The discussion on whether truth is objective or subjective has been discussed for thousands of years by people way smarter than I. However, I don't think you have to be "smart" to understand the truth. To me, truth is something that should be self evident.
Today, the "truth" is whatever it needs to be with some people. I read an interesting article the other day that put into words things I have thought for a long time. For some people, truth is the load stone, or Polaris by which we take stock of our own character. From the time we are little, we are taught to tell the truth, to be honest, that we will lose the respect and trust of those around us if we can not be trusted. For the most part, I believe that the majority of people in this country take this to heart. However, there are those who, I think at an early age, figured out that people don't have to like you, or even need to trust you in order to get ahead of others in life. If you have something, or do something that others need then they will want what you have, even if they don't like or trust you. A politician is a great example of this. I can't think of many politicians who I would allow to babysit a child, yet they have their hands on the levers of power in whatever they are elected or appointed to do. Need a streetlight fixed (calling Al Bundy), a pothole filled in, or even a train to no-where then you have to deal with someone who's character can be...well...fluid.
If someone calls me out on something shady, and there is some truth to it, then I would feel embarrassed, and perhaps downplay my role in it. Others, like Elizabeth Warren or Hillary Rodham Clinton, barely bat an eye and simply shift gears to change the discussion or the point of topic and simply roll on. For instance, someone says, "Mr. Stoa, is it true that you use real butter instead of margarine in your biscuits?" After some "Umms" and "Wells..." I'd then likely try to justify my use of butter in the recipe (this plays into the narrative that the media knows all to well, set the verbal arena and then force me to work within it). "Ms. Warren, isn't it true that you have as much Native American blood in you as my Siamese Cat?" Without any blushing of her cheeks or sense of guilt, she will simply say that it is YOU that are causing strife and conflict in our democratic elections. It is YOU that is sowing seeds of doubt and hatred among the electorate. "Um, ok, but is it also true that by taking those jobs you denied the opportunity for real Native Americans to advance?" She will flick her hand to the side, dismissing your question and return with just how ignorant YOU are and by extension anyone who agrees with you. She will only tangentially address the thrust of what you asked by reinforcing how tirelessly she will work to improve the lives of Native Americans in this country, something YOU clearly don't seem interested in. Likewise, "Ms. Clinton, or Rodham, or whatever your name is today, if you earned $100,000 on cattle futures over night, why are you in politics and not out teaching the Titans of Wall Street how to make trades?" In her case, she will simply remind you about how you are clearly living in the past and trying to stir up old, SETTLED, issues. Personal attack, personal attack, and then shift the dialogue. Then a month later there is a short note on page 58c about a blogger found shot and stabbed 29 times in what is clearly a suicide/failed robbery.
Conservatives will lose nearly all the time. As a bloc, they do not control the media. They do not control the Universities, nor public/private education. They don't really control the radio or the Internet. To a progressive, truth is packaging. Malleable. It is a necessary ingredient that can be "titrated" to fit whatever narrative they are pushing that day. Republicans almost always attempt to actually talk about what they are asked about, they will try to refute or justify. A good example of this is "Mitt Romney", if that is his real name. In the 2012 election against Obama, he was the most vile, putrid and repulsive kind of person. Oh, so WHITE, a MAN, and, for the love of Alinsky, a MORMON! Today, Mr. Dilecto has been canonized and anointed the new "Maverick" of the Senate, the new McCain. Oh how they love him now. He is their new hero to combat the evil orange menace. Was the truth, "True" in 2012 or is the truth, "True" now in 2019? If Mitt shared my sense of honor and dignity, he would explain how his "thinking" has moved and changed since 2012. He would explain to us just what the President has done to deserve his ire. I certainly would not create an alternate identity to say what I really believed, I would just say it.
What really scares me about RINOs is this: were they always this way and just really good at hiding it, like Mr. Romney appears to have done, or do they really "wake up" when it looks like they are waking up, like Senator McConnell? Obviously, I can't tell with meaningful accuracy. One look at Clinton (either one) or Warren or Sanders, I know right away that if they say, "it's good day, Mr. Stoa", I will immediately look out the window to make sure that, a) the Sun is out, and b) the weather nice.
