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Brave New World moments (rant, disregard unless bored)
13 years ago
Anyone who has ever read Aldous Huxley's "A Brave New World" will recognize the idea of having a moment where you realize that the world you knew is not the world you currently face. While I'm not at the point of taking the Noble Savage's way out of things, I am approaching, gradually, the notion that the nation of my birth may not be the nation where I am laid to rest.
I have always been an unabashed jingoist, and still am to the extent that it means the classical culture of the United States is far superior to that which is to be had or found anywhere else in the developed world and most other places besides. Being extraordinarily widely traveled and having sampled the cultures of Asia and Europe as well as North and Central (though not south America... yet) America that should mean something to people not blinded by other priorities. When I say I've seen how the other side lives, I bloody well mean it. People in the United States have no idea what true poverty is. None at all.
Alas, it comes to me that the simple retort of my childhood, "It's a free country and I can do what I want," has been corrupted so heavily by leftist influences that its very sound has twisted in my ear. In the guise of loving freedom, groups and associations in my nation advance the notion of state-controlled everything, and personal responsibility for nothing. When I was a child I may indeed have been free to do what I wanted, but it was also understood that if I did wrong I'd be punished for it, and not necessarily by the state, which is the key point.
When I was growing up. words were worth fighting over, because they had meaning. "Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," was a mantra, a prayer repeated over and over by the mocked and the ridiculed in the vain hope that if it were often enough repeated, they would become true. It was spoken by the people too weak or too afraid (either of the aggressor or the wrath of their parents) to strike out physically against those that assailed them with these oh so painful words.
Now words are acknowledged to be painful, but the state has so far gained control of and manipulated the idea of justice that only authoritarian figures can be believed to have the power to correct injustices. The idea of shooting back, which has been long bred out of Europeans, is being now educated out of Americans. The days when you didn't talk like that to your neighbor because he had no fear to come over and beat your ass cherry red on behalf of society are long gone.
Punks and thugs, once confined to certain areas of town where 'the respectable' didn't go, now roam at will and steal from anyone they please in cities across the nation because no one has the wit to realize that by passing the buck ENTIRELY to the police, the citizen has left himself defenseless when, as is the case the majority of the time, the police aren't around.
There was a story late last year of a sixty + year old man who was knocked off his bicycle by three teenage thugs attempting a robbery. He shot two and killed one. When the police arrived on scene and questioned survivors and witnesses, the surviving thugs were charged and the old man was released. THAT is the America I grew up in, but it is one that is sadly and slowly disappearing. That old man took personal responsibility and what's more, he forced the kids to take it too. Good for him. I'll be the survivors think twice before they decide to knock over an old man for bubblegum money.
http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=361536
When I was growing up, I still remember another kid in my kindergarten bringing dad's rifle in for show and tell. He disassembled it with the help of the teacher and showed all the parts to the class; it was awesome. If someone's child did that today the kid would be remanded to the state and the parent's would probably be arrested. Earlier this year a four year old girl DREW A PICTURE of daddy holding a gun, and the father was arrested. On what planet, in what country, can a child DRAW A PICTURE and send one of her parents to prison? Certainly not in the nation I grew up in... and no, as it happens this unfortunate father was in Canada. What did the child say about the drawing?
“He uses it to shoot bad guys and monsters,” teachers say the girl explained.
The man was arrested when he came to pick his daughter up from school, strip searched, and held whilst his home was invaded and searched as well. Don't believe me?
http://rt.com/usa/news/jail-sansone.....-waterloo-333/
The Canadians have recently made some strides toward putting the big boy pants back on their civilians by retracting a long gun registration law, but their largely European take on hand firearms would certainly have had an old man thrown in prison for defending himself on a bike trail with a hand gun. Stories abound in the UK of self-defense landing victorious defenders in prison, and they wonder how the riots last year got so out of hand.
Personal responsibility, though still practiced much more regularly in the US than other locations, is vanishing into the mists of time as the feds gradually take all pretense of control from local governments and private citizens, usually in the name of the children or public safety. The idea of a public that protects its own safety and is not docilely hand-fed its treats has no appeal in the leftist mind, and the leftist mind has been behind great strides recently in social evolution here in the US.
There was a time in the US when the rich were celebrated because they had achieved the American Dream. Now they're reviled because wealth is so poorly understood that people in the 99% think if one person has wealth and another doesn't there must have been theft involved. The idea that wealth is creatable has become baffling to the increasing number of people who receive checks signed by the government.
At one time it was understood if you had skills no one would pay for you had a hobby not a job, and you'd best learn some different skills if you expected to put dinner on the table and clothes on your back and a roof over your head. Thirty years of telling our kids, "You can be whatever you want to be," has left us with three generations of kids who are convinced it's true, much to the detriment of themselves, their families, and society in general.
People eventually always accuse me of lacking compassion because much of what I have to say falls in line with social darwinism. Not a popular idea and not one I entirely subscribe to, though it certainly merits close observation.
