I’ve been rolling my eyes and gritting my teeth at each new HOW DARE YOU OFFEND ME!! stories of people (usually anti-theists or Leftists) who can’t abide by Americans celebrating Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Nasty polemics dominate anti-Thanksgiving at taxpayer-supported universities — even a professor writes that it is a White supremacist holiday and our Founding Fathers were “nearly identical” to Nazis.
The long march of Bowdlerizing the American public square (and history) of its religious heritage and traditions marches on. From the barring of nativity scenes set up by private organizations to anti-theists claiming an invitation to see A Charlie Brown Christmas is a “violation of civil rights.”
At the heart of this, though, is not a honest disagreement with either history nor Constitutional rights.
This is about destroying the iconography that is distinctly American.
People come together over shared principles and values; but in everyday life, these are reflected and reinforced by our traditions. On the micro-scale, each family has certain traditions and rituals we hand down from generation to generation — it connects us to our past and allows us to connect our children to a family foundation. As a nation, we engage in the same kind of ritual passing of the torch.
Destroy the icons, destroy the traditions and, thus, unmoor the present generation in order to push them in a new direction.
It’s not someone with a grinchy heart that spends years shaking their fists full of lawsuits against beautiful displays of the Christmas season, or mountain top memorials, or school children being invited to watch Charlie Brown.
It’s someone with the full intent of stopping America from being American.
There’s something incoherent and trivially absurd in each of the linked examples (different things, as it happens), yet none rise to a level worthy of serious concern I think, provided we recognize the teaching we’re actually concerned with — American political and economic liberty teaching (may we call it social contract natural right teaching for short? Ha! for short!) built in part on a foundation of English political liberty teachings and most importantly, practices — isn’t touched by any of the arguments advanced by the nominal opponents of this peculiar American solution to the political problem. They’re silly, these people, and as such unlikely to go very far with their inherent silliness. Less attention to them is warranted, I think. Just go on about your business celebrating your traditions and religions, especially when you’ve great confidence there’s true matter there to celebrate.
And then perhaps spend some part of the time regained learning and teaching in turn the political principles the Americans ought to revere. That would be better is my guess, since so very many Americans are unaware of their own political antecedents.
They’re silly, these people, and as such unlikely to go very far with their inherent silliness. Less attention to them is warranted,
How many swallows make a summer, sdferr?
Do swallows make a summer? (I fear I don’t grasp the referent in your question Darleen?)
Be that as it may, if you believe there’s something both true and beautiful about the particular matter of what we might call a unique American political order (and I do think it is, or was, however that goes), it just strikes me that we would better spend our time spreading that account than focusing on only marginally interesting — and mostly misleading — critiques of piffle. To say nothing about maintaining religious practice and tradition.
sdferr
American political and economic theory is entangled with its religious traditions. Yankee know-how; Protestant work ethic. Traditions of what “honor” and “duty” entail. What is means to “be a man” or “be a woman”.
You destroy those foundations, you can argue capitalism and freedom until you’re blue in the face and people who internalize the ethos that there is nothing wrong with living on your neighbor’s efforts aren’t going to give you the time of day.
“one swallow doesn’t make a summer” is the idiom I’m referring to.
At what point do all these “silly trivial things” actually add up to something significant? How long should we wait?
So I don’t know what Yankee know-how is? Can you teach it? Or is it something in-born in Yankees and unknown to other peoples? (I hate the Bronx Yankees, by the way: it’s a function of being an Orioles rooter.) Protestant work ethic only vaguely brings to mind some German sociologist, about whom I care more or less very little I’m sad to say, since I suspect he’s got hold of too large a share of the world already, hence I probably ought to pay more attention to him than less.
If it’s virtue you seek to teach, why then, cheers to that. It’s a good starting place if good or great government is the aim.
We used to teach virtue not only in the family home, but in the school room and church/temple. It was reinforced by the public square, in entertainment, taught in colleges.
I do not look to make my government “good”, government will reflect the people of the nation. I want my nation filled with as many good people as possible.
