Federal government bombs Pearl Harbor...

--awakens sleeping giant with a terrible resolve?

How many times have I said over the last few months that Hussein Obama and the Socialist Democrats are moving the ball forward way too fast, way too aggressively on such items as the infamous 'stimulus' package, 'federalizing' health care and etc., resulting in the alarm they've engendered within a significant and growing proportion of the general American populace?

There's a good discussion ongoing at VFR in which commenter Mark P. touches on this exact point.

Mark P. writes:

Basically, the Left is attempting to do too much, too fast, with way too many changes occurring in too short a time, with results experienced too sson to allow memories to fade. They are too impatient, probably due to the short-term thinking of the new cohort of liberals.

Yep. And though Auster's entry concerns itself with health care specifically, and which Mark P. is mainly speaking to, I suspect that like me Mark understands that it goes beyond federalizing health care.

The Democrats are -- under Hussein, Pelosi, Reid -- fast and furiously, and with reckless abandon such as we've never witnessed in this country, trying to ram every God-forsaken leftist-communist item they can while they can down our throats. And they somehow expect Americans (particularly self-governing producers) to simply lay down and take that b.s.?

I personally think they overestimate the extent of the damage liberalism has already done to the American spirit and psyche. Perhaps not on a conscious level, but the world is to them as they perceive it to be anyhow. I'm not saying that liberal dominance hasn't caused a lot of practically irreparable harm to the country, such as creating a large dependent class, fostering an entitlement mentality amongst certain and sundry demographic groups, constitutional and civic illiteracy and a host of others. I'm simply saying that government indoctrination hasn't quite worked out the way they planned it for a bunch of us. Some of us, evidently, and in spite of all of their efforts to train us up in the ways of the all-encompassing ideology of liberalism, were just too stupid (or hard-headed), evidently, to get it.

I've said before that my education just didn't take because I wasn't that interested in it to start with. No one ever expected or otherwise demanded me to achieve academic excellence, so I didn't because I had no reason to. No; I just did what I had to do, nothing more, nothing less. Which is to say that I maintained something like a B- average throughout my educational career because that was all that was required of me. And as you probably already know, it takes very little effort to maintain a B- grade average, so little in fact that one rarely needs to take a book home or "study" in any meaningful sense of the word. Indeed, I missed so many days of school, so many assignments and tests one year in H.S. that about 2/3 of the way through the semester I finally decided to start attending classes on a regular basis and pull my average up from an F to a high C. That is all it took, going to class, completing my assignments, memorizing test answers and such.

Anyway, I don't rightly know how I got off on that tangent, except to say that I think I was trying to lead to a point, which is this -- perhaps liberalism is, unbeknownst to itself and its wild-eyed kooky advocates and promoters, its own worst enemy what with its low expectations and standards. You know, if you begin with low standards for academic achievement, and you create an entire educational apparatus (curriculum, methodology, philosophy and so forth) lining up with those low standards, then maybe it contains its own inherently self-destructive mechanism which is bound to self-initiate at some point along the way. Generations come and they go, and liberalism continues its march forward until it reaches its apex. After which point, what? -- that which goes up must come down, following the laws of physics? I don't know, but it's an interesting thesis that might be worth pursuing further.

Y'all be sure to read the VFR discussion linked above.

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A wee bit more parenting could go a long, long way. But then, where would that leave the totalitarians?

The Baron has posted an excellent article by GoV's Swedish correspondent LN, called "Why do Swedes behave like Swedes?". The topic of the article, which I've given away in the title of this entry, is one that is certainly near and dear to my heart, as well, I know, as some of my readers. Below I've excerpted a couple of paragraphs from the article which had me going "Amen!" as I read. Without further ado,

LN writes:

Dr. Gordon Neufeld is a clinical psychologist from Canada with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting issues, and the author of the internationally recognized book Hold On to Your Kids — why parents need to matter more than peers. Dr. Neufeld’s message was that the younger generation’s lack of adult contacts in the Western world is one of the most disturbing and misunderstood trends of our time — peers replacing parents in the lives of our children. Dr. Neufeld has dubbed this phenomenon peer orientation [jämnårigorientering], which refers to the tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction: for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour.

But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture. It provides a powerful explanation for conformism, aggression, schoolyard bullying, and youth violence; its effects are painfully evident in the context of teenage gangs and criminal activity. It is an escalating trend that has never been adequately described or contested until Hold On to Your Kids. Once understood, it becomes self-evident — as perhaps do the solutions.

Pardon me while I say, once more, Amen!.

I'm reminded that it was Horace Mann who first introduced a series of changes into the Massachusetts schools way back in the 1840's which would eventually lead to full-fledged John Dewey style, mind numbing progressive education in America's public schools. Hence Mann is affectionately known by his modern acolytes as "The Father of Public Education" in America, not so affectionately by those of us who clearly see the error and eventuality of his ways having come to full fruition in our public schools and the half brain-dead members of our society that the public schools are largely responsible for producing today.

I have in my possession a facimile edition of Noah Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language. Published in the front of the edition, in a series of "green pages" as they're called (which aren't included in the online editions that I've seen), is a reference to Mann's destructive influence on America's education system. Elsewhere we find that the implementation of Mann's plan for public education in America, under which the state, via the creation of a powerful state "Board of Education" which Mann himself was selected to head (imagine that), at first received strong resistance and righteous indignation from a select but precious few respected educators of the era who could see and actually predicted where Mann's state-run progressive education would eventually take us in America. Too bad that Mr. Mann's plan eventually won out over a more commonsensical, American approach to education. The importation of foreign ideologies and ideologues has ever been a bane on our society. But I guess that's a subject for a whole 'nother post.