Did a young pupil of Obi-Wan's betray and murder Luke's father? Did a need for operational security give Obi-Wan the right to...well...take a few steps to the right or left and change his point of view of the truth? You can see what keeps me up at night.
As usual, live well. Live with virtue even if the world itself forgets the meaning.
Zavost
Saturday, October 26, 2019
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Does one make the times or does the times make the Man?
There are many treaties written about how individuals like G. Julius Caesar or Napoleon Bonaparte, that though sheer force of will, remake the world around them. They are the stuff of legends, truly. However, could there have been a Caesar without first the Gracchi brothers and Sulla before him? Could Napoleon come to power if the Bourbons had been able to maintain the strict class divisions that defined high military service? Without the Revolution would Napoleon have simply gone un-noticed and un-noted by history? This stuff keeps me up at night, sometimes. The could-have-beens and the should-not-have-beens.
Colonel Eisenhower stuck behind a desk instead of a 5-star general and eventual President if not for any number of factors. No Hitler if a different person had evaluated his water color paintings in Vienna? No Castro if he could hit a curve ball better? No Bolshevik party if Trotsky had been even a little more suspicious with Lenin or better at dealing with the thug from Georgia? Would it all have happened anyhow, just with the names changed? Would others of equal drive, ambition, intelligence and luck grasp at history when the opportunity presents?
I like the quote attributed to Frank Herbert of Dune Fame, "Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible." I mix this into the thought recipe and see how it changes the flavor...
Lets use modern personalities, that most everyone should be familiar with. How about I start with some public figures, perhaps a married couple who each had their law licences revoked by the Bar for corruption. William Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton. They came to "power", or perhaps prominence when I started my career in the medical field. It seems so long ago for me, but in reality it was only 1993. A governor from the State of Arkansas that carried a noticeable baggage train of scandal and rumor, he came to the Presidency unexpectedly. At the time, I did not think that this man would be President. By the time he ran, our culture and society had been under assault for 30 years. Was this man of the same caliber of the other men who had held that office? Was he the equal of FDR or Eisenhower? Did he take responsibly for those who worked for him like Harry Truman? Did he have the steel and determination of Abraham Lincoln? Did he have a reputation for integrity and honesty like George Washington?
I think the answer to all those is, "No". Society and culture had been weakened. Coarsened by assaults on virtue and personal responsibility. Want to have as much sex as you like without consequences? We invent the birth control pill. Got pregnant anyhow, hey, Roe v Wade now allows unlimited abortion. Perhaps Jefferson slipped that one in when no one was looking. When the bar is lowered to allow behavior into common society that was not permitted before lessens us as a people.
The Clintons came to power in a final refutation of the "Greatest Generation". GHW Bush was the last of that generation to hold the Presidency. Since then, they have all been Boomers. The X-ers may come to power in the 2020 election; who knows. Bill Clinton in the 90's is on the official record as NOT supporting same sex marriage. He is on the record as being against unlimited immigration. He also had to watch while the electorate rejected his grab at power by nationalizing the healthcare system via his wife, the "co-President", Hillary Rodham. His crushing defeat in the mid-term elections of 1994 forced him to the center. His second term was far less ambitious than his first term. One think I liked about Bill Clinton is that he was not soaked in any particular dogma. He liked money, power, and women; and not necessarily in that order.
Obama came to power after eight years of intense cultural demolition. Now we had abortions in the last moments before a baby could cry. Wars that were blamed on us, despite being the victims of a Pearl Harbor-style attack. A recession drummed up by the media that intentionally scared the cattle in the futures market (an overt example of media manipulation of the masses...wait, isn't that called Agi-prop?).
Today, the Democrats fall all over themselves trying to erase the southern border, empty the pockets of the unborn (those they don't kill), and promise anything and everything to the mobs of Rome, er, low information voters. They say things today that Bill Clinton could NEVER have gotten away with. Hell, there are things Obama still seems afraid to say or admit to. I know there is a reason for him to buy the mansion/compound that sits within strolling distance of the White House...why you still hanging around there? I wonder...
