'Robin Of Berkeley' Goes To Church

'Robin Of Berkeley' -- who has been writing of late on 'American Thinker' about her conversion from "liberal" to conservative/traditionalist -- Goes To Church for Christmas

Of Catses & Meeses

I wish to share with Gentle Reader an excerpt from a recent post by Deborah Gyapong --

Miss Gyapong's full post is here, and I found it via Kathy Shaidle (and, as usual, I commend the entirety of both posts to Gentle Reader). I think that even if Gentle Reader is unaware of the context or back-story of these posts, he can get something important from them. And, if Gentle Reader is not aware of the back-story, he really ought to make himself aware -- his liberty, and his very life, are at stake. Even if he's not a Canadian.

Catses & Meeses
OK– imagine: There is a big cat around, which most of the mice are afraid to mention, let alone ponder belling. Some of the mice are even into denying the existence or intent of said cat, and consider the concerned mice or pro-bell mice to be dangerous trouble-making catophobes (technically speaking, Ailurophobes). Even mentioning mice freshly eaten by the cat causes outrage and fear: better just blame those crazy cat-conspiracy mice for bringing it up.

The cats change, but the cowardly mice are always with us, seeking peace with the cat; cat-denial; blaming other mice; writing books about how all the cats are actually the best friends of mice, and are gravely misunderstood. The save-your-ass at the expense of others instinct; the feeding of other mice to the cat, hoping you might be last; the half-conscious denial of the whole cat-problem. Can you say “Peace In Our Time” with kindly Herr Hitler? Meanwhile, the dead mice pile ever up, lives needlessly sacrificed, in various ways and for various noble-sounding reasons, but no less dead.

This is another, and more "polite" way -- while still being more visceral -- to talk about the point of 'Noìli's Custom Ice Cream Shoppe'

Humility

Similar to the distinction between knowledge and wisdon which I recently posted, I've just read an excellent contrasting of humility to what it is not, which I wish to share with my lone reader --
"The humble person does not think less of himself. He merely thinks of himself less."

This is followed by a CS Lewis qoutation which expands upon the idea expressed.


Also, I recommend to Gentle Reader the context in which that comment was made, Matteo's post called 'We Played The Flute For You, And You Did Not Dance; We Sang A Dirge, And You Did Not Mourn,' in which he discusses a recent foolishness of the fool, PZ Myers.


===== Bonus Post =====

Ah, I see that Gentle Reader misunderstands: when I call someone a 'fool,' I assuredly am not calling him 'stupid.' That is the schoolyard misunderstanding of the term -- to call someone a 'fool' is to make a moral assertion about him (as witness the anger with which those who incorrectly think that 'fool' is a synonym for 'stupid' spit out the accusation), specifically, that he lacks intellectual honesty.

A fool is a person who knowingly and willfully says or acts in a false manner, consistently.

A fool is a person who is intellectually dishonest; a fool is worse than a mere liar -- for the liar lies episodically, whereas the intellectually dishonest man, the fool, lies systemically. The liar lies about some specific thing, whereas the fool lies about the very nature of truth.

It Always Gets Me

Almost every rendition of 'The Little Drummer Boy' I've ever heard causes me to choke up -- the love and the yearning the song expresses, and the wonder of having drawn a smile from the object of one's love, just gets to me; just thinking about it (as in, at this very moment) gets to me.

I probably ought not say this -- in case some atheist/secularist stumbles upon it -- but 'The Little Drummer Boy' is a very Christian song: we all are that boy, we all are poor and have nothing at all that is fit to give to The King, the Sovereign of the Universe, except ourselves.


Oddly enough, while I really like the group White Heart, I was able to get through this recording without choking up at all.

Do They Really Want To Go There?

Do the "liberals" really want to compare Sarah Palin to a racist Democrat? ... and, really, when we get down to it, is there any other kind of Democrat?

Mitchell Hails Success of 'Obama Doctrine,' Palin's Wallace-Like Appeal 'Does Frighten Me'


Furthermore, as is their simple-minded wont, the "liberals" greatly misunderstand and misconstrue Wallace's appeal. Sure, Wallace was a racist (he was a Democrat, after all!); but, his racism was more a cynical pose-for-political-purposes than an in-his-heart-of-hearts erroneous belief ... thus, Wallace's racism was worse, morally, than that of most persons.

