Opus 2022-042: Firsts: What Is That?

This is a first for a guy delivering a mattress, not me.  

As he was walking through our living room where my wife was playing some old records for our granddaughter he looked at the record player and said, “What is that?”  He had never seen a turntable before.

What is strange about this is that vinyl is making a comeback.  You can buy records all over the place and most people would figure there must be a place to play them.  Totally off his radar.

So when you run into people who believe in global warming and the China Flu plague keep in mind that there are still people who don’t know what a record player is.  And they outnumber us.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-041: The Price of Progress

We hear about shortages and we act like this is some kind of new problem.  This has been creeping up on us in the form of less selection and poorer quality for a long time.

Do you remember going to the neighborhood dime store and having your choice of notes books and paper in a wide variety of sizes?  Today we are down to legal and letter.  I would imagine that part of it was the decrease in sales but what other factors went into the decision to discontinue.  I remember I had a notebook with six rings that used the half sized, 8 ½ x 5 ½ inch paper.  I went to Woolworth one day to restock and found that they had discontinued it.  

Remember when shirts came with two numbers, collar size and sleeve length instead of S,M,L,XL?  If you are willing to pay more you can even find XXL and XLT.  I think such things are still available but only in a certain price range.  The same thing was true of shoes.  I don’t think people have suddenly changed their shape and weight but the choices have been slimmer every year.

Remember all the local and regional gas companies?  I remember that my Dad always tried to buy gas at the Flying A.  One day it was no more.  I watched Richfield combine with Atlantic and for a short time it was the Atlantic-Richfield company until it became ARCO.  It used to be you could find intersections with a different brand on each corner, free air and water and an attendant who would come out and fill your tank.  

I remember being able to sell my oil to a recycler when I was a young man.  Now I pay a fee to have it disposed of.  The same was true of batteries.

This is called progress.  Our choices have been decreasing for decades and now we have a world with little competition.  

We will see how that works out now.  It could be the goal is to have a state run monopoly on gas and groceries.  It would make the Biden administration happy, but then I guess an ice cream cone can do the same thing.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-040: Modern Anne Franks

What would it be like to be an honest person trapped in the heart of the FBI?  I still have this illusion that there are some good people, serving their country as best they can, and finding it harder to do that each day.  

What are your options in a situation like that?  You watch what happens to people who become whistle blowers.  They know about the strange, mysterious deaths associated with certain political crime families.  They may have processed the paperwork that put innocent people in jail.

What do you do?

I don’t know because I am not there.  What can we do?  We might begin to prepare to hide some of them when they try to come out.  Think of people fleeing the midnight police of 1939 Germany.  Jews were hidden in attics, basement and sheds.  Think of downed airmen being moved across Europe so they can get home and fly again.  The people hiding them took their lives into their own hands in the process.  We may be coming to that time again.  Maybe we should begin considering where we could put up a false wall to conceal a fugitive.

We live in interesting times, Chinese style.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-039: Thanks Thoughts: From the Children

In my prayer time I have a group of friends I lift up to the Lord.  In many cases that involves their children.  Some of them I have never seen.  Others I watched grow up.  This smaller group has so much to offer yet seem to be content with comfort and prosperity.  They are wonderful human beings.  You would love to live next to them.  They pay their bills, don’t litter or play loud music late at night.  I imagine they would gladly help a little old lady across the street.  But they are not making any difference.  

My children have taken stands.  They are making a difference.  They have threatened to write me out of their wills if I talk about them in public so you will have to trust me.  It is possible that you would never notice what they are doing.  I like to think that the children of my friends are the same way, I just don’t see what they are doing.

If we want our country to survive we are going to need more people taking stands.  They don’t need to be splashy, just real.  

There is hope for the future.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-038: The Democracy Mantra

For most of my life we have been able to throw around the word “democracy” without doing too much damage to our country.  That was because the advocates of democratic tyranny were keeping their head down, infiltrating the schools, working their way up in government service and generally getting ready to initiate democracy.

