Tag: common sense

RISE TO REBELLION – A FOURTH TURNING PERSPECTIVE

“I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. … Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation.” – John Adams

Ten Great Revolutionary War Paintings, 1775-1790 - The American Revolution Institute

“A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” – John Adams

I have bookshelves filled with books I haven’t read yet. I’m a collector of books who doesn’t have much time to read but plans to spend my waning years catching up on all the reading I’ve been unable to do while working, blogging, and raising a family. Still, I always have one or two books on my nightstand being read in fits and starts. After finishing a Grisham novel, I sought another book to occupy my time from my living room bookshelf. I grabbed Rise to Rebellion, a Jeff Shaara historical novel I had purchased at a used bookstore in Wildwood, NJ many years ago.

I don’t know why I chose that book from the dozens of options on the bookshelf, but it seems to have been a wise choice given the current state of affairs in the world. I always find the wisdom and courage of our founding fathers to be a beacon of light in the darkness slowly engulfing the world as we approach the denouement of this Fourth Turning, the fourth, and hopefully not last, in U.S. history. Probably without knowing it, most of Shaara’s historical novels revolved around events during the first three Fourth Turnings.

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Why do people all of a sudden dislike dissenting opinion?

(Note we had this stuck in draft mode on TBP for 2 years. Forgot about it. All of it is true – even more so. As now you cannot even discuss alternative medical options. However, our prediction that this hatchet place was doomed may have been premature. They’re in multiple states now milking dopes while they still can.)

When we grew up – opinions about pretty much everything were across the spectrum. In other words – it was fairly impossible to find total uniformity when it came to feelings about anything.

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Common Sense Tells Us the Left Misrepresents the Meaning of Common Sense

Guest Post by PF Whelan

Perhaps the website Dictionary.com best captures the meaning of the term ‘common sense,’ which they define as: “sound practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like.” A solid assessment of a not-so-easily-defined expression. Therefore, if we use sound practical judgment in examining the accusations and behaviors of our friends on the left, and if we do so without applying any specialized knowledge, we can only conclude: the left either doesn’t understand what common sense is, or they’re intentionally trying to distort it.

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THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Thomas Paine publishes “Common Sense” – 1776

Via History.com

On January 9, 1776, writer Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet “Common Sense,” setting forth his arguments in favor of American independence. Although little used today, pamphlets were an important medium for the spread of ideas in the 16th through 19th centuries.

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Civilization Requires Collective Common Sense

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via PJMedia.com,

Without common sense in government, civilization cannot continue…

After the summer protests and rioting in many large cities, activists demanded a defunding, or at least radical pullbacks, of the police. So-called crime experts often concurred. So some city governments ignored public warnings and diminished their police presence despite a sharp rise in crime in many cities. Looting and arson were often ignored.

If you call 911 in a large American city, there is no guarantee that anyone will answer promptly and send out police to aid the endangered. So gun sales have soared. Some people who never before owned weapons, or even opposed the use of firearms, are now terrified to remain unarmed. Self-protection often outweighs abstract ideology.

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COMMON SENSE – 2017 (PART TWO)

In Part One of this article I explored Thomas Paine’s critical role in the creation of our nation. His Common Sense pamphlets inspired the common people to uncommon acts of courage and heroic feats of valor; leading to the great experiment we call the United States of America. Paine, Franklin and the other Founding Fathers produced a republic, if we could keep it.

John Adams championed the new Constitution precisely because it would not create a democracy, as he knew a democracy “soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.” Their herculean efforts, sacrifices, and bloodshed have been for naught as we allowed our republic to devolve into a democracy and ultimately into our current corporate fascist warfare/welfare surveillance state. Sadly, we were unable to keep the republic Franklin and his fellow revolutionaries gave us.

“From the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

Some might contend Paine’s Common Sense arguments against a despotic monarchy two and a half centuries ago, with an audience of two and a half million colonists, couldn’t be pertinent today in a divided nation of 325 million people. But when you examine the events, actions and catalysts inspiring Paine to pen Common Sense, you see the parallels with the events, decisions and facilitators of our current Crisis.

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COMMON SENSE – 2017

“Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.” – John Adams

Thomas Paine was born in 1737 in Britain. His first thirty seven years of life were pretty much a series of failures and disappointments. Business fiascos, firings, the death of his first wife and child, a failed second marriage, and bankruptcy plagued his early life. He then met Benjamin Franklin in 1774 and was convinced to emigrate to America, arriving in Philadelphia in November 1774. He thus became the Father of the American Revolution with the publication of Common Sense, pamphlets which crystallized opinion for colonial independence in 1776.

The first pamphlet was published in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, and signed anonymously “by an Englishman.” It became an instantaneous sensation, swiftly disseminating 100,000 copies in three months among the two and a half million residents of the 13 colonies. Over 500,000 copies were sold during the course of the American Revolution. Paine published Common Sense after the battle of Lexington and Concord, making the argument the colonists should seek complete independence from Great Britain, rather than merely fighting against unfair levels of taxation. The pamphlets stirred the masses with a fighting spirit, instilling in them the backbone to resist a powerful empire.