Obama took advantage of a willing bureaucracy, grown fat and powerful at the expense of the taxpayer. Entrenched and no longer thinking of themselves as Civil Servants. Instead, there are now princelings who lord over their piece of the sprawling federal machine. Presidents and cabinet members come and go, but the cogs remain...and have become powerful individuals in their own right. Perhaps the best, first, example of this would be J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI was created as an inter-state investigative body to deal with mob crime, violence, and intra-state legalities. He remained in his position, President after President. Rumor was thick about the dirt he had on everyone in Washington. His longevity in the office likely did have something to do with knowing dirt on everyone. How many Hoovers were in the gears of government then? How many now?
What do you call it when the gears of government no longer respond to the will of the elected officials placed in power over them? Today the term "Deep State" is tossed about, and I guess that is a decent enough description, though I think that it still lacks something. President Trump has pulled a part of the paneling away and we can see the termites and cockroaches teeming thick and foul in the political machinery of our country. It absolutely frightens me. I am afraid that even Donald Trump will be unable to sufficiently fumigate the entire, sprawling complex corruption in our country.
Some examples? When the law no longer matters certain groups of people, but remains in full effect on the masses. Such as? Ok, a man takes a photo of an obsolete nuclear reactor on an old submarine and is tossed in jail, yet the former Secretary of State can, cough, mis-handle sensitive classified information and simply laugh it off. The former Directors of the FBI, CIA and NSA lie repeatedly to Congress and directly to the face of the President and then go on book tour to promote a book about their patriotism...am I the only one bothered by this? How are they not in jail? How are they not even "in trouble". It is loud, bright, and unashamed.
Is my country still a Republic? Was Clinton the Gracchi and Obama a Sulla? Who will become Caesar? Unfortunately, I fear Trump will share the same fate as Cato and some powerful demagogue will flourish in the foul soil of our spoiled Republic and put an end to the mockery of justice as it exists today and rule in the open, with the organs of power firmly grasped in their tentacles. The power brokers in Washington, like the Praetorian before them, will only allow those to serve as President that will not disturb their fiefs, continue to shower wealth and power upon their stations, and always look the other way when the public catches a glimpse of the hand on the levers of power.
What is this called? Do we share the fate of the Greek states of antiquity or that of the Roman Republic? Will our next overlord be a Caesar Augustus, ruling with a light hand from behind Republican organs of government or will they rule nakedly like a Caligula or Nero?
Congress is already largely irrelevant. Budgets are voted into existence and then placed on auto-pilot. The grain dole, er Welfare State, is already firmly entrenched and a 3rd rail of politics. The Supreme Court has already been simply rubber stamping painfully obvious violations of the Constitution (I am looking at you Mr. Chief Justice). The President, as we have seen, can be wounded and weakened by the media complex and their political allies in the Progressive movement.
It seems as if the stage is set. Actors have been seen moving about in the wings and in the shadows for some time now. President Trump may be an aberration, a Black Swan event in the machinations of the Progressives, but he can't last forever. His impact will be immediately undone, invalidated, and crammed down the memory hole.
Was he a Black Swan event? Someone to temporarily halt our slide into authoritarianism? I don't know. I do hope that the 100+ years of Progressive ROT can be halted and we can heal our republican organs of government. Demote the Princelings back into Civil Servants and award merit instead of cronyism and nepotism.
Do we allow the obviously corruptible near the levers of power? How to we guard against a future Deep State take over of government, or has it already happened?
Colonel Eisenhower stuck behind a desk instead of a 5-star general and eventual President if not for any number of factors. No Hitler if a different person had evaluated his water color paintings in Vienna? No Castro if he could hit a curve ball better? No Bolshevik party if Trotsky had been even a little more suspicious with Lenin or better at dealing with the thug from Georgia? Would it all have happened anyhow, just with the names changed? Would others of equal drive, ambition, intelligence and luck grasp at history when the opportunity presents?
I like the quote attributed to Frank Herbert of Dune Fame, "Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible." I mix this into the thought recipe and see how it changes the flavor...
