BACK AND FORTH

 A few days ago, I was quite surprised to see that the difficulty of high-powered, highly intelligent and, presumably, good-hearted women in finding a partner is still out there! Will and Ariel Durant mentioned this when they wrote a century ago!
But then, why should I be? The recent election showed that we still have more than our share of the type of male wuss I call 'doughfaced dinkyjohnnies'. They'd rather vote for a hereditarily rich white male (he is no man by my definition of that worthy thing!) who is also a convicted criminal and knows only how to make our government a private enricher for himself, rather than a woman of color who, all her working life, has had only one boss: WE! THE! PEOPLE! First, the people of San Francisco, then of Alameda County, then the state of California and finally the whole country!
And she has served each very well!
However, I've found that not all the onus is on we males. Let me ask the women out there a question: if a man (and I mean a real man; that is, one who lives with integrity, responsibility and courtesy) told you he could be a good and able househusband (a redundancy, really, as 'husband' means 'home manager') and was willing to be the primary caretaker for any children you might have---how many of you would want to take him up on that? Even if you are a high-powered, highly-salaried person?
I mean, look at his place by all means! If he says he'll clean, see if his place confirms that. If he puts himself forward as a cook, check his kitchen. If he has pets, check them out too. Not to mention his way with little young people.
But, having done all that and pretty much finding it all 'checks', will you still feel he's 'less of a man' because his monetary worth is judged less than yours? If you do, guess what: you're shooting yourself somewhere between the foot and your female parts, to use a dated description.
Again: if an adult male hominid lives his life with integrity, responsibility and courtesy (and works on all three) he is a man. And, so long as they are men according to this definition, none of them are 'manlier' than any other. Indeed, the only billionaires I'd dignify with that description are Nick Hanauer, Uncle Warren (Buffett) and maybe Bill Gates.
I was fourteen years old in 1970, when late 20th century feminism came center stage and TIME magazine 'ratified' it by featuring Kate Millett on its cover. I thought, now it'll all change.
I and my brother babysat for a number of families during our teens, mostly (but not exclusively) for families with boys. But the 1980s, in this respect, was a 'retro' decade. Some reasons for that were 1) inflation and 2) GOP giveaways to the already obscenely rich. Such giveaways tend to take money out of circulation. I remember when Bush II did the same thing in 2003; almost immediately in its wake the local economy felt like it had less 'oxygen' in it.
But as a result of the factors mentioned here, a two-earner family started to go from a luxury to a necessity. Thus, only now do ads feature husbands who are cooks and/or see to the laundry and even apply good old Vicks VapoRub on a sick child.
Anyhow, I hope my guideline for manly character and behavior proves useful for both males and women.
Before I go, let me tell my fellow males this: in the end, you will find being a man according to this definition more satisfying, in and of itself, than any other way of living. Also remember the great Lord Acton's maxim: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." If we are to save the souls of the wealthy, we must curb their earthly power. For our earthly good and their spiritual health!