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Great article today at Loyal to Liberty

Here again I jump through a couple of unnecessary hoops in order to create a direct link to Dr. Keyes's excellent article. In this case I think it's worth the extra effort.

(BTW, the reason I don't generally like doing this is because it creates a scenario in which a failure to establish the link is more likely. Which, of course, means that in the event of a failure, then it has to be done all over again. I.e., a simple waste of time and effort. And I can be very impatient about things like that. But I really should be taking this up with Dr. Keyes, shouldn't I?)

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Ending white racism in America's public schools

Question: When statistics show that eleven percent of students in a given school district in America account for thirty six percent of all suspensions in said district, what is to be done about it? Well, I guess you need to know more.

Okay, blacks account for seven percent of all students in the district in question, while they account for sixteen plus percent of all student suspensions. Native Americans make up only four percent of the student body yet they account for twenty percent of all student suspensions in the district. Still need more information? The majority of teachers in the district are white. And we all know that white people are racists whether we want to be or not. Yes, that includes all you high falutin leftier-than-thou liberal white educators. Also, as with tests and curriculum (not to mention educational methodology) designed to favor whites, so are school rules designed to favor white students over minority students. Therefore it's a reasonable assumption to make that suspendable offenses in this particular district include, but are not necessarily limited to, behaviors that white students generally do not engage in, while certain ethnic minority students have a higher tendency to do. Indeed, it's probably safe to say that these kinds of offenses comprise the bulk of suspendable offenses in this particular school district. You know, minor things like, say, carrying a gun to school, selling drugs on campus, threatening and/or attacking members of the faculty, defacing school property, gang related activities -- stuff like that. Couple that fact with the other factors aforementioned, and, well, you begin to grasp the nature of the problem that's causing this disparity in the numbers of minority suspensions vs. white suspensions -- white racism. Now that you know the nature of the problem, how do you address it?

I have an idea. It's a lot different than the plan our school district has put into place, and a lot simpler too -- school segregation.

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On the Class of 2009

My wife and I attended the H.S. graduation ceremonies of a nephew and his class this past Friday night. A couple of notes on the ceremony:

(1) Is quoting Dr. Seuss by the honored graduating students some kind of a trend we're going to have to endure for the next decade? If so, I may rather stay home and send my graduate a nice card and some money. At the last two graduations we've attended long passages from Dr. Seuss have been quoted. But I guess that when you raise up a generation on Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, etc., well, you get what you pay for.

(2) How many scholarships are given out these days? At this particular ceremony a large amount of the time was spent in (formally) handing out college scholarships to various students. It sort of reminded me of Little League Baseball, where everybody gets a trophy. But maybe I'm too cynical; maybe there were simply an inordinate number of outstanding students in this particular class.

(3) One of the honored students -- Salutatorian or Valedictorian, I don't know which -- mentioned, in a very satisfied tone of voice, that her generation had witnessed the first election of an 'African-American' to the presidency. She said that the world as we know it would soon change because of Hussein's election. She doesn't know how very right she is in that respect. Otherwise, she's in for a big let-down. But I imagine that because of Obama she's inspired to become ... whatever it is she's inspired to become.

Well, enough of that already. I liked the keynote speaker. I don't recall his name, but his bio was pretty impressive. He was also fairly straight-forward in his speech, while working into the speech some funny and witty lines as well. He wasn't the best speechifier in the world, but he was a real person with real experiences, self-made, self-motivated, and all of that. He alluded, in the speech, to the fact that the goal of a proper education is to prepare one to be useful in his future stations (now where have I heard that before?). I hope that the graduates paid close attention to his good advice ... and that their parents and their community have well prepared them to follow it. As for our graduate, I know this is the case.

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Governor Palin's Ignorance

A. Zarkov observes in a comment at VFR that Governor Palin's alleged ignorance concerning the great land mass Africa, otherwise known as one of the six inhabitable continents on the earth, is not necessarily as far-fetched as some might think.

Mr. Zarkov writes:

When we went to school (I was born and educated in New York City), we had a lot of geography, a subject not generally taught any more.

Indeed. I'm assuming that Mr. Zarkov attended public school at least twenty years before I attended public school. By the time I attended school, the subject of geography was no longer taught as a distinct subject unto itself, which it most certainly is. It was, rather, crammed in with the new and progressive, and therefore good "social studies" program, and therefore its fundamental principles, distinctive to itself as a subject unto itself, were wholly neglected during my education in the public schools. Or maybe I was sick the day they taught the basics of geographical science at my public school. Everything I've learned since about geography is the product of independent research and study.

Mr. Zarkov says in his post that a study was conducted in the 1980s which found that a third of Harvard seniors at the time didn't even know the causes of the changing of the seasons. That's an amazing statistic if it is at all close to the truth. But maybe the year the study was conducted was just a bad year for Harvard University. LOL I don't doubt that it's true, nor that it continues to be true, and I have a lot of anecdotal evidence to support the validity of the claim, albeit my anecdotal evidence does not include Harvard graduates to my knowledge. Nonetheless it is a general ignorance of the basics of the subject of geography that I've personally observed.

But think about this for a second, if what Mr. Zarkov is saying is true (and I'd put good money down that it is true), my school age children, with exception of the youngest who is four, know more about the physical planet they live on than at very least a third (and probably more) of Harvard seniors know. That's the disaster of public education in America. It is quite disturbing to contemplate the implications of the fact.

I wonder how many average college graduates today would have any clue what you were referring to if you asked them to describe the land and water hemispheres? Or how about this one, why is it that the hottest and the coldest days of the year generally lag two months behind the longest and the shortest days of the year respectively? Or how about this, what effect does the shape of the earth have on climate in various places on the surface thereof? How about altitude? What about geographical position, latitude and longitude? At what rate of speed does the earth rotate on its axis? What effect does this have on climate? If I were to give them two balls -- one representing the earth, the other representing the sun -- and were to ask them to show me the position of the earth on June 21st of the year in relation to the sun, could they do it?; could they place the earth accurately in its proper position?, and explain why they placed it there?, etc. You know, general stuff that my eleven year old daughter can answer.