Continue reading “COMMON SENSE – 2017”

THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense – 1776

Via History.com

On this day in 1776, writer Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet “Common Sense,” setting forth his arguments in favor of American independence. Although little used today, pamphlets were an important medium for the spread of ideas in the 16th through 19th centuries.

Originally published anonymously, “Common Sense” advocated independence for the American colonies from Britain and is considered one of the most influential pamphlets in American history. Credited with uniting average citizens and political leaders behind the idea of independence, “Common Sense” played a remarkable role in transforming a colonial squabble into the American Revolution.

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QUOTES OF THE DAY

“SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies; yet our present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all the world.”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered.”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of heredetary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“The more men have to lose, the less willing are they to venture.”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expence and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“Mankind being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance; the distinctions of rich, and poor, may in a great measure be accounted for, and that without having recourse to the harsh, ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice.”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense


QUOTES OF THE DAY

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“From the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom.”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer…”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense


HELP ME OUT HERE

“Extending aid to the unemployed is not only the right thing to do, it is also one of the best ways to stimulate economic growth.” That has become a frequent talking point whenever the subject of unemployment compensation is discussed.

New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen used that argument during an MSNBC interview. “This is one of the best things we can do to help stimulate the economy, because for every dollar we put in unemployment, it pays back about $1.60. And we know that people who are on unemployment are going to go out, and they’re going to spend that money, they’re going to pay for groceries at their local grocery store, they’re going to buy gas in their car.”
—-from an article posted by PolitiFact.com

PolitiFact.com rated Senator Shaheen’s statement as “Half True.” Well, if it’s half true, that means it is also half false. So I sent Senator Shaheen a simple math test. I was surprised when she replied, and this is one of her answers. Her strong suit is not math.

Help me out here. I’m simply incapable of following the economics and math of sending checks to the unemployed. It may be due to a case of being terminally feeble-minded, but I don’t understand how an unemployed person spending a tax dollar drawn out of a state or federal treasury can magically produce a $1.60 return to the economy. In other words, the taxes YOU paid out of your labor were worth only a dollar, but somehow your tax dollar was suddenly worth $1.60 if the government takes it from you and sends it to someone who is unemployed and spent it.

Think about that. Your taxed labor is worth $1.00, while someone else’s non-labor is worth $1.60. One might say, “Well, you didn’t spend it.” Of course you didn’t. The government took it from you. But if the government lets you keep it and you spent it, is THAT suddenly worth $1.60? I have yet to find anyone who says it is. Oh, one more thing. Are there overhead expenses in handling your tax dollar, such as the salaries of hundreds or thousands of state and federal employess who take dollars out of the tax pile and process them over to the unemployment compensation pile? Yes. Are these overhead expenses part of the magic $1.60 equation? I’ll bet they aren’t. Here’s the new math, and it’s pretty damn close to what Senator Shaheen is claiming.

It gets worse. If you go to some websites, you’ll discover that spending unemployment dollars actually DECREASES THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN POVERTY AND CREATES JOBS, MILLIONS OF JOBS. Don’t believe me? Here’s some quotes from the website of Center for American Progress (CAP) (Footnote 1), and its logic is being used by many high-level federal elected leaders, including Senator Shaheen.

“Over the past few years, unemployment benefits have played a key role in helping unemployed workers pay their bills while they search for a new job. (Ok, I’m with you so far.) There are fewer people living in poverty in the United States because of these benefits. The Census Bureau has reported that unemployment benefits pulled 3.2 million people out of poverty in 2010, on top of 3.3 million in 2009.” Yikes! These statements peg the WTF meter. Then explain how the number of people in poverty has increased from 11% to 14% of the total population over that same time period, according to that same Census Bureau, which I quote as follows.

“The annual poverty rate rose to a rate of 11.3 percent in 2007 and increased from 11.3 percent in 2007 to 13.2 percent in 2009. The 2011 annual poverty rate of 14.0 percent was higher than the 2009 annual poverty rate of 13.2 percent.” So, how could over 6.5 million people be pulled out of poverty by unemployment compensation when nearly 10 million MORE people went into poverty in 2009-2011? Here’s the math that CAP used.

Back to more from these geniuses from CAP. “Unemployment benefits also boost the economy. They provide the biggest bang for the buck of the various kinds of government spending. Over the Great Recession, for every $1 spent on unemployment insurance benefits, the economy grew by $2, since recipients typically spend—not save—those dollars. That spending helps boost local economies as the unemployed can continue to pay their mortgage or rent and put food on the table.” Wow, this one tops Senator Shaheen’s claim of $1.60.

