Posted on by mikecronin2013

On Guard on Memorial Day

By Mike Cronin

Social media is rife today with reminders about the reasons for Memorial Day.  Yet, we are ever in the presence of people who, through ignorance or malice or both, would have us worsen the wars we are in, or get into all new wars.

We have the witch hunt against the Trump administration seeking its purported ties to Russia – as if ties to Russia are a crime, instead of prudent diplomacy.  Consider: Russia has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal AND is involved in Syria in ways often antithetical to our own involvement (Russia is pro-Assad, the US is against him, but our primary fight in Syria is against ISIS). Should we cut off all relations and communications and let the fate of humanity rest on the chance US and Russian forces won’t have an “incident?”

We have the “Antifa” crowd waging its little war against what it perceives to be a Fascist “altRight” movement in general, and the Trump administration in particular. They believe Trump will turn the US into a Nationalist Socialist regime a la Hitler’s Nazi Germany (you know, an industrialized, powerful nation under the control of a charismatic dictator bent on world conquest, which scapegoats some section of its own people, rounds them up, and kills them). What would they replace it with? A Communist Socialist regime, a la Joseph Stalin’s USSR (you know, an industrialized, powerful nation under the control of a charismatic dictator bent on world conquest, which scapegoats some section of its own people, rounds them up, and kills them).

We have the people advocating for registration of females with the Selective Service, so that, if needs be, we could draft women into military service as well as men and send them both off to war against their will – as if that represents a great stride forward in the cause of gender equality, instead of a great leap backward in the cause of liberty and freedom.  Gender equality in the context of a “free” country means ending Selective Service registration altogether.  This would finish the work begun in 1975 of ending the draft and give citizens far more say in when, why, and with what level of commitment this nation sends its sons and daughters off to war.

We have the engineers of envy – the race baiters, the privilege pimps, the income inequality whiners, the gender benders, the identity politicos, tearing this country apart with their ever-more divisive drive for “diversity.” They would have us fight a second Civil War over playground complaints.

We have the fakirs of finance, who wave their wands to “inject liquidity” into the money supply. In other words, they steal value from our existing money by magically making (AKA “quantitative easing”) more money pop into the accounts of the big investment banks.  The idea is to get borrowing and spending moving. If spending takes off, prices go up. Stock market bubbles, or home mortgage bubbles, or ___bubbles form, then they pop, and we get Great Recessions.  What’s a favorite way governments use to recover from economic collapse?  War.

Speaking of government: A professor lectured a class I was in that once an organization reaches a given critical mass, it starts behaving like an organism.  It does whatever it takes to, 1. Survive and, 2. Propagate. That describes our own government to a “T.” If it takes war to survive and propagate, war is what we’ll get – and we have been continuously in shooting wars since at least 1991. Even when we are not in shooting wars, the mere trappings of war feed the beast: The Cold War, The War on Poverty, The War on Drugs, The War on Obesity.  We have let our government become the most dangerous organism on the planet. Left unchecked, it will consume everything and everyone in its path – and there is nowhere on, or even near, earth that is not within its field of view.

Posted on by mikecronin2013

The Same Old Arguments…

By Mike Cronin

I have been accused of being a conservative. I am not, though I could more easily ally with conservatives than with liberals, and I find conservatism less objectionable than liberalism.  Here is my take on the tenets of each movement.

Progressivism/Liberalism/Socialism: A corrupt philosophy that promises…what, exactly? A “more just, verdant, and peaceful world?”  Some of its key tenets:

Greedy politicians can protect us from “selfish” business people.

Wealth is not created by productive effort; it is magically distributed unfairly and must therefore be redistributed until it reaches some undisclosed ratio to be determined by the (greedy) politicians mentioned above. Similarly, outcomes are not the products of input, but of luck. In order to achieve equality, those with better luck (i.e. more wealth/higher income) must give to those with worse luck until parity is achieved.  The “fortunate” are to be penalized for productivity, while the “less fortunate” can, of course, be forgiven for certain criminal activities meant to register their displeasure or to make the transfer (as long as the greedy politicians gets their cut).

Group identity is more important than individual rights – so you can gain synthetic sympathy proportionate to the number aggrieved populations you can “identify” with. For example, if you’re merely female, or of a minority race, you are just a run-of-the-mill potential Progressive. On the other hand, can you identify as a minority, transgendered, homosexual, handicapped, low-income, single-parent, Muslim illegal-immigrant? Hallelujah! Mazel-tov! (But be careful – if you become too unique, then you’re an individual, a pity party of one, and therefore the enemy.)

Free speech only exists for the benefit of fellow Progressives – and includes the power to force everyone else to listen. Publicly-funded broadcast systems are built for this purpose.

The purpose of government is to shape society. The law must be interpreted to reflect the rule of the majority over the minority (especially the minority of one – the individual). To that end, public schooling exists to create a mass of people smart enough to operate machines, but not skilled enough in the arts of critical thinking to question their shepherds. School choice, charter schools, private schools, homeschooling, and merit-based teacher advancement threaten the agenda, so they are to be resisted. Since they do exist, we must spend more on public schools to counter their influence.

Reality is a collective illusion created in the minds of the masses, so morality is pliant and facts don’t matter.  We’ll fund science that promotes our agenda, and quash science that does not. If we all wish for and work towards the same Shangri-La hard enough, evil and inequality will go away!

In contrast…

Conservatism is a movement that seeks to preserve (or restore) what it perceives to be the founding principles of the country. To that end, the actions of the conservative movement suggest the following Conservative tenets:

Conservative politicians are “right,” all other politicians are evil.

Wealth is created by productive effort. The most productive among us are “blessed.”  The government will help them “give back.”

Individual rights are more important than group identity…unless we are talking about the right to do something immoral, like using illegal intoxicants or engaging in prostitution.

Some free speech that opposes conservative values can be tolerated, but only late at night, or behind a pay-wall, or in a walled-off part of the store, or in special zoning areas…while some publicly-funded places, such as schools and courthouses, are legitimate venues to promote Judeo-Christian values.

That the purpose of government is to shape society, and the law should promote Judeo-Christian morality, not just protect individual rights. To that end, schools must be allowed to promote religious concepts.

Reality was made by God, and the Lord works in mysterious ways. Science is the realm of Progressives/Liberals/Socialists – our political enemies, so it often contradicts Biblical truth and is mostly to be discounted…unless it can be used to refute our leftist colleagues.