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Which is more important?

Over at the AFB Mike discusses the importance of virtue in a free society. Mike and I have discussed this topic many times privately. And of course he knows that I agree with the contents of his post. Mike concludes the entry with these thoughts:

Virtue is indeed indispensable for healthy families and a free Republic. But don't count on your children hearing that from anybody other than you, their parent (or Aunt, Uncle, or other relative). It's incumbent upon us to ensure that our children have a moral, as well as an intellectual foundation before they go out into the world. I would submit that a child with no moral foundation is at a greater risk than a child who cannot read, yet you'll never see a "program" designed to correct the former deficiency. (emphasis mine)

Indeed. Reading is important, but religion is indispensable, as Noah Webster said:

EDUCA'TION, n. [L. educatio.] The bringing up, as of a child, instruction; formation of manners. Education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations. To give children a good education in manners, arts and science, is important; to give them a religious education is indispensable; and an immense responsibility rests on parents and guardians who neglect these duties.

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Is Worldview the Cure for the 'Disease' We Face?

In the previous post put up yesterday evening I asked you all to look for a post this morning having to do with what I discovered upon reading the entries put up at a few of my favorite blogs while we were away. The implication being, of course, that I was going to concentrate my efforts this morning on saying a few things about the aforementioned blogs and the entries which had been posted during my absence. Well, as these things seem to go for me fairly frequently these days, that has now all changed, though I intend to do another post on that subject later today...

It's no secret that I frequent VA's blog, nor that I hold her in pretty high esteem among bloggers. And it's been on numerous occasions like this one that a post at VA's has sparked some idea for a related post here at Webster's.

Most of you know by now that I have a pretty simple approach to the world and the problems facing it. Usually it all boils down, for me, to a poor religious foundation on an individual level. That leads to a poor foundation at the various group levels. Truly I believe, in direct contradiction to what seems to be the conventional wisdom these days, that the 'whole' of society is exactly equal to, not greater than (or lesser than for that matter), 'the sum of its parts.' Personally I believe this very idea, or concept, is at least indirectly responsible for many of the problems our society faces these days.

If the idea is accepted and acknowledged generally as a truth (and I think it may safely be said that it is), then I know we have a huge problem on our hands that results from that kind of thinking. There may be 'power in numbers,' but no more or less than those numbers add up to. And if you want to discover the character of the nation and this people as a whole, just look to the individuals making the nation up and let that be your answer, disheartening as it may be. At least that's an honest approach which leaves little room for individuals to wriggle themselves out of their ultimate responsibilities.

And that's really the subject I want to get to in this first full post following my recent absence. VA discusses this morning the problems involved with identifying personal issues of 'self-indulgence' as, or equating them with legitimate 'diseases.' She focuses her post on drug and alcohol addiction, and the tendency these days to treat them both as diseases, as opposed to treating them in the old fashioned, or the traditional way as problems associated to the lack of personal restraint and control.

Personally I believe strongly in the admonition of the Bible to 'raise up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not soon depart from it.' And truly, y'all, can any of us say with a straight face that a majority of American children (little people) these days are raised by their parents, or influenced by our society in that way?

America's Schoolmaster, Noah Webster, certainly keyed in on this approach essential to maintaining and perpetuating a largely 'self-governing' society. In his very definition of the term “education,” Webster defines it as “all that series of instruction and discipline intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, form the manners and habits of youth, and to fit them for usefulness in their future stations. Note Webster's choice of terms here – discipline, correct, form, fit. And I gotta ask, folks, if our methods of 'education' are not “intended” to do all that, then why would we ever think we'd end up with a society comprised of self-governing people? How could we ever honestly believe that our constitution and the principles it was founded on could ever survive?

As I read VA's post the thought kept coming to mind, sentence after sentence, that this is far from what is intended within today's 'educational' establishment. But the primary educators of our children, irregardless of who, or what sphere of government is ultimately chosen to the task of educating them, are their parents and adult family members. But what exactly is happening with today's youth? Why is education, and the primary educational institutions in this country (the home, the church, and the schools) failing our kids? Why does each successive generation seem to exhibit less and less self-governing qualities, and more and more dependency on others, on government, on drugs, on alcohol, you name it?

Is it not that they're being raised this way? Is it not that the disease of liberalism has so infected all of our primary educational institutions that this is just the natural result of their poor raisings? I believe so, and I believe that one indicator of this is the growing tendency for parents to seek a medical cure for problems of the temper exhibited by their children, and for the schools to assist them in doing so.

All too often these days parents are all too willing to identify problems with their children which they seem to believe is related to some 'disorder' possessed of their children in a way unique to other children. I suspect I know at least part of the reason parents are inclined to accept these false notions about their kids. First, it gets the parents off the hook for the bad behavior of their kids, or so the parents believe. Second, the parents derive a lot of self-indulgent pleasure from the sympathies they receive from family members and the general public when they have a child with 'special needs.' Third, if they have a 'special' child with 'special' needs, there are all kinds of financial benefits to be derived therefrom, and so on. But is the problem correctly identified, and is it as widely spread as we're led to believe? I certainly believe that the problem is mis-diagnosed much of the time, if not most of the time.

One thing I've always said regarding my own children, albeit somewhat jokingly, is that “they all had A.D.D. until I beat it out of them.” What I mean by that, obviously, is that they all (every last one of them) showed all the signs of having an 'attention deficit' until it was cured through the methods of instruction and discipline intended to (1) enlighten, (2) correct, (3) form, (4) fit. And if this is not the method for producing self-governing individuals 'fit for usefulness in their future stations,' as self-governing, independent, and productive American adults, then I'm utterly deluded.

