Monday, May 21, 2012

A link to contemplate

This link says so much about all I love about America and believers who live a good life, rather than posture and pose. It is worth remembering that Jesus spent a lot of time condeming the publicly pious and the self satisfied.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-brad-hirschfield/finding-faith-on-the-road-where-deep-commitment-and-openness-meet_b_1501569.html?utm_campaign=052012&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alert-religion&utm_content=Photo

Sunday, May 20, 2012


I am posting a conversation from Facebook.  I found it stimulating and interesting.  I hope you agree.  I have removed the names and addresses of the other two participants as I do not have their permission to post their personal data.  


L:  Stand Against GOP Voter Suppression Tactics --L posted this link.



C :   How are they preventing American Citizen Registered Voters from voting???


Jim Naranjo: Demanding identification which many thousands of voters lack , refusing student id's since young people tend to vote democratic, making new severe penalties for violating ridiculous restrictions on registering new voters, who are mostly minority and or young...etc. etc.

See: http://el-naranjal-del-desierto.blogspot.com/search?q=Voter+suppression+

This is a powerful attempt to end free elections in America and replace them with show elections in which everyone knows the winner as soon as the ruling party names its candidate. Vladimer Putin must be a Republican!

El Naranjal: Search results for Voter suppression
el-naranjal-del-desierto.blogspot.com



C :    So if you want to vote....Get a LEGAL I.D. It's really not that hard. I'm a minority and I vote legally. I don't believe I have ever met a student that didn't have a LEGAL I.D. Face it , the left is counting on the illegal immigrant vote. These are voters that should not and (according to the law) cannot vote. I guess desperate times call for desperate (and illegal) measures? Suffering from voter remorse doesn't justify a feeble attempt at defending the mistake voters made four years ago. Sniff Sniff......I smell a "Blame Bush" comment coming soon.



Jim Naranjo: It is VERY hard for the elderly, for students far from home, for the disabled and the poor, where laws require birth certificates which are expensive and hard to acquire in many states. Voter fraud is almost nonexistent, It just doesn't happen. Your arguments are the same ones ones used to defend Jim Crow when I was young. You have been deluded by agitprop and disinformation. I want all legal voters to vote, even if I dislike their choice. You want to prevent many thousands from utilizing their unalienable rights because you are afraid of illegal immigrants.

Nativism is as old as the US. In Revolutionary days it was the unAmerican Germans, In The Civil War it was the alien Irish, now it's the awful Mexicans. The GOP fears it will lose if an honest election is held. Therefore, they will recreate Jim Crow in a new form and rig the election. The Bush administration spent years and millions of dollars to root out your "voter fraud". They only found that, over ten years, there might have been three one hundred thousandths of one per cent cases, at most.

Gee, big problem. A whole three one hundred thousandths of one per cent.

Stop panicking and check the facts. This is about rights. It is about honesty. Individuals who have voted for decades are suddenly being denied that right. Individuals who come from families which have been citizens for generations!


Jim Naranjo: You're right, I'm sorry. Bush must not be held accountable for the things he did. You Republicans just abhor personal responsibility. Blame a Democrat for Mr. Bush's actions. That's fair and balanced.

C :  Voter fraud??? Does A.C.O.R.N., S.E.I.U., and thug Black Panther members standing in front of voting polls ring a bell with you? You seem to be an intelligent man, denial is not becoming of you. People can spew out all the bull$#*! they want from centuries past. I live in the present and am worried about now. Honestly, are you better off today than you were 5 years ago? Is your house worth as much today as it was 5 years ago? Did you have any furlow days 5 years ago? Your community organizer has had nearly 4 years to improve "Bushes actions"....to no avail. Maybe someday people will wise up and vote in a person because he/she is experienced and highly qualified, and not because of the color of his skin. (Look everyone, I voted for Obama....I'm obviously not a racist). But alas....most educators are of the liberal mindset and it's very difficut to convince an educator that he may have made the wrong choice. We libertarians just want less Gov and more jobs...obviously too much to ask from this administration. BTW....it's spelled "percent"....Teach


Jim Naranjo: Every time I post my comments they read correctly until actually posted. Then they are garbled. Later tonight I shall post them on my blog. My apologies for the delay and inconvenience!


My latest post:


  I have a life long philosophic commitment to the following belief system:  Reality is real.  Facts must be faced and dealt with appropriately.  You may love a fact.  You may hate a fact.  In either case it remains a fact.

  Fact: ACORN was the victim of fraudent actions, not the perpetrator.  it was ACORN which first reported the abuse.

  Fact:  SEIU was accused of inappropriate influence. Maybe guilty, maybe not.  Both political parties are definitely guilty of influence peddling.  That's both.

  Fact:  the "thug Black Panther members", were laughed at by voters and the Bush Justice Department could not find adequate cause to file charges against them.

  Fact:  GOP congressional leaders said repeatedly they would deliberately block Obama's efforts to improve the economy so as to prevent his reelection.  In spite of this, Obama has created jobs, too few, but he has actually created jobs.

  Fact:  More than half of the national debt was accumulated while Bush was still President.

  Fact:  I can spell per cent. 