TRANSCENDING BONELESS DISLIKE

 This is an open letter to all the traitors (imo) who either voted for MAGA or who did not vote at all:
I probably don't like any of you, especially the ones who see the only point to helping others is to make yourselves look 'good'. I think of you and then I remember John 1:5. "For the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not."
That darkness is y'all. Not that we're a set of particularly bright lights, but for good or ill, y'all put the bar plenty low! Y'all are used to squelching most, maybe not all, common human or even fellow-mammal feelings. Maybe if you have pets you're partially open to those feelings. I know many's the time I look at our two dogs in loving wonderment and appreciation, including and perhaps especially when I compare them with humans and it's us who come up short! I strongly suspect that those of you who have pets have known the same feeling, perhaps more often than I have.
As you are in the darkness, you can't comprehend kindly feelings for any human unlike yourselves. And so, you can only comprehend showing such feelings as being what you call 'virtue signalling'. That is, we're trying to show you benighted wicked fools how much better we are than you!
I admit, that's exactly what some of us are trying to do. But only some of us, and a minority among us at that. If it weren't so, we 'scalawags' would have bolted from their camp a long time ago!
And I'll let you in on a little secret: you don't need to 'love' nobody in order to do right by them as God gives us the light to see, understand and do what's right!
First, get--and keep--this straight: the God who brings up the sun on both the good (us) and evil (y'all) and brings the rain down on both the just and the unjust (harder to decipher who's who here) has NOT appointed you to say who's deserving of help in obtaining life's basics (decent food, clothing and shelter, health care, clean air and water) and who isn't! If God considers us all as equally deserving,
then who the hell (literally) are you to say who's deserving and who isn't?!
I know, pretty certainly, that it is possible to have no tender feelings for this or that set of bipeds in order not to maim them, internally or externally, in order to 'save' them, or because someone told you, "Never give nuthin' to no n***er, s**c, 'injun' or k**e", to make sure they, too, are decently fed and sheltered, etc. All you need to do--and you can do this, certainly if you ask God's help to do so, He will extend it--is remember how you would want to be treated.
And it doesn't hurt to recall this line from Proverbs--yes, I said Proverbs!--"If your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing so, you will heap glowing coals on his head." At least, if your enemy has a conscience, you'll be doing that. Because a human with a conscience, helped by you, her enemy, will probably ask, "Why are we enemies? This person just fed me and/or gave me water." If s/he has no conscience, then that's another matter for another time. I think I can confidently say, virtually all of us do have consciences. Some of us have such overweening consciences that they bid fair to drive the rest of us nuts, but, again, that too is for another time.
How do I know God will help you in this? I'll tell you: right now, he's helping me transcend my anger at and, indeed, my utter disgust for all you traitors--that is, traitors to our common birthright and to the promise of our country becoming something never before seen in human history: a multiracial, multiethnic, multi-faith democratic representative republic where there is no hierarchy save that of true knowledge and ability!
If you need help and we come across each other, I will do what I can and not mention politics. If you need more than I can do, I'll point you to where you might find what you need and, again, make no inquiry as to your politics. Get it?
That's what it comes down to: recognizing and honoring the things all living things have in common and the connections between us. That is, if I inflict real injury (by which I don't mean butthurt) on you, it'll come back somehow to bite me in my hairy ass. And the same applies to you, however frenetically you try to deny it.
In any case, the crew you've elected, that is, the Orange Ogre and his MAGAts, are poised to make some of those connections quite painfully clear to you and us. And that's why we are poised to fight them every millimeter of the way.
Many of us see the connections you either don't see or refuse to acknowledge. If we can, we'll save your asses as well as our own--but for you, the price may be to have the butts of your egos crimsoned; your egos might not be able to sit for a year. Be ready for that!

ESAUS--OR WHAT?

To all who gave a con their vote on Tuesday or before: do you know what you've done?
Do you really know for what you've voted?
To those who've sold our common birthright for the false promise of lower prices for milk, eggs, bread and gas: you have been hornswoggled by this con. Indeed, if he legislates the McKinley-era type tariffs he wants into law, expect to be paying a lot more for the goods you need and want!
That big plasma TV screen you'd like to buy? If it's made anywhere but in the good ol' USA, you'd better buy it now because anything made anywhere else, starting next year, will be 20 to maybe 100 percent more expensive! And why? Tariffs, that's why!
I need to ask God's forgiveness on a fairly constant basis because I am looking forward to, a year or so hence, to drinking your bitter tears over seriously high prices and smacking my lips to boot!
Then again, I might have tears enough to shed myself at the same time if Project 2025 gets its greedy hands on our SSI and thereby impoverishes us--and tens of millions of others! How many people do y'all know who rely on Social Security for at least a large chunk of their income, if not necessarily the bulk of it? Do your parents of grandparents rely on that? Know anyone incapacitated in an industrial accident who now needs that income? Or who do you know with chronic illnesses? Mike Johnson, Repiglican Speaker of the House, looks forward to ending the Affordable Care Act and having those people thrown out on the street to die. Very likely he and his political owners will dance on their graves as well, after making sure you're not looking. If you are, they know how to assume pious poses with remarkable speed!
And how many hunters have voted for the Orange Con? I got news for you: the policies that he means to pursue via Project 2025 will probably denude your favorite hunting grounds and eventually make them disappear. Do you think that preserving those areas is not connected with being 'green'? Well, enjoy (Muhahahahahahaha!) the consequences of your seriously large mistake! This might be a really serious matter; I've no idea how many impoverished rural fellow citizens rely on hunting to put meat on the family table. Will they be able to keep doing so? I wonder; so should you.
Last but by no means least: how many of you showed what dough-faced dinkyjohnnies you really are by not being able to bring yourself to vote for a woman at all, never mind a woman of color, however capable she might be? Wisconsin, Michigan and (I am bitterly ashamed to list a home state here!) Pennsylvania, ye all have shown yourselves to have more than your share of such dinkyjohnnies--and probably not all of you dough-faced as well. I saw the percentages of African-American and Hispanic males who fell for the con's scam! In any case, you showed us, both on Tuesday and before then, eight years ago, what your real problem is!
The only thing I have to say to those who've voted to make us cry is: boy, have you ever missed the point! We almost never cry for ourselves, but almost always for people, creatures and other life-forms in greater danger, and less able to help themselves, than are we. Including....y'all!
Do you really think that deluding yourselves that others are suffering more will ease yours? When your children cry from hunger, will it ease your mind to think that blacks and browns are hurting more?
Y'all remind me of John 1:5: 'The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.'
But to be fair, we are not completely enlightened either. Certain Yankees (and by that I mean New Englanders, not generic Northerners) act as if their region has a patent on virtue, and that addytood (to put it in 'Philadelphian') seems to have largely infected our educated class. David Brooks is right to point out that our educated class doesn't seem to see or comprehend how much working people require serious respect, not condescension, from them. Our educated class needs to listen to working people of all colors with much more open minds--and not with any predetermined agenda of our own. Brooks is right about that.
You've voted against your own actual interests with remarkable ignorance, and perhaps malicious ignorance, at that. Our educated class is by no means guiltless in this; I admit that. But in the end, it was you who sold our common birthright for what amounts to cheaper French toast, which is equivalent to a mess of pottage all right!
And I thought you all hated French things!

