Curtis Dahlgren
Are you a DRONE, a CLONE, or can you stand ALONE?
By Curtis Dahlgren
"I would venture to say that the students at [Monica] Goodling's law school at Regent University are far more impressive than those at the Cornell agriculture school — the land-grant, non-Ivy League school Keith [Olbermann] attended." — Ann Coulter
MY JOHN STUART MILL COLUMN-OF-THE-WEEK IS ANN'S CURRENT "OLBERMANN'S PLASTIC IVY." The thing that brought that subject up was Keith's "crack" that the Bush employee Goodling's degree from Regent was obtained by "sending in 100 boxtops to a Religious Lunatic University." HaHa. And they wonder why Liberal talk radio keeps failing. The "niche" for Ivy Leaguers listening to talk radio is, shall we say, as small as a penis when it's 20 below zero in Tennessee.
RUSH LIMBAUGH DIDN'T EVEN FINISH COLLEGE AT SOUTHEASTERN MISSOURI. SO WHAT? In his national TV address, Rush "misspoke" and referred to the "preamble to the Constitution" instead of the Declaration of Independence (similar, I guess, to Michael Steele's saying one thing when he was "thinking something else"). Coulter says:
"'These small-time opportunities to show off by correcting someone else's teeny-tiny mistakes are the lifeblood of Olbermann's MSNBC show, 'Countdown.' Olbermann is no more capable of not correcting Rep. Charlie Rangel when he said 'inferred,' but meant 'implied,' than an obsessive compulsive could pass a sink without washing his hands."
Now Rush Limbaugh is not a drone, and he could stand alone, but Rush is NOT "alone." His humor is "fact-based" — not just nit-picking — and his humor is more widely appreciated than a Keith Olbermann could ever comprehend (in the Utopia of Topsy-turveydom, laughter will be outlawed anyway). Rush is not a clone like the Liberals, but nevertheless, I want to make a few confessions in his defense.
I've attended a land-grant agriculture school, a private liberal arts college, and was a Recreation major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (got an A in phy ed and every other class I took except one in which the janitor threw out my term paper). Wonder if Keith Olbermann could say he "almost" got a 4.0 average at a real Ivy League-class institution of Higher Learning. To "steal" one more line from Ann Coulter:
"If you actually want to pursue a career related to agriculture, there is no better school than the Cornell ag school. I have nothing but admiration for the farmers and aspiring veterinarians at the ag school. They didn't go there just to have 'Cornell' on their resumes.
In addition to the farmers, there are some smart kids who go to the ag school — as there are at all state universities. But most people who majored in 'communications' at an ag school don't act like Marshall Scholars or go around mocking graduates of Regent University Law School."
Speaking of term papers, I'd love to see just one paragraph of President Obama's college writings, so — "in the Public Interest" and interest of full disclosure — here's an excerpt from one of my own college papers:
ON "ON THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION"
John Stuart Mill supports freedom of expression of opinion because of three possible situations: the obvious one, that the suppressed opinion could be truth; the opposite one, that the suppressed opinion may be false (but ought to be expressed anyway); or, that the suppressed opinions might be conflicting half-truths.
His essay, "On the liberty of thought and discussion," itself falls into the latter category, I now believe. I would have been impressed by the essay to a greater extent a year ago when I was more obsessed with libertarianism. Since then, my outlook has been desecularized enough to have some reservations about [some of] Mills' arguments . . .
Specifically, I do not care for the manner in which he treats the subject of Christianity. He calls it reactionary, passive, and negative. On the "negative" part, I would hardly disagree — the ten commandments do contain 14 "negatives"([but' that's simply one of the "facts of life" that bother free thinkers like Mill). It is just that, as a result, he calls those facts "defects" (which was one of his defects). He is called "the saint of rationalism," and he says (I use the present tense because his writings were allowed to pass down to us):
"I am as far as any one from pretending that these defects are necessarily inherent in the Christian ethics in every manner in which it can be conceived, or that the many requisites of a complete moral doctrine which it does not contain do not admit of being reconciles with it. Far less would I insinuate this of the doctrines and precepts of Christ himself."
As for the general theme of the essay, it should be pointed out that John Stuart Mill divided society into three classes: two groups of partisans who oppose each other, plus a referee — the "rationalist." He said:
"Truth, in the great practical concerns of life, is so much a question of reconciling and combining of opposites, that very few have minds so capacious and impartial to make the adjustment with an approach to correctness, and it has to be made by the rough process of a struggle between combatants fighting under hostile banners . . .
