Libertarian Vignette

Most people of any political stripe take their view because they feel it looks in the direction of utopia. From the extreme right of fascism to the extreme left of communism (This popular spectrum, by the way, is misleading, since a person's rights are almost identically trampled on by a nationalist's jack-boot as by a socialist's sandal. It is not so much a spectrum as it is a circle, with authoritarianism having the force of gravity, and drawing everything continually, inexorably down to 6 o'clock.), people form their opinions as to which form of government is best because of the results they expect, or claim to have already observed.
  I take my view not because I have any utopian expectations or even any real conviction that my ways will make things better (at least as we think of better) but because I think my ways are right. I make no claims or guarantees that my ideas will lead us shortly out of this mess and into order.  It should be obvious, in fact, that with my insistence upon leaving more things to individual choice, combined with my view that human nature is fallen, that the individual will not always, or even most of the time, make the right choice. My views are not the results of surveys and studies that indicate that if people are trusted more they will rise to the occasion. My view is not result based. If some well-meaning leftist were to ask me "But does your idea work?", my ready response would be, "Frankly, my dear........."  If they were to ask "Will the individual make the right choice?", my response would be, "What business is it of mine, or, more to point, yours?"
Now, I think that giving people more freedom is the right thing to do, and although I don't believe that gives any promise that things will all work out, doing the right thing is the best we can do. And, since I believe in an active, involved Creator, I believe that doing the best we can do gives us a right to expect better results,
or at least be able to blame God when we don't get better results.