Goodness is learned behavior. People are not naturally good.
btw sdferr
So I don’t know what Yankee know-how is?
I never even inferred you didn’t.
We teach through expectations — and the self-reliance that is at the core of “yankee ingenuity” is now sneered at as a “myth” by our betters in academia and media.
What better way to destroy the framework of America than allowing this kind of dryrot to exist and spread?
– The beat generation of the 60’s and early 70’s never really understood the irony of running away from your own soul, from those things that make you human.
– As the Left denies its humanity, replacing it artificially with false feelings of self induced bravado, it will feel the burn of loneliness to the edge of insanity.
– But few are strong enough, or weak enough, to carry such foolish self delusion to the grave, and life never really goes away.
– They shall reap what they sow.
I never even inferred you didn’t.
I apologize Darleen, since my clumsy mode of expression there (“So I don’t know what Yankee know-how is?”)was bad (180 degrees bad). I simply meant to say in a positive sense that I don’t know what Yankee know-how is, not that you were imputing the ignorance to me. Shoulda just left the question mark off the end there and it would have been clearer. My bad, I say again.
– In the 15th Centurym an agnostic order of the benzentinr church decided that in the last analysis the worst of mans sins is pride, recignizing that all other sins begin from the roots of pride, resentment, envy, jealousy, and hate.
– Six centuries later, not much has changed,
These days envy is getting a good run around the track.
“Goodness is learned behavior. People are not naturally good.”
I’m tempted to ask then what natural right might mean, if not that by nature men have an abiding grasp of the just — if yet a vague and incomplete or uncompleted grasp — for the most part, since their grasp of the whole is incomplete or uncompleted? Or perhaps the easier query whether you see Hobbes’ account of human nature as a better account than his opponent Aristotle’s account? Even if Hobbes’ account was subsequently rejected by (some of) our own founders, mediated through — or merely in agreement with, as they may have thought it — their guides Locke and Montesquieu?
It’s not easy to see where the good would begin in order to be taught, if not in nature itself. Though of course the religious say the good begins in divine revelation, still, we see others not privy to this or that particular revelation yet themselves possessed of some sense of the good apart from revelation (Thomas Aquinas, for instance, noticed this phenomenon, and sought to explain it, or at least sought to fashion a concordance of the phenomenon with his own inherited religious teachings.)
That is, Hobbes seeks to establish a good order (“Goodness is learned behavior.”), so where does he turn to find an initial good upon which to pend the good he wishes to establish (and without saying so in so many words)? To reason, it appears to me, to argument on fundamental things. So the good is smuggled in willy-nilly, without advertisement. Turned out it was there (in human beings) all along.
sloth seems to be the summer sleeper this year
How not to be good…
Are you talking about Gnostics, BBH? They fell out of favor when they began reinterpreting Christ’s teachings to fit their own goals.
– Yes, well stopped clocks and all that.
– As an aside, when I was very young, a well meaning elder used that misprounouciation, “agnostics”, and like things do, its stuck with me all my life and I always forget to correct myself.
No harm done. I just wanted to make sure I was following you.
– Tjhe religion of the Left is born of false pride, just like any other, and in the long run will fail for all the usual reasons, and probably faster than most such baseless ideas.
sdferr
I’ll have to go back an reacquaint myself with how those philosopher’s define & use “nature” but
As a parent, mere observation demonstrates that humans are not “naturally” good.
A wild child is rarely, if ever, a good one.
Tribalism can mean members of the groups develop an ethos within that group for survival …but that can also mean their ethics means that non-members of the group – even while human – are fair game for killing, raping, enslaving, even eating.
Leftism is a devolution into tribalism – figuratively and literally.
it would be cool if this sort of thing rated as a problem in our thoroughly rat-fucked and piteously debased whore of a country
maybe someday
probably not in any of our lifetimes though
who swallows in the summer is chris christie when he blows obama’s penis
We have all kinds of politically incorrect displays on the lawn in front of City Hall. A nativity scene with full size figures and animals. A bunch of Indians in headdresses with drawn arrows. Merry Christmas in lights strung across Main Street and its main cross street. The kids in the local public schools sing Chirstmas carols and there is a big parade with Santa Claus at the end.
