being said, some are better than others, legacy media being the worse. If you find yourself in a channel of the elite’s making, climb out, look around and act accordingly. Let’s stop being patsies to their manipulation. Sincerely, John Pepin
As the world becomes ever more dystopian why do so many of us sit on our hands? Western governments, media and institutions have changed dramatically over recent years, likely not for the better. The majority of us don’t appear to care. Why? Maybe you do care, perhaps I’ve put your back up already? Perhaps you have taken the red pill and unplugged yourself from the faux reality of modern life and struck back. But what have you actually done? Shared some memes? Posted a pithy tweet aimed at some haloed celebrity in the hope that it makes them think? It didn’t though did it? You may be one step closer to enlightenment than the majority of us centrist dads who have done precisely nothing, but thats one small step on a towering staircase at the top of which is something that few of us can envisage. Myself included. Why have we done nothing? I have a theory that the answer likes in our immutable characteristics, our personality traits. Those on the political right, the small ‘c’ conservatives, tend to be higher in trait conscientiousness, those on the left lower on that metric. These traits impact our decision making and how we lead our lives. Conscientiousness matters, it’s what gets things done, it’s why the light comes on when you flick the switch. It’s also boring, and thats why we’re not particularly interested in conscientious people. Openness on then other hand.. Open people are the life and soul, they make us laugh, they make us cry, their chaotic lives are fascinating to us. They aren’t very good at keeping the lights on though. We need all types of personality to have a successful society, the open types have more ideas, they drive change, and sometimes change is good. Without change we’d still be living in caves. It’s almost as though we were designed this way. Just as the ants in a colony have evolved to be workers, nurses and soldiers so have we evolved with individual traits that when blended together in just the right proportions drive our species forward. Mankind is more complicated than ant-kind though, sometimes things go wrong, sometimes ideas take hold of us and drive us to destroy what we have built. It has happened before and will happen again. Is it happening now? I suspect many of us have pondered this question and whilst some have come to the conclusion that we are staring into the pit, many more appear to have concluded ‘meh’. Please continue reading on my Substack. Its free to access.. https://open.substack.com/pub/dixont/p/the-cabin-in-the-woods-problem?r=1ecai1&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Australia's constitutional referendum to recognise Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders as the first peoples of the country and to appoint a body of elected indigenous people -- the Voice -- to advise parliament and government on indigenous matters, has now been roundly defeated. In this essay for Quillette from before the vote Andrew Gleeson considers the Voice from both a symbolic and a practical perspective. Does it represent an inherent threat to racial equality before the law? And what are the prospects of its delivering the economic and health benefits its advocates promise? Hanging over the Voice is the prospect of encouraging what Gleeson calls 'the politics of disappointment': the already wide-spread resentment at the failure of formal equality to translate automatically into material equality. The Voice can only amount to what Australians make of it.
A Voice from the Heart
Legal equality and the politics of disappointment.
quillette.com
While I understand why our culture has done this, what we see
displayed every Christmas is not what actually happened at Jesus’ birth.
While Luke’s gospel describes Jesus being wrapped up in a manger
because there was no place for them in the inn, nowhere do the gospels
actually tell us that the manger was present in a stable. If we are going to blend Matthew’s visit of the wise men with Luke’s
visit of the shepherds into one night, then Matthew actually tells us a
key detail many people have never seen before. Matthew describes the
wise men’s visit by saying, “When the men went into the house
and saw the child with Mary, his mother, they knelt down and worshiped
him. They took out their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh and gave
them to him.” (Matthew 2:11 CEV) According to Matthew, Jesus was in a house when the wise men came.
Perhaps this was a small living structure that was not part of the inn.
Maybe it was the place where the owner or manager of the inn lived. However, what likely was the case is that the wise men visited a few
weeks or months after Jesus was born. From Luke’s description of what
Joseph and Mary are able to do, we know that their escape to Egypt
didn’t happen on the night of His birth, because Joseph and Mary take
Jesus when He was just days old to be dedicated at the temple. This would mean that Herod unknowingly had this upcoming Baby-King even closer to him without him even being aware. While tradition and culture have abbreviated Jesus birth
story into one night, it is important for us to pay attention to the
details of what the gospel writers tell us to understand where tradition
has it right, and where it has adapted the details. When we are able to
see the details we get an even more incredible picture of God’s
guidance and protection during the Christmas story. This post first appeared on ReflectiveBibleStudy.comWhat do you think? Do you agree/disagree? Leave your thoughts below.
