What's wrong with U.S.

It's simply too difficult to report all the villainy in our government today. John Hawkins aptly summarizes some of what's wrong with U.S.

McDoctorates

In his essay "Too Much College", Walter E. Williams argues that not everyone -- or even most of us! -- should experience university.

A House Divided

Overthrowing national sovereignty is prerequisite for imposing one-world government. Consequently, the globalist elitists seeking to rule over us at the UN endeavor to "undermine national homogeneity" by opening borders and mandating everything "multicultural".

Any nation or people at war with itself (torn by racial, ethnic, cultural or religious strife) cannot stand. Likewise any government of such a "divided" people cannot endure -- certainly not any "democratic" one.

Of course, tyrants don't give a damn about whom they rule...so long as they rule over US!

Hitler learns about the Wisconsin recall results

The Real Hunger Games

Fact is funnier than fiction.

Defying the human life cycle

Mark Steyn observes:

"Look around you. The late-20th-century Western lifestyle isn’t going to be around much longer. In a few years’ time, our children will look at old TV commercials showing retirees dancing, golfing, cruising away their sixties and seventies, and wonder what alternative universe that came from. In turn, their children will be amazed to discover that in the early 21st century the Western world thought it entirely normal that vast swathes of the citizenry should while away their youth enjoying what, a mere hundred years earlier, would have been the leisurely varsity of the younger son of a Mitteleuropean Grand Duke."

His latest book looks interesting.

Public School iPad...just the latest iFad?

With a program entitled "Preparing Students for 'College, Career and Citizenship' in the 21st Century", Coachella Valley Unified School District leadership proposes "giving" an Apple iPad to every student (all 18,000 of them!) and an Apple laptop and TV to every teacher (K-12) over the next 18 months.

What our youngest prodigies will do with these multi-millions of dollars of gizmos remains unclear. Absent in any district promotion are statistics demonstrating that using this technology actually advances real learning (in the form of higher test scores). District administrators remain undeterred, however, hoping their "customers" are pliable enough to pay for it all anyway, saddling us with massive debt destined to linger long after the technology itself is obsolete.

Will it work? (We still don't know what "it" is, exactly.) Will it be worth it? We don't know. (It's never been tried.)

Dr. Adams suggests that this technology will better engage learners and allow teachers to create their own electronic "textbooks", thereby bypassing the multi-million dollar expense and exercise of curriculum adoption and purchasing. (He sells this program thus as a "savings" plan. Whether it's cheaper or not, an iPad certainly is easier to lug around -- and update -- than any backpack full of books.)

Still, one wonders what prevents students from "bypassing" the educational establishment altogether. Why does anyone need to "come to school" anymore if teachers can disseminate their curriculum via this new "engaging" technology? What purpose do millions of paid school teachers now serve (if not just day-care?) now that Salman Kahn can effectively teach millions at a time? If we can save millions of dollars on books, why not save tens of millions on teachers' salaries, school lunches, air conditioning, busing, building maintenance, administration, etc.? Why not save it all?

In fact, why not just cancel public school altogether, slash the property tax rolls, return the money to The People (who earned it), and let Americans educate themselves? We certainly have the technology to adequately do this now. In fact, the argument is persuasive that what we're now spending is largely wasted and unnecessary.

Do our children really need to sit in classrooms half their youthful lives to learn to make, what are essentially, high-tech PowerPoint presentations of useless trivia now passing for "education" (trivia they largely won't remember anyway)? Will "school work" now assigned by middling academics ever prompt anyone to produce "apps" that benefit society at large? (When has this ever happened?) Is the potential benefit worth the real expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars, taken from taxpayers in this valley each year?

If public education is so essential, why are so many of our greatest innovators and revolutionaries high school and college dropouts?