I love bitter-clinger land.
the sloth like qualities of chrischristie
Do you mean by “not naturally good” simply to say with Madison that men are not angels, i.e., not wholly good but mixed by nature with parts both good and bad, Darleen? Or do you mean that men are by nature wholly bad, with no parts good in them at all, i.e. devils altogether? Or how?
We could go further in our query of human nature, asking whether men are by nature political animals (as per Aristotle), or with Hobbes say no, men are not by nature political animals at all. Seems to me on the one path we have nature to lean on, and on the other nothing but convention, at least to appearances — and there’s a problem there, that is, with convention reigning alone and supreme. On account of nature lurking around in the background.
– The natural state of man, all life in fact, is to survive, which entails agression as a tension in the species, an unavoidable drive without which we would not prevail.
– The trick is to agress within limts, stopping short of killing each other. The Left leaning among us deny that hard fact at their own peril.
hmmmmm
Foggy Bottom Firestorm – Convenient Holiday Weekend Fire At Hillary Clinton Office U.S. State Dept., Truman Building….
That’s a sound recounting of Hobbes’ basic stance BBH, wherein he draws man’s first concern, his primary concern with living and fighting to live as (to all appearances) the foundation of all his politics. It’s dependable, is what. That is, I think the dependability of what nowadays we call instinctual reaction is what Hobbes was after (following Machiavelli, as it happens). Find something solid — low and solid — as the saying goes. Take your bearings from the basest of the base. (It’s more universal that way.) Expect nothing good to come from a flighty higher order of things.
Nevermind that men as we find them can’t cease talking or counting or separating things into categories, let alone better and best, worse and worst, or chattering amongst themselves about art or gossip about the neighbors or telling stories about God(s) or novel food combinations or why birds can fly or why so-and-so owes such-and-such to this one or that one and the rest of it (y’know, like rushing into burning buildings or dying on crosses for an idea or jumping on grenades in order to spare their comrades death). Just pay no attention to all that messy stuff (that’s not their nature!) and focus on the low and dependable (that’s their nature!). Tits and ass! Air conditioning! Arrangements of particles, matter in motion.
Sdferr, maybe it would help to substitute “civilized” for “good”.
A tiger isn’t inherently bad because he will kill and eat you given a chance. That’s a tigers nature.
Humans are by nature totally self centered creatures, and so a system of civilization grows to deal with that.
See, if you don’t have your head straight on the nature of man, you won’t see the connection between a debased whore of a country and a debased whore of a society.
– Texas girl at the funeral of her father – Linda and Randy.
“. . . maybe it would help to substitute ‘civilized’ for ‘good’.”
Maybe LBascom, though civilization may also be jumping ahead a bit much, a sort of smuggle of its own.
Virtue . . . if the question is a question of virtue, it seems as though we’re already confronted with the question ‘what the good is’, and that question may pre-date the creation of our more expansive projects, like civilization, and possibly our earlier, less expansive ones, like the city (polis) and regimes (politeia).
That is, we may not find that human beings are indeedy-deed “totally” self-serving, but possibly only partially so — and if we were to find that way, it might make a great difference how things go from there. In fact, surely it would.
– She’s a real emotional girl – Linda and Randy.
I have her CDs where she’s singing with Nelson Riddle’s orchestra. All the old Big Band and Swing stuff. Love it.
Nooo, I think Darleen has the right of it. Civilization is dedevolving…
As animals, men are by nature subject to primitive and carnal drives.
As children of God, men are by nature called to temper their primitive and carnal drives.
It’s incumbent on man to seek to be good but it is not possible for him to live without food nor to continue the species without sex. Natural right refers to the proper balance between divine and mortal.