Have you ever received something you needed, but it was not what you expected? If so, you may have something in common with the crowd at the opening
of this passage. While Jesus is walking in the temple, the crowd asks
Him, “Tell us the plain truth: are you the Messiah?” (John 10:24 GNT) Instead of answering them “plainly”, Jesus tells them that He already
told them, and then goes on describing how He is the One who God the
Father sent. Jesus is trying to expand their minds about what the
Messiah’s role is, and that it is not at all what their culture was
expecting. In His response, Jesus makes a clear distinction between
those who truly hear His voice, and those who are listening through a
filter – and hearing only what they want to hear. This makes me wonder in my own life, how many times do I truly keep
my ears (and/or eyes) open to God? Am I someone who listens through a
filter, or do I allow all of God’s messages through? In this passage, most of those in the crowd were listening through a
filter. Their filter said that the Messiah was political, that God was
distant, and that those who claimed to be God should be stoned. These filters kept them from seeing or hearing Jesus’ message that
God elevates us to higher than we can imagine when we acknowledge Him as
our Father, Lord, and Savior. I believe that God is currently active in the creation process,
creating things all around us. This makes it easy for me to call Him
Father. However, even if He decided to take a vacation, it still would
be easy for me to call Him Father because He started it all. Jesus was not the Messiah the Jews expected. Jesus came to fulfill
the promise given to Adam and Eve when they were thrown out of the
garden. This promise said that one of Adam and Eve’s offspring would
crush the serpent’s head. Satan was the serpent deceiver, and before
Jesus, no one was able to truly fulfill this promise. Jesus came as a Messiah to all of humanity who has ever sinned, not to one specific nation or race. Jesus was not the Messiah the crowd, the Jews, or the world expected; but He was the Messiah that the world needed. This post first appeared on ReflectiveBibleStudy.comWhat do you think? Do you agree/disagree? Leave your thoughts below.
Be Careful What You Wish For… Posted on November 19, 2023 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, the old saying, “Be careful what you wish for…” is being lived by the CCP, the deep state and Europe. They all wanted Trump out and Biden in. The deep state had to win. So they manipulated the 2020 election to get their way. Biden’s in, and the world is melting down because of it. The CCP could have weathered quite a mess had Trump’s raging economy kept on… but their release of Covid and the democrat’s election fraud stopped that. The deep state was terrified their crimes would be exposed, and they might have to face consequences for their pedophilia, corruption and bribery. So they murdered Epstein. Fortunately, they managed to get mail in election fraud going, so they got what they wanted, Trump gone. Now the results are in, and the elite are suffering for their stupidity. The CCP is near buckling due to their stupidity. Despite Biden bailing out Xi last week, China is in a world of economic hurt. Their export driven economy suffers when demand for their exports crumble, and Biden’s economy is entirely State driven. The consumer has been ravaged by inflation, job insecurity and our crime ridden streets are unsafe at any speed. All this suffering by the American people translates into less demand for Chinese stuff. With every federal Reserve interest rate increase, to stem government spending driven inflation, wealth was wrung from the consumer and transferred to the government. So, China’s economy is being hit with at least three simultaneous disasters. The housing price crash, the implosion of their housing sector and a collapse in exports. Because they won. The deep state has been exposed far more than Trump could have, and now there are calls for their being charged, tried and punished. With the release of the Jan 6 videos and the resulting exposure of the outright criminality of the government, in that false flag, the criminals are being shown in a whole new light. Like Nixon once said, It wasn’t the break in, it was the cover up… The Russian collusion fraud has gone down in the history books and no one will be punished for it. The 2020 election was rife with fraud, open and hidden, and some on video exposed to the courts, then suppressed by those courts. The elite went all in to get Trump out, because he was an existential threat to their perversions and power. Now their fraud won, and their crimes are undeniable, they’re looking at criminal charges. European leaders were glad to be rid of Trump, demanding they pay for their own defense, pointing out their stupidity and cutting them off the American teat. Europe’s economy was humming along under Trump and his surplus in energy. Especially Germany, with their demand for natural gas, as a feed stock for their industry. The cheers went through the European elites like electricity through a wire when Trump was defrauded out of office. The elites were ecstatic. In only a few years of their total control, backed by the Biden administration’s wise leadership, Europe is in a world war, their economy is devastated and their elites are looking at losing their elections in landslides across Europe, to Reform, The AFD and other Euro skeptic parties. Not what they hoped for I’ll bet. The elites got what they wished for and are regretting it, but they’re way too stupid to back down. The stupid only advance. The suffering their policies are inflicting on mankind, are only a down payment on the real suffering it’ll take to pay off the debt, economic, societal and cultural, of their stupidity. The really stupid though, never learn. That’s why the elite, stupid as a rock, double down on all their failed policies. In their fevered delirium, they believe, if it doesn’t work this time, we’ll try again with more money, power and oppression… then it has to work. Results be damned, progressives aren’t pragmatic, they’re idealists who call themselves pragmatic, to manipulate others to thinking their open minded. Well, the elite may have got what they wanted, and God willing, soon they’ll get what they deserve. Sincerely, John Pepin