Perhaps you are one of those who has not caught on yet.  We are not a democracy.  We have never been a democracy.  A democracy is one thing that the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid like the plague, and I mean a real plague not what is being pushed currently for political advantage.  I have broadened my reading since the lockdown started.  I have shared that other places.  One of the recurring themes that I have been picking up is that democracy does not work.  It is generally the first step to despotism and tyranny.  That is why we have a federal republic, not a democracy.  

Lord Acton had a catchy phrase that resonates with me,

“It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.”  Kindle location 648-649

Keep in mind the illustration of democracy I will borrow from an unknown source, but democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what they will have for dinner.  If you want a democracy then get ready for everything to be controlled by a small group of people who manipulate the masses.  In a pure democracy we are just one vote away from declaring all people of any group you want to be slaves.  All it takes is one more than half to pass anything.

The Proregressives* know this.  That is why they want to do away with the electoral college.  It is why they allow BLM and Antifa thugs to destroy cities and keep the peaceful protestors of January 6 locked up and denied their rights.  

I know what you mean by democracy.  I also know what they mean and I know how it has worked out in history.  

Be careful what you wish for.

Acton, Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1834-1902).  “The History of Freedom in Antiquity",  The History of Freedom, and Other Essays.  Project Gutenberg, First Edition,1907.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-037: Shoe Logic

Logic is slow to develop.  My granddaughter came and asked me if she had the shoe on the right foot.  In this case it wasn’t but that was easy to fix.  What made me laugh a bit was after she had that shoe on she brought me the other and asked if it was the right one for the other foot.  What seems a simple bit of logic for an adult is a mystery to a toddler.  Watching a child develop is one of the joys of life.

Watching adults either fail to progress or see them regress is not such a pleasure.  The blatant nonsense that we hear about the economy, global warming, stopping a virus, white people are bad and January 6 was a violent riot is bad enough.  What is worse is that so many people swallow it hook, line and sinker.

There are many points of blame from the parents to the choices of the person themselves.  Most of those points do not touch you or me.  If the shriveled intellects did not have the right to vote and often think the government owed them, it would not matter to me.  But they do.  

We need to continue to educate and communicate.  Accept the fact that you are surrounded by ignorance.  Ignorance hates information.  It is hard to think you deserve an EBT when you realize that your neighbor is paying for it out of his taxes.  They will never know it if we don’t tell them.  Again.  And again.  And ....

Use humor.  Be ready to back off if they get hostile, and they will.  But keep coming back.  If enough of us keep speaking up then maybe we can make an impression.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-036: Animal Welfare

The War on Poverty is a war we lost, or rather are losing.  In spite of the long string of defeats we continue to press on.  It is a war that cannot be won because the people fighting it don’t want to win and have the wrong strategy if they did.

I was going over my notes from The Tragedy of American Compassion and came across the following,

“Punishment for refusal to work and continued alcoholism could include whipping. But enforcing work among the able-bodied was not seen as oppressive. The objective was to treat all as human beings, as members of the community with responsibilities, rather than as  animals.” p. 11

I had been visiting my grandchildren and their parents.  I was struck by the difference in responding to a child and a dog.  At least I respond differently.  One of the reasons I don’t get excited about pets is that they will always remain pets.  I can never expect them to pick up after themselves.  My grandchildren will learn.  The cat will always lick its rectum and we won’t bat an eye but imagine how you would respond if your son did it at his wedding reception.

The point Olasky is trying to make is that modern methods of welfare are not designed to get people to grow up and become independent.  They are specifically structured to keep them dependent and have their “betters” direct their lives.

Maybe we should rename the EBT cards, or whatever they are called this week, with something referring to the bearer being a pet.  Maybe Leash Card would do it.

It would do you good to read the book.  There are no solutions for people willingness to be taken care of and let someone else do the work.  If you don’t want to read Olasky then might I recommend The Little Red Hen.  People can grow up.  For some it is a natural step.  For others it only happens when they are forced.

We need to force them for the same reason the Proregressives want to tell then how high to jump:  It is good for them.

Olasky, Marvin.  The Tragedy of American Compassion.  Washington, D.C.:  Regnery
    Publishing, Inc., 1992.

homo unius libri