Lets use modern personalities, that most everyone should be familiar with. How about I start with some public figures, perhaps a married couple who each had their law licences revoked by the Bar for corruption. William Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton. They came to "power", or perhaps prominence when I started my career in the medical field. It seems so long ago for me, but in reality it was only 1993. A governor from the State of Arkansas that carried a noticeable baggage train of scandal and rumor, he came to the Presidency unexpectedly. At the time, I did not think that this man would be President. By the time he ran, our culture and society had been under assault for 30 years. Was this man of the same caliber of the other men who had held that office? Was he the equal of FDR or Eisenhower? Did he take responsibly for those who worked for him like Harry Truman? Did he have the steel and determination of Abraham Lincoln? Did he have a reputation for integrity and honesty like George Washington?
I think the answer to all those is, "No". Society and culture had been weakened. Coarsened by assaults on virtue and personal responsibility. Want to have as much sex as you like without consequences? We invent the birth control pill. Got pregnant anyhow, hey, Roe v Wade now allows unlimited abortion. Perhaps Jefferson slipped that one in when no one was looking. When the bar is lowered to allow behavior into common society that was not permitted before lessens us as a people.
The Clintons came to power in a final refutation of the "Greatest Generation". GHW Bush was the last of that generation to hold the Presidency. Since then, they have all been Boomers. The X-ers may come to power in the 2020 election; who knows. Bill Clinton in the 90's is on the official record as NOT supporting same sex marriage. He is on the record as being against unlimited immigration. He also had to watch while the electorate rejected his grab at power by nationalizing the healthcare system via his wife, the "co-President", Hillary Rodham. His crushing defeat in the mid-term elections of 1994 forced him to the center. His second term was far less ambitious than his first term. One think I liked about Bill Clinton is that he was not soaked in any particular dogma. He liked money, power, and women; and not necessarily in that order.
Obama came to power after eight years of intense cultural demolition. Now we had abortions in the last moments before a baby could cry. Wars that were blamed on us, despite being the victims of a Pearl Harbor-style attack. A recession drummed up by the media that intentionally scared the cattle in the futures market (an overt example of media manipulation of the masses...wait, isn't that called Agi-prop?).
Today, the Democrats fall all over themselves trying to erase the southern border, empty the pockets of the unborn (those they don't kill), and promise anything and everything to the mobs of Rome, er, low information voters. They say things today that Bill Clinton could NEVER have gotten away with. Hell, there are things Obama still seems afraid to say or admit to. I know there is a reason for him to buy the mansion/compound that sits within strolling distance of the White House...why you still hanging around there? I wonder...
Obama took advantage of a willing bureaucracy, grown fat and powerful at the expense of the taxpayer. Entrenched and no longer thinking of themselves as Civil Servants. Instead, there are now princelings who lord over their piece of the sprawling federal machine. Presidents and cabinet members come and go, but the cogs remain...and have become powerful individuals in their own right. Perhaps the best, first, example of this would be J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI was created as an inter-state investigative body to deal with mob crime, violence, and intra-state legalities. He remained in his position, President after President. Rumor was thick about the dirt he had on everyone in Washington. His longevity in the office likely did have something to do with knowing dirt on everyone. How many Hoovers were in the gears of government then? How many now?
What do you call it when the gears of government no longer respond to the will of the elected officials placed in power over them? Today the term "Deep State" is tossed about, and I guess that is a decent enough description, though I think that it still lacks something. President Trump has pulled a part of the paneling away and we can see the termites and cockroaches teeming thick and foul in the political machinery of our country. It absolutely frightens me. I am afraid that even Donald Trump will be unable to sufficiently fumigate the entire, sprawling complex corruption in our country.
Some examples? When the law no longer matters certain groups of people, but remains in full effect on the masses. Such as? Ok, a man takes a photo of an obsolete nuclear reactor on an old submarine and is tossed in jail, yet the former Secretary of State can, cough, mis-handle sensitive classified information and simply laugh it off. The former Directors of the FBI, CIA and NSA lie repeatedly to Congress and directly to the face of the President and then go on book tour to promote a book about their patriotism...am I the only one bothered by this? How are they not in jail? How are they not even "in trouble". It is loud, bright, and unashamed.
