Moderates United

Have you ever stopped to realize that every day has its own, unique quality? That it may feel, on superficial analysis, like every day that came before, and which you expect to come after, but that this does not come close to plumbing the possible depths of the “ordinary”?

If memory serves, John Wooden’s father–a hard working, pious, and simple man–told him to “Make every day your masterpiece.”

Think of your life. Think of every day as a canvas hanging on the wall. How many did you paint, and how many did someone else scribble something on so you could mark the day “Done”?

Every day of your past, and every day–EVERY DAY–of your future will have slightly different shading, texture, form, theme, than the other days. Why not interact with it as art, accept the inevitable banalities of life with the sensitivity they don’t seem to merit, and CREATE as you move experiences that you can call creative, each and every day?

You work differently every day. Even your sleep, your dreams, your movements in the night, differ in subtle ways.

If change is a universal, why not invite it home to dinner and become good friends?

Perhaps the strongest argument to made against Ron Paul is his supporters. They seemingly, and contradictorily, want to make him into a demagogue. I want to be clear that what I want to elect him for is for what he will NOT do, not what he WILL do. It is commonly assumed that because the government is a certain size–usually expressed as a percentage of the GDP, as if there were any correlation–that it must perforce remain about that size moving forward.

What Ron Paul is proposing is not so much abolishing Federal agencies like the TSA, so much as NOT continuing them. He is proposing NOT continuing large scale deficit spending, which everyone else seems to assume is inevitable. He is proposing NOT continuing on-going large scale military conflicts around the world.

All any true conservative wants is to be left alone to pursue their own interests and passions as free from governmental interference as is consistent with public order. This means, logically, that our ideal President is someone like Calvin Coolidge, who slept 12 hours a day, if memory serves, since he didn’t view the job of the President as DOING things, but rather preventing others–Congress–from doing things that were counterproductive. Silent Cal got tricked by the Fed, which had its own agenda, and in large measure even then made its own decisions, which being slow and insidious were hard to measure in their effects. But that is what we want.

We want a President who will discontinue a whole lot of stuff, then go sit on a reclining chair in Boca Raton or wherever, and watch sports or write books, or play with his grandkids.

What Ron Paul’s fans seemingly want is a Savior, of the sort they wanted in Obama. Plainly, Paul is the only INTERESTING candidate in the race, but everyone around him needs to up their game.

Here is a case in point: http://www.infowars.com/ron-paul-vs-the-rest/

Watch the videos. They made me cringe. In the first one, you had people chanting slogans, differing only in the words from “Hey ho, X has to go”. In the second, he screwed up the narration several times–which is something that easily could have been fixed before releasing the video–and had goofy music on there.

This is a race for the President of the United States, the most powerful elective office on the planet. This is not some college game. Ron Paul is not some colorful new British band that only the cool kids know about.

He is the only one proposing a serious package to halt and reverse the tremendous decline in our freedoms and economic well being that have beset us ever since Herbert Hoover. To the extent he surrounds himself with silly people, it hurts him. I am not proposing he reject his biggest fans, but rather that his biggest fans raise their game and overall sobriety to the levels required for him actually win the nomination, which is plainly a long shot.

This is intended to be emailed. Please copy it and email it to your usual suspects.

Please put aside your preconceptions for a moment.

In 2011 we are projected to take in $1.9 trillion, and spend $3.3 trillion. This is a gap of $1.4 trillion, or about $116 BILLION a MONTH. Our national debt already exceeds $15 trillion, and is equal to the entirety of our annual economic output. Debt loads this size have historically inevitably led to economic catastrophes. Obamacare and the entry of the Baby Boomers into our Social Security and Medicare rolls will only accelerate this process, which is already unsustainable.

What in your estimation constitutes a rational, proportional response to this situation?

Mitt Romney has pledged to cut $20 billion from our annual budget, and in effect appoint a committee to study the issue. Does this sound like a solution that is on par with the size of the problem?

Supposed “conservative” Newt Gingrich called Paul Ryan’s budget plan–which is at least trying to wrestle with the problems we face, “right wing social engineering”. Here is what is interesting about that statement: Ryan’s plan doesn’t even balance the ANNUAL budget until 2040 . During that period, our debt will continue to increase, year on year. Predictably, Gingrich makes no commitments at all with respect to budget cuts.