"But it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect." [end of excerpt by CD]
OBVIOUSLY, Keith Olbermann does not see himself as "partisan" or "combative," but as a "calm bystander/referee" who is in the ELITE class of "Ivy Leaguers" who have minds so "capacious" that they and they alone can define [political] "correctness"! This gives him license to mock a Religious Lunatic University in the "post-partisan [one-party] era."
That is precisely the mind-set of the 1950s liberals who mocked the anti-Communists in exile from Soviet-conquered nations as "too close to the situation to be impartial" (never mind how many of their neighbors and relatives were murdered or sent to Siberia). What bothers me is that our President admittedly hung out with "Marxist professors" and sixties radicals. Not coincidentally, his Administration is gathering dossiers on men and women on their enemies list (such as Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham). The first step is to demonize and marginalize them — as Russian intellectuals were; actual censoring and arresting of them may be unnecessary, but we'll have to wait and see (see step one).
In my college paper, I concluded thusly:
"I have in my possession a cartoon which pictures a boxing ring in which both combatants and the referee are buried under the huge hooded overhead light, fallen from the ceiling. In the caption of the cartoon, the announcer says, 'Now briefly, here's what happened.'"
"WHAT'S THE POINT":
In Utopias such as the old Soviet Union, ruled by the "rationalists," the only RICH people are the ruling elitists, but — history says — it all comes crashing down on all of them. And with the top story now the global economy, history will surely be repeated. I just hate most conspiracy theories, but the fact remains that there was a run on America's banking system that began on or about 9/11/08. The continuing saga of a war on talk radio and other non-mainstream media gives credence to conspiracist theories as to the sources of that run on the banks.
Since writing my previous column, I had a dream one night in which an airplane was being crash-landed deliberately. A dumb question:
Is that a picture of what happened in September 2008 — just in time for the election? I don't enjoy even contemplating the possibility, but "We live in different times," says Rush Limbaugh. Some economic experts say that something similar to this happened in the late 1920s, and that the "crash" paved the way for the first wave of socialism in America.
The Dow Jones average in May of 2008 was over 13,000 and it has fallen about 1,500 points since Inauguration day. It has fallen nearly 3,000 points since November 4, 2008, and too many people seem to be cheering "(the better to eat you with," said the Big Bad Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood). The stock market fell five days in a row last week, and with each passing day, the Administration sounded less concerned about that "opinion poll."
Those lovers of the First Amendment, the mainstream news media, were talking down the economy from 9/11/01 until the day President Bush retired to Texas. Now they are cheering the attack on Free Speech (only with temporary exceptions for newspapers, magazines, National Public Radio and public TV, and — so far — commercial television). Who is kidding whom? Do they actually think that they will always be loved by Big Brother? HA! People such as Keith Olbermann would be among the first to go.
But who am I — an ag and rec major at the University of Wisconsin — to offer any unwanted advice to the Best and the Brightest of the Best and Brightest? Here are some random thoughts from a private e-mail I sent early this morning:
My career has proven that there are no jobs "Americans can't or won't do" anymore. I've done everything but stomping grapes or stacking tobacco like Al Gore (wonder what kind of a winter he's had?).
Maybe he just "misspoke" when he said we're in for global warming. Like Barack Obama misspoke when he said we have 57 states. Personally, I think that was more of a Freudian slip than a mistake. In his Utopian vision he probably foresees the addition to the Union of the District of Columbia (renamed East Obama), Peurto Rico, Cuba, Mexico, Canada, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Cook County (renamed West Obama). In his best imitation of FDR, he will use a real long filter on his cigarettes, and stack the U.S. Senate and House of Representative, in effect stacking the Supreme Court. Maybe Fidel's brother will be appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in exchange for us giving up a missile defense shield and 90 percent of Israel. Sharia law will be allowed in the Greater Detroit area (the one exception to the no-school-choice Executive Orders). The U.S. census will be abolished after 2010 — and the final — redrawing of Congressional districts.
In the Ivy League ""3-D" panoramic vision of the world, most of the globe is land, so that when all the glaciers melt, the Deluge is coming. We'll have to build our own arks (scratch that, the next Bailout Bill will provide jobs for illegal aliens building arks). I'm not trying to outdo Ann Coulter here; I'm serious about that (George Bush may even be drinking again).
P.S. The "3-Ds" in the Socialist world-view are:
1) Democratic drones.
2) Democratic disinformation.
3) De facto Despotism (or is that six Ds?).