Each new generation, it seems, spawns socialist utopians who believe that sufficient government coercion will insure the eradication of ignorance and poverty, guarantee social progress, and promote the general welfare. Above all, they think man must be saved from himself. Academics, entertainers, and politicians are particularly inured to the belief that they, above all, have "what it takes" to "change the world" for the better. Not surprisingly, public school teachers, Big Government (elected by public school teachers) and Big Media (symbiotically and reciprocally sustained by Big Government) foist the latest social and educational fads upon an unsuspecting and compliant populace. The last big technological "improvement" to education was the internet. Before that, the personal computer. Before that, television and public broadcasting. Plus a host of "revolutionary" programs (like Head Start, New Math, Whole Reading, etc.). Each new iteration has required ever-increasing amounts of taxpayer "investment".

Now, the latest, greatest, sexiest, socialist proposal: a "free" iPad in every palm!

Yet, through it all, despite each public school "innovation", test scores (for most students) have remained flat or declined. (How on earth did our forefathers ever learn anything without modern technology? Their skills and understanding must have been positively Pleistocene!)

I do not doubt that technology allows students today to learn more than has ever been learned (or even known) before. Yet technology is only a tool. Books are a form of technology. And all the books in the world avail nothing to anyone if they rest unopened upon the shelf. An unused iPad -- or worse, an iPad used to surf porn -- will demoralize and debase society rather than improve it.

Still, we must not discard or dismiss this technology simply because it may be misused (or unused). The iPad is another step toward total immersion in computer-based media that undoubtedly can foster, enhance, monitor and assess academic apprehension. The future of education is exciting -- and replete with technology.

Yet, ironically, the superintendent's initiative is another confession that "public school" (as we know it) is as obsolete as the slide rule, the chalk board and the text book -- and just as unjustifiable to pay for or keep around.

The World-Wide Media Blackout

Only one candidate in this American election cycle advocates ending "American imperialism", removing our military bases from 135 countries, bringing home our troops, ending all the foreign wars and invasions, no longer propping up puppet regimes, abolishing the Fed and its fiat currency that channels national wealth to well-connected bankers and Wall Street types while bankrupting and impoverishing the bulk of America's citizenry, getting government out of people's lives and returning power to the states and/or The People (as our Constitution requires). 

In short, only one candidate preaches a decidedly "American" message. And the media says nothing about him. He is entirely blacked out.

Why?

The Powers That Be do not want The People to know what is afoot. They do not want The People to know what they are doing. TPTB are growing enormously wealthy printing "monopoly money", giving it to themselves, and cashing it in for the real stuff (gold, land, businesses, etc.) while orchestrating the collapse and ensuing dependency of the entire world.

Speaking Truth to Power

You can't say the Fed hasn't been warned. This speech, given by Robert Wenzel, editor of the Economic Policy Journal, has been acclaimed -- by no less than Vox Day -- to be The Greatest Speech Ever Given.

Even if you know nothing of economics, it is worth reading -- for the simple fact that it tells us what is coming. It is a prophecy and a eulogy, all in one.

Regarding this speech, one reader at Vox's site said it best:

It's like a fractal of insults. The entire speech is a big insult, then there is a final paragraph of insult, and inside that, a tiny three-word insult. I'm sure that if we would look at that last period with a microscope, it would contain an insult.

Our Great "White Hispanic" Hope

George Zimmerman is not just innocent. He is a hero. If this video by his former attorney doesn't convince you, perhaps this article will. 

I can think of no better example of the media distorting truth and warping public opinion for ratings (and to advance the "progressive" agenda and the meme of racial discord) than this. A Zimmerman conviction would be proof-positive that "truth, justice and the American way" are ABSOLUTELY DEAD in this country.

This poor man doesn't deserve jail. He deserves a medal. And our support.

Edit: Note the media's use of the 7-year-old "mug shot" of Zimmerman (arrested for a "crime" for which he was never convicted) juxtaposed with a picture of Martin as a smiling 12-year-old...not the brooding 6-foot-tall teenage menace he would become.