Ron Paul has pledged to cut annual expenditures by $1 trillion his first year. He is going to abolish the Departments of Education, HUD, Commerce, Energy, and Interior. He is going to abolish the TSA, which is strip searching everyone who flies that it wants to.

He is going to lower the corporate tax rate to 15%. This will have ENORMOUS and IMMEDIATE stimulating effects on our economy.

Self evidently, he will reverse Obamacare, and substantially every Executive Order Obama issued, along with implementing a legal framework removing the ability for the Executive Branch to impose laws without consulting Congress.

He is going to audit the Federal Reserve. For those who complacently assume that the Fed is benevolent, consider the following: our next generation aircraft carrier, the Ford Class, will cost some $10 billion each. Ben Bernanke, without asking any elected officials’ approval, created (just in the second round of so-called “Quantitative Easing”), from scratch, $600 BILLION–the equivalent of 60 state of the art aircraft carriers. And we don’t even know who got the money. We have no way of knowing. But we can assume it went to the already rich, and not to ordinary Americans, who will be hurt by the inflation that clearly will follow whenever the economy recovers. This is absurd.

With regard to foreign policy, talk with a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. Ask them what good we are doing there. Ask them if they think we should be there. If you can find one who thinks that we are protecting America–now, after 10 years of war–then go buy a lottery ticket because it’s your day to defy the odds. Paul gets more donations from active duty military than all the other candidates combined. They are tired of fighting, and it is hard to blame them. It is impossible to measure progress. They sweep an area, destroy weapons caches and arrest some people, then three months later things are the same as before. Although only one percent of the population, veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars constitute 20% of the suicides.

With regard to electability, Ron Paul consistently places within a couple points of Romney when matched against Obama. He can count on everyone right of center to vote for him simply because they cannot stomach Obama. But he also appeals to large swathes of the Left, who share with the Right a fear of government power grabs, and who have a distaste for foreign wars.

In this CBS Poll(http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2012/01/09/Who-Would-You-Vote-For-in-November-if-the-Candidates-Were.gif), Paul is in a statistical dead heat with Obama, as is Romney, since the margin of error is larger than the difference between them.

PAUL IS ELECTABLE.

Here is the question: do you want to sacrifice genuine conservatism–low taxes, huge decreases in the size and power of the Federal Government–for a one or two point advantage in the polls, and for a candidate NOBODY–except the banking community–is enthusiastic about?

Please ponder this carefully before you vote in your primary, and please pass this email along to everyone you think might have an interest in reading it.

End note: I have ignored Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum, because their poll numbers–and showings to date–simply do not support the thesis that they can actually win in a national election.

Supposedly he contradicted himself. But read quote one, and quote two.

1: So President Ron Paul would therefore not have ordered the kill of bin Laden, which could have only have taken place by entering another sovereign nation?

And Dr. Paul was equally clear in his response:

I don’t think it was necessary. No.

Less than a minute later, Conway attempted to further clarify by again asking the congressman”

So President Ron Paul would not have ordered the kill of bin Laden, to take place, as it took place in Pakistan?

Ron Paul’s response was consistent with his two previous answers.

Not the way it took place, no. I mean he was unarmed, you know… and all these other arguments.

2: “You believe international Law should’ve constrained us from tracking down and killing the man responsible for the most brazen attack on the US since Pearl Harbor?”

Paul responded: “Obviously no, I did not say that.”

Read both carefully, and listen to the setup, plainly intended to suggest anyone who did NOT order the killing was effectively an apologist and almost accomplice in mass murder.

He did not say he would not have gone after Bin Laden because of international law, but because it was UNNECESSARY. For any stupid people reading this, let me point out that from 9/11/01 until his de facto execution ten years later, Bin Laden does not seem to have planned ONE attack.

Are we safer now that he is dead? Are we? If he was doing something close to nothing, it is hard to see how safety has improved. This was a mission of revenge, not national self defense. I was saying back in 2009 that he was irrelevant.

Am I glad he is dead? Yes, to the extent it is proper to celebrate the death of anyone, but I remain skeptical that he was the actual mastermind.

This is quite enjoyable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GVDoglDx68&feature=fvst

Ah: is life about something other than taking risks, hoping for reward? No: doing what one must do, with “must” defined as what one person must do to remain true to themselves?

How many of us fail, or succeed, in rewarding those who take chances? How many of us ARE those who take chances?