The point being, of course, that our tendency these days as parents and guardians to darken the understanding, encourage the practice of bad behavior through non-correction, to allow the manners and habits to be formed outside a guiding moral influence, and to raise children not fit for usefulness in their future stations is all too common, and all too noticeable out in the real world. And if you don't believe it, just make it a point the next time you go to a public place, to watch how much parents indulge their misbehaving children.

But of course these misbehaving children just can't help themselves, can they? They must have some disorder that causes them to behave so badly, whether there's been a term put to it yet or not, and for which there must be some prescription drug available to control it. And if not there will be, right? Pretty convenient excuse for those parents who themselves are very often self-indulgent, drug addicted types, wouldn't you agree?

-DW

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We Interrupt this Broadcast to Bring You a Special Story

So I rise early this morning to get back to work on my commitments here at Webster's, but before I start I make a couple of my usual rounds, and wouldn't you know it, I run into this posting over at VA's: 'Too many People'

I'm going to attempt to make this fairly short and sweet. VA does a fine job of saying most of what I should like to say anyhow, and more...

In some ways it reminds me of a debate I had some months back with a liberal gal about 'mountain climbers,' and whether or not they contribute to society. And BTW, if you're debating a thoroughly indoctrinated liberal person, you're not going to convince them, so from my view that shouldn't be your purpose anyhow. Your purpose should be, as I've learned, to refute their arguments for the sake of the wider audience.

But getting back to the point, this person was arguing that mountain climbers, and those who engage in activities she later generalized as “high risk sports” or something like that, do not contribute to society and should be forced to contribute to society through differing means like training in mountain climbing techniques which would be taxed heavily, fees paid to climb a given mountain which would go to fund rescue efforts and so forth. This particular individual had a bone to pick with most anyone who engaged in 'amateur' pursuits of any kind, insisting that anything that was deemed to be 'risky' should come with the requirement of the enthusiast to become a 'professional' before ever being allowed to pursue such a thing. And who, pray tell, did she think should determine what is 'risky,' and what not? Well of course, the government. Typical liberal.

My argument against this point, of course, was that there are any number of 'high risk' activities out there that the government needn't bother itself with - “Aren't you liberals ever satisfied; haven't you saddled the government with enough activities it's not equipped to deal with? And of course there was a lot of passion from the other side about how poor old grandma would be turned away in her moment of need due to the fact that 'high risk sports enthusiasts' had overwhelmed the rescue services financially and in the availability of manpower. Liberals always pull grandma out of their hip pockets when they need her most. But enough on that.

VA's post deals with the Duggar family in Arkansas, and some of the “ignorant of the facts” vitriol which has been leveled against them. They don't live but a stone's throw away from yours truly, in a manner of speaking. And I should like to take the family to visit them sometime. The Duggars, if you haven't heard of them, have seventeen children. That's right, 17. They have a huge home, as you might imagine, but something that some of you may not be aware of is that they built that home with their own hands. I remember watching a documentary about the family during the time that they were still building this home, and one of the older male children said something on camera that struck a chord with me, he said, and I paraphrase:

“Dad said “I think we can pour the foundation.” And I said that I thought we oughta hire a professional to do it. But Dad thought we could do it, so we did it. Later, Dad said he thought we could frame the walls. I said I thought we might should consider hiring a professional framing contractor to do the work for us. But Dad thought we could do it, so we did. Then it came to putting the roof up and drying the house in. Dad thought we could do it, I thought...well, we did that too...

Interestingly enough, the home they built had very little work done on it from outside the family. Yep; truly this family, The Duggars, built the home they now live in with their own hands. Quite an accomplishment in my books, for someone whose profession is not 'construction.'

All that one needs do is to click on the profile of yours truly to find that I have six children, which, even in this neck of the woods is considered to be a lot, too many by most standards. I know this because I listen to the gasps that always attend my first sharing of the fact that I have 'so many.' Lot's of times people want to know how many different mothers these children have, automatically assuming that there must be more than one. Usually they seem pleasantly surprised when I inform them that they all have one mother and one father.

But as I shared over at VA's in a comment to her post, I can't even begin to count the times that people have gone plumb out of their way to strike up a conversation with us in some public place, announcing that “these are the best behaved children I have ever seen.” They are shocked, shocked I tell ya, that six siblings consisting of three boys and three girls, and ranging in age from two to nineteen years (the nineteen year old is out of the house now, making his own way) can behave and get along together so very well. I suppose there's something to be said for the ideas and negative predispositions people generally have about 'large' families. Heck, I even complain myself about the fact that “I have enough mouths to feed, I don't need, and shouldn't be taxed to feed everyone else's offspring, nor their aged.” To me, government coerced taxation aimed at 'social programs,' like welfare, food stamps, WIC, State funded health and dental care, and etc., is the same as taking food out of the mouths of my children. Of course, I'm totally against the dependency that such programs create, not to mention the undue attachment to 'government' that they create as well.

But before y'all go assuming anything about large families, barking out blatantly stupid comments about how that you're going to have to feed and shelter these offspring of these 'oversexed' parents, you might want to do a little research. As I noted over at VA's, some folks need to pay more attention to that old adage which states: “To assume anything, makes an Ass outta u and me.”

Nonetheless, though, I ain't real sure about this, but I think my wife may have an eye on a couple or three of the Duggar boys, and a couple or three of the Duggar girls, for some odd reason. And y'know, there's a ratio advantage in our favor there...lol

-DW

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Something Worth Sharing

You'll recall that I expressed a desire to be back at it after returning home Thursday night if all went as planned. Well, all didn't go quite as planned, which was as much my own fault as the fault of anything else.