UPDATE (August 8, 2012): I just read this in an email today...

Anybody know who this is?

THE PICTURE THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA REFUSED TO SHOW THE PUBLIC !

Trayvon Martin at 17……

Our media...television news...newspapers...magazines.

..radio...all continue to show 12 year old Trayvon...NOT 17 year old Trayvon....they continue to show the 5 year old picture BECAUSE it helps to cement in your mind the little, cute, hoodie wearing youngster who was stalked by this monster.

In reality.."little Trayvon"...at the time of his death...stood almost 6'2" tall...weighed 175 muscular pounds...had numerous run in's with authorities (both at school and local police)...had been stopped and almost arrested two days before his death for...smacking a bus driver in the face...because the driver refused to let him ride for free...he was released because the driver was told not to press charges by the bus company and to continue on his route.

When "little Trayvon" was suspended at school...it was not only because he tried to bring a little marijuana in with him...he was in possession of wedding rings and other jewelry...watches etc. that he said he "found" along with a large screwdriver...while on the way to school that day...the jewelry was turned over to the Police by the school.

Not a single paper has printed RECENT photos of this kid...because...it would not keep your interest in this case... Not a single paper will admit that this kid was a marijuana dealer...his friends on facebook all say he had the "best plants"...not a single paper will show you any of his recent photos where he shows off a mouthful of gold teeth....all of his tattoos...not a single paper will tell the news like it really is....and NOT how they want you to think it is...

UPDATE II (8/21/12): And now it appears that the prosecution has not been acting in "good faith" all along.

Romney's Saving Grace

Unlike the other Mormon presidential contender (Jon Huntsman) who minimized and all-but-denied his religious affiliation to placate the masses, Mitt Romney didn't. He boldly (and bravely) announced that he wasn't changing anything about his faith.

Romney may be wishy-washy about everything else. But when the opportunity arose to discard something as "unnecessary" and "politically toxic" (by modern standards) as his religion, Romney wouldn't budge.

He may not be a "true conservative", but Romney is a faithful Mormon. He obviously believes in bedrock principles over which he is unwilling to negotiate. If he is elected U.S. President -- and continues to abide by those precepts -- our country certainly will be no worse off because of it.

EDIT: Then there's this turd (aka, the other "faithful Mormon" in high office), who hasn't passed a Senate budget in three years. He is the perfect counter-argument to my thesis above.

2nd EDIT: A good friend sent me this link to remind me why I voted for Ron Paul in the last election. If America had the good sense to vote for Ron Paul, we'd get out of this mess a lot sooner than later. But America, I fear, will keep this "Jeremiah" in the pit -- until she is carried away into Babylon.

A tidy argument against socialism

With many, I was disgusted when I heard Sandra Fluke, the law school student / activist, argue that not only should we all pay for her birth control, but religious organizations opposed to birth control should also be forced to provide it. (Come to think of it, I may actually support that policy, so long as we get to retro-actively "control" Fluke's birth, too.)

Ben Shapiro does an excellent job of describing why socialism's argument doesn't wash.

Student Loan Scam: Page Two

First I warned about the student loan scam: how government has taken over the industry to manipulate the "educated" population into life-long indentured servitude (and to buy their votes).

Turning the page in this playbook of class warfare, we now see Democrats move to freeze the (promised-to-be-rising) student loan interest rate for all poor- and middle-class student loans for one year.

First they create the problem, then they "solve" the problem. Their "solution" always involves taxing other private entities more to pay for it.

This is fascism, pure and simple: when government allows the proletariat to "own" property, but, in fact, government controls it -- and expropriates it -- when the "needs of the people" (read "wants of the politicians") demand it.

Taxing My Patience

As per my now-annual custom, I waited until the absolute last minute to calculate and file my income taxes this year. We ended up owing another $1300 (which we had to borrow in order to pay, because we have no money.)