  Fact: The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language reports that the term  began as per cent, moved to be percent in the 1700s, and in BE, split again to per cent, AE retaining the percent version.  As usual with such generalisations, there are lots and lots of exceptions.  In other words, I used the correct British usage.

 Furthermore,  I have a hard time typing accurately and my proofreading is terrible. I suffer from vertigo and disorientation so severe I am totally and permanently disabled.  Your sneering personal attack based on what seems to be a typographic error weakens your arguments. Argumentum ad hominem attacks are a logical fallacy and have been recognized as such for millennia. For the sake of your own credibility, I suggest you refrain from this error in the future.

  You argue not from facts, but from fear.  I am sorry you are so frightened.  I also feel threatened.  I agree that there is much to fear, but I believe that America is fundamentally strong and that we will weather these terrible times and continue to do well.
 
  I add,  Obama has done only a good job as President, not a great one.  

  I hope this calms you.  Plato was wrong about so much, but I must agree with his allegory of the charioteer.  We are a chariot pulled by the horses of our passions and emotions.  The charioteer is our rationality, whose job it is to guide and control those horses so that they do good, not evil.

  Yes, I have restated Plato's idea to correct some errors he made, but his point is largely intact.

  I apologize for any offensive typos and/or use of the Queen's English.  (This is a joke, as much at my expense as at yours.  It is good to be able to laugh at yourself.  It keeps one from taking oneself too seriously.  If you and I laugh at the both of us, there is less anger. If there is less anger, the charioteer has more control.)

  Be at peace.

  Jim

Got to run, The Celestial Dragon, aka Fenris Wolf (son of Loki) is nibbling at the sun.  I need to observe and drive him away with noise and clamor!














Saturday, May 5, 2012

Conservatives against the Radical Republicans

THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2012

From the Huffington Post:

-- This week, two esteemed conservative thinkers published a must-read op-ed in The Washington Post entitled, "Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem." Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote: The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. 

Mann and Ornstein are no lightweight centrists; they are the Republicans of the Republicans. If they see fault in their party's lurch to the far right, then you know things have gotten out of hand. --

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-taylormiesle/when-politics-becomes-the_b_1475294.html

Note that these two men are, and have been for decades, conservative Republicans.  They are not liberals. They are not independents.  They are conservative Republicans. I had to repeat that because the Radical Republican response to all criticism is to insist that it is all a liberal lie.  These two men are members of the Brookings Institute, a respected moderate conservative think tank, and of the much more right wing American Enterprise Institute.  They point out that Democrats are not innocent, but add that at least the Dems are trying to govern and compromise while the Republicans have become rigid and intolerant.

When conservative Republicans declare their party to be the problem in American politics, isn't it obvious that it is past time for a change in that party?  Oh, that's right, the Radical Republicans don't believe in facts or reality. I'll say it anyway.  This country needs two strong parties.  One center left and one center right.  One with many moderate liberals, some conservatives, and some very liberal members. The other with many moderate conservatives, some liberals, and some very conservative members. We do not need any party composed of extremist fanatics who will make no compromise, who demonize their opponents, and who are reality challenged.  

Mensa vs. Densa

From the Huffington Post:  

--  Emmelyn Roettger of Washington D.C. was accepted into the high-IQ society Mensa in March, the month before her third birthday. --

I have often wished I could join Mensa.  I really want to be able to walk around feeling and being so much smarter than the rest of you. You know, like certain Christians who get to walk around feeling and being so much holier than thou..and than me. Unfortunately, as a life long member of Densa, I am disqualified.  Some guy, whose name I have forgotten (this is normative for members of Densa) wrote about our organization decades ago.  That's the last I've heard about us.

I suppose we have meetings and support groups, but none of us seem to be able to find out where they are being held.  I guess if we ever did find out, we wouldn't be able to find our way to them.

Oh, well...

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

The stimulus that could...(I just can't call it little!)

From the LATimes: --  WASHINGTON — Without the unprecedented stimulus actions by the   federal government triggered by the 2008 financial crisis, the Great   Recession might still be going on, according to a study by Fitch   Ratings -- The report goes on to identify negative effects of the stimulus, but it is clear that these pale in comparison to the negative effects which would have resulted from inaction.  So why do Republican candidates and officials continue to attack these successful actions?  The answer is because they: 1.  ...don't believe in reality.  Ideology is real, facts are not.  This gives believers a sense of absolute security in a confused and uncertain world.  Facts are not simple and unchanging. Reality is messy and difficult.  Practicing mindless ideology means never being wrong, never having to change your mind, and never having to say you're sorry. 2.  ...care about the Party more than they care about their country.  This is partly true of the membership of any party, imagine a Democrat saying his party's candidate isn't as good for the country as the Republican would be.  This sometimes happens, as with so called Reagan Democrats, but it is unusual among voters and unheard of among either Party's leadership.  Due to the increasing radicalism of the GOP, Republicans who even might consider voting for the better man have been declared Rinos and are now independents. 3.  ...have turned membership in the Republican Party into a religious movement.  It is an article of faith, an unassailable religious doctrine, that Democrats are evil by nature.  It follows that nothing done by Democrats can be good.  This is true even when Democrats enact a Republican plan, like Health Care. This extremism will not last.  The GOP will either turn back from extremism, or will go the way of the Whigs, the Mugwumps, and the Know Nothings.