How can one help but love those who risk? Me: I put all my chips on the risk-takers: they hold our future. I suppose I could surf pornography, but what interesting would be revealed? Love: one won’t find it there, and what else is worth the effort?

For myself, I love unreasonably, in ridiculous human beings like Florence. What waters flow, when stillness presides? Ah, here is one more excellent video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrYnggjTJfk&feature=fvst

Are our normal days superfluous? It is unclear. So much that is magical remains to be discovered. I say that not as a sentimental fool, but as a drunk empiricist.

[note: if the past is any indication, I will feel no remorse in posting this, but feel the need to point out that I was drunk. Liquor is medicine to me, up to a point. I will leave it at that. May God bless you.]

Never trust me to actually shut up and go to bed.

I am reading a history of the currency crises of East/Southeast Asia in the late 90’s. What is interesting to me is that Bretton Woods, once we got off the flimsy gold standard they had retained, in the early 70’s, effectively made the dollar into gold. Rather than keeping gold in the vault, developing nations have to keep dollars in their vaults. There are other reserve currencies–the yen, the Euro, the Mao–but dollars are still the “gold standard” for the simple reason that as stupid as we have been, we have been less stupid than others.

This leads logically, though, to the contention–which I will have to ponder–that our Federal Reserve is the only TRUE central bank in the world, since it is uniquely empowered to create the world’s de facto reserve currency.

I am reevaluating many things. One possibility I am considering is that some American banks are in fact predatory around the world. This says nothing about America as a whole, but speaks rather to a disease that perhaps affects other nations more overtly, but is not absent here either.

To be clear: I believe in Capitalism, but do not believe that fiat money qualifies as Capital; it is an abuse: there is in my view no other way to view it.

The other day, on awaking, it popped in my head that the word Home contains–forgive my use of the term–the meat of the Sanskritic sacred mantra Om. Then I started canvassing the few languages I am somewhat OK in, and the only other example I could come up with Homme, from the French.

Now, I am as interested in the process of thinking as in the outcome. Since reading Edward de Bono’s work (4 or 5 books, and I am actually certified to teach his Six Thinking Hats) I have believed that thought is not something that happens, but a type of work no different in principle than building a house. There are methods, and definable outcomes, of which creativity is one. You can choose to be creative.

One basic technique is the formation of a continuum. The mind operates in a binary fashion, if left to its own devices. Continuums, however, of their nature are not binary. They demand shades of gray and gradation.

The following, therefore, may not be “true”, but perhaps useful nonetheless.

Let us start, then by assuming that the residing place of this Om formulation says something important about both cultures.

In English, it is a place, and a state of mind, that of being ennested, of belonging, of participating in a larger web of consistent relationships.

In French, it is Man, understood as the arbiter of reality, but tragically denuded of home.

Can we not see echoes of this basic dichotomy in the cultural evolution of both traditions. Where did solipsism–excuse me, Existentialism–arise? France. The fatal individual. The stoic hero, transfixed in an indifferent eternity, condemned to “Freedom”, to constant self definition and redefinition. Alone.

The English, with their pragmatic alternative, focused rather on building homes, on building social orders consistent with belonging.

Again: this is just a sort mental calisthenic, perhaps devoid of “truth”, but it is good to bend your mind in different ways.

Do with it what you will.

Edit: actually, I see now that despite saying I was not going to form a dichotomy, I have formed a dichotomy. This is amusing and instructive. No doubt I can do this thing better, but I think I am going to finish my cigar and drink some whiskey.

For neocons–there actually is such a thing, which I found surprising, seeing the uses to which the Left has put this term–Munich is emblematic of the perils of doing nothing in the face of creeping evil.

For most economists, the equivalent is the Great Depression.

In both cases, these analogies are invoked continually, and generally inaccurately. We were told the bank bailouts in 2008 were necessary to “prevent another Great Depression”. Now, as then, we are told that the fact that they seem to have accomplished little but wealth transfer from the taxpayers to reckless and callous banks is evidence that had we done nothing, it would have been much worse.

Our supposedly preemptive “War on Terror”, likewise. It is hard to say, now, what would have been the effects of not invading Iraq or Afghanistan, but is arguable that we have not prevented ANY attacks.