The "3-Rs" will be relegated to the dust bins of museums and the History Channel. But the teachers' unions will have a better pension plan than Congressional leaders. The number one selling car in the USSA will be the Geo Amphibian (we're going to be mostly under water, you know). The Amphibian will be built by Yugo in Gary, Indiana. In the unlikely event of traffic jams in the Chicago area, owners of the new Geo will be able to take a short cut to Indiana across Lake Michigan. By 2012, every citizen will have to pay a surcharge on the carbon dioxide he breathes out. Your car will have a chip charging you for every quarter mile you drive, and your tax for breathing out will be based on your weight (unless you are below the poverty line, which will be redefined upward). If you still can't pay your CO2 emissions tax, you will be able to sell your children into slavery (nothing new there).
These predictions don't sound half-crazy compared to the totally crazy headlines I've been reading in the news of late:
- An asteroid the size of the one that demolished Siberia whizzed by us half the distance to the moon [and our government claims it didn't see it coming].
- Pennsylvania public school district sells trailer for $1 [inadvertently].
- Fatally drug over-dosed teen girl dumped in Milwaukee area driveway.
- National Teachers Association opposes school choice in Washington, DC area.
- "Why drinking more milk can help you slim down" [is the pendulum swinging back?]
- Oil tankers stacked up outside New York harbor [hope the Coast Guard watches out for little rubber dingies, or pirates, approaching any oil tanker].
- Terrell Owens cut by the Dallas Cowboys [the world must be coming to an end].
- Another whats-his-name given a 100-million-dollar NFL contract [inflation is rising].
- China announces 15 percent increase in military spending while Obama cuts his down.
- Alabama and Georgia and Carolinas hammered by snow storm.
[BY THE WAY — here in the Upper Peninsula, it was 14 below zero on Saturday, 12 below on Sunday, 10 below on Monday, and 8 below on Tuesday. Al Gore and Barbra Streisand would conclude from this that Michigan is suffering a Global Warming trend, although I should mention that Milwaukee was buried by 15 inches of snow on Monday. Such an inconvenient truth, eh? Or as they would say on the south side of Milwaukee, "aina?" (that's short for "ain't it?").]
ANYWAY, as I said as March came in like a lion, Washington is weeping (if you don't believe it, go back and look closer at the photograph at the end of that column).
www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/090101
Like John Stuart Mill, the "Rationalists" of the educated class these days believe that they are "scary smart" (in Coulter's words), and the rest of us are just drones and clones who must be silenced (or at least over-ruled, as in California's Proposition 8). "Religious Lunatic University" supporters, you know!
Obviously, in Liberal minds, there is "good" tolerance and "bad" tolerance, "good" truth and "bad" truth, "good" speech and totally unacceptable speech! HUSH, RUSH; there's too much humor on your show; it needs to be "balanced" with some real "gravity." What the secular "progressives" don't get is that Christians will be okay no matter what chaos is created by radical liberalism ("you can kill the body, but . . . ").
A quasi-dictatorship by pseudo-intellectuals is no match for what George Washington called the "Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men."
When I started writing this column in 2003, I had notions of actually preventing some of the chaotic "changes" that we have since witnessed. Recently, I have almost resigned myself to simply chronicling those crazy headlines from week to week. But from time to time I still throw a bone to my desire to "make a difference" — with the help of the Founding Fathers.
There's a book entitled "48 Liberal Lies About American History." Larry Schweikart debunks the debunkers. Number 49 lie is probably George Washington's Farewell Address excerpt (out of 12 pages of fine print) supposedly advising isolationism. What he said was:
"Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the Government to support them, conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that is it folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that by such acceptance it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more."
[That sounds like our "gifts" to Hamas (read self-prostitution). The actual context of George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances" was a direct reference to Europe. He said, among other things:
"Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?"
In concluding his Farewell, Washington said, "Though in reviewing the incidents of my Administration I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors.
"Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence, and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansion of rest."
O would that our present leaders had such fears that their errors, unintentional or intentional, would one day be judged by the Invisible Hand, the Almighty.]
ANYWAY, don't be afraid to laugh at "folly." Keep the faith, and rejoice anyway! In 1968 a college sophomore named Ken Keith wrote a little brochure on "Ten Paradoxical Commandments." The short title came to be "Anyway," and a copy was found on the wall of Mother Theresa's Calcutta orphange. One of these paradoxical commandments says:
"If you find serenity in happiness, some people will be jealous; be happy anyway."
Are you a drone, or a clone? OR CAN YOU STAND ALONE?