Because the divine isn’t part of his carnal being, it must be learned. Fortunately, learning is part of man’s carnal being.
I have one too many de’s in there, sorry. Is what I get for italicizing.
Matthew 7:26
Incrementalism got us where we are today … the Left slowly taking over academia, journalism, media …
until we wake up, look over our shoulder and realize how far we’ve left what we thought we had behind us.
is that some kind of code good thing I’m in a motel room what has a decoder book
– Yet another bad call is going to cost us yet another game.
– I’ve seen it too many times not to know that the refs are fixed.
– So our guy gets cut blocked, a penalty they refuse to call, they get a 29 yard screen pass out of it. But they call the runners knee down before the end of the play, but then they SPOT the fucking ball where he went down NOT where his knee toughed so the Ravens get a 1st doen and tie the game for overtime.
– The Bastards always find a way.
ravens wear seiu colors
Try 1 Timothy 6:10.
Note that money is not the root of all evil.
You shoulda seen what they did in the Raiders game.
First time I’ve felt sorry for the damn Raiders…
By the way happyfeet, why are you in a motel room? I mean, you’ve been traipsing all over the place…did you quit you job and become a gypsy or something?
I’ve come to the conclusion that the Raven’s are dirty cheaters.
Speaking of dirty cheaters.
Serious adults are no longer in charge…
– Nah Leigh, the cheating isn’t with the players generally, just follow the money. I will guarentee you the money was on the Ravens 6 to 1, So you see all these last minute “miracles” when thats the case.
– The Browns beat the Steelers today. You can bet that cost the book heavy. To tell the truth I’ve seen just as many blown plays since the alternates were replaced. Who knows how many calls are ‘blown’ or just manipulated like the one I described.
– You know the NBA went through it a while back, and they hushed it all up, a few fines, and then move along. Just too much money to keep it clean.
The thing that pisses me off is that no one is talking about cutting spending anymore. Nope, we’re just going to have to raise taxes and that’s that.
The question is raise taxes on who, besides the filthy rich, of course? Half the country doesn’t even pay taxes. But, guess what, Pilgrims? The payroll tax is going to double when the evil Bush tax cuts expire on New Year’s Day. That 3.5% more is going to smart.
It’s a good thing the president cares all about the middle class. The rapidly vanishing middle class.
You’re probably right, BBH. I wish the hockey lockout would end. That way I can vicariously beat the shit out of the teams I don’t like.
2 minutes in the Penalty Box? I’ll take it!
I had an uncle who was a mob connected bookie his whole life. He never went bust taking people bets on pro/college sports, or horse races. Never.
I have another friend who is a world class bookie and notorious “fixer” on the Las Vegas “black list” who made a career out of fixing races and games.
Its all bent. ALL of it. Unless you know who has their thumb on the scale and are tight with them, you’re always at a disadvantage. Always.
The Browns beat the Steelers today.
the turnovers lost to the flags
PurpAv, that’s the truth. I knew some people who ran a small time numbers operation back in the day and they, too, never lost any money.
just wanted to go see America is all
There’s a lot to see
This parkway thing is taking forever and I got some weather heading my way but I’ll keep slogging to the end right now I’m in a very lonely motel up top a ridge outside of Buchanan Virginia
It’s cold here, probably cause of it being wintertime and all, which is a phenomenon what regularly occurs every year this far north. It keeps the bears to a minimum at least.
I skipped Roanoke cause the parts I could see from the road looked very 1% and after Asheville and Blowing Rock I’m not in the mood for anymore snooty hillbillies
Last night I stayed in Meadows of Dan it was very normal and nice and beautiful and some of the best food I’ve had on my whole journey, and it didn’t really cost anything… Also they had their Christmas parade and so I got to see a lot of people and they all looked like real people and it was like being back in the south again, just with more emphasis on “kin”
*any more*
so where does your trip end and you go home?
