A Dozen Short Points On The Big Picture

Posted on | July 30, 2013 | 27 Comments

by Smitty

I’d just like to respond to a variety of my good interlocutors, briefly, on a swath of topics.
Social:

Life: begins when the information that defines you is available: conception. You own your own greatness, or not. You don’t own the non-greatness of others.
Gender: is defined by chromosomes. Become the best male or female you can: body, mind, and soul.
Marriage: has its premise in the production of life. Understood, other variations. But what difference, at some point centuries hence, do they make?
Freewill: if you’re arguing it doesn’t exist, then why’re you even reading this?
Unscalability: people don’t scale. The larger the group you consider, the less powerful assertions you can make about them, without stooping to the crudest stereotypes. There is an inverse square law afoot: the family is strongest, followed by the clan, followed by professions, citizenship, etc. This is why if you want to move a large number of people in an organized way, you have to thrash their individuality and put them in a uniform. This is why the one-size-fits-all theories of Progress are dying. To the extent it can be said to work empirically, the one-size-fits-all of Jesus Christ is the best you’ve got, and even Christians don’t agree on what that means.

Political:

Conservativism: is based upon the Lockean notion of the individual.
Progressivism: has roots in a strange intellectual love affair between Rousseau and Marx. Whatever misguided idealism informed the original Progressives, it’s all a steaming loaf of debt and ersatz aristocracy now, Republican and Democrat.
Republicans: born to end slavery, the elite of the GOP is fungible with the Democrats, perpetuating debt slavery.
Federal Reserve: the power to inflate the currency urinates all over the spirit of the Constitution, granting too much power to un-elected knobs. The lack of will from either branch of the Ruling Class even to audit, much less reform this beast is telling.
ObamaCare: is the legislative/economic equivalent of the Doomsday Machine from Star Trek. In true Progressive fashion, it accomplishes the opposite of its title. This is a time, to quote Iron Maiden, to “Die With Your Boots On.” Can this bureaucratic D&D Black Pudding be stopped? Hopefully; my metaphorical blender just ‘sploded.

Historical:

Slavery: sucked. It had a variety of social and economic causes, including false notions of inferiority based upon extrinsic characteristics. However, the guilt for slavery is owned by those who actually held slaves, just as the guilt for Jim Crow is owned by its perpetuators in the modern Racism Idustrial Complex. I forgive those who try to pin such guilt on me, in the hope that, if forgiveness spreads, growth can occur.
Foreign Policy: if you think about it, our Constitution is defensive in nature: some powers were delegated by the States to a Federal government for mutual protection. Progress has begotten the Team America World Police concept since Bretton Woods. That it ran for 50 years needs to be seen as about as good as it gets. What follows is totally unclear.

So, there you have it. These are my positions, arrived at slowly, and not given to much adjustment. I’m not accepting blame, nor do I think I’ve blamed anyone in particular. I don’t even blame Obama for ObamaCare. Our situation sucks, and it sucked Cthulhu right out of R’lyeh. If Barack had stayed a stoned Hawaiian, tearing tickets at Jack Johnson concerts or whatever, they’d’ve polished another tool for his role. So don’t over-credit the putz. Our decadent point in American history has plenty of sad little Commies who could’ve done the job. Our task is to realize the dream of the Founders, with an informed, educated electorate.

Update: linked at Right Regular Guy

Category: Culture, Politics

Comments

27 Responses to “A Dozen Short Points On The Big Picture”

MrEvilMatt
July 30th, 2013 @ 8:43 pm

A Dozen Short Points On The Big Picture: by Smitty I’d just like to respond to a variety of my good interlocut… http://t.co/KcuqQ3icwr
Lockestep1776
July 30th, 2013 @ 8:43 pm

A Dozen Short Points On The Big Picture: by Smitty I’d just like to respond to a variety of my good interlocut… http://t.co/H00YTISieJ
CHideout
July 30th, 2013 @ 8:43 pm

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Citzcom
July 30th, 2013 @ 8:43 pm

A Dozen Short Points On The Big Picture: by Smitty I’d just like to respond to a variety of my good interlocut… http://t.co/FlDAvW3zyw
jwbrown1969
July 30th, 2013 @ 8:43 pm

A Dozen Short Points On The Big Picture: by Smitty I’d just like to respond to a variety of my good interlocut… http://t.co/YQxIgWYbeq
thatMrGguy
July 30th, 2013 @ 8:48 pm

A Dozen Short Points On The Big Picture http://t.co/YPmqIvKAeS
preciseBlogs
July 30th, 2013 @ 8:54 pm

A Dozen Short Points On The Big Picture http://t.co/kM8STKbMvi #news #conservative #culture #politics
RMNixonDeceased
July 30th, 2013 @ 9:00 pm

A Dozen Short Points On The Big Picture http://t.co/DZINwCxGo9 Smitty is on point!
BobBelvedere
July 30th, 2013 @ 9:24 pm

RT @smitty_one_each: A Dozen Short Points On The Big Picture http://t.co/1cpGfk6CgJ #TCOT
RMNixonDeceased
July 30th, 2013 @ 9:55 pm

A Dozen Short Points On The Big Picture http://t.co/E0FKSV3fQW
William_Teach
July 30th, 2013 @ 10:20 pm

“Conservativism: is based upon the Lockean notion of the individual.”