© Curtis Dahlgren
March 5, 2009
"I would venture to say that the students at [Monica] Goodling's law school at Regent University are far more impressive than those at the Cornell agriculture school — the land-grant, non-Ivy League school Keith [Olbermann] attended." — Ann Coulter
MY JOHN STUART MILL COLUMN-OF-THE-WEEK IS ANN'S CURRENT "OLBERMANN'S PLASTIC IVY." The thing that brought that subject up was Keith's "crack" that the Bush employee Goodling's degree from Regent was obtained by "sending in 100 boxtops to a Religious Lunatic University." HaHa. And they wonder why Liberal talk radio keeps failing. The "niche" for Ivy Leaguers listening to talk radio is, shall we say, as small as a penis when it's 20 below zero in Tennessee.
RUSH LIMBAUGH DIDN'T EVEN FINISH COLLEGE AT SOUTHEASTERN MISSOURI. SO WHAT? In his national TV address, Rush "misspoke" and referred to the "preamble to the Constitution" instead of the Declaration of Independence (similar, I guess, to Michael Steele's saying one thing when he was "thinking something else"). Coulter says:
"'These small-time opportunities to show off by correcting someone else's teeny-tiny mistakes are the lifeblood of Olbermann's MSNBC show, 'Countdown.' Olbermann is no more capable of not correcting Rep. Charlie Rangel when he said 'inferred,' but meant 'implied,' than an obsessive compulsive could pass a sink without washing his hands."
Now Rush Limbaugh is not a drone, and he could stand alone, but Rush is NOT "alone." His humor is "fact-based" — not just nit-picking — and his humor is more widely appreciated than a Keith Olbermann could ever comprehend (in the Utopia of Topsy-turveydom, laughter will be outlawed anyway). Rush is not a clone like the Liberals, but nevertheless, I want to make a few confessions in his defense.
I've attended a land-grant agriculture school, a private liberal arts college, and was a Recreation major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (got an A in phy ed and every other class I took except one in which the janitor threw out my term paper). Wonder if Keith Olbermann could say he "almost" got a 4.0 average at a real Ivy League-class institution of Higher Learning. To "steal" one more line from Ann Coulter:
"If you actually want to pursue a career related to agriculture, there is no better school than the Cornell ag school. I have nothing but admiration for the farmers and aspiring veterinarians at the ag school. They didn't go there just to have 'Cornell' on their resumes.
In addition to the farmers, there are some smart kids who go to the ag school — as there are at all state universities. But most people who majored in 'communications' at an ag school don't act like Marshall Scholars or go around mocking graduates of Regent University Law School."
Speaking of term papers, I'd love to see just one paragraph of President Obama's college writings, so — "in the Public Interest" and interest of full disclosure — here's an excerpt from one of my own college papers:
ON "ON THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION"
John Stuart Mill supports freedom of expression of opinion because of three possible situations: the obvious one, that the suppressed opinion could be truth; the opposite one, that the suppressed opinion may be false (but ought to be expressed anyway); or, that the suppressed opinions might be conflicting half-truths.
His essay, "On the liberty of thought and discussion," itself falls into the latter category, I now believe. I would have been impressed by the essay to a greater extent a year ago when I was more obsessed with libertarianism. Since then, my outlook has been desecularized enough to have some reservations about [some of] Mills' arguments . . .
Specifically, I do not care for the manner in which he treats the subject of Christianity. He calls it reactionary, passive, and negative. On the "negative" part, I would hardly disagree — the ten commandments do contain 14 "negatives"([but' that's simply one of the "facts of life" that bother free thinkers like Mill). It is just that, as a result, he calls those facts "defects" (which was one of his defects). He is called "the saint of rationalism," and he says (I use the present tense because his writings were allowed to pass down to us):
"I am as far as any one from pretending that these defects are necessarily inherent in the Christian ethics in every manner in which it can be conceived, or that the many requisites of a complete moral doctrine which it does not contain do not admit of being reconciles with it. Far less would I insinuate this of the doctrines and precepts of Christ himself."
As for the general theme of the essay, it should be pointed out that John Stuart Mill divided society into three classes: two groups of partisans who oppose each other, plus a referee — the "rationalist." He said:
"Truth, in the great practical concerns of life, is so much a question of reconciling and combining of opposites, that very few have minds so capacious and impartial to make the adjustment with an approach to correctness, and it has to be made by the rough process of a struggle between combatants fighting under hostile banners . . .