DEATH TO ALL SHARIAHS, BY WHATEVER LABEL!

 As propounded by nearly all Islamists, 'shariah' law is of the Devil.
That's right. You read that right.
Why do I say that? Simply this. As I contemplate those societies ruled by it, I notice that nearly everything in that code is directed towards keeping all the real power in the hands of a few males my age and older, including many of the young women.
Thus, a secondary aim of 'shariah' law is to keep the males between the ages of 18 and 25 from seizing what the older males have (mostly) stolen and divvying it among themselves, including and, perhaps, especially, the young women.
And to this end, they seek to outlaw music and, of all things, female laughter! Why? Because these might EXCITE the young males, who are such babies that they have NO self-control whatsoever! Of course, they are probably also jealous of the simple joy of life that such laughter can, and often does, betoken!
We who live in countries where more female flesh is seen ought to drive it into the heads and hearts of these diabolically-inspired male bipeds that we, not they, are the manlier ones: are we excited to the point of rape by bikini-ed women? For a preponderance of men here and elsewhere, the answer is a definite NO.
We, not they, are the ones who have learned (I admit, to varying extents) to control our hormones rather than be blown about by them!
I can hear a foaming reply from some of them, viz. "You have NO manly hormones in you; there is nothing you need resist! WE are the manliest; liquid fire runs through our veins!!"
I think the best answer to this and other such garbage is, "Ye-ah, dude. Whatever." Then, as they dance with foaming from their mouths, pass the popcorn and the iced tea. Then get ready for some serious conflict.
I say anyone and everyone living in any democracy who says democracy should be killed and shariah 'law' take its place ought to be immediately deported to a country so ruled! Then we'll all be quite happy, won't we?
Warning: we do have those here who seek to institute a 'Christian' version of shariah law. The best-known plan now goes by the name of Project 2025. Advocates of that can be deported to Russia, which is probably the closest thing to what they lust to do to us here.