Next To Last Word on Donald Trump

I probably should have done this a long time ago.
It might have spared me some anger. Then, again, it might not have, and it may not yet. I suppose it's even possible that announcing my last word on the subject may even cause me some great frustration. Which is why I won't announce this is my last word on the subject, but I do promise this speaking of my piece will be followed by fewer, if not a complete cessation of, posts about Donald Trump.
One of the reasons I have continued to speak about Trump, apart from it being quite possibly the most bizarre developments in political campaign history, and if the electoral gods will it so, the office of the presidency, is it's hard not to shoot at such a gigantic target.
His outsized persona, once the humorous if abrasive reality TV schtick, is now amplified a thousand times by the scrutiny of an incredulous, ratings-giddy national media. Full disclosure: I do not like people whose self-confidence approaches arrogance, so you can imagine how I feel about this person who has taken "self-confidence" to a Kanye West level in an arena that directly affects us all.
I have said much about his arrogance, mocked his ego, and memed his incoherence.
I have been first amused, then concerned, then shocked, then stunned, then catatonic, then enraged by his continuing popularity, then amused, then enraged, and so on, perpetuating a parallel to that cycle of grief.
It's safe to say that the sheer violent volume of my vocal vehemence regarding this villain (sorry) has caused ears to fall deaf to me, and eyes to avoid any of my posts containing "Trump" by rolling upwards. And that's one reason I pledge to discuss him less.
Among the many things I've said, I have hinted at what I believe is the largest culpable player in this hoodwinking, but I haven't said as much as I'd like, believe it or not.
The conservative so called alternative media has crafted this candidacy as surely as the so called main stream media aided and abetted the candidacy of the man whose politics and sympathies in large part led to the rise of Trump.
First, FOX news. Yes, the very same network whose personalities have been in open warfare with Trump. I have developed some admiration that I did not have for individuals within that organization, specifically Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, Chris Wallace and John Stossel, but I, of course can have no idea of what sort of possible ratings conspiracies may have involved these television journalists, or if it has been some sort of happy coincidence. If it is the former, I expect Trump will have gotten the better end of that deal, since his many followers have expressed extreme distaste for their formerly go to news source, and will have, I assume, stopped watching, although one can't imagine to what other source they would turn. But, more on that later. FOX has indeed been far from effusive regarding the billionaire, their bias has been more practical. It's called ratings. A synonym for ratings is money. One (perhaps the only) dispassionate observation I can make about Trump is that there has probably never been a presidential candidate in the history of US media that has been more of a financial boon to those covering him. Trump= Yuuuge ratings. He is already an established TV star, an established boss who once tried to copyright "You're fired." And far from what some of us expected, his outrageousness has only seemed to inflate since he began what was up to this point the more serious business of running for President of the United States. The strongest and subtlest form of biased reporting is deciding what to report. I can hardly blame FOX to the extent that I blame other outlets, because I sincerely believe they are motivated by naught but gain, and I don't despise businessmen, I simply distrust them.
Secondly, Drudge Report. I find Matt Drudge on quite the opposite end of this blame spectrum. I don't think that Drudge is not motivated by money, but his complete abandonment of any pretense of objectivity would seem to indicate that his desire for traffic is at least matched by his desire for revenge. Drudge has always been more or less unpretentiously biased. He does, indeed link to various and sundry news outlets, many of which are hardly conservative, but they are all handpicked to fit a narrative that is hardly unique in purpose to Drudge, but definitely unique in unapologetic malice.
In the past, he has displayed vendettas against sometimes inexplicable targets. Newt Gingrich found himself the unlikely target of Drudge's ire, likely because he was running against Romney in 2008. Yes, Drudge was once an obvious Romney disciple. http://www.webpronews.com/romney-has-drudge-2012-01/ In fact, inexplicable becomes explicable when you know who Drudge supports. This time around, his bromance with Donald became painfully, awkwardly obvious after the debate in which Marco Rubio went after Trump, mocking his incoherence and lack of knowledge of.......anything. A couple of memorable Drudge headlines following that brawl read WINLESS RUBIO PECKS AT TRUMP and a photo shopped image of the Florida senator as a dwarf accompanied by the headline THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING CAMPAIGN after Rubio bombed the Mississippi and Michigan primaries. http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/drudge-report-resorts-to-using-photoshopped-marco-rubio-pic-in-latest-pro-trump-move-60336/
That link segues into the third largest player in this deception, Brietbart.com
I believe that Andrew Brietbart would be dismayed at the PR firm his dream has become. He seemed to be an independent thinker with a conservative bias, not a revanchist carnival barker. If you only read one link in this article, read this one: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/01/breitbart-news-the-conservative-outlet-taking-swings-at-all-of-donald-trumps-opponents/ It has ample evidence of Breitbart's targeting of the clearest and most present dangers to Donald Trump, even to the diminution of attacks on who you would suppose might be their primary target, the self declared democratic socialist Bernie Sanders.
NewsMax follows, not as a true news site, but as an aggregate site of syndicated columnists and bears not as much responsibility for this travesty in actual content as in their advertising pitches for new viewers using Trump as their bait and spokesman.
Now for the last, possibly most influential form of pro Trump media.
Facebook memes. Memery has encapsulated everything that is best and worst about the information superhighway.
Succinctness is a reckless wager. It can certainly get across a point with levity and brevity. It can deliver a message that would otherwise go unread, but in streamlining a message, you can very easily omit information. But the very entertaining nature of these sometimes factoids, more often obfuscations makes them ubiquitous and therefore perhaps even more influential than all the other sources combined. A picture is already worth a thousand words. Combined with the 10-45 words often contributing to the meme, you have up to 1,045 unaccountable words, who have no obligation to be truthful, or even well-intentioned.
As a result of this betrayal of any sort of journalistic ideals in favor of ratings and Fight Clubism, I have fortunately found a few sources who, although I don't exactly trust because....I can't anymore, appear to be issue honest, and have had Donald Trump's number for some time. Reason.com, Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh come to mind.
Ultimately, I am left with a sobering, boring lesson. Believe nothing you hear, and nothing you see.
The best you can do, in order to be informed about important issues (although another lesson I have learned is it might not be a bad idea to shrink your circle of concern, "Worry Local", perhaps) is to keep reading. Read conservative and liberal media, national and international, and rely on your instincts, not your biases, and not your disgust for the status quo.

The Beautiful Unknown

I am drawn to the beauty in understatement. I like earth tones. I wear muted clothing. My mind comes alive at night. The desert inspires me. A forest utterly devoid of human presence electrifies me.
The psychology of this fascinates me, partly because psychology intrigues me, and partly because I may or may not be slightly self-engrossed.
I think it's safe to say that a significant cause of this penchant for simple elegance is a strong suspicion of magnificence. And that likely has a great deal to do with the conviction that anything that promises to blow my mind or sate my senses will ultimately disappoint. It is virtually impossible to oversell me on anything, since any advertisement that garauntees anything more than one step above mediocrity will automatically earn my disbelief.
However, I don't consider myself morose. Melancholic, slightly mercurial, reserved but not perpetually depressed.
And it really isn't that I feel that understatement is just not getting my hopes up, it is truly beautiful to me.
I find stone cold reality exciting because it is reality and not because it is exciting.
But it must be contingent upon something.
I don't believe that there is any way gazing into a dirty reflection could make my heart beat faster if I didn't know that it was a reflection and that it was dirty.
When I am asked on occasion what I base my faith on, if I were being brutally honest and not trying to say what I think the questioner expects or needs to hear, I would say that it is because of this irrepressible smile that is buried so deep and cautiously within that it never shows. Since I have no tangible proof, I suppose you could say that it is a gamble, as if Pascal were wagering with me personally, and I, even as a man vehemently scornful of false hope and empty promises, a man who would die before he bought a powerball ticket, place my bet with a reckless joy. The joy of pressing the pedal to the floorboard, the joy of leaping from an airplane, the joy of sitting in total darkness, joyful because you know Something is there in the darkness beside you.