We finally got back home yesterday at around noon or so. I got on the computer and made a couple of quick rounds, after which I started to work on a couple of items that I'd promised to get to this weekend...

But here I wish to share with you what ultimately delayed our return home by at least sixteen hours or so. Our original designs were successfully completed within the original allotted time frame, so we should have been home on schedule had I not decided to extend one entertainment portion of the trip.

One of my purposes, besides the pressing issue I told y'all about, was to take the kids fishing that evening – something that we haven't done as a family in quite a few months, and that's not like us. As it turned out, we were having so much success (and fun) catching fish that we decided to stay longer than we'd originally planned to. To give you some idea of how many fish we caught, not to mention the ones that 'got away,' I spent two solid hours cleaning them after dark, and I'm no novice at filleting fish.

By the time I finished cleaning fish, a measure of fatigue had crept up on me. That coupled with the fact that the kids were eager to spend the night at the other place finally convinced me that we should wait till the next day to make the drive home. The kids would have preferred that we'd stayed for the entire weekend as they were really wanting to do some more fishing and four-wheeler riding. But I told them we'd do it another time since I had work to do at home.

But anyway, we had a good time fishing even though we lost probably twenty or thirty dollars worth of new fishing lures. Even ol' Sam (my 2 year old) caught a fish all by himself. And come to think of it not one of us got skunked this time around.

-DW

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Custer's Rout of the Indians at the Battle of Little Bighorn?

Over at John Savage's blog under this title there is a discussion in the comments section about Americans not knowing well their own genealogy. I agree with both John, and VA that this is most probably and widely the case among Americans, including myself which I'm somewhat embarrassed by as well as ashamed of.

Here's a personal story in this vein that you might find interesting, perhaps even one to which some of you can in some way relate...

When I was about six or seven years old is the farthest recollection I have of Dad making me aware of my native American heritage. This is kind of a funny story and I recall it often attaching a lot of humor to it, though I think there are some serious aspects to it as well.

At that time some of you may recall that capitalist American toy manufacturers and retailers had seized upon what I suppose must have been a good deal of interest amongst the American population in the history of Custer's last stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn.

My recollection of this phase of Americans becoming interested in some of their post-civil-war history is best explained I think in the fact that Mom had purchased for me an action figure of Col. Custer himself, along with his horse and other bells and whistles. My best recollection is that it wasn't long thereafter that Dad brought me a counterpart to this action figure – either “Crazy Horse,” or “Sitting Bull,” most probably. Dad of course had an ulterior motive for providing me with the toy, and one in direct opposition, not necessarily to Mom's motive (I highly doubt that Mom had one to begin with other than just providing me with something I wanted most likely), but to her specific gift which I had probably requested.

Despite the true history of the Battle of Little Bighorn, my childhood replays of the battle always had Custer's regiment triumphant over the Indians. That's the way I wanted it to be, and since they were my toys I could play it out however I wanted to, or so I thought...

I remember one day while Col. Custer and company were thoroughly routing their Indian nemeses, Dad stopped me in the midst of my fun and began to explain to me that 'that's not the way it happened at all.' He further went on to ask me why it was that I preferred the Custer doll over that of the Indian he had provided me? This question of Dad's was prompted by the fact that I generally took very good care of the Custer doll and his horse. The Indian companion piece Dad had provided me was not so fortunate as that, however. I didn't have a very good answer, and it was really kind of a confusing question for me, in retrospect.

Looking back on it now, I would assume that my mind had been impressed with these ideas through different forms of media, as well as from the warring factions between my parents on this issue. I can't explain exactly why Dad's preference in this regard did not take well with me. I always thought of my Dad as being something of a 'larger than life' figure, and virtually everything he told me I took to be absolute and unadulterated truth. But in this particular an exception to that rule was very obviously noticeable, and Dad of course picked up on it and began to try to counter it with some extensive educational efforts on his part.

After Dad had that initial talk with me I remember trying to play the battle out to more conduce to the way that he had explained to me that it actually happened. But after having done so a couple of times I reverted back to my own preference for how the battle should have gone in direct contradiction to what Dad had told me. And I was in no way in the habit of contradicting my dad, nor had I any desire to disappoint him; quite the contrary. But in this case my personal preference proved to be just too strong to overcome. Of course, I was careful from there on out to have the Indians winning whenever Dad was around. And Dad and I entered upon a game of pretended preferences for several years thereafter.

I think the point of this story, besides my attempting to provide you with a good chuckle, is that even to this very day I have a strong bias in favor of my European heritage and over that of what little Indian blood I actually have running through my veins. As a matter of putting our history back in what I would consider its proper context, I think there's a largely neglected need for individuals like myself to express their true preferences, not succumbing to the pc pressure of always esteeming the poor, hapless Indians as having been manipulated, raped, pillaged, murdered and robbed at the hands of the true savages - the 'white devil invaders.'

I tend more to view 'ownership' in the way that Locke explained it, which is to say that the earth was given to man in common, but to establish a true ownership of anything thereof, one must invest that which may be reduced to his and his alone – his labor. Personally I have a hard time accepting the idea that occupation in and of itself establishes ownership in any 'American' sense of the word. I mean, I could go set up camp on a given piece of property, but the great likelihood is that the owners thereof – those who have invested their labor in the acquisition of that property – when they find me out, are going to do whatever is necessary to have me removed, as well they should.

I need a better explanation than 'the Indians occupied this land first' to convince me that they had established ownership of it entirely to the exclusion of anyone else. I don't deny that the Indians were wronged in some respects, but nor do I unquestionably accept the apparent conventional wisdom that the white devils wronged them in all respects, and that we're now occupiers of a land ill-gained. That to me is just a bunch of emotionally based hogwash, the logical conclusion of which makes me ill to stomach, to be frank.