Is my country still a Republic? Was Clinton the Gracchi and Obama a Sulla? Who will become Caesar? Unfortunately, I fear Trump will share the same fate as Cato and some powerful demagogue will flourish in the foul soil of our spoiled Republic and put an end to the mockery of justice as it exists today and rule in the open, with the organs of power firmly grasped in their tentacles. The power brokers in Washington, like the Praetorian before them, will only allow those to serve as President that will not disturb their fiefs, continue to shower wealth and power upon their stations, and always look the other way when the public catches a glimpse of the hand on the levers of power.
What is this called? Do we share the fate of the Greek states of antiquity or that of the Roman Republic? Will our next overlord be a Caesar Augustus, ruling with a light hand from behind Republican organs of government or will they rule nakedly like a Caligula or Nero?
Congress is already largely irrelevant. Budgets are voted into existence and then placed on auto-pilot. The grain dole, er Welfare State, is already firmly entrenched and a 3rd rail of politics. The Supreme Court has already been simply rubber stamping painfully obvious violations of the Constitution (I am looking at you Mr. Chief Justice). The President, as we have seen, can be wounded and weakened by the media complex and their political allies in the Progressive movement.
It seems as if the stage is set. Actors have been seen moving about in the wings and in the shadows for some time now. President Trump may be an aberration, a Black Swan event in the machinations of the Progressives, but he can't last forever. His impact will be immediately undone, invalidated, and crammed down the memory hole.
Was he a Black Swan event? Someone to temporarily halt our slide into authoritarianism? I don't know. I do hope that the 100+ years of Progressive ROT can be halted and we can heal our republican organs of government. Demote the Princelings back into Civil Servants and award merit instead of cronyism and nepotism.
Do we allow the obviously corruptible near the levers of power? How to we guard against a future Deep State take over of government, or has it already happened?
Sunday, October 13, 2019
All that is old is new again
Time marches on. People change, die, and the world gets on. I have been here, though I have not been writing down my thoughts. Perhaps this changes now. Again. My students come and go. Some go with clearer vision, others with validation. Others still walk away in willful ignorance. More still simply seek identity in a world that seems hopelessly complex and infinitely unmoved by the pain it contains.
Since my last writing, others have gathered with me regularly. We share what we know, ask questions always, and listen carefully. We speak together with honesty and openness, no shame or stigma allowed. There is no orthodoxy, no dogma. None can take offence as we discuss everything rationally. Facts, details and questions. Thomas Jefferson would be proud of this group.
Since my last entry, my mother fought a brief, overwhelming fight with Lung Cancer. From diagnosis to her passing was just under 5 weeks. It was both hard and yet oddly clinical. I have worked in healthcare for over 25 years. I have been at many a bedside when fellow human traveler in life has passed. I have been there for them even as family tried to get there in time. I was unable to say goodbye in person. Her disease took her before I could get there, her lucidity lost during the night. I was delayed by a winter storm and got the message from my brother that she was no longer recognizing anyone while I was on the tarmac, just before take off. I was there as she declined over only a few days.
She was an avid blogger and did it for many years. She talked me into doing this as well. Our parents help shape who we become. I was not at her bedside when she passed. When I left for my brother's house that night, I said goodbye. We placed her on Hospice care and I told the nurses taking care of her not to let her pass alone. I wanted telemetry on her until the end. They accepted my solemn request. They knew that she had been a nurse for over 30 years and they treated her like fellow soldier making their final report. They were with her, in the end. She passed shortly after midnight, with her comrades standing vigil. A few days earlier, she had last rights performed on her by our Catholic priest. It was the single most moving and emotional event I have ever experienced. This is a huge admission from one who claims to be a Stoic. Stoicism is not the absence of emotion, but the understanding where it comes from and how to place it in context with events. Even now, more than 10 months after her passing I must wipe the tears from my face.
I will miss her farm-girl earthiness. So many of my family, that were strong, young, and vital in my childhood have passed away. Everything I remember growing up has passed. This personal drama is played out every day, all over the world. It has gone on since forever. All things pass, but all things are renewed. I pondered that as I had brunch with my daughter and her boyfriend. I remember eating out with my family at her age, sporting my hot new Czechoslovak wife. Things change, but oddly, only the names and players. The woman I called Grandma has passed into memory. The person I called Mother has joined her. Some day, a child will call me Grandpa, and it will bring both joy and sorrow to me. Joy at the renewal of life and the transmission of culture to the next generation. Sorrow in that I always see myself as a poor substitute for the giants who came before me. The giants who tried to impart their wisdom to me even as a younger version of me scoffed at their ignorance...