My Christmas Carol

Some Christmas movies can be watched several times throughout the season; the light ones, the funny ones. But usually just once a year I get out a DVD of A Christmas Carol. I have seen and enjoyed the animated version and I know there are untold renditions, but my favorite version of the miser is portrayed by George C. Scott.
Scott sinks deep and dark into the role. The first version I ever heard was the Disney version with Scrooge McDuck and Goofy as Jacob Marley (some of the quotes are still stuck in my head) and perhaps set the tone for what I thought of as the character of Ebenezer Scrooge: cranky, miserly and in need of an attitude adjustment and some perspective.  But Scott gives us a usurer who has grown first flippant, then arrogant, then bitter and as we find him snarling at his nephew, we find that bitterness has metastasized into a malignant malevolence that glitters in his eyes and crackles in his mirthless laugh. The timeless words "If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled in his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart." are relieved of their gruff humor and tinged with an almost sinister ill will.  And when Fred extends his Christmas dinner invitation, Scott's Scrooge does not brush him off with the air of someone who is ill at ease, but with a cool contempt, "I'd sooner see you in hell."
His interaction with the gentlemen collecting for charity has that same active hostility, and his dealing with his colleagues at the exchange show his greatest joy in life is conniving and squeezing.
Even as he begins his baptism by fire into the world of spirits with the arrival of Jacob Marley, he is defiant and sarcastic. Marley's overwhelming overriding of Scrooge's analytical dismissal as he screams "MAN OF THE WORLDLY MIND, DO YOU BELIEVE IN ME OR NOT??!!!"" is quickly forgotten, like a man who quakes at fire and brimstone in the pew while the last verse of There's A Great Day Coming plays and then finds the sweat quickly cooling on his brow after the dismissal in the foyer.   He goes to sleep uncomfortable, but hopeful that it was, after all, an undigested bit of beef.
He is brusque with the Ghost of Christmas Past. His coal-fired exterior does begin to show some cracks when presented with his days as a young man. You see him trying to make something of the coldness of his father, and you see him pitying his young neglected self. You even see him express surprise at the Ghost's strategic dismissal of Old Fezziwig and insist that his old employer was a kind taskmaster. Such are the memories of the bitter. The irony never presents itself to them. And then, when she begins to press him to make the hypocrisy apparent, he grows angry and demands to be left alone.
The stroke of two finds him a bit more apprehensive, but as the tone dies away, and no spirit presents itself, he begins to sneer at Old Marley's promise of a second visitor. He is slightly more sheepish in the company of the Ghost of Christmas Present. As their voyeuristic travels take them through the homes of his clerk Cratchit and his nephew Fred, he is dismayed at how people see him, then defensive. A positive sense of pity begins to invade his empty soul when he is shown the homeless family cooking potatoes that fell from a produce wagon, and then the sneering, mocking Ghost eviscerates him with his own words "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses??"
As the Ghost of Christmas Present leaves him in the dark, Ebenezer begins to do what we have all done with our Creator at some point. He begins to bargain. He is no longer the one calling the shots at the exchange, he now has something to lose. He has had to admit to himself that he has been self-centered, and myopic, and needs to do better. His offers of meeting the Spirits halfway, however, fall into the empty blackness. The Spirit of Christmas Present isn't coming back, and he is alone.

