ACTUALLY Draining the Swamp

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/05/drain_the_swamp.html

 How to actually drain the swamp even with a Democrat in the WH. Don't fund all the federal agencies under one big "porkulous" bill that nobody reads. String them out, fund the ones we need, don't fund the ones we don't. Separate the wheat from the tares! 

The first task for Republican leadership is to pass “spaghetti appropriations.” That’s right, string them out rather than dumping them all into an omnibus bill. Fund DOJ in its own bill and send that to the Big Guy’s desk. Dare him to veto it. Ditto for State and the military. Don’t allow anything for any other department to creep into each of the bills.

 The article is not that long, it CAN be done!

Going Under With the Overclass

 https://newcriterion.com/issues/2022/4/going-under-with-the-overclass

Alonng with reading a lot of books, I tend to subscribe to somewhat esoteric periodicals ... to wit, the "New Criterion". One of my many woeful lacks is broader culture ... art, music, poetry, syphon, poetry, etc

I have no illusions of "catching up" at this late date, however, some exposure is at least humbling, and civilization/culture are certainly related. I find the linked article to be a worthwhile summary of our plight is more of an intellectual vs polemic tone. Some excerpts: 

We don’t often hear about the plight of the overclass, but our progressive elites have a problem. They have become too successful, and their success is starting to show poorly. Over the last decades, these elites have experienced the traumas of contemporary life very much in reverse to most Americans. Our difficulties have been their triumphs. Our restrictions have become their liberation. With ever greater efficiency, they have become the creditors to our debts, the marketers of our drugs, the title-holders of our homes, and the sellers of the fruits of our industry. They have risen as many others have fallen. They are good at what they do, and for this they have been handsomely rewarded. No one would deny a payment for a job well done. Yet these victories have demanded ever greater tribute from the vanquished. Progressive elites have taken their successes out on the rest of us.

From later in the article":  

“There has always been a privileged class,” said Lasch, “even in America, but it has never been so dangerously isolated from its surroundings.” Contempt now replaces elite obligation and noblesse oblige. “Simultaneously arrogant and insecure,” Lasch wrote, “the new elites regard the masses with mingled scorn and apprehension.” They now despise their countrymen, especially those who do not pay tribute to their superiority. Meanwhile, “ ‘Middle America’—a term that has both geographical and social implications—has come to symbolize everything that stands in the way of progress: ‘family values,’ mindless patriotism, religious fundamentalism, racism, homophobia, retrograde views of women.”

While "wealth" isn't all it is cracked up to be since it is short, often painful (meaningless, guilty, ageing, physical ailments, loss of loved ones, etc), it does however tend to isolate and give a view of "power" that can lead to finding out that the elites heads can be removed too. 

 

Twenty-five years ago, at the time of Lasch’s writing, America’s richest 20 percent controlled half of the country’s wealth. As of 2021, the top 10 percent control 70 percent of the country’s wealth. The top 1 percent alone controls nearly a third of the country’s wealth. The top 50 percent hold 98 percent of the wealth. That leaves the bottom 50 percent with but 2 percent, a division that has only grown more stark through the pandemic as inflation, crime, and learning loss now add to the disruption.

Way back in 2017, I wrote on 8 billionaires that owned half of the world wealth. At that point, they all met yearly in Davos Switzerland, and I'm quite certain that they and the new class of same continue to meet virtually, What could say "10" men that own by now well over half of the total wealth of the world. In this age where power is "ethics", what might they do? We are relying on their godless "morality" to not take severe actions to remove any threat from the "deplorables",  

If you applaud the killing of over 60 million babies and are willing to support violence to prevent a SCOTUS from putting even minor limits on your "right to death", where might you boudareies be? 

Would engineering a global pandemic that killed millions of elderly (they can be expensive to keep alive) cratered the economy of the lower class, allowed you to remove your greatest threat (Trump), while enriching you with further billions of dollars be beyond your "morality" ? 

The whole article is well worth the read. 

Nonzero

 https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/01/30/reviews/000130.30conwayt.html

The opening statement of the review is: 

To believe the universe is embedded in a teleological matrix -- an overarching design that houses an implicit and eventual end point, with the human race having a transcendental destiny in which shopping is unlikely to play any part -- is widely regarded as a quaint delusion, of relevance only to religious fanatics, pastoralists in retreat from materialism and the mad. And yet here is Robert Wright, who patently falls into none of these categories, arguing that human history is not ''one damn thing after another,'' but has a direction, purpose and, by implication, a goal. To be sure, in his scheme shopping is not necessarily excluded, but ''Nonzero'' remains a book of potentially major significance.