This excruciating exercise is so unAmerican. I reject the notion that any American should be obliged -- under penalty of perjury, fine or imprisonment (as we are) -- to accurately determine and disclose the full extent of his activities and assets to nameless bureaucrats intent on devising ever more ingenious ways of dispossessing him of his wealth. We might as well be opening our homes to thieves, revealing where we keep the jewels, to let them devise whatever pretext they can to take whatever the hell they want.

We are slaves, nothing more, nothing less.

I spent the better part of two days collecting my records, inputting data, and messaging software to deduce what my obligation would be this year. (It is impossible to "divine" the "correct" figure. Ten different professionals using the same software would deduce 10 different results.) The software, at first, said I owed over $10,000! Only by digging deeper and scrutinizing every loophole -- filling out depreciation schedules, applying for child tax credits, and learning what I needed to know to avoid paying the dreaded tax -- was I able to get the number as low as I did, effectively paying just 2.61% of my wealth to government.

The software told me I paid $73 this year to run actual "government" (law enforcement, courts, etc.) and ten times that for "national defense". However the remainder of the $3,674 I supposedly paid ( I know, the numbers don't match up) funded numerous social services: Social Security, Medicare, community programs, none of which benefit me or my family directly. Even our national defense contribution benefits others, not US, inasmuch as our forces are stationed in 135 countries (70% of the world), defending whom exactly?

We are the Beast. And we feed the Beast with our taxes and our mounting debt. Like sharecroppers, we pay "the land lord" with our labor and wages. But it's never enough. Each year we go deeper and deeper in debt, trying to pay off what we "owe" -- until we own nothing.

We effectively own nothing in America today. Our homes, even if paid off, will be confiscated if we do not pay the property tax -- or if, by "eminent domain", government bureaucrats determine that another owner would better serve the government.

The whole stinking, fetid waste of government needs to be destroyed. There is no other way of pulling back from the universal socialist dependency, monolithic waste, pervasive flim-flam and general lawlessness that pervades every government and quasi-government institution.

America will collapse. And collapse hard, together with much of the world. Only the meek will inherit the earth. And Americans are anything but "meek".

I guess it all needs to happen in order for our real Savior to return -- to be recognized for who He is.

EDIT: There's almost hope in this summation of America's problems and prospects by VDH.

If I Wanted America To Fail

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It's "Okay" to Say You're "Gay"!

There are reasons why an LDS homosexual (male or female) may be the best friend you'll ever have (if you're "worthy" to have such a friend). 

Such a person knows that heterosexual conduct within marriage between a man and a woman is the only sexual expression permitted by LDS doctrine and practice. (All other sexual conduct is proscribed, including heterosexual conduct.) Inasmuch as sexual orientation is interstitially and involuntarily woven into the fabric of every human soul -- Examine your own heart: Are you "naturally" heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual? Is your proclivity a "choice" or rather an overwhelming natural compulsion? -- anyone who would voluntarily embrace and practice such a religion must have one damn good testimony of the LDS faith! 

Legion are those who don't uphold their religion's sexual mores. The LDS homosexual's only "choice" -- if he or she is to remain in "good standing" in the faith -- is to not give expression (by conduct) to any sexual desire at all. This is not just a call to chastity, but a life-long call to celibacy. It is a demand few, if any, (LDS or otherwise) are willing (or able) to fulfill. Many rationally condemn the Catholic Church for requiring celibacy of its priesthood, viewing such as an "unnatural" (and ultimately unsustainable) inhibition on, well, human nature. Many  reasonably suspect that Catholic priests act out sexually in "unnatural" and unlawful ways simply because they have no other venue or opportunity for "acceptable" sexual expression. 