And then comes grace, the amazing grace that the slaver John Newton tells us taught his heart to fear.
The black, hooded skeletal herald, lacking only a scythe, stands motionless and mute as Ebenezer turns, knowing and dreading what will he will behold. The Ghost of Christmas To Come holds every card, and Ebenezer obeys his silent bidding, quaking with an almost paralyzing fear. As he witnesses the callous, but perhaps justified, reaction of his colleagues at the exchange at the passing of a peer, as he expresses distaste and outrage at the auction of his worldly goods in a seedy pawn shop, we know he must know. But he refuses to follow logical conclusions. 
It is only at his own tomb that the bitter, hateful, selfish old man sees he has nothing to give in exchange for his soul. It is only now, that his ultimate fate is sealed, barring the death of himself, that we find him, and he finds himself, on his knees. The pride has melted and is literally gushing from him in sobs and pleas. I remember that moment. I remember when I first had to die. There is no agony like it. No humiliation equal. And there is also no shorter measurement of time between agony and relief, no equal comparison between night and day, than when Scrooge awakens to find the snow covered tombstone to be the rug on his bedchamber floor and the night of his death to be the morning of his and his Savior's birth.
I tear up. Every time.  The weightlessness of his unburdened soul threatens to release him from the surly gravitational bonds of earth to soar to the face of God. And I remember just how amazing grace really is.

In Further Defense of Respect For the Individual

It may seem counter-intuitive in a world where there is so much entitlement, but I believe too little is made of the individual. As always, my views on this are rooted in my belief in God. I believe that God created us with a free will. Consider free will. It is a terrifying, bewildering, exhilarating power. God has endured much questioning from Man through the Ages as to why He would endow such a hapless creature with such a power, seeing the trouble it has caused. But that power is our crowning glory. Without it, we would be indistinguishable from the rest of the biological organisms on this planet. God had His reasons, which are not to be confused with our finite "reason", for creating a biped out of dust and giving him and her such a liability. And He has profound respect for the free will He gave us. In fact, He will not override us when we make the ultimate bad decision, and reject Him.
It seems to me that if God respects the power of our choices, we should do no less.
But in so many ways, we are quick to try to save individuals from themselves. There is absolutely a place for concern, and advice and possibly intervention when an individual is on the wrong path.
But this is not, or should not be, in the wheelhouse of the state.
We live too large, having opinions about things that do not affect us, whether it's halfway across the country or halfway around the world. We earnestly discuss foreign policy, foreign aid, with most of us having no firsthand perspective of that which we speak. There are very real problems, certainly, across the globe, and it is not as if our opinions have no effect. In fact, the average American voter probably hasn't considered how much their opinion, or their apathy matters. Opinion polls drive politicians to do the things they do, and voting, although it seems like frustrated impotence at times, does have an effect. It plays a part in electing officials who will make decisions that will actually directly affect those halfway around the world, or maybe just in the next state.
But the problem is, the more removed you are from the consequences of your opinions or your votes, the easier it is to be careless. The well-intentioned Republican voter may insist that an omnipresent American military presence is best for the world, but that would in many cases involve disregarding the aforementioned respect we should have for other individuals, even if they are halfway around the world, and even if they do often behave in a manner that perplexes us. We may at times offer assistance where an obvious grievous crime such as genocide is being committed, but the exit strategy should be immediate.
Now, the principle of making decisions about situations that don't directly affect you has another side. A well-intentioned liberal may insist that our aid to foreign, especially undeveloped nations should be large and perpetual. How could generosity ever be wrong? Once again, if you disrespect an individual, in this case by insisting they are helpless, you will, in the long view do more harm than good. Teach a man to fish and all that. You need only consider the widespread view of America as "arrogant." Many conservatives sneer that foreign countries are happy to take our money, but hypocritically see our military interference in their localities as arrogant. But I would argue that it IS our aid, as much as our interference, that they view as arrogant. That doesn't mean they won't take the money, but how many people on welfare here in America have no opinion about intrusive government? Very few. Just because it's ironic, doesn't mean they don't hold the two contradictory ideas and never consider the contradiction. Here in America, many of the areas of the country that receive the most government assistance often vote in a way that could be and is interpreted as anti-government.