TRIBES AND FAMILIES

More thoughts stringing themselves together. This particular string starts with why, in today's world, people leave their native countries to go and live elsewhere. As a general rule, people tend to leave places that feel as if they are 'closing in' on their inhabitants and seek out places with both more room to breathe and more secure ground under their feet. These two things are not contradictory, as some ignorant Randians might think, but rather complementary. For without the security afforded by a rule of law and some measure of popular participation in the making of those laws,  safety for one's life, limbs and goods becomes a horrifyingly chancy matter for an individual and her family.
People migrate to where they can breathe easier in terms of safety and/or can be better fed, clothed and sheltered than in the native lands. Or they migrate in pursuit of a particular ideal, whether it be making a new nation or resurrecting an old one. But I suspect such migration as that to be relatively rare.
In any case, for a society to be attractive to immigrants a rule of law, trusted and upheld by the large majority of its citizens, seems to be a prerequisite.
It follows that whatever evaporates or vitiates trust of that rule will, if unchecked, impoverish and re-tribalize a modern society. Such theft of trust re-converts a polyglot federation to a collection of mutually hostile and perpetually warring tribes. This includes all that discourages wide participation in politics and government and which discourages civil discussion of issues about which most of us feel pretty deeply. The so-called Republican party and the noise machine of Faux News, Rush Limburger and all his mimics are indescribably guilty, guilty, GUILTY of such discouragement and, to a dangerously snowballing extent, have been guilty of such discouragement for at least forty years and probably more. Their attempt to put themselves above the law and then to use the law as a club to beat all non-white non-straights-and-males down is a big part of this as well.
Jew-haters claim that Jews break up other 'tribes' while keeping their own intact. Intact? Just how intact are they, one can wonder, when there are probably above 100 million people on this globe with some ancestral connection to ancient Israel, yet who do not call themselves Jews, Israelites or even Hebrews?
The reason for why some remnant of the nation of ancient Israel still calls itself that is probably The Tetragrammaton, aka YHWH. Get it?
I can think of another nation whose beginning includes at least the partial abandonment of tribalism based on DNA, on the 'sib' which was the first political unit of most Teutonic tribes including the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. When those three tribes conquered and settled the greater part of Britain and began the stop-and-go of making it into something called 'England', many sibs were broken up. A man might be a resident of, say, Sussex while his brother or cousin lived many miles away in Essex. And so on. And so the basic societal unit changed from one based on DNA to one based on proximity, on shared residence. As settlements settled, DNA crept back as at least a partial determinant, but not necessarily the primary one.
That process was repeated as first Englishmen, then Dutchmen and, later, border English, Scots, and Scotch-Irish settled along the Atlantic seaboard.
In the last case, whole communities crossed the Pond and went west looking to grab land from the natives. It can be argued they never abandoned the sib or clan as the basic societal unit and thus remained at a more primitive stage of development than other colonial societies. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and those who agree with her, seem to underline this as they don't acknowledge anything but 'blood', aka DNA, as the maker of what they call 'families' but might better be called 'relational clusters'.
'Family', as Robert Frost wrote, is 'the place where they have to take you in', where they acknowledge you as 'one of us' although years might have gone by. But DNA ain't necessarily the determinant. I suggest the determinant is how much love we feel among our 'families'. If, when we're there, it's more a matter of compulsion of some kind (including 'family duty') than wanting or needing to be there--well, I will be bold and say this: that ain't no 'family'; just a common DNA, or, 'relational' cluster of bipeds! Most relational clusters at least attempt to be families, to give credit where it's due.
The extent to which that ideal is realized is certainly highly debatable.
Democrats seem to at least begin to understand that family is where we each feel safe and cared for in ways which we need and can best get there. Where we are built (back?) up and not torn down, but where we're also kindly called on our particular forms of b.s. 'Republicans' at least act as if they don't understand this and don't want to. It must be plain that the Democrats are the ones who are, in the best and broadest sense, the genuinely 'pro-family' party.

FACTS & TRUTHS

 

I just heard Professor Tim Snyder explain that, for democracy to survive and flourish, we need a common understanding of the facts and the truths they show us. Quite true.

And for that to happen, any society needs a vigorous self-critical component. Part of why Western societies and culture still dominate the globe is that the West's common culture may not have been born in the next thing I'll mention, but it was definitely fostered and nurtured in the creative tension between two highly self-critical societies. One (Athens) is characterized by rigorous empirical observation. The other (Jerusalem) is typified by its understandings of divine revelation.

Both societies were and are highly self-critical; I might almost say exceptionally so. The late Samuel Huntington commented; Western superiority primarily emanates from our superiority in organized violence--that is, our armed strength. But whence cometh that superiority but from our scientific primacy? And whence comes THAT but in our willingness to test new ideas and, thus, either make new tools OR adapt tools from elsewhere?

Our diversity and willingness to try what's new are strengths, not weaknesses. One real weakness we might have is forgetfulness of our societies' underpinnings--that is, we forget how rooted both in Scriptural understandings and empirical science we are!

I defy anyone to show me any society, at anytime, anywhere, that has a self-critical sector as vigorous as do Western societies and cultures. And yes, I admit that sometimes that sector is shortsighted sometimes and goes overboard in its criticism of its own mother cultures. And that it takes a liberal to admit that--most harmfully in its response to Israel's defending itself in this current war.

Any society's self-critical sector needs to defend the best in that culture while going at those parts of the culture which are actually hangovers from times not as 'enlightened' as our own and which contradict those things for which we say we stand!

At the same time, we dare not ('dasn't' for old-time Yankees) admit individuals from other societies who are dedicated to the destruction of ours. I support a wholesale expulsion of Islamists (not Muslims per se) from ALL Western nations! We can know them because, when we bring up their uncomfortable truths, they start 'screaming' in one way or another. We also have such truths, but some of us at least are working on them. Are their societies?

I don't think so!

Anyhow, as we prepare to vote, ponder this post, and beware of all those who duck from the light of truth, be they Islamists from elsewhere or our own native fascisti, whatever they call themselves!

Vote for she who does not duck from truth--Kamala and Tim!