While we are all called upon to observe chastity (no sexual conduct outside of marriage) at some point in our lives, most of us look forward to getting married -- with the prospect of "having sex" and doing what we consider to be natural, wholesome, divinely-ordained and culturally approved. LDS homosexuals (or "Latter-day Saints who experience same-sex attraction") have no such hope or prospect. They are "doomed", as it were, to never have the opportunity to express themselves sexually in any manner that is either ecclesiastically or culturally endorsed. They are "trapped" in their own orientation. Any "acting out" for them -- in any fashion with anyone of any age in any context (even with themselves) -- is considered by the LDS to be "sinful". For such persons, the only "acceptable" choice is complete, absolute, life-long celibacy.

These people -- who confess both their proclivity for the same sex and their determination to keep their commitment to observe celibacy -- should be celebrated, not condemned. They should be lauded as heroes, not shunned as villains.

We all ought to be "celibate", to some extent. The single woman ought to practice celibacy before marriage. The married man ought to practice "celibacy" after marriage -- by not having sex with the single woman! We all practice "celibacy" by degrees. For the LDS homosexual, the only celibacy that is authorized and accepted is life long and absolute. 100%. For some, this must be a horrible burden to bear.

Jesus referred to this matter when He said:

For there are some eunuchs [those who do not have sexual relations], which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. (Matt. 19:12)

By and large, we have little power (over ourselves) to change our sexual orientation (to whom we are attracted). "We are who we are." People have been sexually attracted to [fill in the blank: whites, blacks, both, neither, children, adults, fat, thin, males, females, animals, door knobs, etc.]. We may be "straight". We may be "gay". We may be "natural", "normal" and "healthy" or we may be "unnatural", "perverted" and "messed up". But we are who we are. Without conscious, persistent effort (and maybe even despite it), no one is going to change their sexual orientation very much, any more than you're going to change your sexual orientation. (Have you tried doing that? Would you ever want to?)

Can people who have been strongly attracted to the opposite sex all their lives at some point experience overwhelming conscious sexual feelings for the same sex? Absent any environmental or cultural influences that would impose homosexual arousal and thus induce homosexual feelings, I think not (for most of us). I leave open the possibility that some may be ambiguously or strongly attracted to both sexes, for various reasons. (But this is rare.) Conversely, those who experience same-sex attraction are likewise unlikely to develop heterosexual feelings -- unless, as postulated, heterosexual arousal is culturally or environmentally imposed and heterosexual desires and fixation are thus induced. 

This latter hypothesis was the historical impetus for encouraging homosexuals to marry: to make them "straight". I understand that such attempts at sexual "reorientation" have proven to be mostly dismal failures and that the practice is now roundly discouraged by both psycho-sexual professionals and leaders of the Church. (My own "best friend" at BYU was "gay" -- I didn't know it at the time -- and his marriage, even after three children, proved insufficiently "reorienting" to dissuade him from wanting to have sex with men.)

We frankly have no other choice than to embrace and support our LDS friends and family members who "suffer" from same-sex attraction. Being "gay" certainly isn't a "choice" that any practicing, committed LDS person would "make". We ought to uphold and sustain them in their valiant quest to uphold chastity (and life-long celibacy). How will our own heterosexual ethics, honesty and comportment compare with what homosexuals are required to do? How will our faithfully "having sex" at some point -- with all its attendant comforts and blessings -- compare with their faithful abstinence -- with all of its attendant miseries and misfortunes? Can these two efforts even compare? How can the man who satisfies himself, if only occasionally (by "eating" just a little) ever compare with him who (although he has both "food" and appetite) chooses never to "eat", but rather starves himself (making himself a "eunuch for the kingdom of heaven's sake")?

Well did Jesus condemn those who require that great burdens be lifted by others, but who nary lift a finger themselves!