Random Post

So I like to think about abstract stuff. This is not necessarily indicative of any great capacity to understand or even communicate what I don't understand, but it's where my mind constantly goes; just beyond the limit of my credulity.
I suppose that many (possibly most) thinkers on things mysterious are so inclined because they have a need to understand, almost a need to gain a measure of mental and/or emotional control. In fact, this is likely the very reason for so many of the landmark logical concepts, creeds, rules, laws, syllogisms and premises that give topography to the epistemological map that exists thus far. Many of the men whose thought processes I treasure and admire were problem solvers.
But that's not me.
What I dread most is a world that makes complete sense.
Often simple observations about a personal quirk of mine are what leads me to self-discovery and this is no exception.
I lay here on the living room couch in the wee hours, having fallen asleep early and thrown off my inscrutable REM cycle.
The Christmas tree is up, and is swaddled in lights that twinkle. I love these kinds of lights. It makes a Christmas tree interesting in and of itself. But I found myself trying not to notice whether there was any particular pattern to the twinkling. Even now I don't know but I sincerely hope there is no pattern (which I realize is unlikely ((electricians, hold your peace)) ) because then this peaceful thought provoking icon would become something I would probably begin to avoid.
I find the twinkling comforting, probably because it's evocative of the unpredictability of flame or lightning. If I were to discover a pattern to it my neuroses would feel manipulated. I don't like being manipulated. I like nature sound white noise UNLESS I can detect a loop. Then I'd much prefer to listen to a live chainsaw. I don't mind the faucet dripping if it's irregular. If it becomes predictable, it will drive me to extreme measures, such as fixing it, or putting in earbuds.
I have also often thought how refreshing it would be to be picked up by a passing tornado.
This is what excites me about the remote outdoors. When I can get in a place that is ruled by randomness, my mind can rest. Trees aren't planted on a grid. Rocks are not arranged. I thank God for wind, and feel at peace when I think of the Spirit of God brooding over the face of the deep, stirring the dead waters, or marching in the treetops as a covert signal to King David.
Chaos comforts me, because I don't understand it.
My soul can find peace, not always on the surface, but in the Mariana Trench, because I know my God is fierce, often brutal to my finite sympathies, far beyond my heavens and earth, limitless, eternally just beyond the limits of my understanding.
The song says We'll understand it better by and by.
May it please God, I sincerely hope not.

Thomas Wolfe Was Only Half Right

I just got back from my hometown. When you haven't been home for 16 years, and you're the least bit introspective, you expect various and sundry epiphanic moments. The problem with expecting them is that they are predetermined to a degree, and influenced by years of gathering nostalgia, and nostalgia is notorious for it's sepia saturation filter. The traumatic times aren't forgotten, but they are appropriated to your attempts to make sense of your life, a tone or direction to the narrative of you.
So intellectual, emotional honesty can be elusive, or at least, if, as I said, you are the least bit, or as in my case, overly introspective.
But Duncan, Oklahoma is, naturally smaller, and also flatter than I remember.
Hills as landmarks was a sometimes misleading method of navigation.
My memory seemed to adopt the same effect as binoculars, as when you raise the glasses to your eyes to examine a distant hill and find it dramatically steeper.
This is disappointing.
It also makes me wonder what a West Kansan prodigal experiences upon his arrival back home.
That particular area of Oklahoma, though, is unique. In fact, you leave the exact terrain and flora to which I refer by traveling 30 miles in any direction. The post and blackjack oaks that I knew were small even as a boy seem to lose their stark  peculiarity toward Lawton, or Texas.
The hills are the same. They seem deliberately miniaturized, like a 1:2 scale model of the greater Great Plains.
I did some walking in the fields, remembering sharp smells of weeds and soil. In vain I looked for the specific weed that often held a small ball of foam in the crook of trunk and branch that was home to an even smaller caterpillar. I remembered trying to duplicate this phenomenon by spitting on many a weed, only to see it drip away, revealing no caterpillar.
I heard bluejays and crows predominate the fowl of the air. Wished it was night long ago before the whippoorwills vanished, leaving a vacuum of audial lonesomeness against the white noise of crickets and tree frogs, like percussion with no melody.
I drove through a town whose streets were shortened and whose houses were subtracted from my bigger memory.
Memorially, downtown was an almost endless parade of individual storefronts, many of which I remember walking past in the dead of night, with my Dad on his downtown security route.
Now, as I drove slowly  by, irritably aware of the irritated drivers behind me, I realized that all my remembered significance would pass by in a disinterested blur for anyone who wasn't born here or who never moved.
The library, shrouded in my remembrances as a venerable, benevolently haunted edifice with aisles as distinct and definitive as the Great Wall of China, delineating children's fiction from inscrutable reference tomes, physically haunted by an elderly bald man with a waxed handlebar mustache against which all handlebar mustaches I have ever seen are measured, is now an insurance agency. Ironically, it houses the agency that once resided in the much larger building out on Highway 81 that now hosts the library. Happily, it seems that apparently books have multiplied in an inverse proportion to insurance agents.