Before you begin, it may be good to take a look at "The Prisoner's Dilemma" if you need a refresher., on that rather famous example of the potential for nonzero interaction ,,, it is one of the foundations of the books arguments. 

If there can be communication between the prisoners (not allowed in the classic Prisoners Dilemma), then the "right" solution becomes just staying mum, which benefits both with a lesser sentence. Of course, even with communication, there is always the question of cheating. Which is why at least the "concern" of an all powerful God and ultimate judgement might lower the odds of cheating somewhat ... and thus show why that idea may be temporally adaptive at a minimum, even if it isn't eternally of ultimate import. 

This book goes into a lot of discussion on essentially this in the context of biological evolution, and cultural evolution ... either of which, you may or may not believe in, but the ultimate question is "does the universe have a "direction/purpose", therefore meaning? Easy to understand why I slogged through it -- it is another case where meaning might be understood , bur wistfully without with A LOT less discussion of various tribes, slime mold, etc. -- sadly, there was a lot of "slime" in an effort to show how there might  just be the illusion of teleology provided by the dogma of natural selection without  "being" defining that teleology. (random teleology)

While the author courageously states the thesis of the book up front, he seems intent to obfuscate the obvious as he moves through it. The thesis:

The more closely we examine the drift of biological evolution and, especially, the drift of human history, the more there seems to be a point to it all. Because in neither case is “drift” really the right word. Both of these processes have a direction, an arrow. At least, that is the thesis of this book.

An "arrow" would tend to indicate an "archer" ... one with universal power to create a purpose, a direction for all of biological and human cultural  -- "progress". The more we learn, the "comforting" idea that this is all one huge purposeless random accident seems less likely. (see "Purpose and Desire") This comes dangerously close to indicating a "god".  The author hedges this bet any way he can ... even the "seeded by a more advanced civilization" ... a classic case of kicking the can down the road. Although post "The Matrix" and Elon Musk theory that "we are living in a simulation" , a technological "kick the can" seems more "high tech". Whose "computer" might the simulated "us" be running on?, and how did the builder(s) of that "computer" come to be? The can of "why" rolls on. Did they have a "random impulse" to seed new life around the universe? 

The NY Times puts it thusly: 

The central problem is, will we inherit a world worth having and will it have any meaning? Wright has an almost unlimited faith in the power of ''information.'' For him it will be the magic glue to bind all humanity, and the Internet will be the actual realization of Teilhard de Chardin's famous, and famously fuzzy, idea of a global mentality, the noosphere. But how this will happen is equally hazy. It is perhaps ironic that when Wright comes to speculate on consciousness, he declares himself flummoxed; yet, in principle, is the tangle of neurons that makes up our brain any different from the spreading electronic Web? For those wedded to materialism, presumably not, and to refer to ''the mystery of consciousness'' will be dismissed as a monumental evasion. It may be, of course, that a mysterious unfolding will occur whereby on a given date and time every computer in the world simultaneously prints out the electronic equivalent of the Code of Hammurabi. However desirable (or undesirable) such a ''world brain'' might be, the philosophical underpinnings of this adventure seem deeply suspect.

Materialists have an extreme problem with "why"? Why is there anything? Why does there seem to be a "conscious ME, that is asking this question"? Why would I ask if I am just "stuff"? If there is a "me", do I have any free will? Was the fact that I asked this question wired into the Big Bang, and thus determined "forever" at least in the context of our 4 billion or so "old" universe?

 It is a bit hard to pull any firm position out of this book ... probably because Mr Wright does not want to be seen to be cosmically wrong and stupid in the today's godless materialist nihilist world. 

Of course, one difficulty with pinning any hopes on religion is its much-discussed ongoing erosion at the hands of science, an erosion that is one alleged source of modern and postmodern nihilism and ennui. But one point of this book has been to challenge the conventional belief that science really has dispelled deep mystery and all evidence of purpose

One of the reasons that book spends so much time on primitive cultures is that it wants to make CERTAIN that there is absolutely no connection between the fact of Western civilization seeming to "win" the race to modernity, and the  Judaeo/Christian underpinnings of the culture. He does realize that the issue of trust, and dealing with free riders is critical, and an all powerful God knowing all you do can be a restriction to  both cheaters/liars and sluggards. 