Highland Co. which is up in the hills west of Augusta Co. is a pleasant place to visit hf. There’s mostly quietude and agriculture up there, with maybe some emphasis on sheeps and sheeps dogs and the like, as well as the beeves. It’s pretty country though, I’m fairly certain of that. And could be some local maple syrup to be had as well. Maybe it’s like that in Bath Co. too. I haven’t been there though, whereas Highland I have done. On the other hand, north and east a bit is Jefferson’s home in Albemarle and Madison’s in Orange.
Where are you headed after Virginia?
If you go to PA, go to Amish country in Lancaster County. It’s touristy, but there are a lot of good places to eat and a lot of shops. You can tour real Amish farmhouses and see all the horses and buy yourself a handmade quilt.
Skip the rest of PA and head over to Pittsburgh which has lots of bridges, cool museums and nice people. Philadelphia sucks as does most of Eastern PA.
Not sure where I go next but I think when I hit the end of skyline drive ill be ready for a change of pace… This is might head over to Hershey and get my Christmas on then track back to the Appalachian and follow them into ny
I think I have to be back in Los Angeles end of December but I’ll make a call here in a few days or so and see if I have any room to push that back
I hope so
Sorry phone is hard to make the sentences with
I think the “Amana colonies” are on my list down the road
Hershey is a pretty nice little town. There is the candy factory, of course, but the town has a nice history, too. Read all about Milton Hershey. He was a really interesting guy.
I will especially cause I have to be very chary of the candy bits cause of me and candy, we have history
to Hershey and get my Christmas on
Strasburg Rail Road.
or closer to nyc
steamtown
Ahhh, no. It’s fall. I suggest you avoid Wyoming for the next 8 months…
steamtown has the “holiday limited” on 12/2 $29
Any of you guys ever have somebody who looked to know what they were doing serve you a turkey mole with stuff along with it and you ended up saying to yourself “now that’s the way to serve up a turkey mole” (or chicken mole, for that matter). Like, what was it, or how was it done? Along with tortillas? Or on a bed of rice? Garnish of minced onions, lime and herb? Or no garnish to speak of at all, or some other? I’s needing help along these lines.
That railroad is pretty cool. They’re lousy with trains up that way.
But it’s so cold Mr lee
Try some Lebanon Bologna whilst in horse and buggy country.
oh sorry that holiday train is sold out. the museum might be of interest.
http://torchystacos.com/food/tacos/
Click there Mr sdferr the turkey mole is taco of the month this month
I had it before
it was delicioso
I love trains and I haven’t done one this trip yet
Look up Rick Bayless, sdferr. He’s a super chef who has spent many years studying Mexican cuisines and learning to replicate them here in the US. He’s written quite extensively about mole and the like.
He’s also an OU alum, but that’s just incidental.
at least you’re not in la
Smog prompts wood-burning ban in parts of LA
That’s a start for sure (rice and tortilla). I was thinking to main-course the mole, so it looks like: bed it on rice, with tortillas over here in the heater. Crumbly cheese, avocado an cilantro, there for the using: can do.
I never even turn on the heat in law I’m more apt to freeze up the ac
“Goodness is learned behavior. People are not naturally good.”
Ah, the eternal question!
Are men born evil (or, at least, not really good) and learn goodness?
Or, are men born good, and become corrupted by the world and by evil men?
The answer, I’ve discovered, is neither!
Men are born STUPID.
The proof:
Which occurs more frequently: Stupid people doing brilliant things; or brilliant people doing stupid things?
(p.s.: that’s all, mostly, tongue-in-cheek. Not meaning to dismiss or denigrate any personal or religious philosophies.)
law = la
Yuri, I have found the difference between itelligence and stupidity, is that there are limits to intelligence.
here’s another train ride in bucks cty pa
New Hope & Ivyland Railroad
Ok I bookmarked that Mr newrouter
I’m intrigued about the bologna
Lebonon bologna is really good. You should buy one to take back home. Don’t get the sweet kind, though. It’s not as good.