  ·

TRUTHS ABOUT DEMOCRACY & AUTOCRACY

 It seems like this is the time to write such a post as this.
Back during the tie of our revolution and what is now called our 'Federal' era, there was quite a bit of talk about comparing, to quote Sam Adams, 'the tranquillity of servitude to the animating contest of liberty'.
What it seems didn't occur to anyone was, servitude ain't tranquillity. I wrote such a post and titled it so; here is a link to it.
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1544353602029642191/8505401765231773381
And one thing even I didn't mention much was, how stressful it can be to 'dance attendance' on a thoroughly corrupted despot of either sex. Which is probably why many wise men and women kept away from princely courts and the like and were also often careful to stay out of the sight and hearing of such despots.
Now, democracy is by no means based on any Rousseauvian Enlightenment claptrap such as the Inherent Goodness of Humankind. We are nowhere near that good, and democracy knows this. Indeed, it's based on the sound ground that none of us corruptible bipeds deserve to be trusted with anything near absolute power and that, accordingly, power ought to be divided in such a way that no one has anywhere near more power than is good for them (or the rest of us) and, also, that no one is left without a voice and some chance to exercise it. This is true not only of mere political but also of economic and financial power; perhaps especially true of the last two types of power.
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
This all-too-true saying was coined and popularized by the great Lord Acton, a mid-Victorian political luminary. In the past, we have assumed that the wealthy will be less open to corruption as they already have all the material benefits they may want. This has also proven to be only a partial truth. Yes, we have had such public-spirited rich folks as the Cecils, many of our Founders such as Washington, Jefferson and Madison and, later, the Roosevelts, Kennedys and (let's be fair) the Lodges and Cabots.
However, in recent years we have seem far too much of what Teddy Roosevelt justly called the 'malefactors of great wealth' who are indeed quite corrupted by the possession of too much wealth and too much power. Those such as Musk and Trump and the latter's supporters seem driven by a lust for absolute power, including a desire to bring feudalism into the 21st century USA!
While autocracy cherishes outward (and often phony and misleading) signs of religious devotion, democracy is actually essential for the growth and strengthening of true religion. In direct proportion to any faith being part of the governmental establishment anywhere, its religious fervor will be largely persecutorial and, thus, contrary to the will of God. Real faith is fostered in an atmosphere of liberty of conscience and only in that atmosphere!
Democracy also necessitates a number of things without which autocracy can muddle along and which it indeed fears and tries to suppress: first, a citizenry educated in the spirit of science and which seeks real truth, which has as little to do as possible with telling thugs what they and their toadies want to hear! And they never want both the good and bad of any story, never mind the ugly. (Wah-WAH-wah!) But all three elements, along with the beauty often created by the struggle between them, are necessary so that the good from history can be strengthened and the bad needn't be repeated. (Wah-WAH-wah-wah!)
Second, a press unafraid to ferret out corruption (which is just about necessary for autocracy!) among those entrusted with power by the public and still more among those possessed with great private power. We need a truth-in-reporting law and maybe a set of them!
Democracy is the only form of government capable of correcting its mistakes--and mistakes there will be, always, this side of Judgment, in any government. All of us are susceptible to corruption or just being badly informed; yes, myself included. Let's remember that even Jesus addressed a rich young man thus: "Why do you call me 'good'? There is none good but God."
But this should be no excuse for not trying to be good; we only need to remember that mistakes on our parts will be inevitable. And democracy gives us the means of correction. It can take a while but is far less dependent on the whims of we corruptibles than is autocracy.
And that is why we need anti-lobbying laws and publicly financed election campaigns too.
Some may think this a paradox, but it is no such thing in a system which needs truthful information to run well. We also need civil servants who know their actual jobs and who can explain in plain language, with a minimum of 'shop talk' (if any) how they serve We The People!
I feel a bit like I'm bouncing these points around; it may be that other fingers can articulate these matters better than this aging pale male. Still, I hope that this at least begins to make the case for the defense, preservation and, yea, the extension of democracy and the continual push-back against autocracy!
Remember something ol' Harry (Truman) once said: "If you want to live like a Republican, vote for the Democrats." Rarely was a truer word spoken, even by that blessedly blunt president.
I think in 1980, too many of us thought we were aristocrats and voted accordingly. We can never afford to forget how plebian nearly all of us are. Real aristocrats look after the real welfare of those lower down the ladder. They (we?) understand that, 'When we all do better, we all do better.'
Not to mention that, by removing the 'super' from 'super-rich', we actually help to save their precious souls from absolute corruption and them toppling over into the fiery Pit on the lip of which they walk! Seriously; think about it!