In any event, Dad and I still have these conversations from time to time. He's not as apt as he used to be to try to convince me against my preferences and against my better judgment, but he still sticks largely to his guns on this issue. I suppose this issue will always be a point of contention between us, given that neither of us is likely to change his mind anytime soon. But for those of you who tend to take Dad's side on this question, and particularly those of you having also an attachment to the Christian faith, I would respectfully remind you, as I have Dad on occasion, that our Lord and our God must be extremely offended by an abject denial of that heritage of ours which actually resulted in 'securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves.'

These ideas of God, man, and government are traceable back to our European roots, not to the original occupiers of this land of ours. These ideas are most probably responsible for 'securing the blessings of liberty' on an individual and a collective level to the most people and generations history has heretofore ever recorded. Our European heritage is directly responsible for the blessings we enjoy, yet so easily dismiss today as a matter of luck. And as we ride upon the backs of our forefathers and mothers, we tend at the same time to dishonor them in denying that vital part of our unique heritage.

Lord forgive us, for we know not what we do.

-DW

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Entertainment Media - A 'Carnival' Atmosphere

I hope and trust y'all will not mind my going in something of a different direction temporarily until I get myself caught up on what's been happening on the blogosphere (or my chosen corner of it - btw, it's ok to refer to a given section of a 'sphere' as a 'corner', just think of it in Biblical terms and we'll be alright) during my four or five day absence. At the moment of the writing of these words I've now been online for about two hours reading a few entries from other blogs (Vanishing American in particular) and I find myself rather struck by how quickly information is disseminated across this medium.

Much in contrast to the soap opera style 'news' and 'information' shows on today's mass media outlets where one may return after a long stint away and generally take up right where he/she left off weeks, months, or even years before, my chosen corner of the 'blogosphere' is a different baby altogether, as y'all well know. And this entry will be dedicated to speaking to that topic...

Over at VA's is posted a Monday entry on this very topic: Fluff and nonsense. VA notes in the post that though there is certainly an element of demand for what is termed 'cotton candy news,' in spite of that she also encounters, as I do, a lot of people of different walks, educational backgrounds and so forth, who generally despise this kind of 'news.' This causes her to question on some level why it is that the MSM engages itself in this kind of insignificant news coverage.

Personally I think a lot of it has to do with the education and experiences of the media people themselves. In short, it's what they know, all they know, and all they've ever known. And when there's a shortage, or a perceived shortage of 'newsworthy' stories to cover, these media outlets invariably revert back to what they know and understand best - entertainment.

Of course VA is discussing in the post a general problem across the MSM, but she does mention two specific examples - Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton - of the MSM's incessantly engaging itself in this kind of 'news coverage,' and she wonders on some level why this is. I think the 'cotton candy' euphemism is an appropriate one, and if we take thought to where it oughta lead us, it strikes up a pretty fitting analogy as well I should think.

We've often heard today's 'news' and news coverage referred to as a circus. But a carnival or a fair might be a better way of describing it in some instances. There is an atmosphere as well there should be at these carnivals of fun and entertainment. We associate certain ideas with certain things, and the carnival atmosphere is meant to be one of fun and entertainment. But why is it that news coverage seems to be increasingly more 'entertainment' oriented at the expense of the dissemination of knowledge of the useful kind?

I've said this before but I'll repeat it here. I think this is a more pervasive 'trend' than many of us realize. It seems to me to touch virtually everything; this 'entertainment' style of the sharing of information and knowledge. Those of us who complain about it are simply not interested in those kinds of 'facts,' or that kind of 'news' because we see it for what it is - irrelevant to real news and current events.

Now, I'll say here that I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is from Adam. I do know who Paris Hilton is because I've heard her name mentioned countless times. But beyond her being the heiress to the Hilton hotel dynasty (or whatever it is) and the fact that she was recently jailed for some kind of personal misdeed, I know very little of her as well, and that's the way I'd prefer to keep it so I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't try to educate me on this point. lol But my main point here is that I for one am apt to know a lot more about some relatively obscure character in American history, what they did and didn't do, and so on, than I'll ever likely know about Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton despite the MSM's incessant coverage of these irrelevant types.

And what I mean to say here is that I'm not nearly as comfortable in the carnival atmosphere as I used to be. That kind of 'fun and entertainment' is to me reserved for special and limited occasions. While I'm there and while I'm purposely seeking entertainment and pleasure I'm also willing to pay exorbitant prices for cotton candy and candied apples, and etc., as well as to pay twenty or thirty dollars for a fifty cent toy in a 'game of chance' where the deck is stacked heavily in favor of the carnival and against the individual player. I'm willing to do this because I seek entertainment in that instance, but that instance is very short-lived.

The same principle applies I think to the media and the kind of news it generates nowadays. I only wish to be 'entertained' occasionally, and it's on those limited occasions that I'm willing to pay the exorbitant rates that go with that entertainment. This probably explains why I don't particularly care for cable news. Occasionally I'll turn it on when I get the hankering to be entertained. But having been thoroughly entertained over the course of a couple of hours or so, then I'm generally good for weeks or even months.

I suppose, on the other hand, that this form of media (the blogosphere) might be said to be a form of 'entertainment' itself. And that some of us just prefer this kind of entertainment to that which the MSM engages itself in providing. In this case the MSM has its audience and participants, and the blogosphere has its audience and participants, and both have their games and sideshows that draw and captivate the attention of the attendees and observers. And in this case it all depends on what interests the individual attendee; does he prefer to shoot darts at a wall full of balloons at a dollar a dart, or had he rather shoot a basketball into undersized hoops, or to toss rings onto bottle necks, or whatever?

