[Texas Fossil]

Adversity employs great talents; prosperity renders them useless and carries the inept, the corrupted wealthy and the wicked to the top

May they bear in mind that virtue often contains the seeds of tyranny

May they bear in mind that it is neither gold nor even a multitude of arms that sustains a state but its morals

May each of them keep in his house, in a corner of this field, next to his workbench, next to his plow, his gun, his sword, and his bayonet

May they all be soldiers

May they bear in mind that in circumstances where deliberation is possible, the advice of old men is good but that in moments of crisis youth is generally better informed that its elders

Denis Diderot

Apostrophe to the Insurgents, 1782

[SatinDoll]

You’ve got to read this - it explains a helluva lot.

[Cicero]

I’m afraid that this makes a lot of sense.

And although he doesn’t say it, it’s pretty clear where Obama stands and what he represents.

[rlmorel]

I think this is very good overall, but I disagree very strongly with this statement: "...One of the factors that has brought about this change, with its highly corrosive consequences in the daily lives of Americans, was the fashionable ‘neo-liberalism,' which saw the business world as a self-regulatory power, able to override morality, religion, and culture and to dictate standards of conduct based on the supposedly miraculous power of market laws..."

Morality flows outwards from individuals, not the other way around. This is not to say that people don't engage in group mentality, but it all boils back down to the individual responsibility and the knowledge of right from wrong.

Just as you cannot legislate morality, business cannot provide moral structure. If people running a business have a moral compass, the business as a whole will have a good moral structure.

If those people do not have any moral compass, no business is going to supply one.

[Yet_Again]

Carvalho has his own insights into the causes of moral and intellectual deterioration in America: “One of the factors that has brought about this change, with its highly corrosive consequences in the daily lives of Americans, was the fashionable ‘neo-liberalism,' which saw the business world as a self-regulatory power, able to override morality, religion, and culture and to dictate standards of conduct based on the supposedly miraculous power of market laws. What made the greatness of America was not just the free market economy, but a synthesis of this with Christian morals and with a culture that included love of country and family. Separated from these regulating forces, the capitalist economy becomes an engine of self-destruction, which is exactly what is happening today.”

Absolutely 100% correct. People on the right spend a lot of time complaining about why the socialists and communists have an audience in America, and this is why.

[microgood]

I think the takeover of society by the lawyer class has contributed mightily to this decline. Any political discussions you see on TV anymore involve both sides lying with impunity even when it is clear to everyone they are lying.

We need to replace spin with the truth and start calling people liars when they lie.

[SatinDoll]

You’ve got to read this; it isn’t what you think it is by just reading the first two or three paragraphs.

In the fourth paragraph this fellow goes into detail about how the Russians and Chinese are destroying the U.S. at home and abroad. By the time I finished reading it felt like ice water running in my veins - I believe it to be the truth.

[Earthdweller]

It’s really not a mystery why things seem different in America than 30 years ago...it is called ‘demoralization’. Socialists have been covertly promoting demoralization through movies, music, arts and politics across the globe for decades now to bring about “change”.

[newheart]

What made the greatness of America was not just the free market economy, but a synthesis of this with Christian morals and with a culture that included love of country and family. Separated from these regulating forces, the capitalist economy becomes an engine of self-destruction, which is exactly what is happening today.

And that, in a nutshell, is why Ayn Rand style objectivism leads ultimately to the state of affairs as socialism/communism. Rand's "heroic" human being is merely a softer-edged version of the super-man espoused by Nietszche and Shaw. Ultimately someone always thinks they know better than everyone else and exercises all available power to impose their will. The end of human will, unfettered by Christian values, is almost always totalitarianism.

[Liberty Valance]

Eye opening. Thanks for posting.

[smokingfrog]

“When things start to move towards the abyss, the Chileans are able to understand what is happening and change course before disaster occurs."

I hope we have enough intelligent, patriotic people in this country that are capable of doing the same.

[ishmac]

Ping for later

[RebelTex]

Bookmark

[Cvengr]

Good article, although IMHO, attributing a use of words to George Soros and Karl Popper in the same sentence is an insult to Popper and too generous to Soros.

[Arrowhead1952]

Marked for later.

[P.O.E.]

When Benjamin Spock replaced Benjamin Franklin’s “Spare the rod & spoil the child”

[ishmac]

A very interesting and clear sighted author, this Carvalho. He gave an interesting interview here about the Sao Paulo Forum. It goes back to the early 2000's, and the first days of de Lula and Chavez. Castro was of course involved. Carvalho's conclusion?

...it is clear that Lula and his party, being the founders and the strategic centre of the Forum, had to keep a low profile, leaving to more peripheral members, like Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales, the flashiest or most scandalous part of the job. Hence, the false impression that there are “two lefts” in Latin America, one democratic and moderate, and the other radical and authoritarian. There are two lefts, indeed, but they are rather the one that commands, and the other that follows the first’s orders and thereby risks its own reputation. All that the Latin American left has done in the last nineteen years was previously discussed and decided in the Forum’s assemblies, which Lula presided over, either directly until 2002, or through his deputy, Marco Aurélio Garcia, afterwards. . The strategic command of the Communist revolution in Latin America is neither in Venezuela, nor in Bolivia, nor even in Cuba. It is in Brazil.[My emphasis]

I am interested in Brazil because, as a former Catholic seminarian, I was sent there for a month on an "apostolic" internship. We spent a month in Recife, one of the bastions of liberation theology during the liberal ascendancy of the '70 & '80's. I was there with one other seminarian from Detroit (both of us conservative, orthodox guys). We stayed with two old dinosaur liberation theologians and their quasi-Marxist nun coworkers. That was a trip in more ways than one, let me tell you. It was the first time I had heard of "liberation theology." I was sure their point of view was destined for history's junk heap (this was in 2005--who knew that liberation theology would be a hot item 3 years later!!) We lived in Nova Descoberta, one of the favellas bordering Recife.

Anyway, we met many strange creatures, one of whom was the chief of staff of the district's rep in the federal parlement. We sat in this guy's house and talked about this and that. He was very curious about us two seminarians, what we thought about economics, faith, politics. He gave us some flyers from a recent campaign. Now, the flyers had pics of this guy's boss, not with the Pres of Brazil, but with Hugo Chavez!! Keep in mind, this was literature meant to appeal to Brazilians, and here was the local rep pressing the flesh not with his own President (de Lula), but with the President of another country (Chavez)! This all took place in the spring of 2005. When I saw this, I asked him what he knew about the Sao Paolo Forum. He indignantly answered through a translator that he knew nothing about it, and the exchange pretty much ended our little visit. I had no doubt that I touched a sensitive spot with my question. Afterwards I never had any doubt that all these countries were working together to oppose us.

It made me sad to think that Brazil is run by such nefarious types. Aside from having to live under the supervision of a bunch of Marxist priests and nuns for a month, I totally loved Brazil, I'd go back in a heartbeat. Lovely weather, lovely landscape, lovely girls!! Highest quotient of "feminine pulchritude" outside of Prague and Texas I've ever seen. And ordinary Brazilians struck me as naturally enterprising, hard-working and, yes, capitalistic people. Much more so than the Mexicans.

Anyway, just my two cents. It seems like the whole world is no caught in some mysterious, but palpable undertow towards revolution and revolt. Recent events have put me in mind of so many things I've experienced in the last ten years. Weird times we're living in....

[GOPJ]

There are no ‘two Lefts’ in Latin America. There is only one Left, which has so much solidarity with itself that it never loses control of the two faces it employs to fool American observers.”

Word.

[Sal]

Bookmarked.