They sell a lot of hard pretzets up there, too. Snyder’s Pretzel Company has tours and sells their wares in big boxes for gifts.
just know that you’re on the footpaths of the “Perils of Pauline”1914
It’s none of my business hf but did you take a leave of absence or are you switching jobs? I cannot see how else you could be traveling that long.
I have a new job lined up but my old company holding my old job open til I get back just in case the new one falls through so it’s all gonna work out I think Mr cranky
*is* holding i mean
I did almost all my Xmas before I left I just have a little to do for niece left and some online stuff to do and maybe pick up this or that for my aunt and uncle for when I stop by in iowa
I did that Chicago popcorn for them as a family thing last year and this year I’m a do these gourmet rice crispy thingers from somewhere in Manhattan
They’s bologna aplenty in the Italian mrkt on S. 9th street in Philly. Mortadella to make the mouth juices run just lookin’ at it. Plus cheese. Ohmygod the cheeses. And just down the way further south on S 8th at Greenwich st.? Termini Bros. bakery! And up Wash. Ave, soft pretzels on the street straight out of the makery. Oy.
But if you get to Hershey, keep your eye open for Hersheyettes. They quit selling ’em elsewheres altogether, but I think they may still be available there.
oh and I have to send baby A something
if in phila soft pretzels w/mustard
I will look for the ettes
Philly I’ll skip this trip cause I can fly there later more easier
That part of PA is not only lousy with trains, but also candy factories.
Tasty, tasty candy factories.
I’m so curious to see some of it I hope the weather doesn’t get adverse
harrisburg pa 10 day (nyc too)
http://classic.wunderground.com/US/PA/Harrisburg.html
reading market – food and train nostalgia
those temperatures are silly there’s just no purpose for it to be that cold
It’s not that cold. It’s not even cold enough for the snow to stick. It will give you an excuse to go outlet shopping in Lancaster to get a warmer coat or some thicker socks.
Anybody play the Squanto: race-traitor card yet?
maple syrup
You mean the rich, don’t you?
Obama does.
Yes,he does doesn’t he? He’s regular champion of the underdog.
If Democrats didn’t love the poor, they wouldn’t make so many people that way, would they?
@Ernst: Why am I thinking of Mel Brooks as King Louis XVI when you speak of Democrats loving the poor?
“Pull!”
When Obama is done trashing the currency, a Walmart greeter will fall under the AMT rates. Just having a job, any job, will put you in the 1%
true story – couple months ago my neighbor got a huge 8′ tall Jesus statue made out of plaster. It looked like a cartoon character, the sort of thing you’d see at “kids church” or something. The company that sold (all kinds of) statues and lawn art was going out of business, but they “felt weird throwing Jesus in the trash” so my neighbor took it home with him for fun.
For a period of 2 weeks, the giant Jesus statue mysteriously rotated around the street amongst my neighbors, first on one’s porch, next sitting on the transformer box by another’s house, and so on…
until the HOA got wind of it. One of the old men kept cruising down our street, finally stopping to verbally dress-down the woman next door to me, saying “we want that statue removed. People have feelings, you know!”
Tell the creeps the statue is not Jesus. Paint the face/hands/feet brown. Get a fro’ wig for it. Dress it like a pimp. Then it’ll really piss them off.
missfixit, that sounds like a job for that .22 sniper rifle I commented on a while back.
I’m not actually joking. The petty tyrants will not stop until they get the idea that the momentary pleasure of running someone’s life isn’t worth the confirmed risk of someone shooting your ass.
I’ve tried to convince my wife that we need to buy a new house someplace with a strong HOA, just so I can take it over and start mandating truly mindless policies. What’s the point of creating these little tyrannies if nobody’s ever going to have fun with them?
You must have a barren circle exposing the dirt mowed into your front lawn not more than 32′ a cross but not less than 23′ a across. The HOA will send you bulbs to plant in this circle. The bulbs must be planted by DATE. If the circle is not mowed or planet by DATE then the HOA will come on your property and do it and you will be charge the landscaping costs along with a fine. Etc. Etc.