VA devotes most of her thoughts on this to the idea that the 'educational' establishment has more or less contributed to the desire among many to be entertained in this manner and in this kind of a 'carnival' atmosphere. People are generally going from game to game, bag of cotton candy in hand, seeking to be entertained at the expense of seeking out and desiring useful knowledge. And I think that this all begins at home where parents, seeking entertainment and fun themselves above all, and working a significant number of hours (for those who actually do still count it their duty to provide for their own entertainment) to satisfy their desire to be entertained, pass this on to their children who grow up in a home atmosphere where self-indulgence is paramount to everything else. Then they attend schools and churches where this self-indulging entertainment values system is promoted and encouraged as well.

But I would make a great distinction between the two forms of 'entertainment' if in fact both may be described on some level as such. True, I'm entertained by what goes on in this corner of the blogosphere much more that what goes on throughout the MSM. But I'm not simply entertained by this, nor is it simply entertainment that I seek in frequenting it. No; what I seek overall is to absorb and to disseminate useful knowledge. And this more or less determines what blogs I find to be interesting, and what blogs I find to be less than interesting. Generally speaking, if the contents amount to little more than an extension of what the MSM is providing, then your blog isn't going to interest me much. I can be entertained that way through that source if that's what I seek. But if that's the kind of 'entertainment' your blog is intended to provide, you're going to have a hard time competing with the 'big boys.'

In any event the question still remains, why is it that the MSM engages in this kind of 'entertainment news' so frequently? And as I said before, I think part of the reason lies in the fact that this is all they know; this is the kind of 'news' that the MSM and most the folks involved have been used to providing for decades now, and it's just natural that they'd revert to it very frequently when they feel there is a shortage of 'newsworthy' stories out there to report on. It's also notable that to the MSM that which is considered 'newsworthy' would be determined by their predispositions about the value of a given piece of news. While I may question the value of reporting incessantly on the personal misdeeds of one Miss Lindsay Lohan, who is just a name to me, I think that the MSM folks may well believe that their interest in Lindsay Lohan translates to our interest in her. If they think it newsworthy to report on her life, then we must think it newsworthy as well, right? Wrong!

I could give a hoot about what Lindsay Lohan is doing these days, whoever she might be. But if you wish to discuss with me the goings on with folks who have an impact on all of our lives to some extent or the other, then I'm likely to be more attentive.

But since I have a very short day ahead of me today, as far as my work goes, I'll be back in a couple of hours to post a couple more items as well as to continue to play some more catch-up on the blogosphere. Until then, y'all be good and keep on entertaining yourselves with useful information and knowledge.

-DW

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Traditionalism and Worldview

Often I wonder whether 'worldview' gets its due consideration when we discuss the ways and means of correcting and rectifying some of our most egregious mistakes over the last, say, 140 years. I would even go further back in time, but to date it back to the 'constitutional' overthrow of some of our more vital foundational constitutional principles seems to me a good place to look.

As I make my way around the 'traditionalist' blogosphere I often note what seems to me a tendency to long for days-gone-by that really weren't that long ago, and may not have been as good as they could have been, or as good as we perceive them to have been; or as 'traditional' as we think them to have been. Often these longings are for times which fall within the span of our own lifetimes, which is natural I suppose, given that we're most acquainted with, and attached to that which we've actually witnessed and experienced and feel a personal connection with. And I'm probably as guilty of this as anyone.

Indeed, I can remember when I was still in H.S., and even in grade-school -not so awful long ago- and I often fondly reflect upon those times as something of an 'age of innocence.' Much of that reflection has to do with the relative innocence of my mind at that age, of course, and the way that this youthful innocence of mine perceived the world around me. Much of it has to do with the environment I was raised in as well - a good, moral family and community structure with much emphasis placed on being good and doing good, as opposed to the self-indulgence and the materialism that seems to rule now. I was also raised in 'small-town-rural-America,' and that in itself had a profound impact on the way I viewed the world around me, as well as the way I remember that time, not so long ago...

During the early part of the 1990's I was serving in the U.S. Air Force, stationed at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, AK. At that time there was a nation-wide effort underway among the homosexual community to have the words 'sexual orientation' entered into all the 'non-discrimination' laws of local governments, and Anchorage was one of the cities wherein this push was happening in full force. I remember it well because as a completely committed member of the opposition to this movement, I counted it my duty to brave sub-zero temperatures and adverse weather conditions to make sure I had done all I could possibly do to stop the progress of these measures. In the end, as I've related before at the AFB, these initiatives passed, but the very next election cycle literally every member who had voted for them was summarily removed from his/her seat and replaced by new members who repealed those laws. Those were the 'good ol' days.'

That battle was won, but the larger war is ongoing and we traditionalists have incurred some significant losses along the way. I look back on those days, as well as the days of my childhood and think to myself how wonderful those times were given that abjectly immoral behaviorisms were not only not encouraged, but they were put down by an overwhelming display of moral rectitude from the vast majority of Americans when the time came. One of the faults we seem to have, though, is that the 'goodness' in us seems to supercede our instinct to survival once a movement like that is perceived to have been effectively put down. And in the end, rather than to go that 'extra mile' making certain that these things will not arise again anytime soon, we tend rather to have sympathy for those we've defeated, and to even help them back up. I often think of it in terms of a fist-fight wherein having neutralized your opponent's ability to cause you harm at that moment, conscience (or something) convinces you to let the poor soul up; often even to help him up, brush him off, and send him on his way. And I cannot help but to think that often this is a huge mistake. And yes, I've had the misfortune of having to do it all over again.