"But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for [homosexuals] in the day of judgment, than for thee." (Matt. 11:24)

Anyone shouldering the burden of the "gay" person (by not "giving in" and by endeavoring to "endure to the end") deserves a hero's welcome at the finish line! Anyone bearing such a burden has trod depths of despair, loneliness, longing, and pain that few otherwise can know. Abstinence-practicing gay Latter-day Saints lose not only their loved ones for a time -- indeed, they lose every loved one with whom they might ever feel the desire to "marry" -- but they also must lose themselves completely, by giving up every opportunity to please themselves, to do their own will, to satisfy their own desires. They effectively take up their cross -- a "cross" far heavier than most of us are ever called upon to lift. In so doing, they may develop divine strengths and sensitivities, compassion and empathy, tolerance and loyalty, unselfishness and discretion -- traits to be highly appreciated in any friend.

For facing this challenge forthrightly -- and for lifting this burden with faith -- "gay" Latter-day Saints ought to be respected, loved, and welcomed into the family of God.

If school hurts, why do it?

John Taylor Gatto exposes the fraud and nonsense that is public education. In this essay he details the inefficacy of 12,000 hours of "instruction" and (if you read the link) reminds us about what really matters in life:

A lot of things don't matter that are supposed to; one of them is well-funded government schools. Saying that may be considered irresponsible by people who don't know the difference between schooling and education, but over 100 academic studies have tried to show any compelling connection between money and learning and not one has succeeded. Right from the beginning schoolmen told us that money would buy results and we all believed it. So, between 1960 and 1992 the U.S. tripled the number of constant dollars given to schools. Yet after 12,000 hours of government schooling one out of five Americans can't read the directions on a medicine bottle. 

After 12,000 hours of compulsory training at the hands of nearly 100 government-certified men and women, many high school graduates have no skills to trade for an income or even any skills with which to talk to each other. They can't change a flat, read a book, repair a faucet, install a light, follow directions for the use of a word processor, build a wall, make change reliably, be alone with themselves or keep their marriages together. 

It's worse than that. Gatto explains how this system is a "failure" by design. It's true function is not to educate, but to overthrow the capitalist system:

Our economy is basically centralized in 200 corporations who are totally dependent on government privilege. These corporations require the government to stamp out any competition that emerges, and they require the government to pick them up when they stumble and fall, and bail them out with public funds. 

There's no competition. There hasn't been since the end of the second World War. And as I implied earlier, the plan to destroy capitalism was announced by Carnegie and company back in the 1890s. They said that only stupid people and fools competed. That competition was a huge waste of energy and profit, and that there was room for anyone who wanted to play ball. They said that the democratic populace of the country was getting in the way, so the populace was going to have to be put out of commission. These statements were made quite openly. But no one paid any attention. 

Then these ideas were written into legislation.

This essay was published 8 years ago! If anything, things have only gotten worse (except for the rise of the homeschooling movement).


Don't get started reading Gatto! If you do, you'll be led from one essay to another until you understand why our government schools don't educate. Here's what he said 22 years ago (read the link, if you dare):

I've noticed a fascinating phenomenon in my twenty-five years of teaching - that schools and schooling are increasingly irrelevant to the great enterprises of the planet. No one believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes or politicians in civics classes or poets in English classes. The truth is that schools don't really teach anything except how to obey orders. 

This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions. Although teachers do care and do work very hard, the institution is psychopathic - it has no conscience. It rings a bell and the young man in the middle of writing a poem must close his notebook and move to different cell where he must memorize that man and monkeys derive from a common ancestor. 

Our form of compulsory schooling is an invention of the state of Massachusetts around 1850. It was resisted - sometimes with guns - by an estimated eighty per cent of the Massachusetts population, the last outpost in Barnstable on Cape Cod not surrendering its children until the 1880's when the area was seized by militia and children marched to school under guard. 

Now here is a curious idea to ponder. Senator Ted Kennedy's office released a paper not too long ago claiming that prior to compulsory education the state literacy rate was 98% and after it the figure never again reached above 91% where it stands in 1990. I hope that interests you.

He concludes:

Experts in education have never been right, their "solutions" are expensive, self-serving, and always involve further centralization. Enough. Time for a return to democracy, individuality, and family.