"But it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect." [end of excerpt by CD]
OBVIOUSLY, Keith Olbermann does not see himself as "partisan" or "combative," but as a "calm bystander/referee" who is in the ELITE class of "Ivy Leaguers" who have minds so "capacious" that they and they alone can define [political] "correctness"! This gives him license to mock a Religious Lunatic University in the "post-partisan [one-party] era."
That is precisely the mind-set of the 1950s liberals who mocked the anti-Communists in exile from Soviet-conquered nations as "too close to the situation to be impartial" (never mind how many of their neighbors and relatives were murdered or sent to Siberia). What bothers me is that our President admittedly hung out with "Marxist professors" and sixties radicals. Not coincidentally, his Administration is gathering dossiers on men and women on their enemies list (such as Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham). The first step is to demonize and marginalize them — as Russian intellectuals were; actual censoring and arresting of them may be unnecessary, but we'll have to wait and see (see step one).
In my college paper, I concluded thusly:
"I have in my possession a cartoon which pictures a boxing ring in which both combatants and the referee are buried under the huge hooded overhead light, fallen from the ceiling. In the caption of the cartoon, the announcer says, 'Now briefly, here's what happened.'"
"WHAT'S THE POINT":
In Utopias such as the old Soviet Union, ruled by the "rationalists," the only RICH people are the ruling elitists, but — history says — it all comes crashing down on all of them. And with the top story now the global economy, history will surely be repeated. I just hate most conspiracy theories, but the fact remains that there was a run on America's banking system that began on or about 9/11/08. The continuing saga of a war on talk radio and other non-mainstream media gives credence to conspiracist theories as to the sources of that run on the banks.
Since writing my previous column, I had a dream one night in which an airplane was being crash-landed deliberately. A dumb question:
Is that a picture of what happened in September 2008 — just in time for the election? I don't enjoy even contemplating the possibility, but "We live in different times," says Rush Limbaugh. Some economic experts say that something similar to this happened in the late 1920s, and that the "crash" paved the way for the first wave of socialism in America.
The Dow Jones average in May of 2008 was over 13,000 and it has fallen about 1,500 points since Inauguration day. It has fallen nearly 3,000 points since November 4, 2008, and too many people seem to be cheering "(the better to eat you with," said the Big Bad Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood). The stock market fell five days in a row last week, and with each passing day, the Administration sounded less concerned about that "opinion poll."
Those lovers of the First Amendment, the mainstream news media, were talking down the economy from 9/11/01 until the day President Bush retired to Texas. Now they are cheering the attack on Free Speech (only with temporary exceptions for newspapers, magazines, National Public Radio and public TV, and — so far — commercial television). Who is kidding whom? Do they actually think that they will always be loved by Big Brother? HA! People such as Keith Olbermann would be among the first to go.
But who am I — an ag and rec major at the University of Wisconsin — to offer any unwanted advice to the Best and the Brightest of the Best and Brightest? Here are some random thoughts from a private e-mail I sent early this morning:
My career has proven that there are no jobs "Americans can't or won't do" anymore. I've done everything but stomping grapes or stacking tobacco like Al Gore (wonder what kind of a winter he's had?).
Maybe he just "misspoke" when he said we're in for global warming. Like Barack Obama misspoke when he said we have 57 states. Personally, I think that was more of a Freudian slip than a mistake. In his Utopian vision he probably foresees the addition to the Union of the District of Columbia (renamed East Obama), Peurto Rico, Cuba, Mexico, Canada, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Cook County (renamed West Obama). In his best imitation of FDR, he will use a real long filter on his cigarettes, and stack the U.S. Senate and House of Representative, in effect stacking the Supreme Court. Maybe Fidel's brother will be appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in exchange for us giving up a missile defense shield and 90 percent of Israel. Sharia law will be allowed in the Greater Detroit area (the one exception to the no-school-choice Executive Orders). The U.S. census will be abolished after 2010 — and the final — redrawing of Congressional districts.
In the Ivy League ""3-D" panoramic vision of the world, most of the globe is land, so that when all the glaciers melt, the Deluge is coming. We'll have to build our own arks (scratch that, the next Bailout Bill will provide jobs for illegal aliens building arks). I'm not trying to outdo Ann Coulter here; I'm serious about that (George Bush may even be drinking again).
P.S. The "3-Ds" in the Socialist world-view are:
1) Democratic drones.
2) Democratic disinformation.
3) De facto Despotism (or is that six Ds?).