I am living in interesting times, as the Chinese would say. The world and culture of my parents, who grew up in the 1950's is dead on gone. Passed into mythology and rumor. My children now must make their way in a world in transition. The great world the giants erected has been allowed to decay. Rebirth is being delayed while Sulla and Marius, Caesar and Pompey fight to determine the direction of this future. Will it remain a Republic, answerable to the people, the mythological world I thought I grew up in, or will it become a dystopian totalitarian nightmare controlled by the connected and the powerful? We will explore this together over the coming years.
All that was old, MUST become new again. We must stand united on the shoulders of giants and make the world a better place for our children and our descendants. I will do what I can. I will do what I must.
As always, everyone -- Live Well.
Zavost
I will be
Since my last writing, others have gathered with me regularly. We share what we know, ask questions always, and listen carefully. We speak together with honesty and openness, no shame or stigma allowed. There is no orthodoxy, no dogma. None can take offence as we discuss everything rationally. Facts, details and questions. Thomas Jefferson would be proud of this group.
Since my last entry, my mother fought a brief, overwhelming fight with Lung Cancer. From diagnosis to her passing was just under 5 weeks. It was both hard and yet oddly clinical. I have worked in healthcare for over 25 years. I have been at many a bedside when fellow human traveler in life has passed. I have been there for them even as family tried to get there in time. I was unable to say goodbye in person. Her disease took her before I could get there, her lucidity lost during the night. I was delayed by a winter storm and got the message from my brother that she was no longer recognizing anyone while I was on the tarmac, just before take off. I was there as she declined over only a few days.
She was an avid blogger and did it for many years. She talked me into doing this as well. Our parents help shape who we become. I was not at her bedside when she passed. When I left for my brother's house that night, I said goodbye. We placed her on Hospice care and I told the nurses taking care of her not to let her pass alone. I wanted telemetry on her until the end. They accepted my solemn request. They knew that she had been a nurse for over 30 years and they treated her like fellow soldier making their final report. They were with her, in the end. She passed shortly after midnight, with her comrades standing vigil. A few days earlier, she had last rights performed on her by our Catholic priest. It was the single most moving and emotional event I have ever experienced. This is a huge admission from one who claims to be a Stoic. Stoicism is not the absence of emotion, but the understanding where it comes from and how to place it in context with events. Even now, more than 10 months after her passing I must wipe the tears from my face.
I will miss her farm-girl earthiness. So many of my family, that were strong, young, and vital in my childhood have passed away. Everything I remember growing up has passed. This personal drama is played out every day, all over the world. It has gone on since forever. All things pass, but all things are renewed. I pondered that as I had brunch with my daughter and her boyfriend. I remember eating out with my family at her age, sporting my hot new Czechoslovak wife. Things change, but oddly, only the names and players. The woman I called Grandma has passed into memory. The person I called Mother has joined her. Some day, a child will call me Grandpa, and it will bring both joy and sorrow to me. Joy at the renewal of life and the transmission of culture to the next generation. Sorrow in that I always see myself as a poor substitute for the giants who came before me. The giants who tried to impart their wisdom to me even as a younger version of me scoffed at their ignorance...
I am living in interesting times, as the Chinese would say. The world and culture of my parents, who grew up in the 1950's is dead on gone. Passed into mythology and rumor. My children now must make their way in a world in transition. The great world the giants erected has been allowed to decay. Rebirth is being delayed while Sulla and Marius, Caesar and Pompey fight to determine the direction of this future. Will it remain a Republic, answerable to the people, the mythological world I thought I grew up in, or will it become a dystopian totalitarian nightmare controlled by the connected and the powerful? We will explore this together over the coming years.
All that was old, MUST become new again. We must stand united on the shoulders of giants and make the world a better place for our children and our descendants. I will do what I can. I will do what I must.
As always, everyone -- Live Well.
Zavost
I will be
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