We look back with fondness to yesteryear because relative to today it was a fine, one might say even an 'innocent' time. Yesteryear was a time when we seemed to have possessed more grit, more determination, more goodness, more everything that may be said to be good and wholesome, and 'American,' and of course, less of everything else. The America of yesteryear would not have allowed the moral degeneration and degradation we see today to have occured. No; it would have put it down thoroughly, convincing the licentious movement that it had better not come back for more if it knew what was good for it. And there is a great deal of truth to that.

However, when we traditionalists long for days-gone-by we should not fail to recognize that those times and those generations we generally laud as better than ours are partly responsible for what we're experiencing today. I have always thought of the 'greatest generation' label put to the WWII generation as extremely misplaced. It was this generation, was it not, that effectively brought in 'social security,' and the 'welfare state?' I don't concern myself with whether their intentions were 'noble' in this cause; the effects are what they are, and in my opinion they speak poorly of themselves. And certainly there must have been those 'traditionalists' who were absolutely opposed to these measures, longing themselves for 'days-gone-by' when Americans were more self-reliant, and when they had rather starve than to take a government handout.

In another time traditionalists rose up and vehemently opposed the proposal and ratification of the 13th, 14th, and the 15th amendments following the war between the States, warning that the effect would be detrimental to all this nation was founded on. And it was traditionalists who shouted in opposition to the introduction of progressive education in America, raising cautions themselves against the probable and long-term effects this 'new deal' would have on this country, her laws and institutions, and on the minds and hearts of her people.

Nevertheless, here we are in the year of our Lord, 2007, and of our nation's 'independency' the 231st, and progressive government education of our impressionable youth, once just a fancy of some obscure group of liberal minded nobodys, is now just an accepted norm with majority America. Indeed, I would venture an 'educated' guess that in stark contrast to this once 'unAmerican' style and methodological approach to education in this country, the American psyche has now been thoroughly indoctrinated to the supposed 'superiority' of this thoroughly liberal educational philosophy. But this is not enough, the march must go forward say the liberals. Indeed it does, for how many of us have witnessed the disgusting rise of government funded 'early childhood development centers' across the fruited plain?; and even in small-town-USA, accompanied by the happy consent of the parents and grandparents of these helpless two and three year old unformed and uncultivated minds.

It's a tragic set of cause-effect events which have happened in our nation over the last 160 years or more. Traditionalists have been there all along like 'voices crying in the wilderness': "repent, repent!," but to no avail. The most that traditionalism has been able to do, it seems to me, is to slow the progress enough to avoid all-out armed conflict between the warring factions...most of the time. But the march of progressivism; of liberalism, and of abject moral and cultural degradation seems to have moved forward pretty well unimpeded to this point. We find ourselves in a nation, as well as influenced by its socialist tendencies, that our founding generation simply would not have recognized in any meaningful way. And it seems we must ask ourselves how much further we may stray before we reach the point of 'critical mass'?

The 'worldview' of our founding generation -that which is responsible for the creation of this nation in its pure form- was much, much different than is ours. Today worldview seems to get little direct notice even among 'traditionalists.' At least that worldview of the nation's original creators gets little direct attention. Often it seems that the worldview of the generation of my grandparents is equated with that of the founding father generation. But is this true? Is this consistent with the facts? We may say with little reservation that the worldview of my grandparents' generation was certainly closer to that of the founders' worldview than is ours. But still it can be shown that there was already a wide gulf between the two. And in fact, were the founders capable of transcending time and observing the two, they would probably recognize little in either largely consistent with their own. Just as we look back to those days of our youths with such a longing that 'if only things were that good today,' and so we should since it is the 'good' of those days we so long after, we should as well look past those days to the days before them, and the days before them, and so on until we arrive at the time when the pureness of this nation, of its laws and institutions; of the very worldview of its people reigned supreme.

In the year of our Lord, 1833, and of this nation's 'independency,' the 57th, "America's Schoolmaster," the honorable and learned Noah Webster, published these words in the preface of his work: "History of the United States":

The brief exposition of the Constitution of the United States will unfold to young persons the principles of Republican government; and it is the sincere desire of the writer that our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct Republican principles is the BIBLE, particularly the New Testament or the Christian Religion.

Later in this little volume Webster makes these equally remarkable assertions:

Almost all the civil liberty now enjoyed in the world owes its origin to the principles of the Christian Religion. Men began to understand their natural rights as soon as the reformation from Popery began to dawn in the sixteenth century; and civil liberty has been gradually advancing and improving as genuine Christianity has prevailed....the religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and his apostles, which enjoins humility, piety, and benevolence; which acknowledges in every person a brother, or a sister, and a citizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free constitutions of government...

Certainly we must look to our government as well as our churches and note a marked movement away from orthodoxy in both. We may look back twenty, thirty, even to fifty years ago and wish that our churches were now as uncorrupted as they were then. But do we not recognize that 'uncorruptedness,' that 'pureness' in them only as we contrast it with the corruption we see and witness today? Might we not travel back to Webster's time and truly find that 'almost all the losses to civil liberty in this country owes its origin to the prostration of the Christian Religion?' May we not further conclude that 'Americans first began to lose sight of the true origins of their natural rights as soon as the movement away from orthodoxy began to dawn in the 19th century; and civil liberty has been gradually diminishing and deteriorating as prostrated Christianity and other religious impurity has prevailed.'

It may not be popular to say these things in today's pc dominated America, but since I'm not one to toe the pc line, and since I am definitely one to strongly resist further advances of this pc dominated culture we find ourselves in, I'll say it, and let the chips fall where they may. My friends, there is a unique worldview that has always been consistent with genuine American traditionalism, and I think we should probably reach back further in time to discover it in its purest and its simplest form. For I think that therein lies the very key to our salvation.

As has been said before: "Worldview is everything!"

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