Just a small quibble: American Conservatism is based on the Lockean notion of the individual, otherwise known as Classical Liberalism. Classical Conservatism is based on complete and utter government non-interference in economic matters while limiting voting rights to a degree (such as for only land owners) and interfering in the Moral Core (individual issues). Interestingly, today’s Democrats act more like Classical Conservatives when it comes to the Moral Core.
gastorgrab
July 30th, 2013 @ 10:29 pm

“Slavery”

—-

Every slave who survived had his daily needs met. He had access to food, shelter, clothing, and ‘veterinary care’.

A Bill of Rights was technically unnecessary. (it has nothing to do with ‘needs’.)
Good Stuff
July 30th, 2013 @ 10:49 pm

Social: first four points – could be sum up as “you are a product of your environment”

Unscalability: I believe that profiling does work. Therefore, people can be scale/graded

The Big Picture : I like the concept of the below picture, they are all raising their hands in different ways.

While well-behaved group minds no doubt are selective of who joins and unlikely to assimilate everybody nearby, there are situations where there is unified agreement of a concept.
gastorgrab
July 30th, 2013 @ 10:49 pm

“Unscalability: people don’t scale.”

—–

That explains the problems in the black community that everyone is talking about. What should be the core of the black community, ‘Family’, is being swapped out with Progressive cultural values.

How do I know that family is the core of black culture? Because family is the core of every identifiable culture. Attempting the same change with any culture will produce the same result.
Bob Belvedere
July 30th, 2013 @ 11:22 pm

Smitty wrote: Conservativism: is based upon the Lockean notion of the individual.

Edmund Burke would disagree and he is one of the greatest influences on American conservative thought.

[To William: Classical Liberalism did not develop until the 19th Century when the Utilitarians split into two camps: the Marxist and the CL’s.]

Locke certainly influenced Conservative Thought, but many of us would argue that Burke had more of an influence, and that was for the good because Locke is a proto-Utilitarian, which underlies Leftism.
gwvanderleun
July 31st, 2013 @ 12:50 am

We approach mind meld.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
July 31st, 2013 @ 2:15 am

Smitty, Bob is usually right.

But I liked Smitty’s list.
Eric Ashley
July 31st, 2013 @ 2:32 am

Pretty sweet.
Limbaugh Embarrasses GOP… Again | Regular Right Guy
July 31st, 2013 @ 3:25 am

[…] of them don’t even understand the conservatism they supposedly […]
smitty
July 31st, 2013 @ 4:14 am

If the last 10 years have not underscored the prescience of the Bill of Rights, dunno what can.
smitty
July 31st, 2013 @ 4:15 am

Unscalability–you’re underscoring my point. You can’t scale/grade people without crushing their individuality utterly.
smitty
July 31st, 2013 @ 4:18 am

I’m contending that family is at the core of humanity, irrespective of pigment.
smitty
July 31st, 2013 @ 4:18 am

I don’t have a problem with Bob’s point at all.
William_Teach
July 31st, 2013 @ 8:19 am

Good points, but, there was originally three parts to the Democratic model: Socialism, Liberalism, and Conservativism. In the early 20th century the terms got mixed up a bit, with Liberals calling themselves Conservatives to delineate themselves from FDR, who was calling himself a liberal, when he was really a socialist, hence the terms for American politics, neo-conservatism, neo-liberalism, and classical liberalism.

These are all based on the three cores: Moral, Political, and Economic, and what each model believes in.
Truthspewer
July 31st, 2013 @ 9:04 am

Great summary, and an appreciated shout-out to one of the most infuriating beasts in D&D: the black pudding. All of the slimes were a pain in the butt.
Speaking of slime and butt pain, thx again for standing up to Brett Kimberlin, the perjuring pedophile pharmaceutical-peddling bomber.
Pqlyur1
July 31st, 2013 @ 11:39 am

A Dozen Short Points On The Big Picture http://t.co/AtfsdNxraI
Evi L. Bloggerlady
August 1st, 2013 @ 1:09 am

I was reconciled to both positions. They are complementary.