The "3-Rs" will be relegated to the dust bins of museums and the History Channel. But the teachers' unions will have a better pension plan than Congressional leaders. The number one selling car in the USSA will be the Geo Amphibian (we're going to be mostly under water, you know). The Amphibian will be built by Yugo in Gary, Indiana. In the unlikely event of traffic jams in the Chicago area, owners of the new Geo will be able to take a short cut to Indiana across Lake Michigan. By 2012, every citizen will have to pay a surcharge on the carbon dioxide he breathes out. Your car will have a chip charging you for every quarter mile you drive, and your tax for breathing out will be based on your weight (unless you are below the poverty line, which will be redefined upward). If you still can't pay your CO2 emissions tax, you will be able to sell your children into slavery (nothing new there).
These predictions don't sound half-crazy compared to the totally crazy headlines I've been reading in the news of late:
- An asteroid the size of the one that demolished Siberia whizzed by us half the distance to the moon [and our government claims it didn't see it coming].
- Pennsylvania public school district sells trailer for $1 [inadvertently].
- Fatally drug over-dosed teen girl dumped in Milwaukee area driveway.
- National Teachers Association opposes school choice in Washington, DC area.
- "Why drinking more milk can help you slim down" [is the pendulum swinging back?]
- Oil tankers stacked up outside New York harbor [hope the Coast Guard watches out for little rubber dingies, or pirates, approaching any oil tanker].
- Terrell Owens cut by the Dallas Cowboys [the world must be coming to an end].
- Another whats-his-name given a 100-million-dollar NFL contract [inflation is rising].
- China announces 15 percent increase in military spending while Obama cuts his down.
- Alabama and Georgia and Carolinas hammered by snow storm.
[BY THE WAY — here in the Upper Peninsula, it was 14 below zero on Saturday, 12 below on Sunday, 10 below on Monday, and 8 below on Tuesday. Al Gore and Barbra Streisand would conclude from this that Michigan is suffering a Global Warming trend, although I should mention that Milwaukee was buried by 15 inches of snow on Monday. Such an inconvenient truth, eh? Or as they would say on the south side of Milwaukee, "aina?" (that's short for "ain't it?").]
ANYWAY, as I said as March came in like a lion, Washington is weeping (if you don't believe it, go back and look closer at the photograph at the end of that column).
www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/090101
Like John Stuart Mill, the "Rationalists" of the educated class these days believe that they are "scary smart" (in Coulter's words), and the rest of us are just drones and clones who must be silenced (or at least over-ruled, as in California's Proposition 8). "Religious Lunatic University" supporters, you know!
Obviously, in Liberal minds, there is "good" tolerance and "bad" tolerance, "good" truth and "bad" truth, "good" speech and totally unacceptable speech! HUSH, RUSH; there's too much humor on your show; it needs to be "balanced" with some real "gravity." What the secular "progressives" don't get is that Christians will be okay no matter what chaos is created by radical liberalism ("you can kill the body, but . . . ").
A quasi-dictatorship by pseudo-intellectuals is no match for what George Washington called the "Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men."
When I started writing this column in 2003, I had notions of actually preventing some of the chaotic "changes" that we have since witnessed. Recently, I have almost resigned myself to simply chronicling those crazy headlines from week to week. But from time to time I still throw a bone to my desire to "make a difference" — with the help of the Founding Fathers.
There's a book entitled "48 Liberal Lies About American History." Larry Schweikart debunks the debunkers. Number 49 lie is probably George Washington's Farewell Address excerpt (out of 12 pages of fine print) supposedly advising isolationism. What he said was:
"Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the Government to support them, conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that is it folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that by such acceptance it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more."
[That sounds like our "gifts" to Hamas (read self-prostitution). The actual context of George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances" was a direct reference to Europe. He said, among other things:
"Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?"
In concluding his Farewell, Washington said, "Though in reviewing the incidents of my Administration I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors.
"Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence, and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansion of rest."
O would that our present leaders had such fears that their errors, unintentional or intentional, would one day be judged by the Invisible Hand, the Almighty.]
ANYWAY, don't be afraid to laugh at "folly." Keep the faith, and rejoice anyway! In 1968 a college sophomore named Ken Keith wrote a little brochure on "Ten Paradoxical Commandments." The short title came to be "Anyway," and a copy was found on the wall of Mother Theresa's Calcutta orphange. One of these paradoxical commandments says:
"If you find serenity in happiness, some people will be jealous; be happy anyway."
Are you a drone, or a clone? OR CAN YOU STAND ALONE?
© Curtis Dahlgren
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