Still, Wallace's appeal was not due to his racism.

For instance … my parents wanted to vote for Wallace … but they also wanted to vote for Shirley Chisholm

Cross the river, burn the bridge

The great Mark Steyn, on "health" "care" "reform": Cross the river, burn the bridge

Gentle Reader will wish to read this.

Edit --

Here's a good essay from Reason Magazine (even libertarians can have moments of sanity, especially when money is involved): There Ain’t No Such Thing As a Free Lumpectomy

This week Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared that his chamber’s health care bill “demands for the first time in American history that good health will not depend on great wealth.” Reid said the legislation “acknowledges, finally, that health care is a fundamental right—a human right—and not just a privilege for the most fortunate.”

Since more than four-fifths of Americans already have medical insurance, and even those without “great wealth” have been known to enjoy “good health,” Reid was laying it on a little thick. But his premise, which is shared by President Obama, explains the moral urgency felt by supporters of the health care overhaul that is making its way through Congress. It also reveals a radical assault on the traditional American understanding of rights.

The Framers believed the Constitution recognized pre-existing rights, protecting them from violation by the government. The common law likewise developed as a way of protecting people from wrongful interference by their neighbors. If people have rights simply by virtue of being human, those rights can be violated (by theft or murder, for example) even in the absence of government.

By contrast, notwithstanding Reid’s claim that government-subsidized health care is a fundamental human right, it does not make much sense to say that it exists in a country too poor to afford such subsidies or at a time before modern medicine, let alone in the state of nature. Did Paleolithic hunter-gatherers have a right to the “affordable, comprehensive and high-quality medical care” that the Congressional Progressive Caucus says is a right of “every person”? If so, who was violating that right?

During his second presidential debate with Republican nominee John McCain, Obama said health care “should be a right for every American.” Why? “There's something fundamentally wrong,” he said, “in a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills.”

According to the president, people have a right to health care because it is wrong to charge them for medical services they can’t afford. Which is another way of saying they have a right to health care.

That is, if you or I have a "right" to health care, then we have the "right" to force someone else to give it to us ... and any government which aspires to be considered moral has the "right" and and the duty to use force and violence to ensure that our "rights" are met. For, after all, is not the purpose of a morally grounded government to protect and enforce the rights of the human beings which are subject to it? Or, failing the protection and enforcement of those rights, to exact vengence upon the violators?

While liberty rights such as freedom of speech or freedom of contract require others to refrain from acting in certain ways, “welfare rights” such as the purported entitlement to health care (or to food, clothing, or shelter) require others to perform certain actions. They represent a legally enforceable claim on other people’s resources. Taxpayers must cover the cost of subsidies; insurers and medical professionals must provide their services on terms dictated by the government.

A right to health care thus requires the government to infringe on people’s liberty rights by commandeering their talents, labor, and earnings. And since new subsidies will only exacerbate the disconnect between payment and consumption that drives health care inflation, such interference is bound to increase as the government struggles to control ever-escalating spending. Rising costs will also encourage the government to repeatedly redefine the right to health care, deciding exactly which treatments it includes.

If The People are willing to swallow the lie that there exists a "right" to health care, then we all become slaves to The State ... which, after all, has all along been the "liberal" project.

If you will not see the truth that it is your very Liberty, and that of your children forever, being demanded of you by the damned "liberals," then see the problem in "selfish" terms -- it there exists a "right" to health care, irrespective of the wealth of either the individual or the nation, then all those poor people in Third World hell-holes (who are, after all, so poor and in such hell-holes because of their "liberal" governments) have the right to use governmental force and violence, unto death, to take what you have for themselves.

If health care is a fundamental right, equality under the law would seem to require that everyone have the same level of care, regardless of their resources. That principle was illustrated by the case of Debbie Hirst, a British woman with metastasized breast cancer who in 2007 was denied access to a commonly used drug on the grounds that it was too expensive.

When Hirst decided to raise money to pay for the drug on her own, she was told that doing so would make her ineligible for further treatment by the National Health Service. According to The New York Times, “Officials said that allowing Mrs. Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients an unfair advantage over poorer ones.” The right to health care is so important, it seems, that it can nullify itself.

The "liberals" don't give a damn about improving your life; they simply want power over you.

Knowledge vs Wisdom

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is knowing to not put a tomato in the fruit salad.