In the end though I am not a social darwinist. I am in fact a realist. And here is the troubling reality at the heart of all: while wealth is creatable it is not at any given time limitless. If you as an individual can't afford something in a real world setting, you don't buy it and don't receive the benefit of having it. If you WANT it, you work to earn the currency required to obtain it, be that item a new shirt, a tv, life-saving surgery or a meal at McDonalds. The government's ability to defer the real price of services that cannot be afforded has allowed our political representatives to convince half, if not more of the nation that it can indefinitely provide things that cost money for free. If that free service could in fact be made free, then we'd all be fools not to go get whatever it is, so long as it's something we needed or wanted.
In fact that service is not, and never has been free, and in some cases it costs so much that even a 100% tax rate couldn't pay for it all. This explains, or begins to explain, the national debt and other debts in Western nations around the world. If you want to see what government promises will get you in the long run, have a look at Greece. Their government promised the people things it could never pay for, and the people ALL BOUGHT INTO THE LIE. Now they're rioting because true costs have been brought home to them. Socialism FAILS because it relies on OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY... and that money is not limitless. When it runs out, or the people from whom you are stealing or borrowing decide or are forced to cut you off... the house of cards collapses.
So in the end, you can only have what is in your means. Unfortunately, those means may not include the things you need to survive, and the bald fact is that your fellow man's responsibility for you IS limited. Your responsibility for yourself, no matter what your government tells you, is on the other hand, quite absolute.
If you want to chase your dreams, DO it... within reason. But as the somewhat sarcastic demotivators say, not every kid gets to grow up to be an astronaut. Not every kid gets to live in a mansion... and perhaps tragically, not every kid is entitled to live to old age on nothing but the charity, forced or otherwise, of his social peers.
I foresee a day when the riots of Greece will happen in the states. By then, God willing and ability allowing, I will be beach-side somewhere else, reminiscing fondly of the days when America was a great nation. The United States is still the greatest nation on earth, but all nations rise and fall. Some nations re-invent themselves and keep the same name, but the principles that previously drove their cultures are just as dead as they would be had the name changed along with the faces of those in power. Within the next ten years or so it will become clear whether or not America can withstand the tide of socialism sweeping the globe, and MOST of the current indications seem to point toward no... which is a tragedy fit to make a grown man cry.
Titan AE was, by and large, a crap movie. It did have one good line though that I've had occasion to use often over the years.
"I weep for the species."
I have always been an unabashed jingoist, and still am to the extent that it means the classical culture of the United States is far superior to that which is to be had or found anywhere else in the developed world and most other places besides. Being extraordinarily widely traveled and having sampled the cultures of Asia and Europe as well as North and Central (though not south America... yet) America that should mean something to people not blinded by other priorities. When I say I've seen how the other side lives, I bloody well mean it. People in the United States have no idea what true poverty is. None at all.
Alas, it comes to me that the simple retort of my childhood, "It's a free country and I can do what I want," has been corrupted so heavily by leftist influences that its very sound has twisted in my ear. In the guise of loving freedom, groups and associations in my nation advance the notion of state-controlled everything, and personal responsibility for nothing. When I was a child I may indeed have been free to do what I wanted, but it was also understood that if I did wrong I'd be punished for it, and not necessarily by the state, which is the key point.
When I was growing up. words were worth fighting over, because they had meaning. "Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," was a mantra, a prayer repeated over and over by the mocked and the ridiculed in the vain hope that if it were often enough repeated, they would become true. It was spoken by the people too weak or too afraid (either of the aggressor or the wrath of their parents) to strike out physically against those that assailed them with these oh so painful words.
Now words are acknowledged to be painful, but the state has so far gained control of and manipulated the idea of justice that only authoritarian figures can be believed to have the power to correct injustices. The idea of shooting back, which has been long bred out of Europeans, is being now educated out of Americans. The days when you didn't talk like that to your neighbor because he had no fear to come over and beat your ass cherry red on behalf of society are long gone.
Punks and thugs, once confined to certain areas of town where 'the respectable' didn't go, now roam at will and steal from anyone they please in cities across the nation because no one has the wit to realize that by passing the buck ENTIRELY to the police, the citizen has left himself defenseless when, as is the case the majority of the time, the police aren't around.
There was a story late last year of a sixty + year old man who was knocked off his bicycle by three teenage thugs attempting a robbery. He shot two and killed one. When the police arrived on scene and questioned survivors and witnesses, the surviving thugs were charged and the old man was released. THAT is the America I grew up in, but it is one that is sadly and slowly disappearing. That old man took personal responsibility and what's more, he forced the kids to take it too. Good for him. I'll be the survivors think twice before they decide to knock over an old man for bubblegum money.
http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=361536
When I was growing up, I still remember another kid in my kindergarten bringing dad's rifle in for show and tell. He disassembled it with the help of the teacher and showed all the parts to the class; it was awesome. If someone's child did that today the kid would be remanded to the state and the parent's would probably be arrested. Earlier this year a four year old girl DREW A PICTURE of daddy holding a gun, and the father was arrested. On what planet, in what country, can a child DRAW A PICTURE and send one of her parents to prison? Certainly not in the nation I grew up in... and no, as it happens this unfortunate father was in Canada. What did the child say about the drawing?