And even more from CAP. “The boost that benefits provide leads to job creation. According to a 2010 analysis by Wayne Vroman (Footnote 2), an economist and senior fellow at the Urban Institute for the Department of Labor, unemployment benefits increased employment on average by 1.6 million jobs each quarter from mid-2008 through mid-2010. Of that increase, nearly 900,000 more jobs existed because of regular unemployment benefits, while two federally financed programs—Emergency Unemployment Compensation and Extended Benefits, which provide additional weeks of benefits after workers have exhausted the standard 26 weeks—were responsible for increasing employment on average by slightly more than 700,000 each quarter.”

Yumping Yiminy, am I going mad? This gibberish says, “The longer you don’t work and continue to draw and spend unemployment compensation, the more jobs you create.” Did you do the math on that statement? I did. There are 8 quarters from mid-2008 through mid-2010. So 8 x 1.6 million jobs created per quarter equals 12.8 million jobs created. FROM UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION, for Pete’s sake. Yet the Federal Reserve states that the total number of people employed in the U.S. during that exact same time period went DOWN by 8.7 million.

I just know that there is someone out there in the cyber world who can straighten me out on this. Am I incapable of critical thinking? Were the math and econ teachers in my caveman K-12 and higher education experience all fools? Is this where I’m headed? Some might say I’m already there.

Footnotes.

(1) The Center for American Progress (CAP) is no fly-by-night organization. It is a powerful, well-connected and partisan liberal public policy research and advocacy organization. Its website states that the organization is “dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through progressive ideas and action”. CAP presents a liberal viewpoint on economic issues and has its headquarters in D.C. Its president and chief executive officer is Neera Tanden who worked for the Obama and Clinton administrations and for Hillary Clinton’s campaigns. Its first president and chief executive officer was John Podesta, who served as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. Podesta remains with the organization as chairman of the board and currently serves as a counselor to President Obama. He was born in Chicago.

(2) “According to a 2010 analysis by Wayne Vroman, an economist and senior fellow at the Urban Institute for the Department of Labor” Did that quote from the article, made by the Center for American Progress, lead you to believe that Vroman works for the USG, specifically the Department of Labor? He does not. He is an employee of the Urban Institute, a so-called “non-partisan think tank” established in 1968 under the Lyndon Johnson administration. It receives 55% of its income from the federal government for “studies.” 100% of the Urban Institute’s employees political contributions went to Democrats, as reported by U.S. News and World Report in 2013. Uh, that’s my definition of non-partisan.

MUCK’S MINUTE #6

This may (or may not be) the last Muck’s minute here on TBP. Admin has made some money generating changes that irritate me to the point of just giving up on TBP. Primarily the random links stuck in the texts that cause pop-up ads that you have to stop and close. Very distracting. The one that broke the camels back is the streaming audio every time you make a comment, forcing you to turn off your computer audio to make it go away.

Sorry – can’t cope with both. We’ll see how it goes.

At any rate, Old Muck is, tonight, totally in despair over the Supreme court of this United States taking up the case of whether Obummer should force insurance companies to cover contraceptive supplies to everyone (regards of moral issues — gag!).

What a total thick layer of shit.

We must, in the SHORT run, get both State and Federal Government out of our bedrooms, sleeping bag, blankets on the sofa or anywhere else two people want to have sex.. Period. The State (at any level) has absolutely no delegated powers to control personal behavior in private between consenting adults whether in the bedroom, backseat of a car or a blanket it the woods or the front porch (if suitable steps taken that no one is offended).

NONE! The Supreme Court should rule that any law (passed by anyone) that concerns non-aggressive, totally mutually agreeable actions between contenting adults as unconstitutional and wipe them off the books. Sex, drugs, booze, race or anything else that is P-R-I-V-A-T-E………… Period again.

Now as to contraceptives. Why shouldn’t Obastard Care provide contraceptive support to everyone?

First of all, If your religion, mental state, marriage arrangement or personnel desire leads you to believe you don’t want to use contraceptives, SIMPLY DON’T TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE COVERAGE and DON”T US CONTRACEPTIVES! Just let it lay there, unused and, in your opinion, unappreciated.

But why the Hell do YOUR opinions enable you to take it upon yourself to deny others the Obummer Care option of conception if those other than you want to do it?

What this boil down to is religious “holy’r than thou” horse shit that makes certain people and religions want to dictate to others what they must do or not do.

We are far beyond that concept in the Western World today (and will be hopefully farther beyond such “moral ” constraints as time progresses.

To repeat: The Supreme Court has no business making judgements of any kind about sex, lack thereof, prevention of conception or any other of Obumper’s damn stupid Health Care Act except to rule whether the whole law – WHOLE LAW – is constitutional or not.

I believe it is not. But Old Muck’s opinion matters little in this fight. I’m too old to father children (or raise them) anyhow!

 

Old Muck

 

 

 

MA