Somehow, this fear of being cheated must be overcome for things to work out well.

Although ignored in this book (other than to claim it is racist/eurocentric), it is hard to miss the idea of an all knowing God that will insure ultimate justice as a goad to establishing something like "thou shalt not bear false witness". Laws are a nice adjunct to that,  but it is better to have it built into the "wetware" (the physical brain). 

Randomness has increasingly fallen on hard times figuring out how even ONE ordered cell showed up in the primordial soup (and God knows they have tried A LOT of things). In the 1970's, it was assumed that once we could map the Genome, it would be "easy" ... kinda like indistinguishable from human intelligence AI. It turns out that mapping the genome just helped open the truth that randomness in a single universe had mathematical odds of getting to where we are on the order of 10 to the 100th against. Maths way of saying NO!

 So materialists have moved to the "many worlds theory" ... perhaps there are 10 to the 100th universes, and we are just EXTREMELY lucky, which would explain why the scientific "near certainty" that the SETI project would observe proof of many intelligent, radio and other emissions indicating we were far from alone in our universe, "soon". Like HAL 9000 level AI, "soon" is a very long time. 

"Purpose and Desire" is an easier read, and I think more convincing indication of there being something more than mere matter in operation in our world and universe,

After Birth Abortion

 https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/now-a-california-bill-to-permit-infant-death-by-neglect/

People are busy and distracted these days, so what happens if you really wanted to kill your baby, but just didn't get around to it? As long as  murder in some states right up to the point the baby is coming out of the birth canal, why would anyone be so cruel to force a woman to care for a screaming, demanding baby until it can survive on its own?  When the comfort and convenience of women is your prime goal and you have no set of fixed moral values, why not? 

Thankfully,  the "progressives" are working hard to help you get rid of this inconvenient oversight. 

A little while ago I highlighted a shocking Maryland bill that would essentially decriminalize neglecting an infant to death in the “perinatal” period — i.e., through the first 28 days after birth — by preventing investigations and prosecution of such deaths that resulted from “a failure to act.”

Shocking? Let's face it, all life is "tissue", why be restricted by any arbitrary distinction like "birth"? We don't even know what a women is,  it MAY be a "birthing person",  midwives are being taught how to deliver a baby from a biological man. (I would prefer not to know the details of how this might be done)

The thing about "progressivism" is that it MUST "progress", or it would no longer be a valid ideology.  As with gay "marriage", Democrats will proclaim loudly that killing babies in the first 6 weeks or so is is "just talk",  it will NEVER happen. You can trust them. 

Here are BO and Hillary in 2008.

So post birth "abortion" up to 6 weeks is under consideration. It's simple progress! If you support and even celebrate the killing of 60 million plus in the mother's womb, why not kill them 6 weeks after birth? Moloch has always liked to hear some screams as humans are sacrificed on his alaer -- the post born will be even more to his liking. 

Even if the unconstitutional horror of Roe is overturned, that just sends it back to the states. The blue states may well have "kill your kid" trips with federal funding (age is really hard to determine)  -- or maybe greenies will just fund it. Kids are bad for the environment after all, and we have a planet to save while we enjoy cocktails and maybe a few underage children and our beachfront palaces. Jeffrey Epstein, Prince Andrew, Bill Gates, etc have already shown us how that works. 

This quote is a bit off since Nazi Stands for "National Socialist", but the progression is what is important. 

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

I'd rewrite it today as: 

First they came for the babies in the womb, but I was born so I did not speak out. 

Then they came for the recently born, but I was an adult, so I did not speak out. 

Then they came for those who stood up for any sort of morality, so I did not speak out. 

Then they came for the Christians, and I decided I was not a Christian. 

As Christians, we are to be faithful even unto death. Might it not behoove us to stand up a bit earlier? Is there NOTHING that shocks us enough to get angry and ACTIVE! 

Rest assured, the Democrats are set to go to GREAT lengths to protect their sacrament of abortion ... they are already encouraging violence by publishing the addresses of SCOTUS justices likely to return the country to a Constitutional Republic (prior to Unconstitutional Roe). The beat goes on ... packing the court, abolishing the Filibuster, etc ... so far they haven't murdered Clarence Thomas, but it would not surprise me at all. 

Is there any point where Christians and people who have any idea of morality declare NO MORE, or at least "This Far and No Farther"?