Don't Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide

Been reading this book Don't Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide and the following passage really struck a nerve for me.

"The tremendous experience between God, Moses, and the other leaders of Israel, which was shared, perhaps, by a sizable number of the common people, made Torah a glorious possession.  But that formative experience could not continue as a creative experience.  It left a residue of rules to be followed in order for the people to please God.  The residue of rules, when taught to the children, would stand in their mind only as rules; and the experience which motivated the rules would only be a story of how things were with people in the past.  This is the natural history of social revolution and wars of liberation.  In order for the social gains of a revolution to be held, the ideology has to be taught to the children; but by the third generation the sanctions for the ideology seem unreal and the ideology itself becomes a regularized way of living.  The drift is always from ideology to law, because children grow up in a new situation.  Ideology, in fact, becomes law whenever it is taught as an 'ought.'"    ---C. Ellis Nelson

This is what has happened to Americanism as well.  How can we reverse the deadening, legalistic feel that so many young people have for both Conservatism and Americanism, and make them come alive.  It seems that a vibrant though foolish philosophy holds sway over two generations at least.  A stale philosophy which stinks of "oughts" has little chance, regardless of its truth.  We have to revitalize Americanism.  In order to do that, I think we have to embrace how truly radical it is, and not be constrained in voicing our position, no matter how politically incorrect or tactically unsound when it comes to elections.  People who attempt to always play it safe are hardly alive, and a political philosophy which does the same is destined for the ash heap.

Capitalism Does More For the Poor Than Any Top Down Effort at Managing Resources and "Spreading the Wealth"

As Paul Ryan mentioned in his rebuttal, capitalism has done more for the poor than any other system.  Tom Sowell provides a great illustration of this point.

"When I mention that my family used kerosene lamps when I was a small child in the South during the 1930s, that is usually taken as a sign of our poverty, though I never thought of us as poor at the time.

What is ironic is that kerosene lamps were a luxury of the rich in the 19th century, before John D. Rockefeller came along. At the high price of kerosene at that time, an ordinary working man could not afford to stay up at night, burning this expensive fuel for hours at a time.
Before Rockefeller's innovations reduced the price of kerosene to a fraction of what it had once been, there wasn't a lot for poor people to do when nightfall came, other than go to bed. But the advent of cheap kerosene added hours of light and activity to each day for people with low or moderate incomes.

It was much the same story with the advent of the automobile, which gave millions of people more range in space, as kerosene (and, later, electricity) gave them more range in terms of hours of daily activity.

Here again, automobiles and electric lights were truly luxuries of the rich when they began. Only after ways were developed to cut their costs drastically were such things brought within the reach of ordinary Americans".

full article at townhall.

http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2011/01/25/new_heroes_vs_old

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The Blah Blah Blah State Of The Union

Sounds like more of the same from Obama, mixed in with some mundane platitudes.  He's re-promised some promises he failed to live up to in the first place (listening to republican ideas, posting legislation on the Internet, etc) but that's about it.  Spend on infrastructure, spend on education, spend on scientific research.  Spend, spend, spend and tax the richest 2 percent more.  Its as though the man doesn't have the foggiest idea about economics or where scientific research and quality education come from...there is probably a reason it seems that way. 

MLK day

"Gone are the days when successful black politicians, business leaders and celebrities were considered novelties or tokens. That black Americans have achieved so much since the 1963 March on Washington is cause for celebration indeed.

Yet in 2011, many liberals regard black conservatives - indeed any African-American who questions the liberal establishment - not only as novelties, but as ignorant or traitors to their race."

http://bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1309920

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Our Philosophical Differences Matter.

 "It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe.  That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object.  But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpracital than burning a man for his philsopy.  This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter."
-GK Chesteron.

President Obama's Speech did a fine job of honoring the victims of the shooting in Tucson, and avoided politicizing the issue.  It also celebrated the heroism of some fine people on that grim occasion.  On these three counts I give him credit, however, the speech also reveals once again, the lack of a well thought out animating philosophy behind the Presidents beliefs.  On the one hand he tells us that we need to put aside our differences and try to get along as Americans.  In the next breath he tells us that we have to do everything we can to make this the nation and world that we want for our children.  He seems to have no concept that the second proposition makes the first impossible.  There are deep and meaningful differences between the Left and the Right in this country.  WE DO NOT WANT THE SAME FUTURE. Until the far left or the Radical Americans are subdued the tone and tenor of the debate in this country will not be tempered. 

Obama seems to be one of those people who proclaims that he wants to do what "works" without defining what "working" would be even in his own mind.  He seems to have not the slightest clue that what he thinks works is a radical left wing concept of what it means for a society to work, and that most of this country does not share that concept.  How else can one explain his calls for unity and cooperation?  Perhaps just political grandstanding, but giving him the benefit of the doubt, that he actually believes what he says, one can only conclude that he has totally failed to grasp how radical his own framework of "what works" truly is, or perhaps to grasp that others might have a different framework.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110113/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shot_memorial

Tragedy in AZ

This revolting human being who set his sights on a United States Congresswoman and killed a 9 year old girl should be promptly tried and executed, along with anyone who is found to have helped him.  This is a disgusting edisode, deeply painful, upsetting, and unamerican.  The American principle is one of Liberty and representative government.  America is a nation that was born through a DECLARATION.  Our political differences is fought out through words and ideas.  When we reach a point of impass, our tradition is the move for separation and independence not revolution or assination. This sort of violent political activism is totally inexcusable.  Our prayers go out to the people hurt and killed by this gunman, as well as their families.