Plainly, if we have the oil reserves to stop buying from the Middle East, then we would have been far better served developing them, than in protecting Saudi Arabia from the potential future threat of Saddam Hussein. Clearly, he WOULD have built nukes as soon as he could–he said so himself when he was caught–but he liked living, and actually using them against us or the Israelis would have ended his game, his reign, and likely his life. He was smart enough, maybe, to realize this, although he miscalculated badly in assuming we lacked the resolve to invade, so this point is debatable.

I supported the war on Iraq. I felt then, and continue to feel now, albeit to a lesser extent, that it is pointless being a superpower if you are emasculated by indecisiveness and squeamishness.

At the same time, we are not in the Cold War. There is no global superpower opposing us, necessitating a war for alliances. There is no Nazi Germany, who we must fear will invade us once they finish their other conquests (as plainly would have happened, with their inventions of the jet and eventual invention of the nuclear bomb making defense quite difficult). What we face are not very smart individuals, whose courage consists in a passion for suicide.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of recognizing that Tower 7 must have been blown. It changes all the calculus. It redirects focus to a now-indistinct target that has still not been identified. That is the enemy; and we don’t know who it is.

I will bet good money, though, that that enemy was not contained in Afghanistan or Iraq.

I have for some time wanted to post on the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It is emblematic of Leftism. What is the basic plot? An innocent young couple is seduced into purely physical pleasure, denuded of MEANING, context, and genuine emotional affection.

The latent violence and cruelty in this psychosocial gestalt is manifested when Meatloaf makes his appearance on the motorcycle, symbolizing genuine masculine virility, and by extension the capacity for purpose and even virtue. He is murdered and cannibalized.

The movie ends when the characters in effect dissolve, then finally meet–then avoid–the necessary fate of those who consciously pursue self destruction: they “time warp”, and the song that accompanies this is fun (in movie theaters for quite some time, this was acted out in front of the audience in many markets, like New York and San Francisco), and helps to mask the underlying reality of death and disease, although the symbols are omnipresent. Most all of the empty frivolities that modern men and women use to anesthetize themselves have as their aim the same purpose. That is the point of TV.

People want to kill Tim Tebow. They want him to be a relic from another era, and not someone who is speaking coherently to what could even now be their present. Meaning is not impossible. It is not too late.

But people do not want to hear that, if they have traveled far at all along the path of self immolation in suicidal narcissism and hedonism. They want to be fashionably smart, to “know” that Jesus is a fable, and that we are machines built to rust under the ground.

Thus the violence. Many people were very happy when Tebow lost. It was like when Meatloaf’s character was murdered by Dr. Frankenfurter. They don’t want to remember who they could be–what the true limits of their perceptual and behavior freedom are–and thus his “failure” (in reality, it was nothing of the sort) was comforting to them.

In some respects, I suppose, the image of Tebow as a sacrificial lamb is testament to the sincerity of his Christianity. For my part, I wish him well. I would like to see him get married, since I’m quite sure he could score himself a smoking hot, Christian wife.

[End note: I could see where someone would infer latent (Channel 2, per my previous post) homoeroticism in my connection of Tim Tebow with this movie. To the extent of my awareness, the principle trait of homosexuals is sexual fantasies involving other men. I don’t have them, and so infer that I am not gay. My interest here is analytical and abstract. I view the Rocky Horror Picture Show as emblematic of what I have termed “Cultural Sadeism”. Everything is broken. Nobody believes anything but their ephemeral senses. Sade would have loved the movie, although presumably he would have preferred more violence.

As I have said often, though, I view homosexuality as a sort of misfortune, and not a crime or deviancy per se. It is of course a cliche to say this, but I have counted more than one open homosexual as a friend. Particularly among men, it often seems to lead to some really weird stuff–I did go to the Mapplethorpe exhibit way back when, and frankly learned more than I wanted to–but what happens between consenting adults is none of my business, and in my view not the business of the State.]

This is reasonably well done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZEvA8BCoBw

As I have argued previously, I choose not to believe that George Bush was capable of the cold blooded murder of 3,000 Americans. For my part, I feel it was some combination of financial elites and the Russians. This is only a feeling.

That there is a mystery, though, is to my mind indisputable, and that the cowards and hacks at NIST failed utterly to be professional is equally indisputable.

It follows, too, that if you accept that 9/11 had a much larger roster of participants than we have been led to believe, then the role of the unwashed fools who did something close to nothing in Afghanistan diminishes proportionately, and so too does the importance of our war there.