“He uses it to shoot bad guys and monsters,” teachers say the girl explained.
The man was arrested when he came to pick his daughter up from school, strip searched, and held whilst his home was invaded and searched as well. Don't believe me?
http://rt.com/usa/news/jail-sansone.....-waterloo-333/
The Canadians have recently made some strides toward putting the big boy pants back on their civilians by retracting a long gun registration law, but their largely European take on hand firearms would certainly have had an old man thrown in prison for defending himself on a bike trail with a hand gun. Stories abound in the UK of self-defense landing victorious defenders in prison, and they wonder how the riots last year got so out of hand.
Personal responsibility, though still practiced much more regularly in the US than other locations, is vanishing into the mists of time as the feds gradually take all pretense of control from local governments and private citizens, usually in the name of the children or public safety. The idea of a public that protects its own safety and is not docilely hand-fed its treats has no appeal in the leftist mind, and the leftist mind has been behind great strides recently in social evolution here in the US.
There was a time in the US when the rich were celebrated because they had achieved the American Dream. Now they're reviled because wealth is so poorly understood that people in the 99% think if one person has wealth and another doesn't there must have been theft involved. The idea that wealth is creatable has become baffling to the increasing number of people who receive checks signed by the government.
At one time it was understood if you had skills no one would pay for you had a hobby not a job, and you'd best learn some different skills if you expected to put dinner on the table and clothes on your back and a roof over your head. Thirty years of telling our kids, "You can be whatever you want to be," has left us with three generations of kids who are convinced it's true, much to the detriment of themselves, their families, and society in general.
People eventually always accuse me of lacking compassion because much of what I have to say falls in line with social darwinism. Not a popular idea and not one I entirely subscribe to, though it certainly merits close observation.
In the end though I am not a social darwinist. I am in fact a realist. And here is the troubling reality at the heart of all: while wealth is creatable it is not at any given time limitless. If you as an individual can't afford something in a real world setting, you don't buy it and don't receive the benefit of having it. If you WANT it, you work to earn the currency required to obtain it, be that item a new shirt, a tv, life-saving surgery or a meal at McDonalds. The government's ability to defer the real price of services that cannot be afforded has allowed our political representatives to convince half, if not more of the nation that it can indefinitely provide things that cost money for free. If that free service could in fact be made free, then we'd all be fools not to go get whatever it is, so long as it's something we needed or wanted.
In fact that service is not, and never has been free, and in some cases it costs so much that even a 100% tax rate couldn't pay for it all. This explains, or begins to explain, the national debt and other debts in Western nations around the world. If you want to see what government promises will get you in the long run, have a look at Greece. Their government promised the people things it could never pay for, and the people ALL BOUGHT INTO THE LIE. Now they're rioting because true costs have been brought home to them. Socialism FAILS because it relies on OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY... and that money is not limitless. When it runs out, or the people from whom you are stealing or borrowing decide or are forced to cut you off... the house of cards collapses.
So in the end, you can only have what is in your means. Unfortunately, those means may not include the things you need to survive, and the bald fact is that your fellow man's responsibility for you IS limited. Your responsibility for yourself, no matter what your government tells you, is on the other hand, quite absolute.
If you want to chase your dreams, DO it... within reason. But as the somewhat sarcastic demotivators say, not every kid gets to grow up to be an astronaut. Not every kid gets to live in a mansion... and perhaps tragically, not every kid is entitled to live to old age on nothing but the charity, forced or otherwise, of his social peers.
I foresee a day when the riots of Greece will happen in the states. By then, God willing and ability allowing, I will be beach-side somewhere else, reminiscing fondly of the days when America was a great nation. The United States is still the greatest nation on earth, but all nations rise and fall. Some nations re-invent themselves and keep the same name, but the principles that previously drove their cultures are just as dead as they would be had the name changed along with the faces of those in power. Within the next ten years or so it will become clear whether or not America can withstand the tide of socialism sweeping the globe, and MOST of the current indications seem to point toward no... which is a tragedy fit to make a grown man cry.
Titan AE was, by and large, a crap movie. It did have one good line though that I've had occasion to use often over the years.
"I weep for the species."
Would you mind if I sent this to some friends of mine? A few of them would love to see this.
We also need the federal government to field a military force sufficient to protect and if necessary advance our interests abroad. We also require espionage and intelligence services, without which we would find ourselves critically disadvantaged.
You'll note of course that no direct aid to the common man was included, as I do and always have believed that local charities and churches are better disposed toward providing help to people locally. I also happen to believe that without recourse to some faceless organization that doesn't require any sort of accountability, people would be forced to get and remain more involved with their local communities. As it is most folks these days would be hard pressed to even name their neighbors. If you are forced to the conscious realization that you do in fact depend on these people; it would behoove you to find out who they are, which would put a face and a voice back into social responsibility that would in turn encourage the individual receiving help to receive it only for so long as it's needed, not so long as its possible.
In general, the less people think of, much less rely on, the federal government, the better. It does it's job best when it is transparent to the end user. The face of government in a democratic society ought to be the mayor of your city, the aldermen, or at worst, state governors and representatives.
But there again, that's just me.